Episode review: L.A. Jay (The Critic)

 There is a clear line between creativity and commercializing. Hollywood banks off of hype and blind interest from fans of a property, or just seek to make a quick picture that's bound to make bank. There's no substance, and it's all backed behind a pretty face.

Kinda like the cartoon community, where it's all just a bunch of personalities feeding basic points all for the sake of ad revenue and that Patreon moolah, plus plenty of views by people who don't know any better. If cartoons were politics I'd be a socialist.

The fact that I'm talking about a show that pokes fun at the Hollywood system that happens to be a cartoon is justification for those ludicrous statements.

Breakdown

So, The Critic, I hate it, I think it laid seeds for generally toxic personalities on the internet, ask the Nostalgia Critic, or the Cinema Snob.

Back then people considered it to be an intelligent series willing to poke fun at things no one else would at the time, and some still do (because they don't know any better.) In reality, The Critic was a vapid, pretentious comedy with an illusion of something grander, full of unlikable characters that the show expects you to feel sorry for, the lack of courage to make fun of actual movies, an authoritarian perspective on film criticism, and seeds for suspicion that Mike Reiss is homophobic (why else would he make a gay minstrel cartoon?) Oh yeah, it's ugly too.

In some twisted way, The Critic is basically a spiritual predecessor to Family Guy in terms of how many references they cram into every episode, as well as constant reliance on fat and gay jokes (it's just as bad if they're so rampant.), and ironically, Jay Sherman looks to be more of a mockery of than a representation of the more refined movie buff, when in actuality he's the basis for the creators' obsession with Siskel and Ebert, they even had an episode I covered not too long ago.

A smart show would seek to find the negative in things no one would think to look, but they stuck with incredibly easy topics, topics that would shield them from criticism since they're so universal in how people feel about them.

People only care about relevance and money, and it shows now more than ever.

The Episode

L.A. Jay has one of the most basic Hollywood-deconstruction plots I've ever seen, both paint by numbers and hampered by its own humor.

Jay writes a movie script and wants to pitch it to Hollywood, shit ensues, that's the plot in general. We never do get to see what kind of film he wrote, all for the sake of artificial sympathy, but the script is great, according to some very likely biased readers.

I take it the lack of info on the script is meant to put this into a general context, but I guess that means Al Jean and Mike Reiss think everyone in general are fat, balding, fey, pretentious and overtly obnoxious.

The entire plot is very basic, the only thing carrying it along are jokes, and I mean it like they try to preserve interest through some very weak-ass gags, but when we get to them.

Jay's up against one of the most blase Hollywood producers out there. Oh gee, I wonder if the producer will be a Jewish man abiding to stereotypes created by pretentious dickbags? I wonder I wonder I wonder I wonder I wonder- Complexity isn't your friend in this show.

Jay is forced to headline another film supervised by the studio he's at, and of course it's gonna be commercialized garbage, not saying it in favor to the plot, but because of how obvious it is. This show is meant to be smart, so I gotta hold it to that standard.

Apparently the people behind this hate Ghostbusters, just felt like letting you know.

So the plot is bare to none, what're the gags like? Well they have one where Jay meets with potential directors for his movie, among them are Oliver Stone, Francis Ford Coppola and Spike Lee. I don't like these directors very much, one is incredibly out of place for the kinds of films he helmed, one is preachy, the other is potentially a threat. Let me break it down.

Oliver Stone here just goes into some rambling. I have a radically different perspective on Stone, I feel he's way out of the realm of political activism, Natural Born Killers was in-cohesive, plus other things I don't feel comfortable admitting to. This was just confusing at best.

Spike Lee... I guess is mostly accurate, but I feel it would've been cool to take further stabs at his beliefs. Did he dress like a stereotypical African native in the 90s? If not then I think that's another thing against Reiss, there're already a lack of major black characters in this show.

Lee technically came last, but that's because I wanted to really tear into Francis Ford Coppola. We have a man who had violated the law for at least one movie, and here's a big one, congregated with a pedophile, discovering him in the first place, visiting him in prison, and even helping produce two of his films post conviction.

But apparently the third Godfather movie is the most offensive of Coppola's sins. Hear me out, this show is heralded as being by movie fans for movie fans, even airing in reruns on a movie channel, and they just so happened to not look deeper into something shocking? Are you telling me these guys only followed pedestrian knowledge on this show? Or is everyone on it a pedophile too?

I'm harping on this because no one else will ever.

Not to mention we have one of the worst pop culture gags I've ever seen. The joke is that ugly losers drive fancy cars, then the Elephant Man comes in. That's it. That's the joke. Duckman did a better Elephant Man joke, hell, Duckman was a better show.

Other highlight, Arnold Schwarzenegger is apparently weak.

After a predictable cops on black driver joke, things get confusing. Did Jay intend to make his movie as bad as possible? I mean maybe he did. Confused is the wrong term here, I mean apathetic, I figured it out sooner than I thought.

The movie turns out to be soulless, but it's made worse as it's a crappy statement against box-office magnets, forced, going after a movie a lot of people like, and Ed Koch for some reason. Jay is glad the movie sucks, too bad this episode gave me no reason to feel bad for him.

Overall

If you wanna take a stab at the Hollywood system, you have the right, but you gotta make it good if you wanna make a point. As a deconstruction on Hollywood it sucks because the ideas behind it are carried out so vaguely you can't feel bad for anyone, not to mention this feels like it'd appeal strictly to screenwriters and no one more. As just a basic comedy romp it sucks because as it's reference-based, if you don't know the reference, you won't know the joke, and the jokes you may recognize are so flat, you'd seriously question if this was ever that good of a show.

Other shows did this concept better. Duckman basically had its course of events occur due to a vanilla family film, and the producer was over the top enough to keep things interesting, plus we had a much better Arnold appearance. Not to mention both episodes allude to the rejection of a lesbian script. While one is a footnote, the other is treated like it has weight.

If you want a good take on the Hollywood system, check out the Mission Hill episode Plan Nine from Mission Hill, a clever romanticized parody on the making of Plan 9 from Outer Space, and one that provides a more sympathetic take on personal visions in classic movies. In other words, it doesn't lecture us.

I don't have a clever closing line.

Night of the Twisters review

 Am I really gonna lose my mind on the logistics behind the tornadoes in some cheap TV movie? Probably not, because I'm not here to nitpick, I'm here to determine if something is at the very least enjoyable.

Background

Night of the Twisters was directed by Timothy Bond, a director who's primairly rooted in horror and science fiction, having directed for The Outer Limits, Goosebumps and The Lost World (not Jurassic Park, a solitary television series it was), the 80s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, something called The Shadow Men and even had a hand in Friday the 13th... The Series.

But on Friday the 13th, it's astounding how many people can be traced to it. You know the director of Cyber Seduction? He directed the sixth installment of Friday the 13th. The guy who directed the fifth Silent Night Deadly Night movie? Wrote for three Friday the 13th Movies. The guy who voiced Link in that crappy Zelda cartoon? Appeared in Jason X, I'm not shitting you, just myself.

The production behind this movie is a tree of trivia, and since there's no other place to talk about it, suck it up and read on.

This was the very first film produced by Porchlight Entertainment, who you may know for producing Tutenstein and The Secret Saturdays, as well as those lesser known holiday specials you've seen on Cartoon Network in the mid-2000s.

Another producer I can name is Atlantis Communications, soon to be one-half in the now defunct Alliance Atlantis. Like Bond, they have their roots in science fiction and horror. They have produced the last season of the first revival of The Twilight Zone, they produced The Outer Limits (revival), Ray Bradbury Theater, some dark comedy I may cover one of these days but probably not, and the scariest one of all, Nickelodeon's Wild Side Show.

The film had remained in circulation on television until around 2004. I'd go into the actors, but I don't know them from anything but this movie. Well aside from one guy. This was apparently an early acting role for Dan Petronijevic, who you may know as Hitch from Moville Mysteries and (most definitely) Geoff from Total Drama. He also has roots in horror and sci-fi, appearing in Are You Afraid of the Dark and Goosebumps.

Apparently Ontario doesn't have a dedicated voice acting union, as many voice actors from there have also appeared in some live-action roles.

But anyways, the movie

Night of the Twisters is loosely (shocked) based on the book of the same name by Ivy Ruckman, based on the 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak, which the book itself is loosely based on. The film takes place in... Blainsworth? I'm not gonna question the ethics on using a fictional name, but come on, you already got the title of a book based on real events, least you could do is commit.

To be fair, they didn't actually shoot this in Nebraska, so they had to make up a town to fit the area they're in. You're probably expecting this to be shot in Vancouver, but instead, this was shot in Ontario, namely Kleinburg. Ontario is like Canada's equivalent to New York, and it's so nice even they can be sick of the concept.

Starting off, I like how they get right into what we're here for. Foreward, I'm no expert on meteorology, I had a friend of mine voice heavy criticism on the logistics of the tornadoes in this, but it's on a journal I posted I can't find these days. I won't comment on how the tornadoes are portrayed here because I have no knowledge on them, I just wanna see if this is at least a decent experience otherwise.

