Reviews WebVideo / Confused Matthew

I was okay with his Spirited Away video because he honest up front that he hates anime so at least you knew what to expect.

His Incredibles review annoyed me a bit but he had some good points amongst his missing of the point so I let it slide.

I actually completely agreed with his Lion King review. I didn't like the movie and am still uncertain what other people thought was so great about it.

What really bothered me was his review of Watchmen. He starts off by saying how he doesn't read comics, which is fair enough. At least he is being honest and not trying to pretend to be something he is not. Then he goes on about how it is nothing like a comic book (how he knows what comic books are like if he doesn't read them is not explained) because of a list of several things that were all present, some in greater intensity in the comic.

My advice. Don't watch his reviews of anything you like. Even if he likes it, you will likely be annoyed or worse.

I really like his reviews. I think sometimes he misses the emotional points of a story, but I think he provides an interesting perspective anyways. Your average audience often gets so caught up in the emotions of a story they do miss that the plot as a whole doesn't make sense, and the result is that stupid movies make more money than they should. Honestly, I enjoy the reviews where he disagrees with me the most.

Here's my take on the controversial threesome.

The Incredibles; I love it and I will always love it. He is one hundred percent right that it is a relatively cynical story, but that didn't make me like it any less. In fact I think thats why I like it. I enjoy a little bit of well-written cynicism. The Incredibles mixes everything I love about imaginative kids films with everything I love about melancholy stories like Les Mis. He apparently does not enjoy cynicism, or if he does he prefers it kept separate from his imaginative kids films, like someone who doesn't like their gravy to touch their green beans. Well, he went out of his way to say he respects my right to continue to enjoy it, and I say its fine to return the favor.

The Lion King; I loved it as a kid but when I rewatched it as an teen I didn't like it so much. Now I know why. I maintain that it was entertaining and beautifully designed, but he's right about pretty much every point he makes. I won't ever claim to hate it, but now I know why its far from my favorite Disney film. For those who say he treats it too much like an adult film, I say what's wrong with that? Trying to reach adult-level quality didn't do Avatar; the Last Airbender any harm, did it?

Spirited Away; I think his problem here is twofold. He doesn't enjoy the genre, and he was misinformed about the basic story. Its not about a spoiled child, its about a sheltered and frightened child learning to take care of herself. I disagree with him but I'm not going to waste my time taking it personally.

I give him kudos for expressing his views even at the risk of being violently disagreed with by the madhouse that is fandom. I also give him kudos for being as objective as possible and trying to avoid being insulting towards those who disagree with him. If you don't enjoy his reviews or get anything out of them, there's nothing wrong with that. I just felt like he gets enough abuse and wanted to give him some love.

Here is a helpful quote from yours truly. From my forum:

"My problems with Anime are two things: personal and shallow. I admit this freely, but reserve the right to hate anything for any reason. "It's stupid, it's stupid, I hate it, I hate it". That's my reason for hating anime. However, Spirited Away was a requested review, and not one I would have done under any other circumstances. I said what I did about the film because I had to be honest, and I am honestly "not in the loop" when it comes to anime at all. I just don't get it. I tried to make that clear at the beginning of the review, but a lot of people seem to have missed that point. Had it never been requested, I would have watched the film, hated it, but never have spoken of it again."

........Why is it stupid?

Exactly! He hates an entire genre, something that's stupid in itself, and then he bashes something of that genre, does he expect us not to take that review seriously, just because he dislikes the genre he gets a free pass on insulting the work? If you call yourself a reviewer, we expect certain things from you. Namely objectivity. So either get objective or quit calling yourself one.

"HAD IT NEVER BEEN REQUESTED, I WOULD HAVE WATCHED THE FILM, HATED IT, BUT NEVER HAVE SPOKEN OF IT AGAIN."

You two tropers who posted above seem to have missed this last sentence from his statement.

Note, when someone "requests" a review from him, this also is coupled with a donation of at least 25 dollars. And while he clearly states, that this donation is clearly a donation, and he is in no way obliged to actually grant the request, I can understand when he tries to fulfill the requests nonetheless.

So? He is a reviewer, he is supposed to review things objectively. He does not have an excuse, "I don't like it" is not a good reason, if he wants to criticize something, we expect objectivity. If he can't provide that, then he shouldn't have done the review, there are no freebies. He expects us to listen to his advice and take him seriously, we expect him to actually review something as opposed to bashing it for being in a genre he dislikes. The review was terrible and there are no excuses for that low quality work.

I agree with Phrederic. What would be the point of requesting Confused Matthew to review anything if he is not going to make a consistent effort for the types of movies he dislikes? Many critics are required at some point to review films that are clearly not aimed at their demographic or suit their tastes, and they will admit as much in their review. They will however at least try to compensate for this and attempt to work around their own bias.

Chiming in to say that the Spirited Away review was awful. I had a brief look at some other stuff on the website, and found it kind of lackluster, but Spirited Away was appalling. He seems to assume that all anime is one particular genre, which is wrong in so many ways (for a start, it's a medium, not a genre), and he never even considers the possibility of cultural difference affecting his perspective (which if I understand correctly is part of the problem - the world in Spirited Away is a combination of the Japanese spirit world and Western fairy tales, and takes stock characters and tropes from both). It was one of the most absurdly lazy reviews of any film I've ever seen, and definitely didn't deserve to be considered a critical response. After watching it, I'm inclined to think that Confused Matthew is a perfect example of the fact that you can do anything on the internet and someone, somewhere, will agree with you.

