Confused Matthew

I liked a few of his of videos, even about movies I genuinely enjoyed, but he is a mixed bag to say it gently. I wouldn't even call them reviews, it's essentially a guy ranting about stuff in minute detail, which can be entertaining as long as you don't even attempt to take it seriously. Then again, I don't consider anything talked about on this subforum reviews anymore, except for some of SF Debris' stuff.

And the anime thing wasn't even that bad, he even prefaced it with the equivalent of "I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about here but got bullied by a friend to do it anyway." Not the best basis to do a a review, granted, but hardly the world-shattering calamity people are whining about to this day.

Oh, and that review of The Incredibles was just moronic.

"This movie has conflict? Kids can't handle conflict!"

The problem is that he still acted like it was a proper review throughout. If he just said "this is my opinion from a guy who doesn't know anime, take from it what you will," I think less people would be pissed off. As it stands, he acted like he was actually reviewing something he knew nothing about and had no reason to review it fairly, thereby making a very poor video.

He's really not that bad. Yeah, sometimes he gets his bias steamroller on, but for the most part, he's sincere. You gotta respect that in a critic.

So, yeah, I like Matthew. Sometimes I don't agree with him, but I enjoy his videos all the same.

This.I tend to respect his opinions even though I often disagree with him.

I like the fact that he'll go into philosophy if a review calls for it (his reviews of The Matrix and The Golden Compass, for instance). Most other Internet reviewers are strictly worried about being funny, while Matthew tends to be more about analyzing and dissecting a work. Even if I disagree with him, he often brings up interesting points.

Personally. I love him. He reminds of Maddox a bit, and I love troll opinions. And by "troll opinions", I mean well written contrarian arguments that go against the norm. In fact, he sort of retreads Maddox a bit given his reviews of Titanic, The Matrix, and the Star Wars prequels. Of course, he does a better job on reviewing them in my opinion, because Maddox was never big on "depth" and usually just complained about things because there wasn't any "Lesbians" or "children getting murdered" or "hippies getting their shit ruined." Ironically, Maddox loved Spirited Away. Must have been because it was anime. Funny how some anime fans are as biased as the people they claim to be biased.

I've been following Matthew ever since he started with his early youtube reviews.

Here's a couple of my early favorites as I consider them his best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw7uLyAzSXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCJEMZREqxI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfkQ8ZaHrsY

I will admit though, he is not very funny, but he is extremely insightful. The problem with his comedy is his lack of timing. Even he admits that he's tried making every frame of his reviews funny. However I do find humor in his confused "poor little me" logo, because I imagine some angry galoot wanting to punch it when looking at it and hearing about how his favorite summer masturbatory slug fest was bad.

One thing I especially admire is his honesty and "anti-fluff" motif that he shares with Maddox. This motif I'm talking about ties into their use of minimalistic formats, namely the reason why Maddox's page is all plain, and Matthew uses a slide-show format and only expresses himself as single frame. You see, Matthew desires a movie's "content" over anything else, namely the story and the characters. If the characters aren't well defined, and the world isn't well defined, and the plot of events amounted to nothing, than can you honestly say that your piece was good?

A lot of movies these days tend to hide their terrible writing by "fluffing" them up with either fantastic special FX, beautiful sound tracks, fluid animation, great acting, and other forms of audience pandering. The whole process is akin to polishing a turd. You can strip away all these elements that are just bought with money and you would be left with a shitty script. A turd.

I loved his Minority Report review, especially considering that I bought into the hype, and enjoyed Minority report. Matthew's criticisms were spot on all about; all the movie really was, was a spruced up chase sequence of a guy running into each problem stupidly, and the movie lies to you saying that it is a profound piece of Sci-fi that makes you think. He also made a good point about Steven Spielberg and Roger Ebert, saying that we shouldn't blame the writers of this film, nor the director, but the producer, who allows movies like this to exist, and the film critics, who endorse this shit. He also made a humorous Godwin's law joke, comparing Speilberg and Ebert to Paul Von Hindenberg, who actually allowed the Nazi party to take administration. And he was self aware of that joke, saying "...And yes, I'm comparing this movie to Hitler."

