#same w some films that have done this. i hate watching reviews of horror movies and it’s fine but then the op is like-

[cakesdown]

Do u ever have a piece of horror media everyone loves but you just Do Not and you feel like you’re going insane when u can’t find any criticism for it anywhere

[thefloatingstone]

Last time I made a playlist of recommended youtube channels to enjoy while in lockdown or self quarantine, I focused on individual videos while also recommending other videos from the same channel.

I thought I’d make another list only this time I’m going to be recommending playlists or series on youtuber instead of just individual videos.

This is gonna go exactly like last time, so check out any of these that might seem interesting to you, and hopefully I can give you something to look into if you want something to watch but don’t feel like watching a Netflix or Crunchyroll show.

Last time I tried to put this under a read more break but it didn’t work and I ended up posting this long-ass post on everyone’s dash. Well I decided to do so again here. hit J to skip to the bottom of the post if you don’t feel like reading this whole thing. If you’re on tumblr mobile; why?

In no particular order;

Cinemassacre movie reviews and topics

All of you already know James Rolfe as the AVGN. I started watching him before Youtube was even a thing, before he was even signed on with Screwattack. Back when his videos could only be seen on his own website (or for some reason included on the free DVD you got with the local video game magazines). However, I eventually outgrew the outrage style humour of the AVGN episodes... but then James started doing Monster Madness where he would talk about his love for horror movies, and this where I learned about his vast knowledge about movie history and even films I had never even heard mention of before! I think it’s safe to say, he got me to be interested in movie history just as much as movie production and film as a viewing experience.

I recommend this playlist which is a hodgepodge of James talking about old horror movie franchises, talking about his first experience with Power Rangers as someone who didn’t grow up with it, or how Bob Ross is a childhood hero of his. It’s an excellent play list that’s really laid back but you learn a lot of stuff from it. James is very informed for the most part and it leads you to wanting to check out a lot of these things too, just because he’s so passionate about it.

If I ever get over my weird hang up about speaking out loud, these are the kinds of videos I’d like to make.

Vinesauce Vinny: The Neverhood

Vinny is by no means a new Let’s Player, having been on Youtube for over 10 years now, but I only started watching him a few months ago. I started with this playlist when I saw he was doing The Neverhood, a game I had heard about but never seen played before. The Neverhood is a bizarre game, as a point and click PC game from the 90s where the entirety of the video game was made with stop motion and clay. Something that sounds so insane you would say it’s impossible if not for the fact that it exists. The claymation itself is extremely well done, and the game has a really weird and absurd sense of humour. Just the strangest things happen in this thing. Now couple that with Vinny’s very dry and straightforward delivery and you have probably one of the funniest Let’s Plays I’ve watched in a long time.

This is also “short” for a Let’s Play series. With only 4 parts to it, the longest video only being a bit under and hour and 30 minutes. It’ll still take up a good chunk of your time, but it’s not as daunting as some of the other Let’s Plays I’ll mention on this list.

Team Four Star: Pokemon Shield Nuzlocke

Exactly what it says on the tin. The guys from Team Four Star play Pokemon Shield with Nuzlocke rules. They’ve done several Nuzlocke runs in the past, but I find the Pokemon Shield is the best one they’ve done. Especially since a lot of the needless fluff and grinding has been edited out. So unlike some of their previous series you don’t see a lot of Kieran and Grant running in a circle for an hour trying to catch a specific pokemon or trying to get to a certain level.

It’s also hilarious as they have a lot of “house rules” for the Nuzlocke often involving the exercise bike they.... have..... for some reason.

It’s very good and the gym battles become SUPER hype with the Nuzlocke rules and the music.

Baywatching

Having been going to a few years now, watch Allison try her very best to go through and do a video series where she talks about summarises every episode of Baywatch.

.... Ever. Single. Episode.

She’s not even close to done yet (and now she’s introduced Baywatch Nights AS WELL) but her trying to explain the batshit insanity of this show, it’s over the top characters, it’s insane plots and behind the scenes weirdness with all the enthusiasm and love for this slice of 90s is amazing. Please enjoy a good thick chunk of inside jokes, silly character voices, and a whole lot of ?????

Brutal Moose: Shenmue

Probably one of the most chill channels on all of Youtube, Brutal Moose aka Ian, prefers playing games you wouldn’t think would make for good Let’s Plays. And maybe they don’t, objectively. A collection of playlists covering Truck Simulator, Nancy Drew, Hidden Object games etc etc, spliced in with old commercials from drive in theaters from the 50s,60s and 70s. Ian’s Let’s Play channel is great for just putting on and letting play for company while you’re drawing or grinding in a video game or playing Stardew or something.

