[M]y primary goal: to get people in nerd culture to explore highbrow culture.
Brows Held High is a comedy review show about Arthouse cinema. It is hosted by Kyle "Oancitizen" Kallgren, who rose to some prominence on the That Guy With The Glasses forums when he wrote a dissertation on Nella's My Little Pony epic.His signature style usually involves a lot of high-brow intellectual concepts, but explained well enough that they don't go over viewer's heads.You can find these videos on That Guy With The Glasses and blip.tv.
Later, in his Tromeo and Juliet crossover review with The Cinema Snob, he admits that he thought the "see how she rests her cheek upon her hand." line (wherein the "cheek" was changed to be an ass cheek) was actually kind of clever.
Alliterative Name: Lampshaded in The Discovery of Heaven. Oan helpfully notes that the Messiah character has matching initials, a trait "common to many great men of legend!" (he then points out this applies to himself as well)
Animation Age Ghetto: Spoofed in-universe in his joint review of the "Utena" movie with Jesu Otaku, with himself taking the position of "animation is for kids/dunderheads."
Anime Hair: How he describes the hairdo of the Twilight of the Ice Nymphs protagonist. Also complaints about it in the "Utena" review. "Why does everyone have rainbow hair?!"
Oancitizen:Ah yes, Botticelli's "The Birth of R Crumb."
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Oan's cameo in Atop the Fourth Wall consists of him trying to decrypt a conspiracy consisting of copious amounts of religious, political, and cultural mumbo-jumbo, which ultimately concludes with a nuclear explosion, followed by the Messenger from Angels In America appearing before him and telling him the Great Work is about to begin.
Although in the Slacker review he does say he "might or might not be a hipster". He likes a lot of hipster stuff, but doesn't feel like he is one.
He also doesn't like being called a Brad Jones rip-off.
For the character, dead babies.
Starting with the What Is It? review, if snails are ever mentioned or brought into the equation, You may be in trouble.
Oan screaming his lungs out after The Nostalgia Chick summarizes the ending of Der Himmel über Berlin as "a long monologue" about "time..and loneliness...or something." Film analysis is Serious Business.
Bilingual Bonus: After hearing the nonsensical first line of Exterminating Angels, Oancitizen asks any viewers who have an idea what it means to send their answers to "merdedetaureau@gmail.fr". In other words, send it to bullshit.
"<No, really. Why is the film not in Dutch? It's not like there aren't any smart, talented Dutch actors that can play these roles. And I think they would rather do this than shit like Spion Van Oranje! [a Dutch comedy film] And another thing...>"
Blah Blah Blah/Freudian Slip: The opening speech to 9 Songs is nothing but proper nouns, the phrase "rock music" and slang for genitalia and/or sex acts.
Body Snatcher: For the "Freaks" review, Oan's body is possessed by Diamanda Hagan, who proceeds to dye his hair and paint his face in her usual color scheme and then do the review in a faux-Irish accent. He also feels himself up and comments "So that's what one of those feels like."
Breathless Non-Sequitur "That's right Romero fans, board up the windows and rev up the chainsaws, because we're going to talk about gay porn!"
Brick Joke: Diamanda Hagan tells her minion to mail Oancitizen his balls (since he's obviously not using his) at the end of the Ken Park review. Two videos later, the package finally arrives.
The time travel duplicate of Oancitizen he stuffed in the closet in his Primer review shows up again (and then gets killed) at the end of the What Is It? review.
A very subtle one. When Obscurus Lupa tried to review Gerry (before switching to Hard To Kill), Diamanda Hagan tried to stop her by having her minions find every copy of the movie and destroy it. In his own review of it, he mentions it was hard to find a copy as all the local video stores had theirs stolen by Northern Irishmen in black masks.
A little while after he slept with his wastebasket at the end of Trash Humpers, he watched W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism and reached the conclusion that he needed to have sex or turn into a crazed murderer. While calling up candidates, he eyes his dustbin with contempt and says "You used me."