Sometimes, I actually look up at him as a super critic, a critic who has surpassed all other critics like Roger Ebert in regards to reviews.

Sometimes I feel Roger Ebert, is indeed, actually a sell out with biases himself.

I mean compare his review of Team America: World Police, a film with an actual, important message that speaks true about the world, and society and people: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041014/REVIEWS/40921007/1023

...To his review of Ponyo, a typical Miyazaki film with beautiful animation, but lacking in regards to story, to characters, to message. The important things. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090812/REVIEWS/908129989

Ooookay, I'm going to watch his review of "Spirited Away," seeing how that one's particularly controversial.

I'm going into this saying that I think he's profoundly unfunny and he has an over-inflated ego. And that his review of "The Incredibles" was one of the most idiotic reviews I've seen in my life.

Before I even start the review, I see the still "preview" image is Inuyasha. This doesn't bode well.

edited 13th May '11 2:49:07 PM by Pannic

Well, that was pretty stupid, what with a third of the review being complaining about the blurb on the back of the box not matching up with the movie and the whole not-knowing-what-"genre"-means thing.

Also, I recall a good chunk of his review of The Prestige (a movie I didn't like, by the way) consisted of him endlessly complaining about the Tesla thing.

Sure, at times he can be clever and insightful, but most of the time he's just boring, annoying, or pompous.

edited 13th May '11 3:41:09 PM by Pannic

I still have to defend him. In the end all he's really guilty of is demanding logical rigor in the writing of these plots. 'Cause his complaints are valid for the most part. People do need to be able to go into the Star Wars prequels with no prior knowledge of the series and be able to follow the plot. Mr. Incredible was burdened with too much stress. The Lion King is guilty of basic characterization flaws.

edited 14th May '11 4:54:33 AM by NateTheGreat

I mean compare his review of Team America: World Police, a film with an actual, important message that speaks true about the world, and society and people: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041014/REVIEWS/40921007/1023 ...To his review of Ponyo, a typical Miyazaki film with beautiful animation, but lacking in regards to story, to characters, to message. The important things. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090812/REVIEWS/908129989

In other words, True Art Sticks It To The Man? And how are Team America and Ponyo even comparable? They're completely different kinds of movies!

I wanna comment on those reviews, but the only thing I can think about is...

... Who the hell cast those!?

...

But yeah. His review of Team America seems too much like he's only disagreeing with the political opinions expressed. Which I guess makes sense if you consider those to be the point of the movie. I guess that's what he did. Personally, I think that wasn't really the point. The movie doesn't really have much of a political statement to make at all, aside from showing the many ways in which Americans can be arrogant idiots. Mostly, though, I think it's just that movie that parodies American action movies so well that it's physically painful to watch.

That entire review was "It's bad for kids!" It was stupid and condescending.

Oh, yeah, and I just realized that the guy sounds like he's reading from a script. Badly.

edited 14th May '11 10:15:39 AM by Pannic

Well, there is a somewhat political statement, and yes it amounts mostly to making fun of everyone, but it is a very true statement about every person in the world and it is more important and insightful than any message Ponyo was trying to deliver, if it had any that is.

Let me remind you guys that I did not write the rules to the world, that is just the way things are. I am very sad about it, but there is nothing we can do. I'll admit that there are unfortunate implications in that the message does seem to have a misogynistic slant to it. Especially considering how South Park has been pro-life before, and I think one of them had an ex girlfriend so that might have been fuel... But it holds strong for being true nontheless.

edited 15th May '11 12:53:52 PM by Chickenzhit

So? The Vagina Monologues has a message, but that doesn't stop it from being a waste of stage.

Are you able to make statements in non-tl;dr-y E Der speak?

All the people? All of them?

I like how you imply that I haven't read his entire archives of his article. Let me give you a run down on Matthew's and Maddox's criteria.