I recommend his Shenmue playthrough as Ian completely fell in love with the game and went on to play both the sequel and the newly released third game. Ian genuinely adores the weird voice acting and all the menial tasks and mini-games you can do. I watched this a lot in 2018 when I was going through a rough time, and it really helped me in a strange way to just put Ian on and listen to him talk to the chat and drive a forklift around for like 4 hours straight before going to Tomato Mart or wasting all his money on the gacha machines.

A Measured Response to “In Defense of Dark Souls 2″

At some point, big name youtuber Hbomberguy made a video called “In Defense of Dark Souls II”. I’m not subscribed to Hbomberguy but I enjoyed his video on why Sherlock (the BBC show) is trash. (come to think of it I should have added that to the first list). And it seems the video on Sherlock was really good and well argued.... and it seems his “In Defense of Dark Souls 2″ video... was not.

Using subjective language, bad representation of facts, or simply outright getting certain information wrong, Hbomberguy′s video on Dark Souls II is, at best, a man trying to argue that he likes Dark Souls II because it is “Objectively good”, rather than simply accept he likes it... because he likes it.

MauLer is kind of an asshole, but I have learned more about dissecting someone’s argument and deconstructing what they have said watching his response series than I have in any english or debate class I have ever had.

The response is over 10 hours long, but this is because MauLer takes time with each and every statement he takes umbrage with, discussing what is being said, discusses why it is false or dubious, and then compares with actual facts and research.

If you ever want to know how to to distinguish subjective opinion from objective fact in someone else’s argument regarding... ANYTHING really, I highly recommend this series.

I may not like MauLer as a person, but DAMN if he doesn’t know how to deconstruct an argument in a logic, emotionless way.

John Wolfe: Maize

Maize is a stupid game. a Stupid stupid game.

It involves sentient corn, and underground secret genetics lab, a Russian bootleg teddy bear that hates everyone, sentient corn, and a crumpet.

This game IMMEDIATELY went on my wishlist after watching this playthrough. Please watch John try and figure what the actual fuck is going on in this Monty Python-eque weird black comedy. It’s stupid, it’s weird, it’s bizarre and it’s honestly one of the funniest games I’ve seen streamed.

Hollywood: a Celebration of the Silent Era

This is not a youtube playlist. I mean it IS, but what this actually is, is a TV series released in the UK in 1980 covering the Silent Film era. As it was made in 1980, it includes interviews with many of the silent film stars who were often still alive during this documentary’s production. Each episode covers a specific theme of the silent movie era. One episode is about comedies, one is about WWI, one is about Westerns etc etc.

It’s a fascinating series, because it focuses on the silent era which, in modern day, I think many people unfairly think of as “those first few years of movies before movies really became a thing.” And that’s such a shame and really not true. The artistry, camera tricks, and raw nature of this early era of film making is so important and produced films which can still be watched today easily, possibly even easier than a few modern movies as often the very fact that the films are silent means they are universal, regardless of what language you speak.

I think an episode or two might have been turned to private or copyright claimed in this playlist, but I know if you do a search on youtube you can find the episode uploaded by someone else.

Diamanda Hagan: Bonekickers

Bonekickers is the show Mathew Graham made before he went on to work on the new Dr. Who. It is about archaeologists and it is God-fucking-Awful.

It is.... look. Ok. I like Archaeology a lot. But this isn’t a show that’s bad “if you like history” or “if you know things about archaeology”. This show is bad because it doesn’t make a single fucking lick of sense, all the characters are awful and terrible, and even if you understand what’s going on in the story you’re still going to be screaming “WHY????” at the screen as each new baffling stupid piece of the puzzle slots into place.

Diamanda Hagan has 0 time for this garbage and she’s going to walk you through each episode to show you how truly horrible this piece of garbage is.

Cry Plays: Ori and the Blind Forest

With Ori and the Will of the Wisps releasing recently, now is a great time to go and watch Cry playthrough the first Ori game. an absolutely gorgeous piece of work with a beautiful soundtrack and really likeable character designs and a sweet story, Ori is a great game to put on, sit back, and just let it wash over you. Cry’s playthrough is also great because although its a Metroidvania game, Cry fast forwards the parts where he backtracks for a long period of time, so you don’t get stuck watching him run back and forth as he tries to figure out where to go next or anything like that.

Cry also recently started playing the sequel as well!

If you enjoyed this list at all, please consider tipping me for a coffee

☕️ Ko-fi ☕️

[reviews-by-high]

Review: Blackkklansman

Caution: Light Spoilers Ahead.

