Reviews for July 2023

Newly featuring multiple movies, TV shows, a video game, a gen-alpha Youtube show, but also, as always, shitty fanfiction.

In the Homestuck Discord, we often watch a few episodes of old TV shows together every weekend. Rarely, one of the two TV shows ends with nothing to replace it, in this case The Sopranos. So while continuing The Venture Bros, I instead played a few classic movies, most of them comedy.

This makes for a special reviews article, since I’m going to be reviewing movies for the first time. Also I guess I’ll throw in both TV shows, as a treat. Let me know in the comments if you want me to stay in my lane in the future.

2024 update: I’m retroactively adding the modern ★/* highlight system to the top of each old monthly review post, as it was a well received feature.

★: The Sopranos, Ghost Trick, The Naked Gun, The Venture Bros.,

*: Skibidi Toilet, Black Dynamite, The Secret Society, Starship Troopers, Shoganai

Previously on Record Crash:

Reviews for June 2023

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The Sopranos★

A show about a group of New Jersey mafiosos in the late 90s and early 00s, as their lifestyle becomes increasingly dangerous and outdated. Mob leader Tony Soprano starts suffering frequent panic attacks and has to start seeing a therapist, which provides kind of a talking head/framing device to many episodes. The cast eventually starts expanding exponentially and we get to see at the lives of many mobsters and their families.

It’s allegedly one of the first fully serialized shows, or at least the particular type that became popular soon after. So some growing pains as creator David Chase figured it all out are to be expected. Some are understandable, like characters’ actors suddenly dying or going senile in the middle of important plotlines, but others are major and almost show-killing.

One of those major pains is the constant flip-flopping that almost every character arc undergoes. We could charitably call it a faithful portrayal of relapse or something, but in my opinion it’s just bad writing. We have Christopher get into drugs then out of them like twenty times. We have Tony sleeping around after promising not to a million times. After a while you start asking yourself why you even care about either character’s development, if the show refuses to stick to either state and uses the same repetitive scenes to return to status quo and cheap drama.

Another major issue with this show is Chase’s seeming lack of control at the episode level. His season-long plots are pretty good, but you get random episodes in the middle that completely clash with the theme of the season, sometimes the entire series.

Often, they’re just bad. A glaring example in the final season features Tony’s massive gambling problem. Throughout the episode, he wastes all of his savings in successive out-of-character scenes. This is not mentioned before, or after. By the next episode, the problem has been forgotten, there are no money issues whatsoever.

From the beginning, it’s a questionable episode concept considering Tony will soon murder one of his associates mainly because of their dangerous addiction,¹ and that Tony’s actual vices (food, adultery, etc.) have been portrayed and analyzed to death. We’ve even had multiple gambling addiction episodes in the show before with other characters at the forefront. Of course, much like Breaking Bad, everyone involved refuses to let the watchers believe that crime pays, and everything must fail in the end. Which only makes Tony seemingly getting away with it weirder!

Though I haven’t looked into the production of the show too closely, I believe Chase just gave random writers the permission to write standalone episodes without caring about the overall plot too much, and then they were inserted at random between the ones that matter.

We also have to discuss the famous fade-to-black ending. I think it’s pathetic and a sign of Chase’s inherent pretentiousness that he wants it to be ambiguous² while simultaneously being caught twice admitting the “Tony gets murdered right after the fade to black” interpretation is the correct one behind the scenes. It feels less artistic and more “I only want ‘smart’ people such as myself to watch my show” crap.

Finally, some show-long plotlines like Meadow’s, and to a lesser extent Carmela’s, just seem to fizzle out and go nowhere after wasting our time repeatedly.³

Overall, however, I’m pretty happy with it. It’s at its strongest when it mixes humor with drama, which happens often. James Gandolfini, who played Tony, deserves all the accolades he got, constantly carried scenes, and most other lead actors weren’t half bad either. Worth watching on the acting alone, even. I recommend watching this if you have the time.

Way better than The Wire.

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Until You Continue To Behave

it’s just my artstyle

A very frustrating read. This is a novel released online. It could only be released online, because it uses all the hyper-text, information-superhighway tricks it can, from custom-made futuristic music tracks, so slowly scrolling text to simulate chatting, to a professional presentation that makes it stand out among all other lazy web serials like say, Worm.

