Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Blog / Up On The Shelf

Go To

"You Vote, I Watch, I Review"

Up On The Shelf is a movie Review Blog. Said Shelf refers to the shelf where the movies are kept, but the reviews are written by a writer who prefers to go by the name of “Shelf”. Hope that’s not confusing.

If the tag line hasn’t clued you in, she takes the democratic approach to what films she reviews. She mostly avoids being another Caustic Critic, but isn’t afraid to give criticism when necessary. She’s usually helped out (but mostly agitated) by her sense of Cynicism personified.

From July 2016 to February 2018 she also reviewed Gravity Falls in its entirety. In April 2020 she put out a vote for what series to review next, with Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre coming out on top. She occasionally writes a series of posts called “By The Cover” where she discusses song covers from movies she’s previously looked at, and sometimes shares original fiction she's wrote as well. In December she usually takes a break from films and looks at Christmas specials.

While movie reviews are currently on hiatus, the Faerie Tale Theatre reviews are posted on the 6th of every month.

     Movies Reviewed So Far: 

     Holiday Specials Reviewed So Far: 

You may read all her reviews at this link.

This blog provides examples of:

  • Author Appeal: Shelf is a big fan of nearly all things Disney and animation in general, and it shows whenever she reviews something animated. She'll usually devote a bit of space to talk about some trivia and technical aspects she finds interesting.
  • Ax-Crazy: Jeffrey Katzenberg is depicted as Eustace Bagge eager to “CHOP CHOP CHOP” any film he can get his hands onnote .
  • Berserk Button:
    • Kids being bullied, especially if the bully is an Alpha Bitch cheerleader type, citing how badly she was tormented by them in school.
    • She's not a fan of the Third-Act Misunderstanding or Missed Him by That Much since it adds meaningless, easily avoidable conflict that frustrates the audience.
    • As of writing, Rapunzel is the lowest-ranked Faerie Tale Theatre episode for its disturbingly accurate portrayal of abuse.
  • Brain Bleach: Punctuated with a "No!" montage by Some Jerk with a Camera when she realizes that Long John Silver and Miss Piggy did the nasty.
  • Bus Crash: What happens to Donald Trump expy Trollnald Drumpf in the review of A Christmas Carol (1971). When he refuses to learn a lesson from the blog characters posing as the various ghosts, Cynicism drags him into Mickey's Christmas Carol and lets Pete deal with him. Shelf stated this was always her plan to write the character out of the blog after his real-life counterpart lost the 2020 election.
  • Call-Back:
    • An entire category of the Gravity Falls reviews is devoted to how many call-backs there are to previous episodes, journal entries, etc.
    • The first movie Shelf reviewed that could be considered appropriate for Halloween was The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is also a Christmas movie. That December, Shelf reviewed Rise of the Guardians, which seemed like a Christmas movie but is actually an Easter one. Finally, right on time for Easter, she reviewed The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which has stories taking place on Christmas and Halloween respectively. She can't help but comment on how strange the planning for this blog has turned out.
      • When she finally has an appropriately themed review in time for Halloween the following year note , she breaks into the Dance of Joy.
    • As punishment for bringing the wrong Irishman down to the underworld, Hades gives the job of haunting Sleepy Hollow to "Crosby" instead of the Headless Coachman. At the end of the Ichabod and Mr. Toad review, a half-drunk Headless Coachman pops up whining about how the job of scaring Ichabod should have been his.
    • The sea monster in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is revealed to be Merv, cousin to Monstro the Whale from Disney's Pinocchio. Monstro is confused as to how Merv is okay with letting the people he's swallowed go after sneezing them out. Nearly four years later when Shelf reviewed Pinocchio, Merv pays Monstro a visit as he's chasing an escaped Gepetto and Pinocchio. He isn't pleased with being brushed off so his cousin can go after an old man and his kid after four years of nothing.
    • While Shelf lists off the feast that the Ghost of Christmas Present shows to Scrooge in Mickey's Christmas Carol, Chico Marx appears from the review a month prior adding "And two hardboiled eggs!"