'90s Kid shows up when Oan reviews The Doom Generation and notes that it combines all the worst traits of Nineties Pop Culture.
Ed Glaser made two cameos in the review of A Serbian Film, first as his voice to joke about his resemblance to the movie's villain and as the NATO president who dropped fictional bombs in fictional Serbia.
There is an extended cameo by Rap Critic in the Ghost Dog review, which starts off with RC explaining who RZA is, and he butts in on occasion to explain things that Kyle doesn't get.
Kyle himself has become the site's go to guy for cameos whenever something avante-garde is brought up.
Camera Abuse: He taps it pretty hard during What Is It?, causing visible glitches in the video.
Cluster F-Bomb: Lets off a rare, if brief one, when the "666" motif is well and truly driven into the ground in The Doom Generation. "Cock-smelting fuckercunt!"
Also in his co-review with Lupa of "Hamlet The Vampire Slayer," he tells a rapper to "Die motherfucker die motherfucker die!"
When Lupa hears that Oan is planning on reviewing Gerry, her reaction is: "Fuuuuck fuck fuck Gerry! Fuck fuckery fucking Gerry! Fuck fuck fuckery fuck fuck fuck Gerry! Fuck Gerry!"
Couch Gag: At the start of each episode, or even cameo in other reviews, he reads something related, if only vaguely to the movie in question.
And by "something", it means that it's not always a book. For instance, the Trash Humpers review starts with him reading the instructions for a box of trash bags.
Covert Pervert: Oan hinted that he might be one during his cameo in Diamanda's Emmanuelle 5 review.
Oancitizen: Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a number of prostitutes dressed like Catholic school girls that I need to teach the intricacies of Proust.
Dead Baby Comedy: Defied, with strong effort, during his Antichrist review, where he mentions that normally he's above that sort of humor, but it's so hard not to make a joke like that when there's an actual dead baby five minutes into the movie.
This, by his own admission, is why he's never reviewed a Todd Solondz film.
I'm not sure how many jokes I can get out of abortion, pedophilia and sexual abuse.
It happens again, predictably, with A Serbian Film, causing him to call NATO and try to get Serbia fictionally wiped off the map.
Did Not Do the Research: He acknowledged this in 9 Songs, stating (and rectifying) that his stock bare breast censor bar in reviews prior to it may have been a picture of a finch rather than that of a titmouse.
Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: When he sees a guy being killed during a three way, and says that's how he wants to die.
Also, when realizing he made a Tyler Perry reference. He quickly made a Maya Deren reference to keep his snob cred.
After all, [menstrual blood]'s the only bodily fluid that has any stigma attached to it. *swigs from a wine glass* My semen is watery today.
Dude, Not Funny!: In-Universe. He struggled hard to snark What Is It? without invoking this trope, as much of the cast had Down's Syndrome and one member had cerebral palsy.
He says he's not even going to try to make a joke during the attempted rape of an Apathetic during Zardoz, though he does pull out of this depressing nosedive by making a joke about a scene immediately after that. "Here, have Sean Connery imitating Donkey Kong!" (Connery throws a barrel).
While possessed by Diamanda, he stated that "Freaks" was hard to make fun of, as most of the cast was, well......Whatever-you-call-it concludes that it would just be "dickish."
Even Evil Has Standards: In his review of Perfume, he shows a clip of a cartoon Lex Luthor proposing to use causing random orgies to happen as a weapon. The supervillains he's proposing this too all say "Ewwww." It then cuts to Diamanda Hagan saying Ewwww, before cutting back to the supervillains. For why this is amusing, see Despair Event Horizon above.
Oancitizen's on the receiving end himself when he and Diamanda view Eat the Schoolgirl. After spending a good minute responding to Diamanda's dare that he make a rape scene funny ("I don't care what George Carlin says..."), he finally gives in... and dubs the theme song toJemover the whole thing. Diamanda is both impressed and horrified.