"[Anime] is a medium"

Lol no. Animation is a medium, Anime is a subset of it. Not that I am defining Confused Matthew, but it bugs me when people assume something is more important it actually is.

As for Confused Matthew, I've never watched his stuff but this Agony Booth thread makes him look terrible.

...but you do agree it's impossible to call a genre.

Glowsquid, I would say that anime is a medium, here me out, it's distinct enough to be copied in the Animesque style, and it has stock humor, characters, situations, and looks that are similar, but varied enough to distinguish. German cinema and American cinema are different, and you can tell the difference between them. Anime isn't a genre because there are anime genres, there are shows about everyday life, Shonen action martial arts asskicking laser beams and just plain weirdness, those are genre's, anime is a medium.

@Anon: Were you saying it's stupid to paint a whole medium-genre-provenance with broad strokes? If so I agree, especially when the point of the show is apparently to prove why something is "objectively" (lol my ass) bad.

@Phrederic: What about Eastern Animation? Is it a "medium" too? And you could say there are many genres of Western cartoon too: Gross Out Shows, children shows, Merchandise Driven action show, Adult comedies... ect. Beside that, a medium is "any material or technique as used for expression or delineation in art". Western animated shows and Anime are done the same way and involve the same thing - The difference is the cultural attitude toward the process.

Yes, and I believe that cultural attitude turns it into a different medium. People posting news on teh internets is much different from a newspaper of today, never mind fifty years ago. What's the difference? They're both print based and relate what's happened throughout the world, but the attitudes people have towards them are much different, the actual objective difference? Pretty much non-existent, I'd hardly call them the same medium though. What separates Western Animation, Eastern Animation and Anime? The attitudes people have towards them, only in Japan is it the norm to have animated shows with actual plot, character development, and drama. I'm not saying those things don't exist in other parts of the world, but they're rare. The attitudes we have towards art change the reality of art. Anime is treated as Serious Business, while Western Animation is stuck firmly in the Animation Age Ghetto, unfair, but undeniably true.

I totally agree with Phrederic, this guy is an utter prick.

He is clearly suffering from narcissism and delusions of importance. He thinks we will actually enjoy just watching him and his opinions for 50 minutes (The Golden Compass review) when in fact we watch them to stare in awe at how much of a dickbag he is. He feels that he is the centre of the universe. We alldo from time to time, but for this fellow it is constant. He was likely born with a pre-disposition to Narcisisstic tendencies and was only egged on by his parents who refused to see the bad of what they were doing when they told him to ignore the kids who were (Quite rightly) picking on him at school. They probably said he was better than them.

It is quite likely judging from what I've watched of this ass that has some form of autism, probably quite mild. Whilst he is vaguely intelligent, he obviously has no grasp on what a normal human being would find emotionally satisfying, or redeeming by narrative in a film. As the original review states he clearly lacks the understanding of important things which a regular person simply would understand.

His review of Watchmen is a huge example of his underlying idiocy. Despite stating outright that he knows nothing about comics, he still criticizes a film which is in every way so much like a comic book and so utterly close (Almost too close according to some, even) to its source material for being NOT LIKE A COMIC BOOK.

He picks up on a cynical message in The Incredibles when in fact it was never supposed to be a lighthearted cartoon that kiddies could fall asleep to. It was a surprisingly complex, genuinely thought-provoking post-modernist study of the superhero genre for atted in a totally groundbreaking way so that both children and adults could enjoy it, albeit for entirely different reasons. And even then, the core theme is of family, which is by any means a good moral.

I hate anime myself, but even I cannot see what the hell he's trying to prove in his Spirited Away review.

The Lion King review was just a pile of shit shwing that he has no mental capacity for understanding the mindset of a child and that he is a hypocrite, given his Incredibles review.

This is your typical absolute cunt who believes himself to be great, when in fact he sits in his parents basement reviewing movies for almost an hour, patting himself on the back for distancing himself from those so-called "people" outside the nice safe confines of Mommy and Daddys house. I believe he has never been laid. How could he? Who would go there? When you cant even sit through one whole review of him talking without wanting the guy to just catch AI Ds, how could you ever want to do him? But I digress.

Guys an arse. Dont watch his reviews, he's just looking for attention.

Dr. Cuddy: How is it that you always assume you're right? House: I don't, I just find it hard to operate on the opposite assumption.

Seriously, what critic goes "Hey guys, I know you don't want to listen to me talk about a movie and I'm probably wrong about all points I'll make, but there you go, a 30 minute review. Please don't hit me."

Who does that? Who wants to see that? That's narcissism for you?

Not being able to say "I still like that movie but he has a good point" is somewhat understandable. Not being able to say "Fuck that guy, I don't waste my time watching this" and instead resorting to a long rant with petty name calling in nearly every paragraph should be grounds for being sectioned.

Amen Ana.

@Ana - Whilst you bring up some interesting points I don't care.

^Which makes you just as bad as you are claiming Matthew is.

Ok he simply doesn't like anime, I get it, he was requested to review it even if he didn't want to, fine, but he's suppose to be a reviewer he's suppose to put some effort, it was the "this is just random" parts that I didn't like, what differentiates him from any other person I found on the street if the only research you seem to have done on it was reading the back of the cover? we expect a lot more from you, in fact we expect a lot more from any reviewer. Heck he could had at least gone to the mundane Wikipedia read the summary and found a few weird words in there, where it calls some creatures by his name and not just "random thing", look I just did and found the words kamikakushi and shikigami right away and they even have the handy little feature that gives you a link to take you to a place were it tells you in detail what they are, I mean seriously it even has a "Themes and Archetypes" section were it explains a lot of what you called random.