Awoken (2013) by Serra Elinsen - Book Review

Given how it’s been almost three years since publication, and the persons involved have been quite open about it since, I’m once again going for the fact behind the veneer with this one. Serra Elinsen, as a person, doesn’t exist. As a writer, she is the pen name of the initially titled 50 Shades Of Green project, headed by  Team NChick (Lindsay, Nella and Elisa). After the monster success of 50 Shades Of Grey, they got together and basically crowd-sourced the next worst paranormal romance fiction book for teens, getting ideas for character and plot and so for forth from their many Twitter followers. It’s rare that I’ll go into a project and know pretty much every little intent of the piece itself, which you’d think would make looking at a book that was, by authorial admission, meant to be terrible a lot easier than the media I usually cover on here. Well, as I have shown previously during Meta Month, intentional badness is an abnormal form of writing but it is one that shares no fewer potential pitfalls in its execution. If anything, this material is far harder to pull off than it may seem. So, let’s get started with this Lovecraftian love story, featuring hot Cthulhu.

Top 20 Nostalgia Chick Episodes

Some of my more frequent readers (yep, all three of you) might recall some statements that I’ve made concerning modern feminism and, God help us, GamerGate. Without getting further into that big distracting sepulchre than we have to, know that a lot of the real arguments I have with the Nostalgia Chick are along those lines and… well, getting into political and socio-political matters aren’t exactly what I signed for this gig to do in the first place. Try not to read too heavily into that for an inkling on whether this is all coming from a Kotaku_In_Action guy or a GamerGhazi guy (although, for the record, I don’t really fall into either camp to begin with). Honestly, I’m more amazed at how this show actually ended up evolving as it went on. Starting out as a distaff counterpart for the Nostalgia Critic, Lindsay ended up shifting it more towards her traditionally trained point of view in regards to cinema and turned it into a more overall analytical approach that would go on to inspire its own niche in the reviewing market. As such, I’m choosing to honour this unexpected trendsetter with a rundown of what I believe are the top 20 best episodes of the Nostalgia Chick.

Special Mention: The Host Review

As usual, since this isn’t a part of the series proper (in fact, this is probably more in-line as a one-off special of 50 Shades Of Green more than anything else), it doesn’t get a numbered place on the list, but its worth is such that it deserved to be mentioned regardless. The Host itself holds a pretty major place in my growth as a critic, as watching it was the first stepping stone towards me watching films as religiously as I do now. But even without that in mind, seeing Lindsay and Nella go over just how plain broken this film is, along with its rather sexist attitudes towards sci-fi as a whole, is immensely satisfying to see. I also like how it ends on an unfortunately realistic note on the nature of female-lead genre films, where you end up laughing along with them and then a sudden downbeat feeling sets in about the current state of Hollywood.

#20: You’ve Got Mail

We’re at the stage where making fun of commercial plugs in videos has itself become as much of a cliché as its target, so episodes like this are a rarity in that its approach to that source of comedy actually works out. Through that, she mocks the film’s very rampant corporate tie-ins and the very tepid romance at its core, showcasing what is probably the most out-and-out bad of the Meg Ryan rom-comography.

#19: She-Ra: Princess Of Power

You know I’m a guy who loves good facial reactions, and this is another one of those picks. This was back during her more rudimentary days, so it doesn’t have much of the thematic breakdowns of her later work, but her riffing skills are still on point and she even throws in a slight nudge to the Critic’s rather homocentric critiques on works in the He-Man/She-Ra canon, while admitting that such jokes are kind of unavoidable with stuff like this. Also, favourite reaction face from her when she sees She-Ra heal an animal.

#18: The Christmas Shoes

The ultimate in Christmas cringe, this song and the attached TV movie that I still ashamed for now knowing exists are the kind of media that outright demand to be reviewed. Her outlying of how unintentionally asinine and borderline offensive the film’s message is, not to mention the insidiousness of the song it was borne from, is great and her reaction faces at times almost rival those from the She-Ra video.

#17: Jem And The Holograms

Yeah, back before the latest film iteration of the franchise, the original series was doing well enough on its own in terms of utter embarrassment. And speaking of which, the NChick team gets all glammed up in quite possibly some of the most intentionally ugly outfits I’ve seen and go over how the series really sucks, and yet there really isn’t that much to go over. Also, the musical montage of them trying to reverse the initial makeover is very funny.