Even Film Buffs Have Standards: He absolutely refused to call What Is It? "art," and begins sympathizing with people who don't watch art films.
Sweet Movie causes him to break down entirely on several occasions.
Almost averted with A Serbian Film. He spent the review explaining allegories to the Serbian nation that the director claims are there, looking and sounding like he's in excruciating pain all the way through, until finally he gets a nosebleed and snaps.
Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Present in Blood for Dracula, Flesh for Frankenstein, 9 Songs, Sebastiene and Shortbus- the last to the point of distraction. Also noting how much sex just one couple had in Antichrist.
Fridge Horror: In-Universe. He comes to the conclusion that the orgy in Perfume would have incest and sex with children due to people bringing their families to the execution.
Funetik Aksent: After dealing with the cavalcade of outrageous accents in Blood for Dracula, he finally puts up subtitles that transcribe everything phonetically ("What the heck is a 'sackhufbens'?")
It comes back sporadically in his Flesh for Frankenstein review. ("Come to Serbia! Try the 'nasum'!")
Genius Bonus: invokedDue to the nature of the show, he of course likes to slip a few into the reviews. He's even commented on wishing to be listed on this trope in his commentaries.
Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Delivers this to the camera (re: the Nostalgia Chick) when he's obliged to 'correct' her opinion on a film's message.
"You! You! Yes! You, Chick, you! YOU should be explaining this to ME!! I am offended! Offended that I have to spell this out for you, I mean DEAR GOD—!!" [hurls book at the wall]
Godwin's Law: Couldn't get past the ending of Jubilee without constantly going back to the fact that there was a short scene featuring what he described as "Old Man Hitler".
Revolutionary Girl Utena reduces him to a cackling lunatic.
Eat the Schoolgirl leads him to hogtie Diamanda Hagan in a bathtub and then attempt to dress her up as a snail.
Though part of that was apparently the result of being loaded with horse tranquilizers and having his testicles removed, as once the tranquilizers wear off he can't remember a thing.
Groin Attack: In the Zardoz review, Oancitizen takes "The gun is good! The penis is evil!" a bit too literally - he whips out a gun, walks into the bathroom, aims it at his crotch, we cut to black just as the gun goes off...
Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: His view on The Doom Generation, which bills itself as "A Heterosexual Movie" and may go a bit over the top in proving. "Straight, straight straight straight straight straight straight! Penises going into vaginas, all the time!"
He-Man Woman Hater: What the metaphor in Anatomy of Hell presents men as; Oancitizen even namedrops this trope.
Heh Heh, You Said X: In his A Serbian Film review: "Ha ha! His name is Fuckmir!"
Hurricane of Euphemisms: He ends up using a lot of terms for female masturbation ("flicking the bean," "tickling the tuna taco," "sampling the finger food," "petting the kitty") in his review of Exterminating Angels.
Hypocritical Humor: In the review of You And Me And Everyone We Know, Oancitizen introduces the main character as an amateur solo video artist, "which means she films herself alone in her room doing stupid stuff." Cut to Oancitizen, camera in hand, filming himself in front of a mirror going "Man, what a dork!"
Inadvertent Entrance Cue: According to the Revolutionary Girl UtenaThe Movie review, any time someone is confused by an artistic movie, Oancitizen is teleported to them against his will. Jesu Otaku notes that now that it's known, it's highly exploitable, and he then teleports away from the review, and once back, angrily tells her to not give fans any more ideas on how to misuse the spell. This could also be a meta-joke about how Kyle become the go-to guy for cameos about symbolism and artistic topics.
Kyle has sensitive ears and is very territorial about HOOLLIAM SHAXPAHR being reviewed by others. So much so, that he gets suckered into crashing Hamlet the Vampire Slayer.
