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Folding Ideas: The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall
- Thread starter Layell
- Start date
I can't imagine literally taking a shit on something like The Wall and then having the gall to earnestly call it a "love letter".
Just a fantastic smack down on Doug's shit.
Just a fantastic smack down on Doug's shit.
Why should I care about this? What is the point of a nearly hourlong takedown of a internet joke character who is already way past his expiration date? Who really cares if some YouTube angry reviewer got some things about the movie wrong?
These are the questions that bounced through my head upon finding this thread. I clicked on the video anyway though, and learned some interesting stuff about a movie I've never seen. I don't think it really does much to damage or diminish the reputation of the Nostalgia Critic character since his reputation is already at a nadir, but it was cool to get some thoughtful perspective on a film I had generally dismissed as psychedelic self-indulgence. I will try and give it a viewing if I can find a reliable stream. Hopefully Doug Walker has learned not to engage with works beyond 80's and 90's pop culture ephemera.
These are the questions that bounced through my head upon finding this thread. I clicked on the video anyway though, and learned some interesting stuff about a movie I've never seen. I don't think it really does much to damage or diminish the reputation of the Nostalgia Critic character since his reputation is already at a nadir, but it was cool to get some thoughtful perspective on a film I had generally dismissed as psychedelic self-indulgence. I will try and give it a viewing if I can find a reliable stream. Hopefully Doug Walker has learned not to engage with works beyond 80's and 90's pop culture ephemera.
Videos like this one occupy a weird space in my mind. If I truly don't care, I won't watch them. That it can hook me in and make me sit here for almost an hour watching a video about a video I've never seen about a movie I've never seen, then it must be something special or something I like. If it's not, I move on.
I think that's the core reality people need to accept about all of this long form Youtube content. For me, during the days of COVID and barely seeing or talking directly to my friends, they occupy an almost conversational space for me. Watching these videos is like a long conversation about a movie or a game that I can no longer have directly with a person, because I literally can't. I've greatly enjoyed watching the Joseph Anderson 4+ hour long reviews of both The Witcher 1 and 2, which are games that I don't particularly care for. But I also managed to bounce off a similar long review of House that just didn't click for me. House is my favorite show, and I'd love a good multi-hour deep dive, but the video just wasn't saying anything that I cared to hear, so I dropped it.
Take what works, leave behind what doesn't and don't let it bother you.
The Wall is far from a perfect film; it's messy, indulgent, and blunt to a fault with its symbolism at times. But that said, it DOES chart out a plausible personal journey someone may take to embracing fascism and nationalism, and I think there's a lot of value in that. It's a film you get more out of if you unfocus your eyes a bit and take in what it constantly throws at you with a fairly wide berth, but it's certainly NOT the aimless, petty film NC plays it as.
Gerald Scarfe's animation in it is spectacular and that alone is worth the price of admission IMO. Last I checked, though, the best quality release of it is DVD.
Just going by the clips in the Folding Ideas video, it really does look like I'm 14 And This Is Deep: The Movie. I'm not sure if I'd be able to take it that seriously in the year 2021, even knowing that it was doing some ground-breaking stuff when it was originally released.
The animation segments really do look incredible -- if the movie is only available at 480P/DVD-quality, then that is a shame.
Doug seemed so earnest when he was plugging that album too, like he truly believed it. The montage of lyrics about thinking the work was dumb and pandering played right before the clip of Doug saying it was a love letter so please buy his parody album. People say NC only has 3 faces and overacts but damn, how could that segment not be an act.
Urban Dictionary: punchable face
When someone has got the kind of face that irritates you to the point of wanting to punch them
www.urbandictionary.com
Urban Dictionary: punchable face
When someone has got the kind of face that irritates you to the point of wanting to punch them
well shit, I hope I don't have a punchable face
look at this fucking face and tell me you don't suddenly feel the primal urge to punch it.
I first watched it in college (which was admittedly... a while ago) without knowing that much about Pink Floyd but I really enjoyed it regardless. I think if you go in being thinking about how the movie is trying to be deep you won't really enjoy it but if you go in willing to appreciate the interesting approach to how they tell the story, it's very enjoyable. And some sequences, like the Goodbye Blue Skies are pretty affecting.