At the very least we start with what we came for, the storm, I'm not gonna get too wrapped up about the progression here, but for our first taste of the special effects, I've seen Demon Island, I'm numb to bad effects at this point. I'm more bothered by how a child's gift to her mother is blown away and they don't care about it. I mean that could just be me.

And yeah the acting isn't that good so far, shocker of the century.

We then get to our lead, participating in blase bike race, but then again I'm the same guy who champions for fake video game scenes to not make it seem like the game is more exciting than it actually is. We meet our lead... Dan, who manages to stick a nice burn on a bully, but it's not a fair match as his insult is plain at best.

Is it a bike race or a marathon, who cares, it's not imperative to the plot I'm sure. For anyone citing nostalgic yearning for riding your bike, the only thing stopping you is yourself and the weather, you can keep distance from others (end que social distancing reference)

We then meet the dad, who I'm willing to bet is one of those "I'm a jackass but I still love my son, I guess." types. I should know, I have one. Let's see, turns down logic because of an unchecked ego, runs a small business and considers that like it has meaning, and likes football.

I say that like it's a bad thing because during a football toss, Dan has to cut out of the way and crashes his bike, wrecking it, then we get clunky foreshadowing... nearly a minute after the fact.

Dan's basically an angsty fuck, but if his father is as bad as I think he is, an ass breeds an ass. I do like how he turns down a share of licked ice cream though, and not to mention, mind over matter, don't let blue collar assholes dull your minds. On the topic, I get it, we need a firm push if we wanna accomplish anything, but a lighter push can hold greater benefits, a harsh criticism can have an equal impact if delivered softly, because we feel like we're just in a gentle conversation and we can process the meat of it, rather than just see it as an asshole shitting out their mouth.

I say this because Dan was merely competing in a charity race, no money would be at stake for him.

We see a yankee in a cowboy hat, I'd question if this was too far north for that to be possible, but I imagine this would fly better in Montana, Wyoming, even some parts of Colorado and Oregon which I'd call the wild east.

Meanwhile, the dad's esteem senses are tingling and he goes to lightly chide Dan. Now sure, he has a point that if you're not entirely out you should keep going, but the front tire was damaged, he couldn't ride it if he wanted to.

To be fair, the anger came from escalation, but it's down to the root. Does he care more about his son or what the son can do? We'd be so focused on trying to please our fathers we lose sight of what we wanna do in life, because our fathers would question us every step of the way. He seems like the kind of person who'd make his son crawl to the finish line if he snapped his leg.

One nice thing, he at least musters a thank you, foreshadowing for a greater character conflict. There's more to the dynamic, but I'll get to it later.

By some twist of faith, Dan wins a new bike per a charity raffle, but to be fair other names were lost in the wind, well good on him, he at least deserves some semblance of a reward. Fair warning, I may be going deeper into the dynamic between Dan and Jack (the dad), because I can associate key comparisons between us and them. This won't hold an impact on my consensus on the film, just some occasional venting, I work the hours, I get paid, this is my page I can complain like a pussy ass bitch all I want, fuck you.

Dan and his friend go to the park for some nondescript reason, I'd say it's for cloud watching but it was just used as an excuse for a stab at Dan. Something tells me they're here to breed one uncomfortable conversation with Jack, come on it's clearly romantic tension, best friends don't argue like they do here, I mean maybe they do, but they don't get physical.

This was just to make things awkward when girls show up, then a conversation that'd hold no ground to plot relevance because tornadoes don't work well for singular plot points, and yes, tornadoes and twisters are the same thing if you're questioning my refusal to use the term to go with the movie.

The girl is bipolar, based on her refusal to go with Dan, but she would if he had a better ride and the way she drags it on... totally doesn't give me the idea she's setting up a potential spark. Oh by the way, the reason the boys were there was to set up a prank. This was only the first time the network it aired on strayed from its Christian roots, so things would go sacrilegious if they had it my crazy way.

For the record, the film gives me little to go off of at this point. It feels jumbled in establishing things. It seems like they're just predicting a storm, even though we've seen tornadoes ripping through farm houses up to this point. Is this just foreshadowing? Or am I just too focused on an opportunity to pour my soul out?

This is a point against the film for the record, as in there's little I can say about it at this point, and I'm just waiting for things to truly pick up. All I can say now is that we found the Canadian equivalent to John C. Riley.

Where things pick up is when Dan get scolded by Jack, but not that much, though we do get some passive aggressiveness. Angsty teens exist for a reason, that's all I'll say for now, along with the fact we get an implication of an ongoing chain of passive aggressiveness.

You know how old women say they can determine bad weather by how their bones feel? Take a wild guess what I'm trying to say.

Then we get more unintentional romantic tension between Dan and his friend. I'm getting Ryan Swayze and ItsYeBoi vibes from these too, minus white privelage stabs, and I won't link either channel, I want you all to see for yourselves.

Just to let you know, we're 21 minutes into the movie, no prior opening logos, the copy I have access to is so. I mean we still have an hour and ten minutes left, but when you've already shown us the tornadoes, our attention is already snapping by the thread, at this point it's a matter of whether or not you'd be scared off by the cheap effects.

But, did you know Dan's an artist? I have a feeling Jack considers this to be vile, he seems to have it in him, he likes football. But yeah he doesn't like it, shock of the century. I'm in favor of keeping kids in line, but don't deny them their aspirations. If they strive to be like their fathers, most of the time it's a ticking time bomb and you'd be doing something you don't necessarily like, but the father has too much pride to see otherwise.

There's a reason pride is one of the seven deadly sins.

Anyway, back to useless irl comparisons, Dan feels like his father was disappointed over the race, and his mother surprisingly reaffirms his suspicions. For me, my father sees the negative in everything, and I try to see it as him putting me in the right direction, but the way he goes about it makes it hard for me to see the merit in it. It's to the point even my own mother and sister agree with me when he goes too far, but they want me to persist so I have an immediate option for work once I'm out on my own.

But let's get the elephant out of the room, this is cliche father son drama through and through. We were still in the mid-90s at this point, though this still technically has more staying power than Saved by the Bell, even just thinking about it. I'm not bugged by it because I can sympathize with it.

I reiterate, the only things interesting beyond the tornadoes is the dynamic between Jack and Dan, because I resonate. This is about how he's pushing Dan to be a man. On where it hits with me, it feels like my dad is expecting me to know every little thing to do work wise, but he's with me. I ironically can work well without him, but this is in a field I'm not entirely comfortable taking on my own.

Point is, I wanna feel ready, but if you're gonna be around at least give me something to rely on. There's a point to the shit I feel I go through, but it's muddled, especially when gratitude is left to you, not given. Want a reward for your struggles? Make it yourself.

And yes we're back to a whole lot of nothing. The dialog is surprisingly bland, especially for a movie like this. Worst part is is that fits with the film's genre, so it's down to interest, and it's slowly fading away. I'm just expecting them to be surprised killed by the tornado, that's what the set-up feels like, but we don't get that.

Is it time for another cliche? How about when Dan feels like he's second rate compared to a newborn? Through his own fault, he breaks a chair and the acting takes a nosedive, to Off-Beats and Sabrina: The Animated Series levels of wooden. For some perspective, Longshot was basically a money job, but even their young actors were able to do better performances.

For the record, we're not even a half-hour into this movie yet. For fuck's sake throw a rock through a window! I think cheap tornado affects would be the least of the movie's problems. This is further compounded by discussions on past tornado storms, which would be fine... if you never heard of tornadoes before, or just missed the first act.

I wish Left Behind: The Movie was available for free, I think I'd enjoy that more than this movie, can't be any more boring than this.

For perspective, any time away from tornadoes is put toward establishing the characters, which proves to be said and done within minutes, and establishment can even be done as late as the climax. It gives me nothing to look forward to, I lose focus on a lot of the details because they're hardly imperative to the plot, and the tornadoes to this point were relegated to earlier scenes, not even involving the mains.

All I got was father son issues I can kinda relate to, and a gay boy stuck in conservative Nebraska.

But then, 32 minutes into the movie, we get a tornado warning, plus a contrast between real life and in the movie. Dan knows the protocol in harsh weather, unplugging appliances and in stating so, didn't get an attitude. My dad'd take that as an open invitation.

At this point we get some mild suspense where key family members are out in the storm, emphasis on mild. You could say this movie represents how people would ordinarily handle a tornado situation, okay I see your intent, but it seems minimal at best, is protocol why they open their windows during a windstorm? I mean I get unplugging appliances but... you know what I'm probably wrong, perhaps the air going through the houses means that the tornado can't pick up the house, but we see it ripping through them in this movie, somebody's wrong here.

But then, eye of the storm, I mean I guess. I'd love to see sentient tornadoes murder people, it's stupid but that's good shit to me.

