Saturday, March 28, 2015

Evolutionary Viewing Of The Internet Reviewer

As you know, one of my favorite interests is to watch various internet critics. It all started either when I was 13 or 14, and I don't even remember how it all started so this will be my attempt to chronicle my ever growing list of internet reviewers.



So all this started WAY back, like when I was in middle school, first year maybe. And I don't even remember how I got to be aware of all the internet reviewers I watch, so this will just barely scratch the surface. But I somehow found my way onto a video game reviewer known as, the Irate Gamer. I don't watch his videos as much as I used to, probably because I have found better reviewers since then. And constantly throughout watching these videos on YouTube, I read constant comments on how he ripped off someone called the Angry Video Game Nerd and I didn't believe it. So I started watching his videos and I loved them, I still do! And every time I discovered a new reviewer, I watched their videos from the very beginning. It was 2008 when I started watching the AVGN and there was this whole "war" between the Angry Video Game Nerd and this guy called the Nostalgia Critic, and you had to choose a side so I picked the AVGN but I was like, "Who is this Nostalgia Critic clown?", so I started to watch his videos from the beginning and...I loved them. So, I now had three reviewers by 2008. I watched the Nostalgia Critic on his website, channelawesome.com, and I found a plethora of reviewers. And I was just looking through the lists and I found two more reviewers by 2009, That Dude In The Suede who reviewed anime, and Angry Joe who reviewed video games. I had a friend in middle school who was a fan of the Nostalgia Critic, and he recommended a movie and video game reviewer, Spoony. It was about 2009, almost 2010 by the time I discovered Spoony and he became one of my favorites real quick and one of the reviews he did was a crossover with this guy Linkara and the entire review ended with a cliffhanger, which said it was to be continued on his show, Atop The Fourth Wall, so I had to watch his whole comic book show from the beginning to make sure I wouldn't miss anything leading up to the conclusion. It's a really good show with outstanding plots, great characters, and something trivial as comic books were great review material. I was hooked. From there, it's just a haze of how I discovered all these great reviewers and critics. They are the reason I wanted to become a movie critic, they are the reason I am doing this blog and voicing my opinions. Without them...I have no idea what would have become of me. I owe them so much and I am never, ever going to stop watching them even after they retire, which I hope they never do. I hope they keep reviewing stuff and they are like in their 60's, I would love that! Maybe if my memory gets better in the future, I will continue retelling how I found these critics, but for now my memory is kinda shot so this might be it. I hope you enjoyed this chronicle of internet reviewers and really finding out how I got here because of these people. Not sure what I will review next, maybe Lost In Translation....

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)

There's not a better way to start reviewing movies than to review the Best Picture winner at the Oscars.

Okay first and foremost, I totally called that Birdman would win Best Picture at the Oscars. It was either going to be that or The Imitation Game. And I was right!

Now, I really don't want to give you the full plot of Birdman because, it is a fantastic movie and you should see it if you haven't already. But I will give you a synopsis of it. So Birdman stars Michael Keaton as this washed up actor who used to play Birdman about twenty years ago and his career hasn't gone smoothly in the last few years, and he is currently working on a Broadway play. And he is putting everything into this play and he hopes that it will really pay off. Michael Keaton was a genius casting choice for this, because this parallels his life as an actor who used to be famous for playing a comic book character. And there actually was a really funny nod to him when he stopped being Birdman in 1992, and that was the same year he last played Batman. But he is not the only really good actor in this movie, there are tons of them. Edward Norton plays one of his supporting characters in the play and he really makes me laugh, Emma Stone plays Michael Keaton's daughter who is the harsh voice of reality in this movie, we got Zach Galifianakis who plays Michael Keaton's manager who also is his best friend and they got good chemistry in the film, among many others. I really can't find much wrong with this movie, the acting is great, the music is catchy as hell so much so that if there is a soundtrack to this movie I would buy it, the dialogue feels completely real like, this is how normal people would talk, there is an exception in one scene but it is meant to sound corny and stupid so it still holds up, the camera work is an experience, because it looks like the film is shot in almost one continuous take, and yes there are transitions and you can spot them but it is a fluid moving film, the camera is constantly moving and it looks great. There are so many scenes in this movie that I found to be really damn good, like in one scene Michael Keaton's character is talking to this theater critic and this critic is absolutely horrible and he says stuff to her that you wish you could say to some critics because they are so cruel. And another scene is where Emma Stone's character talks to her dad and she really is the harsh voice of reality, saying her dad is just trying to be relevant again just like so many other people in today's world. It's just such a great film that everyone should see if they want a movie that is a little different than most movies that come out today. And when I say different, I mean different. Michael Keaton's character has this split personality who talks to him and it's the voice of Birdman and he can move stuff with his mind and fly, I absolutely love it. I love strange, different kinds of movies where you go into it and you are not really sure what to expect. You'll see what I mean cause I will leave a link at the end for the trailer of the movie and you can judge for yourself whether you would want to see it or not. Overall, Birdman was a fantastic movie and I really enjoyed it. I believed it deserved the Best Picture award hands down.


Alright, so that is it for my very first review. Thank you so much for reading this, I really appreciate it. Give the trailer a watch and see if this looks like the kind of movie you would want to see or maybe even buy.


Birdman Trailer: https://youtu.be/uJfLoE6hanc

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Introductions

Now...where to begin? Ah.


Welcome to my blog. I am the Dude. This is my very first blog I am attempting. Forgive me if I ramble a bit. It is a common problem of mine, so I will try and keep these blog entries under 10,000 words. I sincerely hope you will enjoy and respect my opinions found here. I will try and post reviews at least three times a week on my blog. Perhaps in the future, I will upgrade from text reviews to video reviews. But for now, we must start small and grow from here. My reviews will mainly consist of film and television series, on some rare occasions I will perhaps review books or even music. But I stick to what I know best which is, film and television. I'm not entirely sure what I would do for my first review, I'll probably make a list of possible candidates and let people choose for themselves. I'll have that list on here soon enough. My reviews will be very concise and I will give fair warning if I delve into the rants, but I'll try and keep it very minimal because who would want to hear me rant for five pages on why this character is superfluous? So this will be quite interesting, and I hope it will work out for the best.

Until next time.