Thisi s gonna be off topic, but something I've noticed is that when you get a person who is disliked enough, even among progressive communities, regressive instincts come out. For example, I remember back during a Jimquisition, Jim Stephanie Sterling featured a story about a developer who stole music I think from an artist and refused to pay them for it or something like that. Except this developer was a woman, so suddenly the Jimquisitions otherwise progressive community got real misogynistic real fast, instantly launching a harassment campaign. They (meaning Jim/Stephanie) deleted the video and then posted a reaction video to explain why they had to remove the video and how disappointed they were in their community that they went on to harass the woman.
So, whereas "Punchable face" is usually an alt-right thing nowadays because the term is rooted in that the idea that men can look a certain way as a way of deserving to be punched, and that mentality tends to crop up in really distasteful areas. In fact, I just saw Jim's twitter getting a few threats of violence because according to them Jim is so ugly that they warrant it, so it's something most progressive crowds eschew from....except it creeps back up when we have someone we can treat as a common enemy, like Doug.
It kind of highlights how abusive language tends to not be the solely due to personal beliefs but simply because they often come from societal inequalities, and people will use bigoted language not only if they believe bigoted things, but whether bigoted language can be advantageous to them in a particular moment. Jim thought they could write a story attacking a developer for the similar bad actions that they've attacked dozens of other developers for doing without igniting a harassment campaign against a woman because their audience was not like that, and they weren't...until they were.
So, being mindful of that, punchable face is not the best insult to use against anyone. Doug sucks so much at so many things, but his face has nothing to do with it.
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Legitimate thank-you for the input. I hadn't considered that, beyond the surface level. I agree that others shouldn't be mocked for their appearance, or threatened with violence, and when I had previously used that particular phrasing, it was always more to comment on the manner a person carried themselves, and less their actual inherent physical appearance. In this case, I suppose I meant to disparage his overblown acting and mawkish facial expressions.
But you've definitely given me something to think about, and I realize now how loaded the phrasing actually is. I won't be using it in the future.
The slow death of the channel is morbidly fascinating. His NC videos seems to still get views, but all other stuff they had is gone. Tamara and Malcolm's reward for standing by the channel is their shows being canned and co streaming on their twitch channel (who wants to watch Doug Walker playthrough Kingdom Hearts?).
The best way I could describe it is his facial expressions look like something out of a hastily put together Source Film Maker animation?
Note, not commenting on his physical appearance as such but rather the bizzare cringey over acting he does with every percent of his performance.
So far this serves as a critique of a critique as much as a critique of this specific brand of creatively bankrupt criticism and "humor" that far more than just the Nostalgia Critic indulges in.
Doug Walker's "thing" got started with cheap, easy to digest internet videos. 5 Second Movies was funny at the time because it was quick jokes. Nostalgia Critic had its appeal as a vehicle through which to visit bad movies/shows from your childhood that you barely remember. His jokes "worked" in those "reviews" because the thing he was reviewing was already bad and full of low-hanging fruit. When the material ran out and he made a video over all the bad movies/shows from the mid-80s to mid-90s so did his appeal. It was the material he was reviewing that made for an entertaining video, he really didn't do much to add to it.
I distinctly remember one Q&A video for some anniversary or some shit when he was asked when he'd stop doing NC and he mentioned when he'd run out of material to review. He obviously tumbled well past that point but what's telling is he clearly knew his schtick was mostly dependant on the material. He knew at some point in the past that there would definitely come a time when the whole NC thing would be past its prime. And yet today he pretends like everything is fine.
I distinctly remember one Q&A video for some anniversary or some shit when he was asked when he'd stop doing NC and he mentioned when he'd run out of material to review. He obviously tumbled well past that point but what's telling is he clearly knew his schtick was mostly dependant on the material. He knew at some point in the past that there would definitely come a time when the whole NC thing would be past its prime. And yet today he pretends like everything is fine.