The progression feels forced, idiocy and contrivance are the only things pushing the story along. On idiocy, apparently when a tornado rips by your house it's like it's cursed. They're surprisingly decent compared to the tornado itself, but it'd work so much better in a different movie. You'd think you'd get a clearer idea on any inaccuracies in this, but all we get is the wrong color was used for the tornado and that this aired in Germany... several times.

I will say that as someone who works with sewers, water doesn't escape through the chimney, it escapes through a fresh air vent that's on the side of the house, and it likely wouldn't suck the water down the toilet. I will say at some point we got a point against opening the windows, it low-key ripped off regardless.

How many liberties did this movie take?

I have a gut feeling this was meant to be a half hour long, why else would they be stretching for so long? I hardly care about the characters, in the event of a tornado suspense is slim and even then so little happens. 

In fact, it's so boring I cut out around the 49 minute mark. I only had 41 minutes left, so let me run by what I missed.

That twist I alluded to? Jack is actually Dan's stepfather. Holy mother of wow, I am not surprised they took this route. People seem to ignore how even biological parents can be assholes. The point to this was them having to find common ground, ordinarily I'd say both'd have to make sacrifices, but logic is nobody's friend.

All else that happens is that they survive the tornado and a footnote about a relative dying a year after the event.

Overall

I think bad special effects should be the least of anyone's problems in any movie. Demon Island had bad CG, but it was a far more enjoyable experience, this is just boring, and this is worsened by the fact that I felt bored during the more action-oriented scenes.

The most fun I had was pouring my soul out with my issues with my father, but as it went on I just wrote Dan off as an angsty 90s kid, and I consider Jack to be a douche at best. That's all I picked up from this entire movie, and I guess I just watched it for proof that I'm not just some pussy, though this may bite me in the ass soon enough.

Eh, fuck it, I'm going back to direct-to-video movies nobody gives a crap about.

B-Sides: Helga and the Nanny

 There's a fine line between love and respect. To respect doesn't mean you're obligated to love, it just isn't your thing but you see why others love it. To love it is, well.... duuuuuuuuh.

Just felt like telling you that for some reason. I've had a love-hate relationship with Hey Arnold!, but as of now, it's back to love. Is it a perfect show? Far from it, but that's why I like it, and if people can bring up the faults it shows they're not as blind as SpongeBob fans.

Hey Arnold! isn't immune to bad episodes, and when they come, they don't even leave you a tissue. Any bad episode of the show are of different extents, we have the really bad ones, the really odd ones, then in the case of this one, conflicting feelings where they aren't warranted, and a nothing burger.

Background

Helga and the Nanny reared its head in the show's third season. It's the B-segment with... Arnold Betrays Iggy, an episode so bad an apology was delivered, allegedly, until that was exposed as bull-crap by the creator. Coming from someone who's an outsider to the general behavior of the animation community, that episode leaves nothing for me, it was a horribly structured and written episode that basically killed a recurring character, and even the message doesn't hold the impact it should, but I don't hate it for the reasons everyone does.

For perspective, I found a message in Neighbors from Hell, one of those edgy adult shows, and I found nothing with that episode.

Helga and the Nanny was written by Antoinette Stella, a fairly prominent writer on the show who helped write a decent amount of episodes I liked. She had a hand in some of the more twisted episode like Sid and Germs and Phoebe Cheats and voiced Arnold's biological mom too.

But, you wanna know what else she wrote? Rhonda's Glasses, a neutered discussion on racism (and come on, it's based on Rosa Parks as far as certain people having to go to the back of the bus) that expects us to feel sorry for the worst character on the entire show.

So basically she's like the entire show, very good, but not free from faults.

The Episode

Here's a little personal take, this episode played a part in a false memory I had with this show. I remember seeing an episode where Helga was arguing with a haggard woman, but obviously that never happened. Realistically, I mixed this episode up with Crabby Author, which had a similar character.

There is a point to this, I feel the way I remembered this episode paints a darker context for the nanny.

The episode has Helga being watched over by a nanny due to both of her parents needing to be out. One of the biggest issues I have with the show (well as of now) is that while it provides some dimensions to otherwise archetypical characters, they still have some characters that slip into common stereotypes, Inge being one of them as the stereotypical German (I'm thinking German) nanny.

This is a rare instance where I don't know who to feel bad for in terms of the major key players. We have someone serving as physical divine intervention, to someone who's basically going through a borderline equivalent to Chinese water torture. Too far? Okay, how about someone who's basically living life as if their mother is Jane Kaczmarek (because the surname of Lois is indeterminate at this point.)

For some perspective on that, I can say Lois is the worst bad parent ever because even others like her have some likable traits or their kids are able to stand up for themselves. Lois basically wanted her kids to follow a set path and would do anything she could to make sure they don't get far off of it, all for a future that may or may not remain a card in their deck.

Connection here? Inge wants Helga to be a proper girl, i.e., a proper girl in relation to Inge's national customs, and it's her way or no way. Name it, curfews, obedience, uniforms, the whole set along with some throwaway extras.

I'm going off on this episode because it is surprisingly darker than people give it credit for. Inge is basically forcing Helga to follow a strict lifestyle, a lifestyle that now matter how comfortable you are with it, is soul-crushing. You'd live life under a looming shadow, so afraid to make a tiny mistake, and when you have kids, it leads to a continuing cycle of gentle psychological abuse.

Sid and Germs and Phoebe Cheats have a psychological edge, and if that was what Stella aimed for... good on her, the best things in media are always achieved by accident.

Big Bob and Miriam are surprisingly not too bad here, then again Inge got to their hearts through their stomachs and you know what? I honestly never hated either of them. When they're willing to make an effort there's some kind of payoff to it, and it worked to help better develop Helga's character and make her sympathetic as far as her earlier appearances go. Good is always born from the bad.

And hey, Bob doesn't intend for Helga to jump through various specific proverbial hoops, acknowledgement would be worse in that regard because you don't see your child for what they are, but how you want them to be. Olga is constrained by following a path of perfection, Helga can basically go any way she wants. Think about it.

By the second half, Helga gets Inge fired and she is chided for it. This is ruined by the fact we can see she was suffering under Inge. People under oppressive care are the most likely to snap, especially without an outlet to vent their grievances. But ironically, at this point I don't know who to feel bad for. Inge was trying to help in her own way but overstepped her boundaries. Helga clearly wasn't happy with the strict maintenance, but there could've been a better way to go about voicing her concerns, I just wish I knew what.

All else I can pick up from this is the lamest nightmare sequence in the entire show, and bear in mind, one of the best aspects of this show are its nightmare sequences, and a mild attempt at Helga observing what she had learned from Inge. This would've worked better in a psychological thriller where Helga slowly loses sight of who she was and begins to fold into a life of perpetual obedience.

I should stay far away from these shows.

Overall

This episode was basically doomed from the start due to it following the most infamous episode in the entire series. It was a hard sell to make up for a dire experience, and I feel this episode didn't deliver on a better experience.

I didn't feel bad for everyone, and the only enjoyment I got out of the episode was viewing everything in a psychological thriller context. Even in terms of it just being one of those make your own interpretation  deals, this episode just feels empty in that regard.

What this episode needed is to further drive home the bad in both of their actions.Maybe Inge can learn to loosen up and begins to take Helga up on her habits, only for Helga to realize she has a toxic personality and by rejecting a kinder side, Inge reflects how most of the world sees her, and there she learns to try and loosen up herself.

Or maybe we can see the inverse to a toxic bad personality with a toxic good personality, where Inge's beliefs are seen as condescending and few like her, finding a foil in Helga who's on the opposite spectrum.

As always, there're better ways the episode could've gone about its plot, what we have is basically yogurt with meat in it. Meaty yogurt. Mediocre.

In Search of the Titanic (reason/review)

 So what dark forces encouraged anyone to attempt a sequel? I blame the North Koreans.

The Background

I'm beginning to think I'm the first one to attempt to discuss the potential history behind this movie.

In Search of the Titanic came out in 2004, that's as much as anyone knows about it. But I'm gonna try my best to squeeze whatever more I could.

In Search of the Titanic, or Tentacolino as it's better known, seems to have been more of a North Korean production than the last movie, with Mondo TV only granting them the rights to the property and having the characters already be in their line of reference. The film was co-written by Clelia Castaldo, who wrote for a stark bulk of Mondo's other productions. Loris Peota is more of the same and wrote the screenplay while Orlando Corradi was behind the story.

In spite of Corradi's presence on the writing team, he didn't direct the movie. This was left in the hands of Kim Jun-Ok, going by his actual name this time around. He seems to be Corradi's primary contact at SEK Studio as he helped direct most of Mondo's programs. His only work after this were two back-to-back Mondo programs in 2008.

Due to the Italian actors mixing with the English actors on IMDb, it's hard to pinpoint the exact English actors on this. I can say with certainty that Ronnie's English voice in The Legend of the Titanic returned for this. I imagine she has decent range hence the stark contrast in voices.

And you can already guess who returned for this.

The movie was kept to Italy, and only got traction because the Nostalgia Critic refused to talk about it, hence influencing some hapless losers to channel their inner spergy reviewer.

