Actually, Lewis wasn't always very subtle either. He's outright stated that Aslan is not an allegory for Jesus, he IS Jesus, if Jesus had decided to become a lion and create a world of talking animals and fairy tale creatures. But I agree, sometimes Matthew misses the forest for the trees, but if that's how he enjoys movies, I hope he finds one he can enjoy.
I'm a geek.
He didn't state that in the book itself, though, only hinted at it. Word of God can be less subtle because it's not spoken in the context of the story and so doesn't ruin the atmosphere by being more direct.
I'm sure a lot of people would say The Last Battle is less than subtle.
On another note, I find that Confused Matthew's taste in film is… very, very narrow. Most of his reviews are very mainstream Hollywood fare, only branching out for requested reviews. His favorite movies list is also consists entirely of, well… Beauty and the Beast, Terminator 2, The Dark Knight (a film which, I should point out, plainly spells out its themes to the audience), all of which are fine films, but they're very… just kind of not surprising at all. The only things on his list that stand out are Pan's Labyrinth, which is the only foreign film on the list (and is probably the single most mainstream foreign film in America), and Moulin Rouge!, which more stands out because many people would argue it isn't a particularly great film.
I'm not saying it to sound hipster, but… for a guy who reviews films, and who spends a considerable amount of time on it, I should think he'd branch out of that comfort zone a bit more. I mean, if the guy rags on 2001 or No Country for Old Men for having "no plot," I shudder to imagine his reaction to Wild Strawberries.
Tuckercreator@ And that goes with what the review author was saying. Everyone and their mother was saying the lion was a representation of Jesus (among other religious allegories), then Lewis went on to confirm it, but, since they werent spelled out.
Matthew seems to be a guy who'd be better at reviewing books than movies. Imagine how'd he think of films from the silent era, or old school cartoons with no real dialogue.
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Has a Limited and Narrow Understanding of Film
Talking about Confused Matthew is somewhat difficult. The first thing one has to bear in mind is that he isn't from the Thatguywiththeglasses school of showmanship, and thus he doesn't really put effort into making his reviews entertaining the way that someone like Doug Walker et al does. His reviews are more straight-faced criticism, more in the vein of Scifidebris with its basic recap format.
His basic format is this: after the opening jingle, he will give a short introduction to the film, and then proceed to discuss the film in a scene-by-scene walkthrough of sorts, with his various comments and criticism along the way. To his credit, he's very good at picking apart a story and spotting internal inconsistencies. However, I find that that's pretty much all he's good at.
Perhaps more telling than what he discusses in his reviews is what he doesn't discuss in his reviews. Now, I haven't seen all of his material, but I cannot, at any point in watching his videos, recall him talking about: acting, direction, editing, use of color and lighting, camera angles, cinematography in general, any form of visual symbolism, or indeed, anything that defines film as a medium. The ultimate problem with Confused Matthew is that he doesn't actually review films. He reviews screenplays.
This becomes a very noticeable problem in some of his reviews. For example, he criticizes No Country For Old Men for not establishing its characters, but harps on and denigrates the very scenes that use visual cues to establish said characters.
In addition, I find that he doesn't have a very good grasp on subtext or implications. For example, in his review of The Golden Compass, he emphatically states that The Chronicles of Narnia isn't religious propaganda. He's more than able to see when Pullman is proselytizing in his works, of course, because Pullman has absolutely no sense of subtlety and has his characters flat-out say what he's thinking. Lewis, on the other hand, conveys things through allegory and metaphor, which CM seems to miss. If the film doesn't flat-out say something, he's prone to missing it.
And ultimately, he seems to want to cram things into a box, and if they don't fit, then it's a problem. I have to wonder what'd happen if he were faced with something by Bergman or Fellini.