  • Caustic Critic: Largely averts this. While she's not afraid to criticize certain aspects of a beloved film, she still gives every one she looks at an equal chance and encourages readers to check them out for themselves, especially if they haven't seen it yet.
  • Character Development: Cynicism goes from a Gollum clone who hates everything to a deadpan snarker with some tsundere qualities.
  • Christmas Episode:
    • Will usually devote the whole month of December to look at Christmas specials and at least one Christmas movie.
    • Played with in her first December review, Rise of the Guardians, which she thought was a Christmas movie until she learned it takes place on Easter.
  • Continuity Lockout: Teeters on this with the inclusion of characters such as Cynicism (who made her first appearance in the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang review, and Baron Munchausen.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: When Cynicism is about to make a necrophilia joke aimed at Snow White's True Love's Kiss, Shelf threatens to take all the Adam Sandler movies off the list of reviewable films if she does. Since no one loves snarking at bad films more than Cynicism does, it works.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Cynicism, in keeping with who she was based on, initially talked in only in Gollum-speak. It was eventually dropped.
    • Early reviews would occasionally mention her boyfriend. This stopped when they broke up.
    • Some reviews in 2016 featured donation requests via Paypal.
  • The Faceless: Shelf was this up until the "Weirdmageddon Part 3" review. It turns out she unwittingly entered a deal with Bill Cipher by starting up the blog instead of a video series because she felt uncomfortable with showing her face. His apparent destruction broke the deal and now she's represented by a caricature of herself.
  • Facepalm: As shown by The Beast doing so when a character or real-life person does or says something stupid or embarrassing.
  • Fair for Its Dayinvoked: Has come to the defense of the Native Americans in Peter Pan, saying that despite being another in a long line of unfair racist depictions, they're more entertaining to watch than the safe, boring natives in Pocahontas. She also finds them much smarter than they're given credit for, as evidenced in the scene where they outsmart and capture John and the Lost Boys.
  • Forced Transformation: Happens to Shelf in the climax of her "Dipper and Mabel Vs. The Future" review when Bill takes over the blog and turns her into a Funko Pop figurine of Mabel Pines since she adores Mabel so much. Bill is later Hoisted By His Own Petard when he attempts to smash her and can't thanks to Shelf being able to use Ford's protective unicorn hair spell on herself in that form.
  • Genius Ditz: Shelf usually does an extraordinary amount of research going into her movie reviews, but falls into this category by virtue of little things like forgetting February is the shortest month of the year.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Fluctuates between this and Cluster F-Bomb depending on the situation.
  • Halloween Episode: The reviews of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Gravity Falls' "Northwest Mansion Mystery", and The Black Cauldron.
  • Moral Guardians: In the form of Ironic Disney Logo, who pops up anytime there's something unusually dark going on in a Disney production. It's eventually revealed the logo got its start with Disney during The Black Cauldron, but apparently it doesn't remember that fact. Later it's revealed it blacked out all memory of the movie due to how terrifying it is. It's so traumatized that months later it refuses to put in an appearance for the graveyard scene in Mickey's Christmas Carol.
  • The Münchausen: Literally THE Munchausen (as seen in the Terry Gilliam movie) occasionally appears to give his two cents. He also plays a big part in saving the blog from Bill Cipher by bringing back Quentin Trembley to help save the day.
  • Nightmare Fetishist:
  • Obligatory Joke: Can't pass up the chance to reference Keifer Sutherland's most famous role in The Nutcracker Prince. She even sneaks in the famous Christmas tree video!
  • Oh, Crap!: Shelf ends the reviews of Snow White and Shrek with this reaction when she learns about their upcoming remakes.
  • Running Gag: If she lists or mentions some kind of food, expect that to be followed up with "And two hardboiled eggs!"
