"I'm Mathew Buck, beating down bad movies everywhere!"
A snarky young Brit, Mathew "Film Brain" Buck hosts "Bad Movie Beatdown" on That Guy With The Glasses. By his own admission, Buck is following the Nostalgia Critic's example, but there's nothing nostalgic about the crap he reviews. Before he became a video contributor, Buck wrote articles for the site and was (and continues to be) a moderator on the forums.See his TGWTG page, and his blip.tv page.See here for a list of things reviewed.
Provides examples of (including tropes he has pointed out in the movies he reviews):
Played straight with a cameo by Stephen King in Monkeybone where Edgar Allan Poe mocks King for being a fraidy cat, or, to quote Mr. Poe: "King, you pussy!"
Twice in Night at the Museum II: one with the inch-high Roman soldier running furiously through the grass on the White House lawn, and then the camera pulls back to show a human's eye view of the lawn, which looks completely undisturbed. The second time, the inch-high Roman soldier goes into an epic, slow-motion leap clearly spoofing 300 only to come down and viciously attack a full-sized bad guy's boot.
Acknowledged that the head-butting scene, following the line, "nobody wins with a head-butt" in Paul Blart: Mall Cop was the only funny scene in the entire film.
He also points this out in Hudson Hawk. The movie explicitly said it's set in 1981, which only makes the multiple Nintendo references confusing.
Eddie: What's Nintendo?
Film Brain: That's actually a good question Eddie since the NES didn't come out until 1985. Oops!
Also in 10,000 BC, where he points out the use of boats, pulleys, scaffolding, and telescopes, all of which weren't invented until thousands of years later.
...And so they then take them to...THE FUCKING PYRAMIDS!?!
The Artifact: Professor Celluloid. He was going to be Mr. Exposition, giving background to the film of the episode, but when that didn't go over so well he was quickly demoted to a Drop-In Character.
Asexuality: After he sees one of the sex scenes in Fat Slags, he says "That's it. I'm asexual."
Ass Pull: Film Brain snapswhen he sees the nonsensical twists in the ending of The Riddle.
Author's Saving Throw: invokedKnowing full and well the potential (and actually quite real) backlash reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean 3 could cause, Film Brain had Welshy do a counterpoint to the review to display some of the legitimate arguments that could be made against his, while still giving his honest opinion on the subject.
Awesome McCoolname: "I should mention it is directed by someone named Ace Hannah. Regardless of what I'm about to say, that name is frickin' awesome!"
The Rap Critic: I know why you want me to review that movie, it's because I am— Film Brain A student at an arts college! Rap Critic: Uh...yeah.
Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Matt points out that the female lead of Good Luck Chuck should have had a concussion after hitting her head on an ice slide, but she only winds up with a chipped tooth.
Never accuse him of not doing his research, because he does.
He does not like disproportionately long credits.
Sexualized violence against women, too, judging from the disgusted tone of voice he uses when describing such scenes.
The Condemned seems to do it for him, as well, judging by the fact that he actually interrupts his summary of the movie to deliver a several-minutes-long rant about the film's hamfisted, hypocritical, and just plain unfortunate message.
Big Damn Heroes: When out of nowhere he swooped in and rescued MikeJ from severe tea deprivation.
"Now go finish that review, you magnificent bastard!"
Brain Bleach: Seeing a dog's nightmare of a cat holding scissors in Monkeybone (which is preceded by "THE FOLLOWING CAN'T BE UNSEEN") leads Film Brain to try and clean himself.
Butt Monkey: So far, he has been beaten up five times by other reviewers.
The reason he reviewed When In Rome, because he has a crush on Kristen Bell.
Censor Box: Has to employ it at times, sometimes with an extra joke (in Epic Movie, the boxes read "Tits" and "Twat"; in Good Luck Chuck, he covers the breasts of a Catholic with "WWJD?").
Character Tics: Whenever he makes a snarky comment, you can be damn sure it will be punctuated with a head-tilt, furrowed eyebrows and a nod.