To give Doug some credit, he did attempt to end the Nostalgia Critic when it was becoming stale. Unfortunately, his new project, Demo Reel, was such disaster that he was forced back into being the Nostalgia Critic.
Finished the video and for being barely a minute long out of a 48-minute long video the segment on Comfortably Dumb is absolutely savage.
Most I can add is that I love seeing love for Goodbye, Blue Sky, it often feels overlooked because there are just so many iconic pieces in The Wall, but it's a terrifying, terrifying song.
Most I can add is that I love seeing love for Goodbye, Blue Sky, it often feels overlooked because there are just so many iconic pieces in The Wall, but it's a terrifying, terrifying song.
I watched the Lady Emily video and it really put into perspective how much of a failure Demo Reel is to both a series and a career.
The purgatory of doing a job that you find stale while forgoing your passion just to make enough money. He escaped one shitty job and forced to do another shitty job of his own making. Forever.
Also the Tvtropes pages on him are hilariously cringy.
The purgatory of doing a job that you find stale while forgoing your passion just to make enough money. He escaped one shitty job and forced to do another shitty job of his own making. Forever.
Also the Tvtropes pages on him are hilariously cringy.
Nostalgia Critic and TVTRopes kind of grew alongside one another right?
TVTropes has some hot takes...I remember it used to be a lot worse with lots of akward trope pages that were barely disguised fetish repositories (some still are), and people's bizarre moral opinions were on every page.
He was on Channel Awesome though even back then he was vocally critical of Doug, albeit in a more joke-y fashion; at one convention panel, he introduced himself as Doug Walker who "always answers e-mails in a timely manner".
Folding Ideas is one of those accounts that I can just watch pretty much any video from, almost regardless of whether or not I actually held previous interest or knowledge of the video's subjects. This one in particular slayed me. Great burns and insight ^_^
I'm gonna need context hereRemember that time him and AVGN were in an anime? That was weird
It was in an anime Psychic Squad.
Here's the scene. It's just a very brief cameo. Nothing to do with the plot.
holy crap, that was *brutal*. Elegantly brutal, at times. Dan's a very talented guy and I love his videos, this time's no exception.
The Wall scarred me since watching it when I was a teenager. I don't know if that's a "good" age to watch it, considering it's very dark and violent at times, with no qualms of showing different types of violence (sexual, military, fascistic) and you don't have your criteria "formed" at that point, you're still impressionable and you may have trouble discerning context of stuff you barely know about. So it left a very big, deep impression in my young mind, something like a gaping wound - the twisted scenes of violence and self-loathing, the symbolic horrors of war in display, the blunt trauma that shapes you as a kid.
I may have liked the imagery because the meaning behind the visuals kinda passed me by. In time I learned what it all meant. It seems Doug Walker didn't.
Goodbye Blue Sky was, indeed, one of the things that shook me the most. It's almost like a mural but in motion, an anti-war mural made animated, in all its terrifying glory. It stays with you. At least it has stayed with me all these years.
The Wall scarred me since watching it when I was a teenager. I don't know if that's a "good" age to watch it, considering it's very dark and violent at times, with no qualms of showing different types of violence (sexual, military, fascistic) and you don't have your criteria "formed" at that point, you're still impressionable and you may have trouble discerning context of stuff you barely know about. So it left a very big, deep impression in my young mind, something like a gaping wound - the twisted scenes of violence and self-loathing, the symbolic horrors of war in display, the blunt trauma that shapes you as a kid.
I may have liked the imagery because the meaning behind the visuals kinda passed me by. In time I learned what it all meant. It seems Doug Walker didn't.
Goodbye Blue Sky was, indeed, one of the things that shook me the most. It's almost like a mural but in motion, an anti-war mural made animated, in all its terrifying glory. It stays with you. At least it has stayed with me all these years.
(Same off-topic tangent, sorry.)
That reminds of all those times I've seen people on this very forum react to mugshots of criminals, or pictures of bigoted individuals with comments like "well, they sure look the part".
Like, really? Of all the things you could say about those people, you go for that? They're ugly? Ow, shit, shame on them for that, I guess.