#16: Blonde Girls Then And Now

This video is less Lindsay trying to rationalize the female pop scene of late, and more her trying to talk someone else off of a ledge as a response to it, even though she herself isn’t so content with the way things are. The way she starts out the video is “I’m here to tell: It’s okay”, a phrase that is repeated during the video, her analysis of singers like Lady Gaga, Ke$ha and Britney Spears carries with a certain despair that, for good or for ill, we’re stuck with them. It’s tragic on an astoundingly subconscious level, helped by how Lindsay herself twitches at some of the statements she makes within the video.

#15: Baby Whatever: Nostalgic Baby Dolls

Happy Meal Girl? HAPPY MEAL GIRL?! Someone greenlit this fucking idea?! Ahem… yeah, some of the toys found here range from the good, the bad and the “I pray that this doesn’t establish future behaviour”, but it gets even better when she and the rest of the NChick team mock up their own commercials for other ill-advised baby dolls. I have a certain fascination with marketing, and that’s essentially what this video amounts to: Marvelling at the demented genius that went into a lot of these products.

#14: My Little Pony

This video came out mere months before the premiere of the Friendship Is Magic series that would take the world by storm, which makes her arguments about the popularity of the franchise have an unexpected poignancy to them. She talks about the more interactive nature of the toys themselves, especially for the older fans, the content of the TV show and film (complete with creepy demon eyes) but this video is probably best remembered for Nella’s little fantasy epic involving her own MLP toys. Fun fact: Oancitizen first started getting noticed thanks to an analysis of that very story Nella told on the TGWTG forums. You can choose to irrationally love or loathe this video based purely on that factoid if you wish.

#13: Charlie’s Angels

As I started out with saying, I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with some of the feminist ideals espoused by Lindsay on her show, so you can imagine my surprise when this video came out and kind of turned my preconceptions on their heads. The whole video is a treatise on what is and what isn’t female empowerment and Lindsay seems to be poking fun at both sides of the argument as she goes, even out-and-out declaring feminism ‘dead’ as a reaction to the male-gaze-y nonsense in the film being reviewed.

#12: Top 10 Worst Disney Sequels

For all the fist-shaking I’ve done at films like Planes: Fire & Rescue, I am more than aware that the Disney sequel machine is capable of producing far worse. At least 10 things that are worse, as illustrated by Lindsay just breaking a little more each time the next pick is brought up. Just for a taste of how bad this list gets, previous review target Beauty & The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is indeed on the list, but it isn’t even the worst B&TB follow-up to be on there. Oh yeah. Lindsay well and truly went through the black hole to nab some of these titles.

#11: Kate And Leopold

I have made my own stance on the usual brand of female wish fulfillment in films many, many times before, but here is honestly where I have to tip my hat to a film that is just pure cheesecake that somewhat doesn’t immediately offend the senses. Maybe it’s got something to do with Hugh Jackman using the world’s supply of charm for his performance, which inspired not a good cavalcade of cameos in the review (complete with one of the Critic’s funniest moments) but also a final note that is could not possibly have been timed better if they tried. And yes, I double-checked: The film they mention is indeed real.

#10: The Little Mermaid

An internet critic having what is basically a hate intervention is already a compelling idea for a video, but when it’s connected to something that is held dear by a lot of Disney fans out there, it pushes past that into a compelling video in it of itself. The musical rebuttals from Nella and Elisa as well as Marzgurl, PushingUpRoses and Obscurus Lupa mix well with Lindsay’s pretty solid reasoning for disliking the film as she does, creating a good balanced perspective on the film overall. Also, bonus points for making a running gag out of avoiding a rather infamous bit of artwork on the original VHS cover for the thing.

#9: Top Ten Viral Videos From The Ancient Internet (Before YouTube)

A tribute to ye olden days of Internet memes, this video came as something of a minor revelation as a number of the videos mentioned like Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me and Moscow are things that little 20-year-old me remembers from back in the dial-up years. If nothing else, this video ranks up on here because it actually brought some mild clarity to the question of why I even knew who Dschinghis Khan was. It’s also nice to see a rundown of how a lot of what used to be popular online (read: copious randomness) ended up dictating an entire generation of content creators in the YouTube era.

#8: Reality Bites

Performed as an internal monologue via a letter to the 90’s about the current amount of nostalgia concerning the era, this review goes into the heavy sheen of hipster irony covering the film in question. Having watched Reality Bites after seeing this review, I don’t agree with every issue she has with it but she definitely gets across how the privileged mindset of the time seems really freaking petty in hindsight. Her comparisons to other media like The Lonely Island and Trainspotting to help illustrate the point are very well picked out as well.