Complete Monster: Matthew seems to dislike this sort of character, as a frequent criticism he makes is that the villains in the films he reviews need more subtlety.
Conflict Ball: Calls on Bride Wars for what he feels are stupid reasons for the plot, which even their fiances point out.
Designated Hero: invokedThe robbers of the eponymous Money Train show no real heroic traits to Film Brain. Similarly, Slim from Steal is considered to be this
Designated Villain: invokedFilm Brain points this out in Meteor, where the general is a bad, bad man for not trusting the Russians... during the Cold War.
He also points out Patterson in Money Train would be a hero in any other action film.
He further points out that Anheuser is made out to the bad guy in 2012 because refuses to open the doors of the Arks for the stranded people because he knows its far too dangerous to do so.
Film Brain: Don't worry, It's not as if a giant shark is going to leap 30,000 feet out of the water for no apparent reason and kill everyone [on an airplane]. (One scene later) Oh.
Don't Try This at Home: Sucking on a battery to give it a few more minutes' juice, as seen in Mega Piranha
Drop-In Character: Celluloid again, although unlike other Video Review Show versions of this character he is not played by Buck, but by producer and co-writer Christopher "Lordhebe" Barnard.
Dude, Not Funny!: Pointed out in-universe, often with the phrase "That's not funny!".
His reaction to The Ugly Truth and All About Steve overall. Most of the comedies reviewed have at least one Dude Not Funny moment pointed out; Hudson Hawk having several.
He made a joke about Michael Jackson being an alien in Men In Black II and was immediately called out on it by his sock puppet.
Dumbass Has a Point: He agrees with one of the gangsters in While She Was Out that they should have fled the city after killing a security guard instead of chasing the protagonist, whose only fault was annoying them.
DVD Commentary: He was one of the first reviewers to release a Kickassia commentary. He also releases commentaries on his past episodes.
Enemy Mine/Mid-Battle Tea Break: He and Braeden stop in mid-battle to punch out the room service at their hotel and drag him into their room during Haunted Mansion.
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: During Seagal Month, he doesn't even bother learning the names of Steven Seagal's characters, just referring to each of them as Seagal.
Even before that, in the Seraphim Falls review, he refers to Pierce Brosnan's and Liam Neeson's characters as "Pierce" and "Liam."
"Beating people to a bloody pulp makes them gain wisdom." (On Deadly Ground)
"Suicide is a noble act if you donate your organs." (Seven Pounds.) Film Brain was not happy about this one. Also strikes a chord when he did that review as he lost someone to suicide, and genuinely hated the movie unlike most others he reviews.
"It's okay to go around killing people you don't like, as long as they're jerks. (Parting Shots) "I think I found a film even more morally reprehensible than Seven Pounds."
"Murder is empowering for women, and if you have an abusive spouse you should kill them." (While She Was Out)
Fetish Fuel: invoked Specifically mentions it in an interview that "You know you've made it on That Guy With The Glasses when you're on the TVTropes Fetish Fuel page."
Fight Scene Failure: Film Brain describes one of Mega Piranha's fight scenes as being "choreographed by a blind man".
Foreshadowing: Loves to call out the really obvious ones.
At the end of his On Deadly Ground review, Buck alludes that he will review another Steven Seagal movie, "Shadow Man", in the future. Two years later, and he finally has reviewed it.
Freudian Slip: In the Van Helsing review: "…and get confronted by the last of Dracula's breasts— I mean, brides. Heh heh, seriously. With cleavage like that, you can't blame me for the odd nip slip — slip — SHIT!"
Girl on Girl Is Hot: He was intensely disappointed when they cut away from a girl-on-girl kissing scene in Transmorphers, saying that the lesbianism was the only interesting part of the film.
Hostile Show Takeover: Professor Celluloid attempts this at the beginning of the Ratatoing review, by doing a scathing review of Die Hard. When this is cut off, he responds by convincingly disguising his copy of "Ratatoing" as one of "Ratatouille."
Hypocrisy: He calls out Gamer for railing against glorifying violence, but the film itself glorifies it with no sense of irony.