Maddox: I don't like a movie, unless it kicks ass!

Matthew: I don't like a movie, unless it has heart, that heart being a good story, a believable world, and fleshed out characters.

Now if you read Maddox's earlier articles, you'd notice he hates Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, and the entire Disney Afternoon, especially Darkwing Duck (He's biased against Disney). I can say, that those cartoons all had great animation that harkens back to the golden age. I also note that they had great characterization, Darkwing Duck and Gargoyles especially, but as Maddox would say, "it's DISNEY!" Kinda funny because Maddox loved every single 80's action figure cartoon out there like Transformers and GI Joe. He even loved the Rambo cartoon. The Rambo cartoon! Yet he dared call Animaniacs "sugar coated." Now Maddox also loved anime, his name actually is derived from an anime called "Madox-01". I've seen that anime, and personally, its just a typical shoot em up mecha anime. It lacks characterization and motivations for anything happening in the plot, but hey! ACTION! Detailed and crisp animation! Masturbatory. (Personally, I enjoyed it, but I'm a glutton for fluff.)

Check out these "classic reviews" here from his 13 best movies list:

"It has this war between good guys and bad guys." Pfffft, so what else? Every other movie usually has that! Braveheart had that and so did Star Wars, and you hated those! Why do you love this—"It's really cool." Oh! I know! Because it's anime! And it has action and detailed scenery! It has some girl getting her shit ruined by a penis monster! The logic here is "it's anime, therefore it kicks ass."

Number. Freaking. 2. Because it's anime, and that there's some dude going around killing demons. Note this movie is akin to a "slice & dice" slaughter house action film like Kill Bill. Masturbatory. Personally I enjoyed it, but I also enjoyed Kill Bill, and that film is on Matthew's "To Do" list, and as usual, he will make a very good point to me on why the film is bad. Personally, I think it's going to be because it is masturbatory in the way it is devoted to pure action rather than "characters and story". The heart of film making. Besides, "meaningful conflict" is the soul of storytelling. So some Bride wants revenge on the people who tried to kill her, big deal. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Once again. It's anime. With people getting their shit ruined. Rendered in breathtaking animation. But that's fluff. That's what you use to polish a turd. They, the filmakers, polish the turd with special Fx and music, and we the public eat it all up. Soon, all movie makers have to do, is put a little jewel in front of our eyes, and we'd stare at it for hours. Pure cinematic masturbation... On our faces.

But the kicker is, is his reason for liking Akira, is:

"Some weird Japanese cartoon about.. er.. some guy.. I forgot. It's a good movie, trust me. I just can't remember what happened in it."

That is the reason of every person I know, including me, had for enjoying Akira. Somehow, the media paints this movie as a Science Fiction classic, but nobody can tell you what it is about! How is that possible? True Art is Incomprehensible. "It's confusing, therefore it's good!" True Art is Foreign. "It's anime. Fuck american kiddie kartoonz! Anime is teh hardcore!!!!11"

Here is a review from Spoony that blows Maddox's review out of the water:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/akira/

Crushing.

Btw, someone requested Matthew to do "Ghost in the Shell"... Then made him pull it back at the last moment, right before it was going to reviewed, which was right after his positive review of "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm." Looks like someone didn't want their "critically acclaimed anime" insulted. Truth hurts. Funny being that Ghost in the Shell is another one of those movies that people herald as a science fiction classic... Yet can't remember what it was about.

edited 15th May '11 1:00:35 PM by Chickenzhit

Yes. Like this post will be an example. And it's "E Diot", not "E Der". Learn2terminology and lurkmoar. The problem with the world today is that kids don't read anymore. There see that? Only seven sentences, deal with it.

I like how you responded to a brief line mocking your hypocrisy by starting into a tirade about a whole lot of stuff that nobody asked for.

I also like how you think we care what ED editors call themselves.

And I'm not an anime fan, so you can't use that excuse when I say that CM's review of "Spirited Away" was still patently idiotic.