#7: Disaster Movies Of Roland Emmerich

Released smack-dab in the middle of the Dark Nella arc, which is easily one of the weaker attempts at storylines out there, Lindsay details the Emmerich to the smallest detail. Even with her begrudging enjoyment of Independence Day, this video probably helped cement a lot of the issues I have with Emmerich’s work in my own mind, whereas Kyle’s review of Anonymous put the final nail in the coffin. After watching this, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to see any of his films the same way again… provided you have the intestinal fortitude to sit through any of them more than once.

#6: The Sexual Awakening Of The Human Nerd

A nice mixture of cringe and reaction comedy as Nella and Elisa don their Dr. Block and Dr. Tease smocks and go around MAGFest interviewing reviewers about their own geeky sexual awakening. What helps with this whole setup is that there are varying degrees of willingness to play along among the crowd, from the more valiant like Sage and Marzgurl to the ones who just keep breaking like Angry Joe. While the experiment itself is a bit aimless, the results do bring up some interesting questions about childhood media’s impact on one’s own sexuality. But, as you can no doubt tell by now, I’m leaving questions like that for the professionals to ponder; I feel awkward enough pretending I know thing one about cinema in the first place.

#5: Les Misérables: The Musical

Unpopular opinion incoming but I like this review better than the Nostalgia Critic Les Mis review. The way Lindsay manages to blaze through the incredibly thickly-laden story of both the original novel and the musical adaptation as quickly as she did, with considerate effort, is definitely commendable and the renditions of the songs by the reviewers are very good. I especially like JewWario messes with Lindsay a little with a very funny lyric alteration.

#4: TLC And The 90’s

Definitely the most emotionally personal episode, Lindsay looks into the history and music of TLC, in particular her fascination and admiration for rapper Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez. What starts out as a look at the group’s highs, lows and whatever the hell you call someone burning down a house, it suddenly shifts at the end to an extremely tender revelation from Lindsay about not only the unfortunate passing of Left Eye but also the then-recent death of Amy Winehouse. Good God, the feels on this thing are immense, just hearing her pour her heart and soul out about not only their deaths but also that of a friend’s that ties into the events going on. Got to admit, I’m getting a little weepy-eyed just writing about this thing.

#3: Nostalgic Foods Of Yore

This is basically a head-on collision between nostalgias past and present, as no less than Mara friggin’ Wilson, Matilda herself, sits in as Lindsay and Nella partake in some of the more ill-advised snack foods of their youth. It’s essentially a Tries video at its core, so most of the enjoyment is gotten out of the reactions to some of the stuff (Mara in particular has some great quips here), but just the mere existence of this video that unites two things that were seriously important to my personal upbringing (Matilda and Internet critics) in such a way is just amazing to me. Yeah, they had worked together on Lindsay’s review of Matilda before, but this is the one that is more fun to watch at the end of the day. Also, be warned: There’s a Lady And The Tramp re-enactment that may just destroy your childhood if you remember her child acting to any degree.

#2: Ender’s Game

As someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time advocating for the separation of the art from the artist, it’s little surprise that a video discussing exactly that would score major points with me. She goes over the titular book, written by quite prominent homophobe Orson Scott Card, and discusses how one’s personal views may or may not affect one’s work and others’ enjoyment of it. It may date the discussion by tying it into the Chik-fil-A debacle along similar lines, but her going over the moral implications next to a want for decent product makes it a worthy addition to what is already a very understandable perspective on the matter.

#1: Freddy Got Fingered

After my last Top 20 list, this pick should come as no real surprise but, yeah, the big collab between Lindsay and Kyle is the #1 choice. Going against the usual standards for Kyle’s crossovers, Lindsay manages to match him for analytical prowess as she mingles her own youth watching/listening/beholding Tom Green on MTV with her look at how… wat the film is as a whole. Kyle’s attempts to contextualize the film as a darker subversion of the usual Adam Sandler fare make some degree of sense, but at the end of the day, it just ain’t good. Kyle’s cry of “It’s too normal to be Dada! It’s too shit to be anything else!”, coupled with the… awkward situation he finds himself in at the time, is amazing and the finale, featuring how Lindsay and Kyle take out their aggression at the film, is painfully hilarious.

Next time, we'll be looking at a book that looks into just how intentionally bad a writer can take things, all done by a person that may or may not even exist.