If no one's ever told you: there’s movies, and there’s movies when you’re high. Then let me tell you that the adage is 100% true, and in the case of my stoned experience with BlaKkKlansman (10 August 2018, dir Spike Lee), the film is powerful. Now I’m not going to spend a lot of time focusing on the racial politics at play with the movie because what this film does well is make its message clear. Any reader who has seen the film will know that amongst the dialogue this film is creating, one more internet-white-dudes words and opinions on the matter of racial politics aren’t needed. Not that the voices and opinions aren’t valued or don’t belong in conversation, but that another voice to the left leaning internet-white-dudes representation isn’t really any more useful than one less internet-white-dudes voice and opinion on racial politics in media at this point. Now with that said, it’s pretty difficult to review this movie ― even as subjectively as this review is ― without having some mention of racial politics. It also should be said that this review contains light spoilers. I’ll be covering some scenes, specifically the three speech scenes, as well as addressing other included media in the film and performances in the film. However, I’ll be doing it as best I can to an extent that is sufficient without giving away then entire scene. Even if you read this review before seeing the movie I would encourage you to still go see the film in theaters.

The first powerful scene happens right away when director Spike Lee opens with a very famous scene from the American Racial Melodrama Gone With the Wind. Gone With the Wind was a huge hit in America at the time of its distribution (17 January 1940, dir Victor Fleming), much of this is due to its over sentimentalization and romantic view of the American South. The scene that Lee inducts from the American Racial Melodrama ends with a massive scope of wounded confederate soldiers all laying in the dirt while a tattered Confederate flag flaps in the wind. If you’re a film major there is a fuck ton of meaning to be unpacked in that one scene of Gone With the Wind. However, what I got out of seeing that scene again ― only this time in the frame of BlacKkKlansman ― after about 32 milligrams of an edible, was the  Southern way of life for the God Bless’d White America is under attack and it needs protectors. And who better than the Ku Klux Klan to be the ghostly white knights that aggressively protect that racially oppressive way of life. What a great fucking message (sarcasm). Then switch to resident “soul brother” and protagonist Ron Stallworth played by John David Washington. The quick cut from an old American racial melodramatic blockbuster to BlacKkKlansman’s Ron Stallworth isn’t going to be the last time the film makes very effective use of juxtaposition. In fact Lee uses scenes from previous American blockbuster movies again later in the film when the KKK is having a cult ritual movie-night party. The boys in white are all seated in front of a projector screen eating popcorn watching yet again, another American Racial Melodrama Epic, Birth of a Nation (released 3 March 1915, dir. D. W. Griffith). Now, Birth of a Nation is a film that, if an individual at any point of watching that film thinks something along the lines of “hmm ya know what, this film is pretty good!” Then that individual should definitely rethink how he or she views other people, specifically people whose skin color and ancestral homeland differ from their own. Because Birth of a Nation is nothing shy from a Ku Klux Klan hero story wrapped up in, again, an old time American Racial Melodrama. This time however, while the film plays and we see the faces of Ku Klux Klan members in BlacKkKlansman watching the film, Lee also does periodic cuts to both Stallworth’s face having to watch the racist film from a window outside the cult room, and cuts to Jerome Turner, an African American speaker sharing his stories of tragedy and violent persecution, with the black college student union. For this reason, Lee’s use of juxtaposition is powerful because it contrasts the God-Bless-White-America KKK narrative ideas to the lives of black individuals and the persecution of the black community here in America at the hands of racially fueled violence.

The film’s power however doesn’t stop at complex juxtaposition, there are three speech scenes where the audience is greeted to powerful monologues from three different individuals: Kwame Ture played by Corey Hawkins, Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard played by Alec Baldwin, and Jerome Turner played by famed musician and Civil Rights Movement activist Harry Belafonte. I already previously mentioned how Turner talks to the black student union about the horrors he saw and experienced at the behest of racially motivated violence so I won’t discuss his speech scene more, though I do HIGHLY encourage you and everyone else to discuss Turner’s speech with their friends and other viewers of the film. Adversely, the speech scene featuring Alec Baldwin’s Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard was equally powerful, but not for its recount of racially fueled violence, or its inspiration to the black community, but because in what may be Alec Baldwin’s most convincing performance that I’ve ever seen, we get to see the very process of a man degrade down a scary spiral into racial hate and bitter bigotry. What’s so compelling about Baldwin’s performance is that even if you watched the movie on mute, by facial expression, posture, body language, and mannerisms alone the progression seen in Dr. Beauregard is not only extremely powerful but speaks for itself. The speech embodied a call for keeping America pure and white like the country should be — according to Dr. Beauregard — either by “sending them back,” or through violent alternatives. What struck me more was that in combination of the fear I felt sitting in my seat during this scene, was that the whole performance looked almost as if Alex Jones himself (controversial I know) had gotten up in front of the movie theater and did a two hour segment where he falls down a slippery slope into yelling some terrifyingly prejudice shit into a camera lens and ultimately ends on “God Bless (white) America.” I couldn’t tell you exactly why it is, but my high ass was legitimately feeling fear. Lastly, I want to commend Corey Hawkins for his performance as Kwame Ture. Hawkins who is no stranger to playing biopic roles, having previously done an exceptional job as Dr. Dre in Straight Outta Compton (14 August 2015, dir F. Gary Gray), absolutely fucking delivers on his speech as Ture. It’s a speech that everyone should see, black or otherwise, because to be completely honest it’s pretty damn inspiring. It left me feeling energized and good, and I’m not even black. Though all speech scenes tend to suffer from heavy-handedness at some point, Hawkin’s performance and the structure of the speech is absolutely gripping. So gripping that as early on as the speech was — within the first fourth of the movie I’d say — it sets the tone for just how viscerally powerful the movie is.