That's all I could gather, all else I can say is that the movie's existence is down to good ol' capitalism.

The Movie

If you're expecting me to offer kind words to this movie because of my contrarian mindset, you'd be dead wrong. This movie is deserving of all the hate it gets. From getting key aspects of history wrong, to even big hiccups in its own continuity, well by names anyhow, and some other thing we'll get into soon.

However, something tells me this isn't the case with the original Italian version. I'm just saying, maybe they got a different translator who wasn't on the up and up with what the original movie was like (hell they probably never saw the original movie.) Think about it, because no one else will.

It's likely the people involved on this were only in it for a paycheck so didn't bother to clarify the blatant errors.

On the movie, they had submersibles before 1915, but in this movie they use a bathysphere, which wouldn't even be conceived until 1928. I have a feeling the people behind this and Legend of saw Legend Goes On and felt it was better than their original effort, so as a stab at them, they included a rap number.

Unlike the one in Legend Goes On which can fit the mood for getting a good vibe flowing, this is self-indulgent crap through and through.

But on this movie's continuity anachronisms, the enemy from the previous movie is back, younger looking and under a different name. If I had to guess, I assume Maltravers returned to shore, changed his identity and kept in touch with the sharks. Believe me, that'd make the most sense.

And now onto some actual nonsense, Atlantians. I've seen Atlantis one too many times in media. It has always been fictional, but with so many stories themed around it, it makes me feel like the Greeks were full of shit.

I'd like to imagine the Atlantians are actually representations of angels taking our heroes to the afterlife after their loss of oxygen. Does that make too much sense?

Onto their take on Atlantis, I'm mixed on the Atlantian ruler, I really feel like they forgot to draw his face. The hood is too short to cast that big of a shadow for cover, why even have a wrap around your face? Something similar happened in an episode of The Super Mario Brothers Super Show. By the way, I'm not gonna talk about a certain character in this because it has been done to death.

The North Korean connection really paints an odd picture for this movie. In showing the beauty of Atlantis, it's like a form of nationalism, take a good hard look at how beautiful our nation is, you're surely jealous your nation isn't as great as ours.

In terms of racial stereotypes, this was a key aspect to SEK's cartoons, even as far as their flagship program Squirrel and Hedgehog. Though I find it ironic they include a Chinese stereotype, even though China and North Korea have the most steady relations. Maybe it's directed toward Hong Kong.

Anyhow, we get more North Korean allegories with a band of dissidents wanting to break out of Atlantis and attempt to take over the world. You can interpret this as how North Korea feels about free thinkers. Any different thought is a dangerous one to have, and free thinkers are crazy. This is reinforced by our heroes' willingness to live in Atlantis and live under them for the rest of their lives.

Is it coming to any of you yet?

The propaganda theory expands as the enemies are shot by mind-wiping rays, as they forget all about their hatred against the motherland. And what of the dissidents? Well along with a condescending perspective on them, they're viewed as crazy and will be institutionalized for the rest of their lives, to the joy of those who stand by their dictator.

Before we get to the end, let me just go over any anachronisms I missed.

• Morse code can't be made with using a set of alphabet letter keys, it can only be accomplished by using a single straight key.

• The two halves of the Titanic were never sealed back together. Neither was the entire ship relocated from the bottom of the Atlantic to the shore of a secret island.
• Life vests can't save you from drowning when you are traveling a couple miles down the depths of an ocean.
• Also when Razor Teeth is sending the Morse code letter he does it with clams with letters painted on them with jellyfish tied together. This is clearly not possible at all.
• It's not possible to fire a cannon underwater without getting the gun powder and fuse wet.

• Actually the Titanic Wreck was discovered in 1985 not in 1915

And yes, I lifted it from some wiki entry. To sum up, fucking up the concept of morse code, the ship was shown to still be split even after the octopus held it together long enough for everyone to escape, I'm calling error and cartoon logic, that was just stupid through and through, and that was indicative to the plot of the movie.

But on that, we get our ending, the entire ship is reconstructed and brought to an uncharted island, where everyone can live out the rest of their lives and succumb to cabin fever, killing each other or themselves from the sheer boredom and lack of communication with the outside world. How much does Atlantis have to offer?

Then the obvious, this negates everything that happened in The Legend of the Titanic. Best theory, this was another story Top Connors told his children, otherwise, we'd have a hell of a paradox.

Overall

This wouldn't be the last we ever see of the Tentacolino crew, mostly, as Fantasy Island came out in 2011 and is considered a pseudo-continuation. This was the most original property Mondo had at their disposal, and it seems they were just trying to get whatever mileage they could out of it.

If you couldn't tell, I was going by memory for these reviews, I just wanted to focus on the why since no one else ever did. I'd say it was kinda worth it since the movies are so minimal I could easily remember the key aspects to them.

So to sum up, works of Italians, one was experimental and a one-off for a director rooted in b-movies, one was just to push a brand and had assistance from North Korea, they used actors who were living in Italy at the time for their English dubs, and it was all down to focusing on the romantic nature of a maritime disaster.

But as you can probably tell, only one of them came close to that mark, and hopefully you learned something.

The Legend of the Titanic review

 Do you like the art style in The Legend of the Titanic? You just enjoyed North Korean art.

Part 1: The Company

To fully understand The Legend of the Titanic, you need to understand the company behind it. This is no justification for their quality, but context is the only thing missing from the glut of the animated Titanic movie reviews.

The Legend of the Titanic, along with a certain sequel, was created by Mondo TV, an Italian studio headed by Orlando Corradi, formed in the 60s and slowly growing to cover various key mediums, well as far as their home-base anyhow, if it hadn't been for MrEnter and Phelous the Titanic movies would be all we know about Mondo.

By the way, Corradi died in 2018, so there's no chance anyone could get insight from the man himself.

A recurring theme in Mondo's programs are high fantasy and adventure... as well as content based on popular characters. Yeah, let's get the elephant out of the room, they had their own takes on Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Mulan, Hercules, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Robin Hood, Snow White, Robin Hood, Pocahontas and even The Lying Douche.

Okay to be fair, most of their takes predated the Disney releases.

There're two key reasons why Disney didn't intervene. Number one, Mondo TV operates almost exclusively in Italy. While Disney is known the world over, their main base of operations is the United States and Mondo's content rarely, if ever, shares the same market as Disney's releases (most of them were produced for television.)

So, they really had no reason to bother with them as they were not in direct competition with Mondo. Only reason they sued GoodTimes was because the latter released knock-offs around the same time Disney issued home media releases of their movies and used covers that would deceived buyers. And even then, GoodTimes borrowed from the fairy tales and their takes were different enough to remain in circulation.

That brings us to number 2. At least a majority of Mondo's productions are based on the public domain tales that originated them, I mean maybe aside from The Lion King, but I don't care about that, I mean who am I? Adum the Lion King Simp?

Part 2: The Movie

This was Mondo's first feature film, though it's indeterminate if it ever played on that many screens. Unlike their other productions, they had a little help this time around.

Mondo were no strangers to international collaborations, as they received financial support through Spain via ITB (International TV Broadcasting, this being their only hurrah apparently) and... North Korea.

Italy and North Korea had steady diplomatic relations at the time, until 2017 saw a bump in that and 2020 led to permanent severance, but at the time, North Korea was the primary place Mondo outsourced their cartoons to. Enter SEK Studio, North Korea's lone animation studio. While primarily producing content exclusively for their country, they have assisted in animation services and outsourcing, some notable works they did were episodes for Avatar and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as The Simpsons Movie and Bender's Big Score.

If I were to say cartoons can bring everyone together, this would be my thesis on that.

Also referring back to the shake in relations between Italy and North Korea, their last collaboration was in 2016.

In a bittersweet note, this was the closest North and South Korea had to a steady collaboration together, producing an animated film, Empress Chung, which is now lost to the sands of time.

Another company that helped produce this was Hollywood Gang Productions, ran by Gianni Nunnari, which I only note for the fact that the inception of the company was supposedly wrought through Nunnari siphoning funds to create it, though Nunnari isn't listed as a producer on this movie. Who knows if this is where he got his start. If so, this was the same guy who produced 300.

The film never saw any kind of release in North America, which explains why the Nostalgia Critic had to use a burned copy for it. It was supposedly released theatrically in Germany and Italy, but thanks to the Nostalgia Critic, we have people who tout themselves as beacons of information when their points are surface-level at best.

As mentioned in my previous review, Gregory Snegoff was on board for all three movies. Think English voice over work in Italy was mostly dry, so at the end of the day, a paycheck is a paycheck. He had initially dropped off after another RoboTech stint and seems to have gotten into live-action roles, albeit, providing English dubbing if the credits are anything to go by.

Also did you know Gregory appeared in Misery?

Another notable actor in this is Jane Alexander, who would also return for the sequel. She got her start as a child actor in dubbing and appeared in the comedy film Women Don't Want To, but mostly stuck to television roles since then. Can't say it's any more tragic than Katie Barberi's career (let alone say it is tragic.) You don't wanna know the movie she appeared in that killed her career and lead her to go back to her home country.