Top 20 Oancitizen Videos

-sition. Ah, Oancitizen. For all his pretences of avoiding… well, pretence, some of his works concerning Shakespeare adaptations do carry faint whiffs of such in the guy’s wording. Not only that, he is one in a long list of people that should probably not have a Twitter account, as the guy is growing a certain notoriety for his long pity parties for one and his in-fighting with certain producers. And he’s also my absolute favourite reviewer. In fact, I’ve taken to calling this guy my ‘guru’ with how much I actively want to convey even a tenth of the wisdom and humour that Kyle Kallgren manages in the majority of his videos. Let it be known that the following Top 20 videos list is centred on a guy who is one of the few people that I honestly look up to as an influence, even with how much time has passed. And with that, before my inner fanboy gets into any more embarrassing territory, here are my picks for the Top 20 best Oancitizen videos.

Special Mention: 9 Songs

This only gets a special mention, rather than a place on the list proper, because the best part about it is its introduction. That said, the intro to this video contains some of the most nimble blue humour of anything I’ve ever seen and, given how I’m supposed to showing off this guy’s abilities with this list, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give some credit to one of his funniest moments.

#20: Eraserhead

Yet another April Fool’s Day gag review, this shows a venue for April foolery that isn’t used nearly enough. Basically, he creates his own lo-fi production about a pencil trying to make it in the big city and passes that off as the David Lynch classic. It genuinely reaches Adult Swim Infomercial levels of surreal hilarity, particularly when the pencil’s best friend, a chicken nugget, turns on him.

#19: Between The Lines: The Beatles

An easy excuse for Kyle to showcase his more-than-capable singing voice is great on its own, but the fact that he is able to break down the finer points of poetry in such an easily digestible way is what puts this video where it is on the list. This notion of highlighting the artistry that goes into elements of popular culture is one of the big reasons I like this guy so much; he doesn’t so much highlight arthouse media as much as he often highlights popular media as being more artsy than people may think.

#18: Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai

The meeting point between arthouse cerebral drama and hip-hop flavoured gangster flicks, this collaboration with the Rap Critic is another occasion that seems to bring the best out of both of them. Kyle delves into the film’s cinematic sensibilities, courtesy of indie favourite Jim Jarmusch, while RC discusses its importance within the realms of music, given its place in history as one of the defining moments when the hip-hop aesthetic officially broke through into the realms of cinema. Or, as Kyle himself puts it, where the old gangster meets the new gangsta. It concludes with Kyle rapping, of course, and while his flow and cadence needs some serious work if he ever wants to attempt this sort of thing again, it holds up lyrically and condenses a lot of the reviewer’s larger details down to a single freestyle over Wu-Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M. Much like the film itself, this video shows a great intersection between the two cultures.

#17: Exterminating Angels

One of Kyle’s greatest strengths as a critic is how much he focuses on the theory behind the film as opposed to just taking the film at face value, always keeping its relevant context at the forefront. This sometimes leads to him enhancing the film by bolstering its dramatic or socio-political weight, as you’ll see further on down the list. But sometimes, it results in exposing the director of the subject as the sexist piece of garbage that he is, as is the case here. Based on a true story that you’d think would want to be kept under wraps, he tries to give credit where it’s due in the film’s purpose as a means for the director to examine his past actions, but through some extremely back-handed execution, he only ends up making himself look even worse, making for some great comedic fodder for the show.

#16: The Brown Bunny

The vanity project to end all vanity projects, complete with the director literally being fellated on camera by his co-star, this is more a showcasing for Kyle’s underappreciated skill at riffing. From his jokes about the director/star’s somewhat unnerving visage, to the mocking of the disjointed plot elements, to his brilliant reaction to the big twist at the end that puts the film’s sole memorable moment into question, Kyle may be at his most enthralling when he’s flexing intellectual muscle… but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t fantastic when he’s trying to be out-and-out funny either.

#15: The Idiots

This is a film about a group of people who pretend to be mentally handicapped in public for the perks(?) It’s like shooting ableist fish in a barrel, but trust Kyle to give this display of misanthropic dickery an unprecedented amount of pathos. Directed by the show’s resident punching bag Lars Von Trier, whose work will appear again later on down the list, he pushes past the extremely unseemly surface and grabs at the film’s emotional core for all to see. It takes a lot of work to make a film like this seem worth watching, and even more so without it coming across as facetious nonsense, but here’s the guy who pulled it off.