"[she is known for performing] extreme acts on scree. I went online, and believe it or not, I found some clips of her doing these acts. I had to pixelate some things though [cue entirely pixellated, flesh colored screen and loud moans]
Lampshaded Double Entendre: The Anatomy of Hell opens with its female protagonist getting slapped by a random man, who then just stands there looking sullen. Wordless apology, or is she just handing him a stick of gum?
[unzips fly]
Oan: Hey, he did want some gum! ...'cause her gums are in her mouth.
Lampshade Hanging: Points out background noise picked up by his mic in his review of Primer.
Layman's Terms: So, Jason Witter replaced the original language of Hamlet with endless pop culture snark?
Le Film Artistique: Aside from the films, and occasional film-within-a-film, in the show, the credits sequence is styled as one, including Gratuitous French credit "Kyle 'Oancitizen' Kallgren Presente:"
His film school movie PREtension, a parody of art films.
Limited Wardrobe - He wears basically the same clothes in every review.
Lost Episode: The Girlfriend Experience (only exists with commentary) and Sh*t TGWTG Fans Say.
And now What is It? due to legal reasons.
Mary Sue: He calls out the protagonist of Exterminating Angels on this. invoked
Memetic Mutation: Invoked at the end of the Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs review.
Oancitizen: Now if you'll excuse me, I have to turn that whole tree thing into a meme.
Mind Screw: What Is It?, both the movie and the 'sketch.'
Oancitzen: I have three ties!
Money, Dear Boy: In the vlog for Anonymous, Oancitizen suggests that Derek Jacobi took a role in the film to pay off a parking ticket.
Narm: Oan bursts out laughing while watching the performance of the main character in Twilight of the Ice Nymphs when he monologues about trees, comparing the voice to a deaf cracked-out Bill Murray.
Never Heard That One Before: When Mario starts chopping off Dracula's limbs in Andy Warhol's Dracula, Oancitizen says the audience is probably already going through the Black Knight's dialogue from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in their heads, and says they really need to do some reading on media saturation.
[Tideland] takes the honor of being 8,524th Alice reference ever made. "A round of applause, everyone."
Oancitizen (in shock): NAKED NAZI SHIRLEY TEMPLE MASTURBATING WITH A RIDING CROP!
Nipple and Dimed: Since nudity crops up in his video reviews, he's forced to censor it creatively. Pictures of titmice, cats, donkeys, and Wii remotes are common, but sometimes, if he's feeling really silly, he covers them up with cropped pictures of nude statues.
Perfume - The Story of A Murderer actually managed to break the censor bar.
"Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: An on-screen message pops up during '90s Kid's rant about the finer aspects of The Doom Generation to tell us that his words were actually part of the film's marketing.
Assuring that his Mythbusters reference wasn't just random. Jamie Hyneman really did work the special effects on Naked Lunch.
Not so Different: In the review of The Girlfriend Experience, he 'inadvertently' draws similarities between escort and porn wesites, and being an internet reviewer. At the end of the review, he goes to work on his other job, as a host on webcam site LiveJasmin
Possibly the reason some see him as a The Cinema Snob ripoff is that the difference between a lot of his "arthouse" films and the Snob's exploitation movies seems to be purely in name only, as they both tend to contain similarly dark and disturbing content. (The other reason is that Kyle is a straight version of what the Snob is a parody of—a sophisticated cinemaphile). This is lampshaded in the Tromeo and Juliet review.
"Here's a diagram — a primer on Primer, if you will. [snooty chuckle] Huzzah."
And so, the characters of The Doom Generation "invoke the Power of Three!"
" Aaand I'm more than three-fourths of the way through a film starring Rose McGowan, and I finally make a Charmed reference. Go me."
Tideland's deranged beekeeper. "Aaaaand meme in 3....2....1..."
When a character in Ken Park randomly asks his girlfriend's mother, "can I eat you out?", Kyle explains that even though it's become cliché, he has to play the infamous scene from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.
Odd Couple: With Obscurus Lupa in their Hamlet the Vampire Slayer review; he's a highbrow critic and serious intellectual, she's a cheerfully goofy shlock reviewer who doesn't understand long words.