Hypocrisy Nod: Knocked the usage of shaky camera in one of his reviews, then quickly lampshades that his early videos were annoying because of it.
On Twitter, Buck asked if reviewing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Bad Movie Beatdown would make him a hypocrite, since he gave the film a decent review when it came out in 2009.
I Am Not Leonard Nimoy: During Steven Seagal movies, FB doesn't refer to the lead by character name, just as Seagal.
I Am Not Spock: While he generally names a character by their name rather than by the actor, he simply refers to an auctioneer in Hudson Hawk by "Fred from Coronation Street".
In Paul Blart: Mall Cop, he calls a minor character played by Erick Avari "the curator from The Mummy."
Idiot Plot: Has his own catchphrase to describe this trope: "Why don't they just (insert smarter course of action here)? Oh right, because we wouldn't have a movie!"
Alternatively: "Oh right, because the plot says so!"
Linkara: Holy crap, Frank Miller makes worse puns than you, Film Brain! Film Brain: I never thought such a thing could be accomplished.
Not that Linkara is blameless there either:
Film Brain: Did he just break the fourth wall? Linkara: Don't worry - we're atop it! Audience: [Collective Groan] Caption:Channel Awesome would like to apologise for that pun. The writer has been flogged for his sins.
In his review of Ultraviolet Film Brain calls both Violet and Preston from Equilibrium this.
He also points out that Jackson Curtis of 2012 is this, actually comparing him to Jesus later on in the review.
Jitter Cam: Mocked more than a couple of times, though his early episodes also tried (and failed) at a guerilla-style shoot.
Keet: Many people thought Buck was acting out of character in Kickassia because of what he's like during "Bad Movie Beatdown", but he has said himself that his real-life personality is usually closer to the Kickassia persona, and that Kickassia had enough Deadpan Snarker characters already, and another would have been redundant.
Mean Character, Nice Actor: Much like his coworker Brad Jones, he's definitely not as much of a snob as he acts on-screen. Most notable in Kickassia where he plays a very different character to his usual style. Most of the other critic cameos that appear along with Film Brain have them verbally eviscerating each other, but, obviously, they wouldn't cross over in the first place if they didn't like each other in real life.
I am a mentor. I'm supposed to die. For reals this time.
Mis-blamed: In response to fan complaints, Film Brain and Lordhebe said in an interview that the first review with Professor Celluloid was filmed the week before Spoony unveiled Dr Insano, but not released until the week after, making this inevitable. Coincidentally, they also filmed the review for Transmorphers the same week Spoony reviewed its sequel on a whim.
Narm: In the remake of The Time Machine, the protagonist saves his original love interest from dying in the first timeline but then she gets killed anyway, proving that You Can't Fight Fate. Unfortunately, the way it happened makes Film Brain burst out laughing over how silly he thought it was.
Film Brain laughs at the ridiculous CG fish in Mega Piranha twice.
In a couple of skits, Film Brain wrote The Nostalgia Critic addressing him as "Equilibrium douchebag".
Lampshaded in his 50th episode (The Riddle), where he expresses surprise at having made it past the Equilibrium episode.
The whole point of Spoony's guest appearance in his video review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is to berate him for giving it a 3.5/5 in his written review.
"Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: He states that he's not making up that Urkel from Family Matters (Jaleel White) starred in an Asylum movie while he was in the middle of editing a review of another movie starring 80s pop star Tiffany.
He also didn't make up the teacup and saucer explosives from The Specialist.
Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: Film Brain will often start the show with a text screen voluntarily advising viewers with a warning of Epileptic Flashing Lights and other possibly sickening visual effects within a film if it contains them.
Papa Wolf: Wondered if the parents of the child actors in Good Luck Chuck even read the script and clearly showed discomfort in reviewing those scenes.
P.O.V. Cam: In the Spy Kids 3D review, after Prof. Celluloid gives Film Brain his 3D glasses.
Film Brain: Don't you need these to see?
Prof. Celluloid: No, I see in 3D already.