Some other actors I could talk about are the voice of Don Juan, Francis Pardeilhan, and there's a recurring thing with these actors. They're not Italian natives, Francis was born in San Franscisco and had some roles in non-notable shows.

Anna Mazzotti lived and died on these movies, well she had some scattered roles before then and it seems just like Jane Alexander, she was also from the UK at first, appearing in two British shows in the early-90s.

Sean Patrick Lovett appears in his first and only role here, and that name alone should indicate he was also not an Italian native.

But we do get one Italy native as far as the main English cast goes, Teresa Pascarelli. She appeared in Mondo's take on Pochahontas and appeared in the initial Italian cut of Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom. She has also said no to Tentacolino, so I like her already.

The film has two directors, Corradi himself and Kim J. Ok, aka Kim Jun-Ok. Reason you don't know about the latter is because of his clear North Korean roots.

Part 3: Okay the movie for real this time

First thing I'd like to point out about this movie is the title. It's already insulting. The way the title is written makes it seem like the Titanic is being framed as a fantasy story. At least Titanic: Legend Goes On can be framed like the event was legendary and will go on as one of the most notorious disasters in history.

In spite of how unfocused Legend Goes On was, at the very least it kept things simple, simple as in didn't treat things too seriously, this is just their take on Disney's brand of fairytale barf. This time, the James Cameron allegories feel much more deliberate.

The animal characters receive bigger focus in this, while in Legend Goes On everyone had an equal amount. Now sure, Top Connors is telling the story, but that just reinforces my argument.

The anachronisms are, well, the biggest one in Legend Goes On was the rap number, which can be interpreted in any way intent wise (is this dumb? Good, that was the climate of movies back in the day, do we really wanna see these again) or maybe it's like (Hey, this was in a lot of kids movies, bet this will make mine a hit)

So to reiterate, Legend Goes On's anachronism was the rap number, this one was about when soccer was first introduced (here being too early), a dance jazz number (a genre that didn't exist proper in 1912), and Elizabeth exhibiting feminism beliefs, even though the events of the movie happened, while after the Elizabeth Cady Stanton era of women's rights, was before feminism became more truly main-line. Sure this happened as far back as the 1800s, but... okay, you can have this one, maybe. But the sinking occurred a bit before midnight so there.

Anyway, back to more reasons why Legend Goes On is just stupid at best, remember what happened when the Titanic sunk? It was just a recreation of the actual disaster. You already know what I mean, but if you don't, the sinking of the Titanic was actually a plan coordinated by an evil billionaire (or whaler) with talking sharks.

But yeah, talking sea life. Let's get into the magic moonbeams shall we?

As mentioned before, Mondo's programs were rooted in high fantasy and fairytales, so shit like this isn't out of their scope, but it does feel pretty heavy-handed. Just the fact that there's a specific reason why the humans can understand the talking animals leads to further questions. My best guess is that the villains have a different means to the moonbeam treatment, like they just spat into the ocean or something.

Are we ready to get into the more offensive aspects now?

The reason people took such offense to this movie was that this was based on an actual tragedy, where actual people died, and it disregarded history. Once again, Legend Goes On did it better because we got the idea not everyone got off the ship.

It should go without saying but to drive the point home in four words... "There's room for everyone!" Actually no, there were a limited amount of lifeboats available, and you wanna know who didn't survive? Captain Edward John Smith. We saw a stand-in for him in Legend Goes On and we didn't see him in the epilogue. In this we see him trying to go down with his ship until he is saved by a giant octopus, who enables everyone to get off the ship to safety.

With that we can see why Legend Goes On is the best of the three, hell, it's the closest we have to a legitimate b-movie, which is always fun for a laugh.

But now, whales.

This is one point to everyone's criticisms of this film, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Marlyonama covered this movie she would use the Nostalgia Critic's points on it verbatim.

My biggest gripe with the whales was their sudden introduction and perceived importance. Some treated this as pro-whale barf, I just saw them as odd extras. But when you take into account the fact North Korea aided in this, if you view the whales in the same context as a dictatorship, this is basically government propaganda.

I can understand stretching on that since it takes up a better chunk of the ending... I'm calling 50/50, but the stupidity in this was much higher than Legend Goes On, so I can't even accept that this was just some idiotic fairy tale a senile Top Conners cooked up.

Overall

I feel the need to bring up the background behind these movies to paint a grander picture against them. With the prior works established, I found more of a reason to hate one over the other. Legend Goes On feels more like an experiment of sorts by a director who worked in a radically different genre of film years prior. Aside from one other attempt he never sought to make more animated films.

This movie feels much more corporate, it followed years of homogenized fairytale and fantasy content and was made to fit with that. You can see a sliver of passion Camilo Teti had for Legend Goes On, whereas all you get is a corporatist slap with this movie, and this is worsened by the fact it was entirely spearheaded by Mondo's founder.

For the sake of pushing a brand, that's probably a reason why we got a sequel, unless the North Koreans loved this movie so much they wanted more of it.

Titanic: Legend Goes On review

 We all come to a point where we ask ourselves this question. Should we bother talking about the animated Titanic movies? I mean I take it upon myself to provide reviews on things few would expect to ever be covered, but recently I realized something, nobody ever attempted to dig deeper into how the movies were made.

They're shit through and through, but at this point I'm desperate for any form of context in their reason for being. At least I can't suck any harder than Marlyonama.

Part 1: The Second

You may be thinking, why start here? This technically came second. Simple, I wanna keep the momentum on the discussion of the details behind Mondo's animated Titanic movies.

Titanic: Legend Goes On was directed by Camilo Teti who's professional career spans as far back as 1962. Teti remained to his native Italy which is why we hardly hear much from him. I wish people went further into Teti because before this... he produced a number of b-movies throughout the 70s and 80s.

As a director he is only tied to eight movies, this included. He got his start with the horror thriller film The Killer is Still Among Us and kept to that field until 1993 with Navigators of the Space (and bear in mind these are rough translations of Italian titles.)

This was Teti's very first animated film, and his last production for several years before he returned with an obscure Italian animated film in 2006 as a co-director. His last thing ever was a take on Noah's Ark in 2007 as a producer.

This was the only film tied to the aptly titled Titanic Cartoons S.r.l., so it's likely this belonged to him. It was distributed in theaters by prominent film distributors Medusa Film.

Titanic: Legend Goes On seemed to have been in wider circulation than Mondo's two takes, as it received releases in Canada through Equinox Entertainment and Prism Lesiure in the United Kingdom. Because of its wider release, this got to reviewers first.

One thing to point out is that the available physical copies used a heavily edited cut of the film, moving scenes around and revising dialog, otherwise cutting down scenes wholesale. There's no telling for sure where the original cut was found, but it's likely this got screened in China too.

Of our English actors, it seems they went with English speaking actors who happened to be living in Italy at the time. We have Edmond Purdom who was notable for taking on roles previously meant for Mario Lanza and Marlon Brando who passed on them, later moving to Europe after losing face in Hollywood (from the United Kingdom to Italy.)

Mickey Knox was also in this, and he was among many celebrities who were blacklisted during the McCarthy era and moved to France... then Italy.

And now for the big one, why was Gregory Snegoff involved in this and the other two animated turds? Well, Snegoff was a prominent actor in English dubs, appearing in RoboTech, My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service. His second marriage was to Fiorella Capuano and it's very likely he moved to Italy to be with her, hence him being available to participate in these movies, and for the sake of keeping up with a career he was passionate about is why he agreed to be in them.

This would account for why we know so little about the English cast in this, they're only known in Italy and were likely hired for the sake of filling out the English dub cast.

Reason for Being

It's undeniable that James Cameron's take on Titanic bred an interesting idea, a tale of love on a ship destined to be sunk. As it was a romanticized rendition of the events occurring before the ship met its untimely death, surely someone had to try and make it popular.

This was a year after The Legend of the Titanic, and I'm questioning if that made it to theaters. I'd like to think Teti saw it and thought "Mama mia this is merde, I can do it better.", and with that, he made the best version of the three movies, and at least he had the foresight to quit after it got released.

He may not have good foresight, but he can take a hint.

So What Went Wrong?

It's clear the film was going for a Disney fairy tale edge, cramming in whatever Disney references would fit. I won't cry rip-off because I'm not depraved. The biggest issue I have is that it has too many characters and plots to be concerned with, and whether or not they mesh well is inconsequential.

At best, this can be viewed as a parody of Disney movies from the time, or any movie with a focus on cute little animals, but even that's a stretch. Basically, shit happens, then the ship crashes. It's up to you if you give a shit about any of the subplots.

The one I'd focus on is the Jack and Rose stand-ins (let's face it, the Titanic allusions are undeniable.), where the Rose stand-in is also a Cinderella stand-in. It's bog standard fairy-tale romance, but in terms of all else in the movie, this isn't the most painful.

But you're not here to hear me talk about that, what about the big one? The rapping dog. This was just a conceited ploy to try and make the movie cool. The uncut and recut versions of this are more of the same, especially down to the garb the dog wears.