Oh Crap: During the "Otto" review, when he realizes he is about to see a gay zombie orgy.
During the Trash Humpers review (bear in mind, babies... don't tend to fare well in these kinds of movies):
"Was that a baby?...(looks horrified) Was that a baby?!"
Yet again during The Brown Bunny, when he discovers, to his abject horror, that the film is revisiting Gerry.
"...No. Oh, no..."
He realizes one second too late that he's invoked Rule34 and mentioned a Civil War real-person slash fic.
Old Shame: When he posted the old review of The Girlfriend Experience on TGWTG, some comments came in, which he agreed with about the review coming off as slutshaming, and he contemplated removing the review altogether. He did say the intent wasn't to mock Sasha Grey for her adult film work, but the message he meant didn't come across clearly.
The point in his review of Gerry where he tries to make up background music... a cappella style.
Phantasy Spelling: Oancitizen jokes that Mandragora from Twilight of the Ice Nymphs is "also probably a place for people who spell 'fairy' as 'faerie.'"
Pass the Popcorn: Admittedly as what he's doing is in fact watching movies him breaking out a bowl of it in a review normally would be considered a normal film watching activity. However he's an arthouse film reviewer which people don't usually associate with popcorn, therefore he uses it in his review of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai to highlight the more action movie aspects of some of the scenes.
Psychic Nosebleed: Happens as Oancitizen struggles to talk about A Serbian Film's messages... then he snaps out. (in the bloopers, Kyle points out that given how much corn syrup he put on his nose for the scene, that could have been actual blood!)
The first (translated) sentence of Exterminating Angels is: "The lampposts are in need of their long scarlet coats." Oancitizen dares the audience to explain what that means. There's also a later reference to "blood of airports...flooding blue grass."
"Hamlet's a cheerleader. Why is Hamlet a cheerleader?"
Reference Overdosed: Used mainly to showcase similar tropes or ideas in more mainstream movies to help de-mystify the films to his audience.
Refuge in Audacity: He comes to the conclusion that A Serbian Film is attempting this, and since True Art always crosses a line of some sort, this is why he must review the movie despite The Cinema Snob and Phelous having also done it before.
"What Is It" was deliberately filled with all sorts of offensive things, the point being that the audience was to decide which of them was actually offensive. Oan takes umbrage at this, though, and says, "This is not art. This is trolling!"
Retraux: The intro to BHH shows a montage of auteur films, beginning with classics such as Citizen Kane and ending withGerry and Trash Humpers, giving them the illusion of being old-timey films.
Rule 34: "Yes, Internet, there exists communist porn."
The review of Sebastiene contains a joke about American Civil War slashfics
Running Gag: During scenes involving male bodily fluids, Oan would take a sip of milk from a wine glass. Lampshaded during his review of Sebastian, when he can't believe it has become one.
Stephen Fry's "tweets" in The Discovery of Heaven.
"Woman carrying my child hit by a falling tree. FML."
During Jubilee, he would point out two "affectionate" guys are brothers, then say "Ew,".
In his review of Prospero's Books, after a scene that's supposed to be particularly meaningful, Oan halfheartedly raises his arms and blandly states "...Symbolism."
In his review of Trash Humpers he says he's expecting one of them to start a 90-minute Star Wars review. "Oh my god! What's wrong with your face?!" He also describes Trash Humpers as "a film which dares to make a return to that wonderful aesthetic known as, oh, what's the phrase, 'shot on shitteo?'"
Shown Their Work: Oancitizen makes a point of extensively researching the films he reviews, as he feels they deserve a thought out analysis.
In the vlog for "Anonymous," just off the top of his head he mentions a ton of stuff about Shakespeare and his contemporary historical figures. The man really knows his stuff.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: Oancitizen gets '90s Kid to shut up by telling him that Nirvana is directly responsible for the existence of Nickelback.