#14: The Lion King, Or The History Of King Simba I

He concluded his previous iteration of Shakespeare Month on a note of what Shakespeare means to people. This time around, one year later, he goes into a more cerebral conclusion by looking at what is Shakespeare by delving into what is widely considered to be one of the more popular ‘inspired by Shakespeare’ films with Disney’s The Lion King. Starting out by completely heading off the obvious Hamlet comparisons off at the pass, he instead goes into comparing it different stories. Starting off with King Henry I, then ancient African folk stories, then to every other Shakespearean play that it shares similarities with, he ultimately reaches a conclusion that, for a guy who discusses the Bard as much as he does, is at once surprising and affecting: Maybe it just doesn’t matter.

#13: Tromeo & Juliet

Admittedly, this crossover is a little depressing in retrospect given how these two aren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment, but that still isn’t enough to detract from how well Kyle and the Cinema Snob work off of each other. From the plethora of Shakespeare jokes from Oancitizen (his rattling off of different porn parody names is hilarious, to the point where even Brad cracks up a bit on camera) to the finely-honed riffing skills of the Snob, they’re a perfect match for this weird mash-up of Shakespearean text and Troma-style B-movie antics. Fun fact: The writer of T&J was also behind the Guardians Of The Galaxy movie.

#12: Häxan

In keeping with the structure of the film itself (a silent film), Oancitizen goes full gimmick and does the review in the style of a silent film, complete with gloriously over-the-top acting. Marrying a suitable gimmick to a subject is one thing, but all the points go to how well it is executed here, never feeling bogged down due to its lack of dialogue (or, in Kyle’s case, monologue) as he looks at one of the most surprisingly influential films you have likely never heard of.

#11: Gerry REDUX

If you’re going to commit to a do-over of a previous review, there needs to be some damn good reasoning for doing so. This time around, involving easily one of the slowest crawls of a film to ever be released, it comes down to four simple words: Inspired by Tomb Raider. Taking that slice of newly-found info and morphing it into probably one of the best responses to GamerGate ever conceived (all without even bringing up the debate itself at any point), Kyle looks at the relationship between video games and films and how much the two borrow from each other. This results in him bringing a surprising amount of sense to the impossibly sluggish pacing of the film itself which, while interesting, still isn’t quite enough to forgive the film’s overall issues.

#10: How To Speak Movie

Probably the most straight-up lecture-y of his entire videography, this 3-part series is meant to serve as a small phrasebook for filmmaking techniques involving camerawork, mise en scene (what is shown on camera) and editing. What makes it work so well is that not only are the examples he uses pitch perfect for each technique, but his way of depicting each aspect as a form of literacy (words, tone and sentence structure) makes it amazingly easy to digest. I freely admit that I regularly come back to these videos for quick tune-ups every now and then, and this is probably the most obvious example of me having gaining a better appreciation and understanding for film after watching it.

#9: Between The Lines: Inception

What begins as a look into the film’s ‘surrealism’ credibility, comparing it to works by Satoshi Kon and David Lynch, turns into an interpretation of the film as a metaphor for filmmaking. As Kyle twists and turns through the comparisons and the analysis of the film’s dream logic, which seems to put far emphasis on the logic than the dream, he reaches a conclusion that, in lesser hands, would come across as astoundingly pretentious. However, between the lead-up and the genuine thought and care put into the words and perspectives given on the film as a whole, it is legitimately one of those mind-blowing moments that only ever get joked about happening.

#8: Angels In America

I feel bad that even one review on this list made it purely because of the subject matter, given Kyle’s talent at warping the films he reviews into discussion on a wide variety of topics, but if I had to pick one it couldn’t be any other than this. Looking into the still criminally underrated HBO miniseries, he does his usual contextual wizardry that puts the already amazing material on a grander pedestal, all the while making it just about the perfect subject matter for a review as part of the Red Ribbon Reviewers project. His closing words still send shivers down my spine every time I hear them, both his own and the quote from the play itself.

#7: Blue

How does a person realistically justify a film that only shows a single shade of blue, accompanied with voice-over narration, for its entire running time? Quite easily, it turns out, as Kyle delves into the confinements of the cinematic medium and the background of the film’s production that, when combined, lead to a remarkably potent realization that this film might indeed be a genuine work of art. Yeah, ignore my earlier pokes at his more pretentious side; when he makes statements like this, he makes damn sure that they are backed up.