The only benefits the movie has through the uncut dub is a better flow. It's stupid, but we're eased into it better. Also the scenes are in the right order.

Soon enough, the ship sinks and one objective plus is that the ship actually sinks and Captain Edward Smith goes down with his ship, and there wasn't room for everyone. Hint hint.

A decent enough end is ruined by a childish epilogue.

Conclusion (already!?)

Did you really expect me to have this much to say about the movie? This is like a right of passage for many a new reviewer, I'm not gonna act as though this is some new thing I can call my own.

With this and the next two, I just wanted to try and find a reason for all of them, and based on what I can find, this was the work of a man who wanted to further expand on the romanticized aspect of the Titanic, but took influence from Disney and it wound up taking near core focus in the movie.

The big issue is a lack of a clear focus and its derivative nature.

Nicest things I could say about it is that the uncut version helped put things into a reasonable perspective, and beyond the rap scene, this doesn't have as many anachronisms as Mondo's efforts. Not to mention, we still get the implication people died on the ship, especially the captain, and the ship sank and remained so.

Overall, this looked to be the work of a man who had no idea how the rest of us would perceive a fantasy rendition of the Titanic, but he knew when to quit, that's the most I can say. You can have your other movie and bible adaptation, because your take on the Titanic is the best of the three.

Action League Now! Oversold?

Remember KaBlam! I mean you all probably do. KaBlam!... held up poorly. We had an obnoxious collection of wraparounds, Henry suffered for what amounted to nothing (I do not get the dynamic between him and Mr. Foot), the dynamic between Henry and June switched out of the blue, a lot of the shorts weren't as good in hindsight, plus they placed their priorities into the wrong places.

Hence this show.

Background

Well to be fair I can see why they did. The creators of Action League Now was created by the same key producers from KaBlam! Robert Mittenthal, Will McRobb and Albie Hecht, the first of which even has a self-insert in KaBlam!'s wraparounds. Mittenthal ran Flying Mallet, Inc., which came into being late into KaBlam!'s life, and even produced Cry Baby Lane of all things.

Will McRobb made up one half of a creative duo along with Chris Viscardi. Both created The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and later, of all things, Sanjay and Craig (well they executive produced and wrote for it anyhow).

Albie Hecht was the president of Nickelodeon at this point, and would later discover The Naked Bros. Band...'s indie movie at a film festival and work to make it a series.

The show was produced in Pennsylvania, and had starred radio personalities from the Pittsburgh area.

Action League Now! aired as part of All That before airing on KaBlam!, I only brought up the latter at first because that's where I discovered it. I assume on All That they were kept to the transition and their dedicated spot, but on KaBlam!, they were all over the place.

In several instances of proverbial masturbation, they won a self-made award show, two characters appeared in the wraparounds with Henry and June (one was a plot point, the other was an antagonist), they even had an episode shown before Good Burger when it was released in theaters. I mean then again the movie and the short originated on All That, and Nickelodeon movies at the time always had a short appearing before a movie, at least throughout the 90s (Harriet The Spy had the Hey Arnold pilot and The Rugrats Movie had the CatDog episode Fetch)

And then, a sorta full series. I say sorta because this just compiled every short to fit a half-hour junction.

It must've been a slow day at Nickelodeon, but then again they were better than Cartoon Network in the mid-2000s. Unless the shorts were that popular, this felt like overkill. The half-hour series aired from 2001 to 2002 for what amounted to a single season. From then on, the novelty was dead.

Structure

This is a more comedic superhero action affair, certainly not out of style, but second to the novelty behind it. The characters do have some personality to them, but a stark bulk of them operate on the same frequency of stupidity. Not that I hate it, it's just something I noticed.

It seems their willingness to run with the show was how cheaply it was made. It had access to a roster of actors (well, radio personalities who were able to act) and would likely not need to be paid that much, only a few minutes were required for every episode, and it's all action figures.

This predated Robot Chicken, so I won't make any inane allegations.

The show, as it's proudly announced at the end of the series proper, is Filmed in Chuckimation... OUCHIES!. Which basically means characters are moved entirely through human intervention, the prominence of the characters actually getting thrown by whatever means led to the title. It's cheap, but at the same time unique.

The characters themselves, well most of them, are borderline Frankenstein projects, notable ones are Thunder Girl who's a Barbie head attached to She-Ra's body, The Flesh, who's said to be a modified Conan the Adventurer figure (painted over unless the clothes are removable), Stinky Diver, who's a modified version of Shipwreck from G.I. Joe (the 1994 version) and Meltman, who's a melted Joe Cobra figure.

The rest come from Playskool's Play People sets.

When it comes to an animation style so cheap, and modifications so clear, they fit like a glove with an inane premise, which they went for, obviously. I've seen only a handful of episodes and wanted to see more (which I mean I could if I wanted to these days but choose not to), while I didn't pick up on a lot of hidden jokes (there's bound to be some), they were at the very least enjoyable.

And... that basically covers the show. Any serialized aspects only come in the antagonists they deal with, and even then they break that tradition with other villains and different escapades.

But why else are we here?

I can understand it if the people behind KaBlam! were also behind this, and that some creators are not willing to surrender much more of the rights to their shorts, but I feel the level of promotion this show had was overkill. As mentioned before, it felt like they were sucking their own dicks with the prominent cameos and that award show episode, and this is furthered by the fact this appeared on All That beforehand, and had the honor of having a short before a Nickelodeon Movie.

Plus a TV series. I mean I can understand putting Action League Now before Good Burger as the producers pulled from their own show... nothing else, but this is quite the evolution. I mean The Off Beats only got as far as a holiday special.

Action League Now, ironically, had little prominence in Nickelodeon as a whole, beyond a brief appearance in an old Nickelodeon bumper, they were relegated to just being part of KaBlam! and little else.

Overall

I have no intent to go back to KaBlam! any time soon, so one benefit to this show existing is that now I can just watch the episodes without having to skim. I guess the overall cheap production meant this wouldn't be a huge lift from anyone's pockets, but this show was both over-promoted and undersold. 

What I'm trying to say is, I wish Life With Loopy received better treatment, even the dedicated special felt heavy-handed.

Demon Island watch & review

It's funny how I can find value in b-grade trash, either that or I'm sick to death of mainstream movies forever tainted by reactionary reviewers who've turned millions into idiots. I blame Roger Ebert.

My criteria for movies, if it pisses me off, it's shit. That means any movie is fair game. I consider a shot on freehand movie to not be as bad as a Canadian Netflix movie. Hell, I'm not gonna lose my shit over low-grade 3D effects for the sake of embellishment, who am I? The Nostalgia Critic?

Whenever, I'm going to take a look at a movie from the Hillenbrand brothers, more on them in a sec. I'm not expecting high-octane horror goodness, I'm just expecting an enjoyable experience.

Background

Demon Island was written, directed and produced by brothers David and Scott Hillenbrand. The brothers first hit the scene with the direct-to-video... something, King Cobra, which was allegedly meant to come out before Anaconda as it was first in the pipeline but didn't. Their brand consists of direct-to-video fare, but I'm bound to find others who'd make them look better.

BrutalMoose fans are bound to recognize them for their work on GameBox 1.0, though the brothers are not referenced in said review. Thankfully, Ian has the stomach for cheesy content, and through the review, though it was incredibly cheap, it looked to be a lot of fun. That's the drive behind their movies, they're cheap and silly, but not devoid of enjoyment.

Demon Island was released through First Look Media, the American distribution arm of the now defunct Overseas Filmgroup. I'm tempted to say this aired on the Sci-Fi Channel at some point since First Look's films like Soulkeeper and Mansquito also aired there, but I could be wrong.

The Movie

One objective plus to the Hillenbrands is that they have a very cool vanity card. After some cheap CG intro graphic, we go into a narrative piece meant to establish the killer object, it being... a piñata. And this is, once again, discussed in the opening so I'm not spoiling it. There are no bad ideas, just ideas that piss you off in execution, and I already have low expectations.

What we get from this intro is some surprisingly decent establishing shots, only bad thing is how long it takes, the only essential aspect is the creation of the object and the downfall of those within the radius of its inception, but I'd be complaining if they got into the action and just explained it as they went along, and besides, it'd be a hard sell to explain an evil piñata.

Back on positives, I'm happy they established the piñata right away, like they don't build up to it, it's a familiar object with a dark curse and we get a reason for its being, plus it explains why it already looks evil, it's an amalgamate of the evil in the land it was created in, and its destruction would mark the sacrifice of said evil.

We then get a further glimpse into the CG effects the film will use. It harkens back to the era of Mortal Kombat (and BeoWulf to drive the point home on Lawrence Kassanoff) in terms of how ill-fitting it is, though it still looks better than the effects in the average Asylum movie.

Okay, so the opening spiel lasted for about seven minutes. At the very least the opening credits occurred alongside it, and we got a full idea on what the deal with out plot device is. I'm just saying, all I got out of A.M.I. was an anti-cellphone PSA, and the most hatable characters I've ever seen since Saved by the Bell.

