User blog:Thebiggesttdifan/Dyna consumes media, February 2017

this is some stuff I watched in the last few weeks, mostly a couple movies, not really anything special, and my opinions on it

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
I came into this movie like feb 19th as a suggestion from my pal toadgamer80 and I came away a little surprised at how much I really enjoyed it? and how that like for it hasn't gone away over the past few weeks. I had heard of scott pilgrim before but only was vaguely aware of it. basically what I knew about it was:
 * that pretty good song by Metric that's in the film, somewhere, I guess
 * it's Canadian
 * edgar wright did it, master of visual comedy and stuff
 * Video Games™

and...idk, I'm a fan of all those things, but I'm not like, the world's biggest fan. I suppose what makes this one work so well for me, specifically, is the fact that its themes are all retro games, basic nostalgia, the life of an insecure overgrown teenager, stuff I understand. it's high-energy, oddly high-stakes cult nerd fare, but it works a hell of a lot better than something like, say, Big Hero 6--partly because of what I mentioned above, and partly because it Understands Itself.

I'm not like any kind of. dude who knows anything about film, but Scott Pilgrim specifically knew how to make itself work because its pacing and its effects and its art direction and style all jibed with its energy. There is so much going on that it gets hard to formulate what really is the biggest concern, but that Works because it all appeals to you. it's fast-paced and interesting visually and that serves as a great medium.

mostly because I think the movie's actual super strength is Dialogue which is like. all fantastic. I haven't seen Juno but I feel like if you took every cringey line juno had and dialed it back a bit so that it was funny you'd get Scott Pilgrim's main. love arc, you'd get their voices. and then the rest of the gang, everyone else, despite a prettyl imited amount of screentime all manages to survive on their own. Hell Scott Pilgrim's band is probably the least-developed plot bit in the movie and yet that's the one I keep coming back to because. even that has so many good moments and dialogue.

there was a lot to love about this movie really. I don't rate movies but i'd probably give this an A, in terms of movies. it's weird that it didn't do better, I feel like I knew it existed in 2010

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
so I watched this a day later and maybe I was expecting to be as enthralled as I was with SPvTW? but. no, not really. Napoleon dynamite is, under most circumstances, the kind of movie I would really be into--a low-stakes movie about interesting dudes in an interesting location, basically living their lives in a mostly unrelated way. and yet there wwas something fundamentally Off about it. the comedy--every bit--gels well enough on its own, but together it falls apart. the characters are individually funny but they lack any kind of connection that really explains why they're all...paired together, idk.

and I realized a coupel days after watching it that the movie was An 80s Movie, quintessentially, but without an 80s protagonist, like. a ferris beuller or the 1500 characters fred savage played, to hold it together. so instead you get these side characters who are somehow in the spotlight, who I guess you have to root for? idk, since this movie is less interested in layers and complexity and fine-tuning than scott pilgrim i'll give it a basic analysis as punishment. take that Jared Hess and Jon Heder, the two men primarily responsible for this film, who made a better return on it than like. most other movies in 2004


 * best character: pedro, who spends most of the movie looking unamused. it would have been more interesting if he was the protagonist since as a Mexican immigrant dude he is so thoroughly disconnected from the clearly weirdo-weird-weirdo world Idaho is framed as. pedro is the most relatable, he has the best reactions and plots, and he is the funniest. a runner-up is Uncle Rico, who is a good dip into the oddities of the world, and played super frickin well, but whose main motivation has fuck all to do with the rest of the movie and he feels out of place as hell because of that. Deb is cool and a good subdued acting thing too
 * worst character: Kip. A weird ass out of place gimmick like kip basically hurt napoleon dynamite for me entirely? Kip has no relevance to napoleon's crises or issues or wants. i don't even know how he's related to Napoleon, he's just in the movie to look funny, date the movie by chatting on the Internet with Hot Babes™ and wear a gangster outfit because ha ha race. Kip would be funny if his presence was wtf but he's clearly supposed to be like. a real character with ambitions and shit, yet he has nothing to do with anything and seems highly implausible so the realism argument doesn't make sense either! your mom goes to college wasn't even funny in context

there are a lot of weird, yet at-home scenes in napoleon dynamite I really do like. there is a lot to like, in general. but together the movie is stitched and forced as hell, napoleon is for the most part unlikable (even if I did end up really liking everything that led to the dance) and just. it didn't end up really appealing to me. it's probably not cuddly enough. if I rated movies I'd give this like a B-, because hey, nerds

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
the first extended joke in this movie is Mike Myers taking a long piss. This is not a well-thought-out comedy. also I haven't seen a ton of Bond movies so everything to do with Austin himself and especially his gf doesn't really strike a chord with me. Dr. Evil is, at times, hilarious, but most of his tropes dr. doofenshmirtz already perfected in a medium more appealing to general audiences with a better foil to contrast with. also the movie makes 1997 feel really low-stakes and Especially Dated, but hey, that's pre-9/11 action movies (even fake action movies) for ya. this is probably like a C+, on my scale

Daria (season 1) (1997)
daria is hurt by an inconsistent scope and some regrettable attempts to be Wacky, and also many things are too-broad sendups of late-90s mainstream values that don't really hold true today. the worst episode is the camping one, and despite a lot of notice for The Misery Chick I've seen on the internet over the years the best episode is Road Worrier, which actually deals with hella monotone hella snarky hella I Am Too Cool To Look Or Do Anything Cool daria morgendorffer feeling vulnerable and self-conscious, and in the end not achieving a remote amount of closure or good karma for these new setbacks.

overall Daria is at its best really, really low-key, and focused deeply on the personalities of teenagers in shitty situations. The adults are probably the show's weakness, because aside from arguable Mr. O'Neill they all feel like very broad sendups. I expected Jake to be my favorite character but after a full season he shows almost no depth beyond a ton of neuroticism which he basically tries his best to repress and as a result ends up playing virtually no role in his extremely active wife's life. a lot of the cultural examinations on Daria require a v 90s mindset, and things in the show that Are That have mostly become ordinary or obsolete by this point. so I don't really think they're worth talking about. good, smart, feministical show, overall, so I'm gonna keep watching

Did you did you,  did you know that?   I can lift a car up all by myself 23:52, March 2, 2017 (UTC)