Reviews WebVideo / Confused Matthew

Agreed.

I think it only gets mentioned so often because its his essential premise. The reviews he considers to be official Confused Matthew reviews are the ones where the popular/critical acclaim or lack their of is out of synch with what he would expect.

I also agree with you about why he can be enjoyable to watch. I also like it when he brings out his philosophy background to evaluate philosophy in movies. I like some education with my entertainment.

I also like long form reviews in general.

I would like to put these two in a room, along with Distressed Watcher. Then seal the room and launch it into space.

@Don Zabu

Don, your points are indeed, very very valid. Matthew is not great because of mere contrary opinions or general offensiveness. However, you missed an important point about why people, including myself, generally like him. The most important point.

It is not just

a) His reviews piss people off,

or

b) His points of view go against the norm of film opinions.

It is most importantly

c) He is observant, educated, and makes deductions based on what he has learned.

Without c), a) and b) are completely worthless. They're the chopped nuts on the sundae of caustic criticism. They add some pizazz to the dessert, but by themselves they are just... meh.

The problem with Chris Bores is that he doesn't put much thought into what he has to say. His opinion is artificial, and his complaints are completely superficial. He doesn't know what he is talking about. He focuses too much on ripping off AVGN's successful formula, thinking that it was profanity that made people like AGVN, and not James's in depth analysis on how a game is fundamentally broken, or how it is inferior to another type of game in the same genre.

The fact that Chris Bores believes that Contra is a bad game because it is too hard is indicative that he has not played much old school action platformers, and he does not have that gamer commitment to push oneself and try again.

Well anyway, I'm not going to go into too much detail on Chris Bores. To keep my descriptions short, here's Matthew and Stan's two cents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbSTGZi1Bc

Matthew is very different from Chris Bores.

For starters, Matthew is a college educated person, an expert in philosophy, who builds his arguments on the basis of facts and logical connections. He subscribes to real, practical and sound philosophy, Aristotlean philosophy(which is the kind of philosophy you should take if you want to be a professional critic).

Matthew is just as observant and thoughtful as James Rolfe, and Doug Walker. He doesn't complain about superficial things like costumes or acting(unless it gets in the way of the story). He takes a hard look at the script and dialogue of movies, and pinpoints critical inconsistencies that have happened before in regular bad films.

Now the reasons people like him for reasons a) and b) is because he is reminiscent of Maddox's and Red Letter Media's "anti-fanboy" stance of criticism. Those two initially offended some people with their opinion pieces, but because and only because of reason c), the end result was hilarious because you had a lot of angry people who were up against some very well written arguments that condemn their favorite movies through scene by scene analysis, and all these fanboys could do was piss, and moan, and bitch, and write 500 page PRATT papers. Like earlier analogy, offensiveness adds pizazz to a well rounded argument.

I will provide a link to a Maddox article from all the back in 1999, years before the famous 90 minute, more popular Redlettermedia review.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=starwars1

When Matthew tells us how much he hated it when Anakin force choked Padme in Episode III, he formulated his opinion on facts, because that scene actually happened in the movie, and from a logical "a—>b" standpoint, that scene absolutely destroyed Anakin's Motive Opperandi; Anakin face-heel turned in order to save Padme and yet he kills her in blind fury. This makes Anakin's "tragic fall" not so tragic.

In The Lion King, Scar told all the Lions that Simba died along with Mufasa in the stampede during the years of Simba's absence. Simba returns home, and then Scar declares that Simba murdered Mufasa. Simba's mother really did turn on Simba, her own son, after Scar just contradicted his previous decade long lie with a new lie.

Also Scar put Simba on the rock, and told him to practice his roar in the first place. Therefore Simba had no reason to feel guilt for his father's death, other the writer's needing Simba to feel guilt. The scenes are therefore contrived.

The "people" in both No Country for Old Men and Spirited Away conveyed little to no emotion or personal quirks, let alone unique personal quirks. The important factors that help us identify with fictional characters and grow attached to them. Some people might call this "subtlety" but I call it "lazy character writing".

It is easy to make people angry, sure, you can do that by being an unintentional buffoon, but getting them angry through completely logical and factual arguments is the utmost satisfying, and more mentally challenging route.

So you see it's not because he makes people angry... It's because he makes people angry through critical thinking skills, reason, and rationality.

Oh yeah! and @psycher7, chill a bit please, this is not youtube or 4chan, so this is no place to be uncivil. Also, sending TJ into space, with no life time supply of bananas... Are you crazy?

Wow this is last comment is so well written. Is this really 400 words?

^^ Someone seems to take jokes a bit seriously, I see.

So many fallacies.

So what I get from thedeclaration is that movies that have the charactes always thinking logical, having the subtlness of an anvil, and "superficial stuff" like acting, directing, visuals, etc, are the only things that is worthy to Matthew...

Okay.... you do know film is a visual medium right? And a lot more goes into it than just a script.

Why are you bumping years old reviews?

As long as it's not done as a response to a comment, can we really complain to people for being "late"? If so, might as well delete reviews after some time has passed.

@Very Melon T Hat's a good question... I was bored and wanted to pass the time. Yup.

• That's

@ thedeclaration

I will never fail to understand why people think that Anakin choking Padmé makes the movie fall apart. It is absolutely integral to the story IMO.

Anakin DIDN'T turn to the Dark Side because he was trying to save her. He wasn't doing it FOR HER. He was doing it FOR HIMSELF. Because he was afraid to LOSE her. He SAYS so — "I won't lose you the way I lost my mother." He's afraid of losing those he loves. That's why Yoda says "Fear is the path to the Dark Side." He doesn't turn out of love — he turns because he's afraid and can't accept that he isn't in control.

Why does he choke Padmé? Because Obi-Wan appears and he believes, in his paranoia, that she's turned on him and sided with the Jedi. Hence he later screams at Obi-Wan, "You will not take her from me!" Because he let his greed and selfishness and fear that Padmé was leaving him — that he was losing her — overwhelm him, the Dark Side took over, and he attacked her.

Love doesn't lead to the Dark Side. Love redeems from the Dark Side. That's how Luke saves his father — because his father loved him and Anakin saved Luke FOR Luke, not himself. He knew saving Luke would mean that he died, but he did it anyway.

I don't mind if people don't like films I enjoy. No one's opinion is objectively right. But what bothers me about people like Confused Matthew and Red Letter Media is that they feel the need to insult those who disagree with them or act like their opinion can be generalized to others.