After that we get our douche quota out of the way, various college-age blowhards head toward an island where the vessel of evil may be, blood is sure to spill. I'll give it this, it's not about summer or spring break this time, it's for Cinco De Mayo. Points for doing something different but it feels like you picked that to go with the piñata motif.

I won't lay a pass for this scene, either they want to make us hate these goons by showing us how obnoxious and flat they are... yeah maybe I should just wait until they get to shore. We get no wet t-shirt contests, but we do get some bare ass, let's be thankful Victor Salva wasn't at the helm here, spoiler, if you got those thoughts, you fell into a trap.

I'd say the ADR is faulty here, but the teens have little substance in what little dialog they have for the time being and it seems they just wanted us to hear the song in the background.

By the way here's a little trivia. The boats the teens ride in on have the name Woodson University on them. It is an actual university in Concord, North Carolina, though since this was filmed in California they either just made up the name and had no idea it shared one with a real university, or the university was actually kind enough to loan them to the crew.

We get a little banter between a beefcake and an African American guy, a bulk of the former's character is represented through a sudden slight slow-mo when a bikini-clad girl walks by. We'd get more, but first, we got a scavenger hunt. This is sure to lead them to the discovery of the piñata. Until then, it seems the coordinators mesh quite well with the attendees.

It's all a lot of fun, even a supposed dork gets to join in. Some may call this cheesy, I'd just call it college frat-life in a nutshell. If you hate this, then hopefully you hate Animal House for more than John Landis being involved in it. The Hillenbrand level of cheese is an enjoyable one, though the scene is in kinda drags on for too long and leaves little to establish. It doesn't make me angry because it wasn't unbearable.

One thing I will say, one of the guys would've wiped the floor on Pop Quiz Hotshot.

Payoff to this, romantic tension, but it seems the movie doesn't care for this either so we go on the scavenger hunt. I'd say they dug out of Eric Foreman's room, but then you'd have to assume he's into guys too.

Soon enough, we find our plot device in a creek, or pond, am I really gonna lose face over my inability to name the right kind of body of water? But at the very least this scavenger hunt thing wasn't for nothing, and hey, with so many obnoxious characters we won't feel too bad when they bite it. Wait, that's bad.

One sure to be dead, maybe, I don't know, girl pulls it out. She is stoned, and if you missed the scene where she puffed a bud, she begins to oversell that factoid, alongside a male companion named Bill, I mean Bob. And yes, that's alluding to this movie. You may be thinking they're so stoned and stupid they'd mistake it for a piñata, but as we saw early on the crafters were aware of the concept of a piñata.

The behavior of these two drive an anti-weed message better than Reefer Madness. I'm not against weed, I just have no reason to use it.

In trying to bust the piñata open, the evil within awakens and we have our plot, and we still have an hour and two minutes left, not too shaby. The evil is so great it undoes their high, and hey, it's awake, you know what that means? We get to see some bad CGI. The piñata was meant to be a full-body rubber suit and done without computer graphics, though they were included in post to make the creature more frightening-looking.

Seeing this monster, I'm expecting some really crappy CGI, but here it's just... meh. They do use the costume aspect, with the CG meant to make its face move, at least as far as the first appearance goes. It looks cheap, but it doesn't look incredibly silly, and I imagine a rubber costume would've looked too stiff.

The piñata seems to want to suck the souls out of those it kills to gain power, and the romantic tension couple may be our protagonists in this. I mean, somebody's gotta I guess. We get more cheesy dialog, and unlike Clockmaker it doesn't feel as forced. We then face either deadmeats or background survivors, one of which senses evil apparently.

This is just meant to spread word on the presence of evil, as they come across a fleeing victim. She isn't believed, but there is a payoff to our antagonist being a piñata, skepticism is welcome for a change, and with an ongoing scavenger hunt with a cash prize going on, yeah, gg Hillenbrands.

At this point, I don't want the two who found the victim to die, they have the perfect chemistry, why aren't they the mains? Though I could be speaking too soon. We have a rather pointless cut where the victim runs off, this sandwiched between the two walking by.

Back to the girl, even off of weed for the life of her she can't remember Bill- NO BOB!'s name. I do like how she admits to being under the influence but maintaining certainty on what she saw, not carried out like it's some big revelation. In B-movies, it's the little things.

Back to the potential deadmeats, I fear this would be their end, and it is. There's truly no justice in this world, they would've broken the mold in terms of horror protagonists. But hey, this movie gave me characters I care about, which is more than I could say for A.M.I.

We have a little less than an hour to go, so at this rate it's just rounding out the kills and getting to the bottom of what's behind it. This is a dealbreaker, because repetition is code for "I needed to reach feature length." Any suspense is hit or miss, but I can't call this unbearable. People may say the acting is bad, then I'd think people prefer irredeemable assholes from Whorelywood.

One thing that works in this movie's favor is the sparing use of the piñata at least up to this point. The CGI is cheap but they had the foresight to not cram it in constantly, plus I have seen a hell of a lot worse.

So the judges go to look for Bob, I know it's kinda fruitless to look for him since we know he's dead, but I will admit, the extent of the murder wasn't shown in full, we didn't get suspenseful music as they were en-route to finding the body, just before. For where they fail in computer animation, they make up in decent prop pieces. 

The acting here takes a little dive, but that's noting a little softcore action can't fix, and if that doesn't work, then how about murder? Okay, but first, a little hollow suspense. No way would this guy let some whacks to the body slide. But then again the suspense was dissipated at this point, we already saw three other kills.

One problem I noticed with the costume, they switch between the rubber suit and CGI with its face. It's very noticeable. As noticeable as getting your dick and balls ripped out of you. No seriously, the guy who was one of two on a makeout session gets castrated. That's one way to take someone out, strip them of who they are and then kill them.

We then get some Nam-esque flashbacks carried out like it's in some Steven Segall movie. Okay that was too general I apologize.

They at least have the foresight to try and leave the island, maybe a bit slow on the uptake but we needed some confirmation that something was wrong and relayed to those who had the means to call off the scavenger hunt. It's not good, but it makes just enough sense.

Then suddenly our intended protagonists mend their fences. They didn't see the murders or corpses directly, so it was just down to their own conclusions. And... I don't really care. The girl of the two was played by Jaime Pressly by the way, and the guy is played by Nicholas Brendon, Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seemed the Hillenbrands were riding off the success of their respective shows from the time which is why they're kept on the longest.

Jaime Pressly stated she hates this movie, yet said nothing when she participated in Oogieloves. I don't know what to believe anymore.

Anyway they get into make-up making out, and hey, this is boring. Don't take my word for it, they cut to the judges abruptly as the making out happens. We're about to get exposition on what happened to the guy the girl was with, but it seems this movie would've gotten as bored as anyone else and cuts to a jump scare watching the judges go on their ATVs. It didn't scare me, but it was surprising.

The piñata cuts off their escape route, and bear in mind, this is a university campus, they'd have to explain why they left a bulk of their students for dead.

Anyhow, the judges are found and chased, and while the CGI is still certainly bad in this and at this point this accounts for the remainder of the piñata's appearances, they made the effort to make it all mesh well. Ever seen Legends of Tomorrow? There's one episode where a guy hulks out and they can't even pull off a reflection in a puddle when he comes by. This movie actually went to the trouble to simulate water splashing as the creature walked on water.

Also at this point the piñata changed appearance, I'd chalk it up to it gaining that much power at this point. Am I really gonna lose my mind over a sudden difference in appearance? Who am I? Bobsheaux? Nah, then I'd put this review behind a paywall.

The lady judge crashes her ATV, and because this is a b-movie horror, it explodes out of nowhere. But this instance is saved by a stunt effect that is better than what we got in Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. Both actually came out the same year, interesting fact.

Also, boomerang ax (at least I think it's an ax)

I'm starting to feel like the female judge is less Sally Hardesty and more... bimbo who takes a shower when a killer is in the area. But take this with a grain of salt until the body is found.

But in the meantime, it's time for theorization, and even now they're still skeptical. Okay fair, but at least understand something wrong is afoot, which they do, go figure. Not like talking's gonna solve much, aside from retread what we learned in the beginning. But to be fair, he carries it out in a way that's easy to understand. At this point, one or the other would've worked, and the runtime would still be in the high 70s, but wait, the high 80s are the way to go.

I bring this up because the guy's description is easier to go by, but I question how he was able to pick up on many of these details. Must've been a slow day in history class.

The knife to this throat is how long it drags out, points for a little added perspective but anyone could've picked up on it based on what they saw if they thought hard enough for it. Then again people made I Hate Everything famous and who even knows about him anymore?

Anyhow, two expected deadmeats arrive back to the camp to join the survivors, and hey, the black guy didn't die first, this is basically a classic. By the way, he is played by Eugene Byrd, who would go on to appear in Bones.

They spend some time justifying why they're still on the island, enough to mess with nit-picky naysayers. Some want to remain out of the woods, others just want to save whoever else may be out there.