(It can also take the form of "celebrity x is revealed to be a creep? well, I'm not surprised at all, considering how they look!".)
And that fucking picture:
Like, huh, guys? That's really fucking stupid?
I'm sorry, it's Preacher, right? And it's supposed to be good? Maybe it is, I don't know, but that, right there, is pretty fucking stupid.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of nazi shitheads who don't remotely look like their supposedly superior "Aryan Übermensch" would be one thing, sure, seems fair enough. But if you phrase it like you do think there are objectively superior physical features, you're basically... I mean, wouldn't that mean you're... seriously, can't you see how... I... what???
the wall was probably only about 10-15 years old when i first saw it. i was on a ride at a theme park. it was one of those graviton rides. in the middle were televisions playing music videos. most of these were suited more for younger teenagers, like weird al's 'smells like nirvana'. but they also had 'we don't need no education' play from 'the wall' and it scared me shitless. i wasn't even ten years old and it was impossible to process why the students had those creepy faces and were turning into meat - all while being stuck against an actual wall and actually unable to look away.
dan's video positions it in a way as something i should probably visit and might even enjoy.
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I remember a bunch of their videos had been (fan-)subtitled in Japanese and uploaded on Nico Nico Dōga, years back.
(Not to imply that was some kind of cultural phenomenon over there or anything like that, okay? Please don't turn this into another "French people love Jerry Lewis" urban legend. But somebody took care of the language barrier, so there was some visibility, and I can certainly see how an animator could be aware of them and make that (obscure) reference.)
This wasn't a takedown, this was a scalpel sharp postmortem dissection of one ignorant man. I'm struck by how Doug chose to criticize a work of such earnestness that only acted to reveal just how shallow the dude is.
Damn, that sure is a random and totally not scary way of first watching (part of) the movie. I can totally see why you as a kid would be scarred by that - quite the contrast from Weird Al to... *that*.
You haven't watched it since?
That's really the thing. Why "The Wall," in 2019? Unless you're listening to a lot of classic rock radio (self callout here) that's not on your radar at all.
It's a neat piece of art for sure and important in the history of rock but that's not at all in Doug's wheelhouse or necessarily something that would generate a lot of clicks compared to him tackling something more contemporary.
i didn't know what it was for the longest time. it wasn't until my 20s that i saw clips from the movie and realized the living nightmare from my childhood was an 80s film and not a deeply unsettling music video. but i also never intentionally sought it out after that. the explanation of the film and the mindset behind its creation is interesting though, and relevant to today. dan certainly sells certain parts of it too (i wouldn't mind watching the whole thing to get the context of the goodbye blue sky part instead of just watching a clip on youtube). it doesn't appear to be on any streaming service though. so even renting it from amazon is out of the question. weird.
I'm pretty sure it's because his musical episodes get the most views by his own admission. The Wall allows his parody songs to be of some objectively good music that he can then sell/stream as well.
I feel like Dan saying this all reveals a part of Doug speaks very loudly. As if Doug chose to take down what is seen as an ageless icon as his own way to supplicate the call of his own ego.
That makes sense. Still proved far too much for him to chew on.
Great video from Dan. I remember watching a lot of Nostalgia Critic back in the day but I never thought he was actually a good reviewer.
I agree. I'm not impressed with Fennah's animation either. It's fine for an amateur but all of the characters move like they're underwater. It's very busy and doesn't come across as an informed choice.
I agree. I'm not impressed with Fennah's animation either. It's fine for an amateur but all of the characters move like they're underwater. It's very busy and doesn't come across as an informed choice.
Funny Enough his Les Mis review(based on the movie,) was a musical that had Linkara make a good point in song, let Kyle Kallgren sing a good point, and let Paw Dugan sing song that was a in joke about his wife.
But then the Brental Floss had to sing a parody of Russell Crow, AFTER pointing out his flaws and successes.
His 'only here for the skits' actors had to make fun of Sasha Cohen and Helen Carter. Despite that not being a criticism anyone else had.
And then they ended the whole thing with "Opinions are like assholes everyone has it"
And decided it was fine.
Yeah Doug, we all knew that.