  • Scenery Porn: Will stop the review to admire such scenes in Pinocchio and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Ironic Disney Logo is so traumatized over having to relive The Black Cauldron that it refuses to appear in the graveyard scene of Mickey's Christmas Carol and forces Shelf to face it on her own.
  • Shameless Self-Promotion:
    • Donation requests began appearing in reviews from early 2016, though they didn't last long. After Shelf wrapped up the Gravity Falls reviews, a fan discovered the Patreon page she made back when she initially planned to make it a web video series and began donating. Since then each review closes with an advertisement for Shelf's Patreon.
    • Shelf posts links to the articles she writes for a site called Movie Babble. These are usually shorter, traditional reviews for current movies or ones celebrating milestones.
    • In late 2018 she advertised her Etsy store as well as an assortment of things for sale on her Ebay so she could raise money for Christmas presents.
  • So Okay, It's Average: Her feelings towards Toy Story That Time Forgot. She much prefers Toy Story of Terror for its stronger story and focus on Jessie.
  • Squee: Lets out a big one when Tiger finally shows up in An American Tail
  • Take That!:
    • Any opportunity to stick it to Trump is always taken. He's also represented by his troll counterpart from The 7D.
    • Since John Lasseter was outed from Pixar for gross misconduct, anytime she has to refer to him she prefaces his name with "some nobody named". She also calls out Pixar's past discrimination against women.
    • In Cynicism's very first appearance, Shelf called her out for being a one-note joke so run into the ground to make a point that she's surprised she's hasn't been shoved into one of Doug Walker's reviews yet.
    • The Deviantart logo will usually be placed following a screengrab of something that could be interpreted as unusual fetish fuel (Violet Beauregarde's blueberry blowup, etc.)
  • A Taste of the Lash: Accidentally consigns herself to this when she references Jeff Dunham in her Black Cauldron review.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Shelf feels like Toy Story That Time Forgot was initially written for Rex before Pixar pushed him aside in favor of Trixie in order to avoid more accusations of sexism.
    • She considers Yukon Cornelius from Rudolph and Grimsley from Santa Claus is Comin' to Town to be this.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • Her main gripe with Nelvana's Pippi Longstocking. It presents an opportunity to deconstruct Pippi's happy-go-lucky personality, but it's not taken advantage of.
    • She's upset that Astrid Lindgren decided not to go with Hayao Miyazaki's original concept back in the 70's.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: Occasionally raises money for charity while giving out rewards to donors such as extra votes and putting films of their choice up for consideration.
  • Torches and Pitchforks: Appears in the form of the mob led by Gaston from Beauty and the Beast if Shelf presents a controversial opinion, like enjoying The Hobbit movies more than the book they're based on. When she admitted to not liking [1], she's confronted by the enormous one from The Simpsons Movie.
  • Trolling Creator:
    • The very first Weirdmageddon review "written" by Bill Cipher is completely in the Caesar Cipher code note , confusing many readers. Shelf later posted a version that's "translated" to English.
    • Back when Shelf used to announced what movies won the vote on the first of each month, she announced on one April First that the winning movie was Troll 2.
  • Wham Episode:
    • The "Dreamscaperers" review revealed Bill Cipher was the one leaving behind coded messages at the end of each Gravity Falls review, taking control of Shelf while she slept. He apparently has big plans for her.
    • Topped at the end of "Dipper and Mabel Vs. The Future" where Bill appears fully formed as he does at the end of said episode. Due to a loophole in the deal Shelf unknowingly made by signing up to make a blog instead of doing videos, Bill now has full control of everything and condemns Shelf to an unknown fate.
    • The Cricket on the Hearth review has Shelf break down after reviewing several bad Rankin-Bass specials. When she questions why she even did them in the first place, Cynicism reveals this was her misguided way of trying to bond with her and help get her negative emotions out after a rough year.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top