And I stand by my statement that Confused Matthew sounds like he's reading from a script and can't emote beyond shouting. This wouldn't be a problem if his little reviews were just blog posts, but when he does videos, I expect better delivery.

edited 15th May '11 11:12:46 AM by Pannic

I love how you keep responding to me so that we can go back in forth in a vicious circle with me always in the upper hand.

How is that hypocritical? What am I doing here? I don't think I'm the hypocrite here, Maddox is. I was pointing that out. And Maddox isn't the only person who acts that way, a majority of anime fans are like that, and so did I way back. How am "I" a hypocrite? Am I a hypocrite for enjoying movies that I should know were bad? As I did mention that I liked and enjoyed his picks, although, that does not excuse them for being masturbatory.

Are you implying that if a movie wins Oscar, it's automatically good? Pffffft. Lion King won an Oscar. Titanic won an Oscar. Bowling for Columbine won an Oscar. Spirited Away just won an Oscar for wowing audiences, including me, with breathtaking, celluloid animation they hadn't seen in ages. It won audiences by emotionally manipulating people with its tearful soundtrack. No thought into plot. No devotion to character development. No world building. Just pure, masturbatory escapist fantasy. Like Avatar. Oooooooooo Ahhhhhhh. Look at that animation! Hayao Miyazaki sure pulled the rug under you, you baka gaijin you!

Point is, I don't believe in Oscars, not anymore. I will admit the idea of a bunch of film buffish intellectuals all voting on films so that the winner can gain more attention by unaware Joe Q. Average was a well intentioned idea, but like communism, and capitalism, and every other "ism", it just didn't work out because people can be bought, sold, and manipulated. If you want a good movie, you are going to have to look for it yourself. You also have to read books, thousands and thousands of books in order to get smart. You can't just rely on what people tell you. Authority is merely an illusion made real by the people who believe in it.

edited 15th May '11 12:00:54 PM by Pannic

I like how y'all keep going "I like" and then insulting one another wait actually I don't.

Keep it civil, please, guys. And Chickenzhit, chill. No need to get so ranty and riled up.

I will add one thing though. There are a couple reviews that I disagree with. About 2 to be exact.

Oh, and on his Incredibles review. He didn't actually say, even with criticisms, that it is bad. In fact, his criticisms proved that it was good actually. He cared enough about the characters so much because liked them. The characters were that well developed. The world was well defined too. And here's the kicker, he actually wants a sequel to the Incredibles, just so that he can see the family enjoy some happiness together... Awwwwww. How heart warming. It's just to him, that watching the family suffer, was akin to watching Junko Furuta suffer. The same reason that people don't want to see Grave of the Fireflies or Schindler's List again. Also, since he liked "Batman: The Animated Series" and "Mask of the Phantasm", you can take that "Animation Age Ghetto" entry off his page, because he obviously is not a believer in that.

The first one I disagree with, was Avatar. That was the biggest masturbatory fluff fest ever made. How he liked that I don't even know. It's supposed to be everything that is killing film today, cheapening the artform into a theme park. Must have been stoned.

The second one I disagree with, was Scott Pilgrim, which he saw with Baffled Beth, his new girlfriend. He really should not have liked this. He should have given it the same words he gave about the recent Star Trek movie. "If you like noise, and flashing colors, and bright lights and are easily moved by such, go see this film. I just hate this film!" Theory: I think it's his girlfriend doing this to him. I know this because women in our society are programed and conditioned to do this kind of thing, sabotage nerd stuff, and become scapegoats as "bitches" because society is that cruel to women because they aren't naturally like that at all. I think she might be drugging him. He was giddy during that review. If my leads serve me right, she also might've been coerced by the same shadowy lulzkilling organization that baleeted John Solomon's blog, hit Maddox with a balding ray, and bought out Girlvinyl turning ED into the horror that is Oh Internet... I hope they don't realize I'm typing this... I COULD BE NEXT! Watch your back!