#6: Vase De Noces

Before clicking on the above video (if you decide to do so), please be advised that this film is better known in film circles as “The Pig Fucking Movie”. While fighting the urge to burn things, Kyle goes into the many ways that this film uses its… questionable subject matter to confounding effects, including some of the most bizarre music choices of any film he’s reviewed. And then we get to the ending skit with Phelous and Brad Jones, where he brings up an interesting point about how bad movies are regarded in the realms of Internet critiquing, reaching some rather nuanced points about the medium.

#5: A Serbian Film

Sometimes, attempting to look for a deeper meaning behind a film pales in comparison to the sheer hatred felt towards said film. There is no better example of this than A Serbian Film, one of the few films I can honestly see being remembered by the general public decades from now… for all the wrong reasons. He actively tries to hold back his contempt for the film as he goes over Serbian history and the film’s attempt at political satire, before just self-destructing and taking the idea of critical rage to its furthest logical point: By calling in a nuclear strike on Serbia. Yeah, it’s dark shit, but his and Ed Glaser’s banter helps keep the ridiculous over-reaction within its boundaries.

#4: Beauty And The Beast

Kyle’s crossover persona usually involves increasing the snooty levels ten-fold, and while that has led to some impressive results with the right team-up (set against Obscurus Lupa’s simplicity, Film Brain’s analytical nature, etc.) but this is easily the best use of his Crossover!Oancitizen personality. The entire review, which is a musical by the way with some damn funny numbers, is a duel between Oancitizen’s love for more European-tinted cinema of Cocteau’s Beauty And The Beast and A Jerk With A Camera’s appreciation for the populist take of the Disney version. Rather than pushing one point of view over another, both are presented for their respective positives and negatives and how they always end up balancing each other out by the end. Also, best Twilight reference ever given how it leads to a moment that you literally couldn’t make up if you tried.

#3: Anonymous

As you can probably tell from the majority of this list, the guy has a real Shakespeare fixation on his main show Brows Held High. So it should come as no surprise that this review would show the pinnacle of that ilk, where Kyle not only slashes through every bit of historical inaccuracy contained within (which is quite a lot, given this is Roland Emmerich we’re talking about here) but also taking a certain prideful joy in tearing apart the Anti-Stratfordian theory that fuels not only the film’s core story but the mindset that created it in the first place. Putting the audience, himself and even Emmerich into the context of the theory itself, he shows a breadth of knowledge and respect for the auteur that even his past work wasn’t able to reach.

#2: This Is Not A Film

While the review itself may start out on too upbeat of a note (which, admittedly, is warranted as Kyle goes on to explain), that’s not nearly enough to detract from how well he places the film in question in its appropriate cultural context. As a result, through just talking about a man who literally isn’t allowed to make films anymore, he creates a video that is absolutely inspiring to watch with how it portrays the film’s existence as one of the more surprisingly badass notions possible: Filmmaking itself as a means of political rebellion. The way he goes into the director’s backstory involving cinema as well as Iranian cinematic culture (leading to easily the best music gag I’ve ever heard when discussing the Iranian New Wave that you might actually miss if you aren’t looking out for it), it imbues the film (and the review itself) with this insatiable air of inspiration that almost demands the creative process to grow within a human being. Needless to say, whenever I feel myself getting burnt out and/or lacking drive when writing a review, this is my go-to video.

#1: Melancholia

I wrestled with myself on what would ultimately take the top spot on the list. What ended up tipping the scale in this review’s favour is that while the TINAF review is downright inspiring, this review is emotionally affecting on so many other levels. While delving into this weirdly fantastical and very downbeat depiction of depression, Kyle delves into his own depressed state and showcases the kind of “it’s kind of creepy how accurate this is” emotive writing that rarely if ever gets to be seen. I made brief mention of it before back when I reviewed Inside Out, but I do suffer from clinical depression myself and… I don’t even think I have the words to express how much it means to me that an Internet reviewer, a creator in a medium that I regularly make use of to get through some pretty dark times, is able to articulate the more finite points of this very harrowing experience this fucking precisely. It also helps that, much like Inside Out, the darker points are balanced out by some damn good jokes, particularly with the Muppets comparison that is confounding in how much sense it makes. I’ve used this phrase before with other reviewers, but I have never meant it more than I do now: Un. Dying. Loyalty.

Much as how I believe myself to be heavily influenced by the reviewer I have just spent nearly 3000 words talking about, he himself was no doubt influenced by others. Specifically, as he explained in his Melancholia review funnily enough, the critic I’ll be highlighting next time who started out as a makeshift clone of yet another popular critic, and then morphed into something else entirely.