Sick and Wrong: The man does not scare easily. Anything involving child exploitation makes him cringe, however.
He also jokes that playing stirring orchestral music over the puking scene in Sweet Movie would likely later inspire the choice of soundtrack for 2 Girls 1 Cup.
"So just remember, when you're trying to settle serious relationship issues with your special lady, bust her water main open and then invite her to dance. She'll be thrilled! Utena told me so!" invoked
Oan: [dials phone] Hi, mom! Yeah, I just got done watching this French film and—FUCK YOU!
His epitaph for Gerry. Hey, it did one thing fantastically right.
"You really feel like you're lost in a desert. The scenery is repetitive, the sounds vacant. You wander aimlessly, every minute spent praying that the end to come. It will come when you reach the finish, or it will come with your own death. Hell, at some points you even begin to feel a little dehydrated at this movie. And should you emerge alive, you spend every waking minute wishing that you had never taken that wrong turn (or pushed that play button) and been dropped into a vast wasteland, traumatized by the void that you were dropped into — and may never escape.
Stealth Pun: The title. While he reviews "Highbrow" films, many of the films we see tend to raise Oan's eyebrows inadifferent way.
Stepford Smiler: Oan spends the majority of A Serbian Film review in this state. Until his nose becomes a BLOOD GEYSER.
Sure, Why Not?: Goodbye, 20th Century was such a jumbled mess that it reduced Oan to saying this over and over again.
Take That: Halfway into Exterminating Angels, he realizes that the entire film is basically an endless parade of thin, attractive women acting horny around a dumpy middle-aged man. [cue Robert Palmer music video]
Tempting Fate: In Tideland, Oan compares the Alice themes to that older, creepier film he already covered.
"Well, at least they got rid of that cheesy, creepy stop-motion animation and [severed doll's head comes to life] — BLUUAAGH!
Since it's animated, Oan is confident that explaining the themes and symbolism of Revolutionary Girl Utena will be a trifling matter for his mighty brain.
After being thoroughly mindfucked by the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, Oan resolves that he'll never let himself get roped into reviewing an allegedly deep animated show or movie again. Then the bronies get a hold of him.
Too Soon: After seeing a stark funeral with black-clad mourners in a pure white room in Goodbye, 20th Century, Oancitizen asks, "So, who wants to bet Steve Jobs' funeral looked exactly like this?" He then raises his arms in triumph as "TOO SOON" appears to fanfare.
True Art Is Incomprehensible: A lot of his points are attacking this notion, either directly calling it out, or pretending to defend it while obviously twisting in logical knots. invoked
Unexpected Genre Change: His review of Angels In America is a completely serious, highly emotional piece that has nothing negative to say about the film and ends with him directly urging the audience to educate themselves about HIV.
The Unfair Sex: Turns up a lot in the stuff he reviews, be it averted, subverted or played straight. Of particular merit in this regard is Antichrist and Anatomie de l'Enfer, which deconstruct and defend this trope, respectively.
"Ah Fresh Prince. Well, in the words of another famous rap lyric, DIE MOTHER FUCKER DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE."
We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Upon viewing stock footage of the Katyn massacre that was spliced into Sweet Movie, Oan's screaming face is replaced by a test pattern.
What do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?: One of his in-universe specialties is finding deep symbolism where it almost certainly doesn't exist. This is emphasized in his early blog posts and "Between The Lines" videos.
Oan: Would it be too didactic to reference Grotowski's Toward a Poor Theatre? Lupa: I have no idea what any of those words mean. :D
Played around with in his review of A Serbian Film. Instead of discussing much of the film's plot, Oan instead discusses much of Serbia's dark history and how the emotional turmoil of the Serbs translates onto the film. None of this stops him from calling NATO and asking them to bomb Serbia.
on Nella's My Little Pony epic.His signature style usually involves a lot of high-brow intellectual concepts, but explained well enough that they don't go over viewer's heads.You can find these videos on That Guy With The Glasses and blip.tv
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