Video links - John C. Kirk

02:47 pm - Video links

Last year, I wrote about entertaining reviews. One of those reviewers was the Nostalgia Critic, who reviews films. There are several other people who also do reviews on his website, e.g. Atop the Fourth Wall where "Linkara" reviews comics. Like the Nostalgia Critic, his reviews tend to be negative; in fact, he has explicitly said that he won't review particular comics because he liked them. Still, he makes some valid points, and you don't need to be familiar with the comics in advance because he tells you everything you need to know (e.g. showing scanned pages). A lot of his reviews also include storylines, a bit like the framing sequences in Mystery Science Theater 3000, so it may seem a bit odd if you're new to the site. Anyway, his videos are worth a look if you read a lot of comics, but they won't appeal to everyone.

Another reviewer is The Nostalgia Chick. She mainly covers films and TV series: the main difference is that she's quite happy to review good stuff as well as bad. For instance, she reviewed Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, which I haven't seen. However, she starts by saying that the original Beauty and the Beast film is "not just one of my favourite Disney movies, it's one of my favourite movies period." That makes me take her criticisms more seriously, since we agree on that. She also reviewed Mulan (a film I liked), and at one point she says "Oh no, this musical number". That's my favourite song from the film, so her comment seemed a little harsh, until she revealed the reason: she (and her friend) couldn't resist singing along to it. That was fun, and I like seeing that kind of enthusiasm. Her latest review is for The Little Mermaid. Again, I like that film, and I didn't see it until I was at university so this isn't simply childhood nostalgia. I think the funniest part of the review is when Nella uses creative sign language (with subtitles), particularly during the singalong. Anyway, if you've seen the relevant films then I definitely recommend those reviews.

Speaking of sign language, this video is great:

Microsoft have done a series of adverts where people say "Windows 7 was my idea", and some other people made a set of Star Wars parodies, e.g. "I'm Darth Vader, and the Death Star was my idea". This video is one of those parodies, except that it's narrated by Chewbacca with sign language by a stormtrooper, and no subtitles. Truly an inspired concept.