We're almost to what should be our final confrontation with the piñata, once we get through the long wandering and perspective shots. We know he's out there and likely sees us. But soon we find the bloodied corpse of... some deer. I'd question if deer can populate what seems to be a remote island, but maybe they could.

The black guy (or Doug), decided he lived enough for one day and sets himself up for a kill, but the piñata is like "Nah, too easy, I already made sure he didn't die first, gotta honor him the way I honored the others.", and soon after he bites it. Why did the piñata choose lynching I'll never know. And hey, soul leaves body, literally.

Also with a pair who parts for the camp, I feel tempted to make a Rest Stop joke, but I doubt many of you know what I'm talking about. But fuck it, oh girl, if you piss now your friend will be gone. No seriously, that's the start to Rest Stop, this is what happens in this scene, the one who takes a piss loses the person they're with.

At this point the survivor in this is Sally Hardesty, she already has a similar outfit, sans bellbottoms and a skankier look.

The hero guy finds panties on a tree and gets pissed off to the point he stabs a tree. He soon finds that female judge, and now she's the Sally Hardesty as the other girl, heh, wouldn't it be funny if she died at the campsite?

How could a giant piñata monster fit in a tent and close it?

I dunno, how could our heroes remain behind a tree through to the night and the piñata not see them? This is starting to become stupid isn't it?

Anyhow, our means to an end? Blowing it the fuck up, when we get to it, thankfully the explosion scene isn't that bad, a bit cliche, but not that bad.

We then conclude with a director's cameo, and what looks to be ProJared, thank god he kept the receipts.

It ends with a refusal to answer about what happened, then we get a jump-scare. Points for them here not being overkill, but it got forced at this point.

In Closing

I only really got bored around the time they were setting up how to kill the piñata, but by then the movie was almost over.

The CG effects... actually got worse as the movie went on, but I'm not gonna lose my shit over that, why should I? There was more variance in the cheese factor and plot in Gamebox 1.0, but for this, it actually had characters I cared about, before they were axed, I was in it for longer than I wasn't, the cheesy dialog actually works, and the idea is unique in principle.

Bad CG aside, the piñata had a unique look, probably would've looked just as silly if it was just a rubber suit. I noticed a pattern where they play suspenseful music, then keep it silent, then a scare occurs. It works in some areas, but not in others.

Would I ever watch this again? Probably not, but I wouldn't say it was near 90 minutes I'd never get back, it was either this or nothing for today, and it was time well spent. I could've spent it seeing some pretentious douche lose their shit over bad special effects, but I didn't, because I don't need to pretend I know a lot.

LTA: 05jstone

 I'll admit, I probably won't have anything new to bring to the table when it comes to 05jstone, but while I can't say anything new, I can say it in a new way, not to mention my posts on 05jstone got more attention than my tweets usually do, so why not switch things around.

The Guy

Jake Stone is a Loud House fan and artist who first came to prominence when a rant was made on him by ThePackagedReviewer, who focused in on one key aspect, though to be fair it makes up what Stone is on about.

The Loud House fandom... suuuuuuuuuuks..., but for a while I tried to hang in, though it seems fate was desperate to get me to quit, and in spite of Loudcest being a thing, it was Stone who made me kick the show for good. At least Loudcest gave us interesting characters, and somehow its haters are just as cringey as its supporters. Yeah I said it.

If there's one thing that turns me off, it's activism, especially blind activism, and the fact that there would be people who're okay with the kind of activism this guy is pumping out was enough to kill whatever faith I had in the show.

I'm getting ahead of myself because a lot of you may know the story, but for the sake of context here's a refresher.

The Loud House, which is grinding on at this point, decided to switch things up by aging up the characters. This is actually a brilliant idea. If The Loud House is gonna get the Simpsons bug, at the very least they could work in new ideas and new characters and explore new issues.

But that's the worst thing to ever happen apparently. For perspective, the guy isn't over the top enough to be considered a troll, and people like ToonEGuy prove that there are people who're that insane. Jake resorted to a hashtag, a petition and a call to action for a protest, all because they wanted to age the characters up.

And I put it to that level because that's what his primary hashtag amounts to.

This harkens back to the days of AKnotholeResident, earlier MrEnter and Spax3, but even they learned from their mistakes.

I won't go on about every detail, I just wanna focus on his philosophy and what he's the most focused on with his campaign.

Likes them Young

Lori and Luan, even Lily a bit, are who he focuses on the most in this campaign. He doesn't want Lori to go to college because then it'd "ruin the team."

Now look, I get family dynamics, I know about the Kankers, I know about the Greasers, but those groups have every reason to remain together. For the Louds, they're a basic real family... who happen to have eleven kids, so for the sake of realism, sorry Jake, you'll be seeing Lori through Zoom for a while.

I'll get into his stance on realism soon enough.

Lily is a part of this too, but not as much, it did make for a good tweet where what he said and his activism made it look like he's into babies.

He's also apparently into fat-shaming, because he wants to change Simon, interestingly wanting to use a design made by JaviSuzumiya.

Luan is the most interesting, he is adamant on her not going to high school, I mean seriously, a stark bulk of his idiotic memes, even some horrendous deviations are dedicated to the evils of Luan going to highschool.

Like why, why!? Why did I suddenly get angry?

I could leave well enough alone with him not wanting to age up the characters in general, but as said before, this is his biggest focus.

For the sake of getting to the bottom of this, I decided to dig through his deviantArt account for more information.

Luan Complains, see it while you can, I don't want those images in my downloads.

Quick summary, Luan, obviously well out of character, attacks the producer of the Loud House. Points for not killing him but you put yourself in negative numbers by going down the producer rant path. After changing screens multiple times (bear in mind I have the stomach for surface level cringe, and Jake somehow makes my stomach turn.)

What I got from it, and this is one of the few areas where I can get the meat of this whole kerfuffle... He just hates them growing up. He does claim that Lynn would be alone in her school... what, do you have no faith in them being independent, their own thing? Well at least he doesn't hate Lynn for no reason. He claims it's not realistic, but it's by his own definition....

All I really got from this is rampant pettiness. Also she hates a new haircut a recurring character has apparently.

You know, one year isn't that bad, Lincoln still has one last year of being a kid. Are you afraid Luan will become hardened when it comes to how bad high school is? Then why aren't you concerned for Luna, this really is sheer pettiness.

But we'll get back to this soon.

Cartoons R Dumb

Referring back to his apparent hatred of realism, Jake seems to have a very low opinion of cartoons in general, though not expressed the way you'd expect. Jake considers good cartoons to be of the slapsticky, dumb joke variety.

He treats this cartoon featuring real kids, going about their real lives, with real plots that go by real aesthetics as if it's just another one of those golden age turds (or Animaniacs/Tiny Toons if you wanna go for grander corruption)

Cartoons have come a long way from the shit he used to watch on those beat-up public domain tapes his parents bought from the bargain bin. If he'd see something like The Owl House, his head would explode, provided it doesn't get separated from his collarbone by fans of it.

He became too used to the more dated dumb comedy from past shorts and applied it to the Loud House, so when they decided to take a more realistic approach, he lost his shit.

It's clear he doesn't see the Loud siblings as anything but a single entity, then again, many of the Louds are the sum of their parts, so he just views them as cartoony archetypes and little more. This also shows in his barren episode ideas, which he is cocky enough to wanna pitch to the writers.

If they had it his way, the show would've become stagnant and everyone would've become bored with it, but hey, anything to keep Luan out of high-school I guess.

Unintentionally Creepy Connotations

Since the show would have its way regardless... what're the stakes here? They may become a year older but would it really change them that much? If anything, a year up would give them some extra dimensions. Lori would focus on her potential future, Leni would try to smarten up as now she's the oldest still in the household, Lynn would try to become more caring while Luan would try and become more serious... and I'm drawing a blank for all else.

I don't like making allegations, but his adamancy on complaining about something so trivial and focusing on such minute aspects leads to some dark thoughts.

On Twitter, Jake posted a quote tweet on something containing a naked Lily (facing away from the viewer for the record), and along with his hashtags, he said "The REAL Lily Loud", and through replies, affirmed how much he wanted to keep Lily as a baby.

With his constant focus on Luan, and others technically, one thing pops into mind. He likes them young. With no other reason than the fact he claims realism doesn't belong in cartoons, some would have to assume.

What else is there? Along with some slight perversion with the etc. imagery he shares.

Backfire?

For those of you who used to follow Sonic93 and defected from her, you're probably thinking, this is setting up to be another YoshiWii1 situation, where all we did was harass a guy who was weird at worst.

The difference between Yoshi and Jake is that Jake is on a proverbial high horse with his activism, this is his entire brand, and with him bringing up Nickelodeon's address and his campaign, this won't be enough for him.

As of now, Jake has little qualities for me to feel sorry for him. He's in his own world and even blocks people who're more blunt in their disagreement toward him, he's basically asking for it at this point, and constructive criticism would no longer cut it at this point.