Lastly, the performances in the film were phenomenal. John David Washington takes the trope of a “soul brother,” and the trope of a determined black cop (think Denzel Washington in Inside Man 24 March 2016, Spike Lee) and masterfully blends them together. Not only that but he plays a character who is performing whiteness over the phone, a possible call back (no pun intended) to Sorry To Bother You (6 July 2018, dir Boots Riley) as well as an actual recount of the events that happened in real life Ron Stallworth’s book Black Klansman: A Memoir (16 January 2014 Police and Fire Publishing, Ron Stallworth). In another multilayered performance, Adam Driver as Flip Zimmerman absolutely nails it as well. I will preface by saying that from Girls (15 April 2012, created by Lena Dunham) and This Is Where I Leave You (19 September 2014, Shawn Levy), to now BlacKkKlansman and even his role as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars films, I’m a fan of Adam Driver. Adam Driver’s performance as a more experienced undercover Jewish (albeit non-practicing) cop faking as a Ku Klux Klan member while having to impersonate Ron Stallworth’s voice to the best of his abilities, is so well done I’m nothing shy of utterly impressed once again by the actor. As for the rest of the rest of the Klansman, Felix, Ivanhoe, and Walter Breachway, actors Jasper Pääkkönen, Paul Walter Houser, and Ryan Eggold absolutely convinced me they were bitter, angry men with nothing but utter contempt for black Americans and Jewish peoples. The kind of guys who would join and adopt the ideology of the KKK. These actors gave a scary realistic portrayal of their characters. However, with that said, I’ll admit that Topher Grace as David Duke left me thinking only one thing, “How the fuck did Eric Foreman get into the KKK?” Because let’s be honest... I don’t think Topher Grace will ever do a more iconic role. Yet having Foreman as the leader of the KKK does fit nicely with the idea of Ron Stallworth putting his foot up the Klan’s ass. On an ending note I also want to acknowledge Laura Harrier’s performance as black activist, student leader, and love interest Patrice. She plays a vital representative role as a powerful individual and courageous black woman in a leadership role providing a platform for the black demographic in the films Colorado Springs setting. (I would talk more about setting is a character in this film but this post is already pretty lengthy, just know that Colorado Springs is historically far right-wing conservative.) What’s more is the importance in the dialogue between Patrice — who fights for black activism and fair treatment through speech, platform, and protest — and Stallworth who is fighting for the same cause but from within the system. The conversation and dichotomy between these two in the film is an important discussion on different methods to similar means.

Now I know there are A LOT of things this review didn’t cover, however it wasn’t really my aim to comprehensively cover BlacKkKlansman. More so it was to provide maybe a different perspective of thoughts and experience watching the film from what other more rudimentary reviews might say. Most importantly though, what this review is above all, is nothing more than me getting stoned, watching a cool movie, and then writing some words about it.

With that said, the last bit I want to leave you all with is there are a lot of small easter eggs in the film. Obviously there is the footage from Gone With the Wind and Birth of a Nation, but also the soundtrack uses the same theme — Steve Switcharoo by composer Terence Blanchard — as another famous Spike Lee movie, Inside Man. There are many more in the film and I’m sure I didn’t catch all of them, after all I was pretty baked.

As far as ratings go, Rotten Tomatoes gives BlacKkKlansman a 96%, Metacritic a 76%, and IMDb rates the film at 7.8/10. For those not familiar with my rating system, I use a system akin to John Oliver’s arbitrary and absurdist rating system. Therefore, with all said and done, between having-your-campsite-raided-by-bears-while-you’re-not-looking, and sky-diving-into-a-ball-pit-the-size-of-Lake-Erie, I give BlacKkKlansman a having-pizza-on-Sunday.

PM

p.s. I now want more buddy-cop thriller with John David Washington and Adam Driver.