P.O.V. Cam shows Celluloid suddenly seeing everything with 3D-red-and-blue outlines
Precision F-Strike: From All About Steve, Sandra Bullock was doing a monologue about curse words and the right time to use them. FB's response is a simple "Shut the fuck up".
Before that, and probably his most effective use of this trope, in his Seven Pounds review: "The movie is literally telling us that suicide is okay as long as you donate your organs. What the fuck kind of message is that?"
And again during his review of Ultraviolet, when reacting to the chasm-sized plot holes created by the reveal of Daxos being a hemophage.
And again in his 2012 review: "If Yellowstone erupted, we'd be fucked. Really, REALLY fucked."
Pretty Fly for a White Guy: He tries to use to urban slang at the start of his crossover review with The Rap Critic, who is just as impressed as one would expect an African-American rap music critic faced with a white English guy trying to be "street" would be.
Put on a Bus: The end of his The Jazz Singer review seems to be this way with him "going on a vacation". He came back a few months later when Real Life slowed down a bit for him.
Whenever the audio is poorly synced in a scene, he replies by saying "I'm a ventriloquist!" (or "[Actor name] is a ventriloquist!") - complete with deliberately out of sync lip movements (or none at all).
"Because when you need to add substance to your shitty movie, just add Nazis"
"BLEURGH! BLEURGH!"
"InnuENDO!"
Seagal Month gave us "Seagal Body Double Count" and "Seagal Voice Double Count"
Whenever he runs across a movie that uses text to introduce characters, he does the same with a bit of Self-Deprecation.
Sarcasm Failure: The giant piranhas jumping like dolphins in Mega Piranha.
Self-Deprecation: In the scene he wrote, in which he discusses his lack of success with the Powers-That-Be, he has Doug refer to him as "the Equilibrium Douchebag".
In a scene parodying the freeze-frame character descriptions in Mega Piranha, his description is "Mathew Buck: Whiny British Douchebag".
Shown Their Work: Film Brain clearly puts tons of research into the movies he reviews for his Bad Movie Beatdowns. In fact, when he was the guest for Transmission Awesome, he was asked a few questions about film trivia by the hosts and answered all of them correctly, save for a rather obscure question about the 2007 Transformers film.
This Trope is [BLEEP]: He bleeps out F-bombs. When something really pisses him off, he leaves them uncensored.
Too Soon: Delayed the release of the 2012 review in light of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, as well as slightly editing the review and adding a disclaimer in relation to the events.
Troper Critical Mass: Examples from his new videos start to show up here mere minutes after they're uploaded.
Trope Telegraphing: "I love being able to guess plot points before they happen! It reminds me of how creative we really are."
Unfortunate Implications: invokedIn his crossover review of "Sunday School Musical" with Todd In The Shadows, they point out that the film seems to indicate "the blacker you are, the better you sing". Case in point, the rival choir is all black and the Crossroads choir is all white and sucked before Zack (who is black) was forced to join them.
He rails quite hard on Michael Bay over Skids and Mudflap, claiming their portrayal to be tantamount to blackface.
Values Dissonance: Film Brain points out in the remake of The Jazz Singer that Neil Diamond in blackface in is incredibly racist in the 1980s film, as opposed to the 1920s original.
Verbal Tic: Mat likes to extend the ends of his wooooords.
Villain Ball: Film Brain's interpetation of the actions of the Colonel Diaz in Mega Piranha. And indeed it seems very odd that he'd follow them to the U.S. and shoot down a U.S. navy helicopter just so he can try to capture the heroes after they killed the piranhas.
The Watson: The rest of his cast, but usually forum moderator Lordhebe.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: invokedHe points this out frequently in his Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End review, with the rampant amount of death and innuendo, especially the hanging of a child in the beginning of a film marketed towards children.
Also in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, he takes note that while five Decepticons went down to the ocean floor to revive Megatron, one had to be torn apart for pieces and yet over the radio, a solider claims that six Decepticons are at the bottom floor.
, and his blip.tv page
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