Unfortunately, the plot is terrible. My closest point of comparison for its writing is Black Mirror’s, but with all its flaws exaggerated and none of the good.

It takes place in a futuristic world where all the common terminally-online points of fear have happened. Global warming has raised the sea level, pollution has covered the skies, and everyone is a slave to corporations and social networks, with suspiciously Donald Trump-like CEOs. That’s okay as a starting point for a real story that… never really comes.

That’s the plot. It becomes an examination of how techbros, the writer’s personal antichrists, are contributing to that future by leaving huge unused piles of gold in their homes while everyone else is starving. Very clever, uh… metaphor? Does that even count? Surely there’s a point where you instantly get thrown into Writer Hell without collecting buzzwords. It even has the classic “the lower class lives literally below the high class” cliche.

There’s also a continuing overuse of excrement through the story in the most bizarre ways, which convinced me the writer is a scat fetishist. This story generally just made me disgusted both as on the object level and as a reader of fiction. It increasingly got worse, becoming more hamfisted and anvilicious…

But I kept reading because the presentation is so cool. I’m such a sucker for WEB 4.0 YOOOOOO.

I regretted it anyway when I got to the end. There’s no twist, it’s just a descend into writer derangement and not a well narrated one, and all its best tech tricks are wasted early. I recommend you avoid it.

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Ghost Trick★

It’s a miracle I enjoyed this game so much, given that I dropped it for ten years because all the most important twists were spoiled for me.⁴ I decided to pick it back up after it finally got a PC port (which is competent, but stuck to the original aspect ratio).

Besides an incredibly annoying stealth section (why do all games have one even when it makes no goddamn sense?), the gameplay is original and stellar. There’s nothing like it. Even when you fail, you tend to get funny scenes to make up for it.

The plot, as implied by the start, is filled with twists and turns. There are a couple bad coincidences, but if you enjoyed Zero Escape or Ace Attorney or Danganronpa, you’ll love this. I refuse to go into any more detail, because it’s a mystery story where you’re trying to figure out your own murder. Come on and do that.

Shout out to the extremely likable deuterdogonist Missile. Just look at him up there.

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Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

I was skeptical it would be filled with Marvel-style quips. There are some, but most of the time this movie is legitimately funny.

The movie also satisfies our modern expectation of munchkinry, with some generally clever tricks that you might get in a good D&D campaign.

However, I didn’t feel it was a 10, and I don’t think I would rewatch it. I thought it was pretty good, and very competently made, but a bit… gimmicky? It was like a succession of good Worth the Candle scenes without much meat to connect them. It really doesn’t make you think or give you much to say. Let’s say it gets 3/4 stars, and to only watch it if you really like what I mentioned.

I think there’s some untrodden ground here, though. Maybe a TV show like What We Do in the Shadows but about D&D adventurers could work.

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Skibidi Toilet*

My Style Is Ri-dic-dic-diculous-ulous-ulous

Brr Skibidi Dop Dop Dop Dop Dop

Yes Yes Yes Yes Shkib Shkibidi Dip Dibidi

Wwww Yes Yes Yes Yes

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

A bizarre but surprisingly engaging youtube series⁵ that escalates from a standalone toilet-themed shitpost. Eventually becomes a full-on war drama with giant robots and a general arms race.

Basically, toilets with heads coming out of them have started killing all humans. A faction of robots with cameras, TVs and speakers as heads start fighting back. Escalation ensues.

The newest generation after zoomers—“gen alphas”—fucking love this. The Youtube shorts regularly reach 20 million views shortly after release, which is often, one high quality video every couple days or so.

However, even if you’re not a kid, there’s a lot to like in this. I’ve heard it compared to Dragon Ball Z, which I never watched, but which I know brings people of all ages together to watch the pretty lights and fights.

You can tell this is good because the story revolves around toilets and I never once thought the writer had a weird fetish.

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The Naked Gun★

It’s a classic comedy movie featuring Leslie Nielsen. He has to stop a corporate mind control plot, but he’s inconsistently competent in the funniest ways.

I’m not gonna bother reviewing this in depth. If you watched Airplane!, you’ll love this. Just classic comedy with many highly skilled cinematic tricks that allow for meta-physical comedy of the kind you could only get in a movie.

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Wish Upon the Stars

An original Royal Road style superhero serial that I decided to pick up because of the original power.

Much like in stories like Shadows of the Limelight, powers (in this case, stats) get stronger the most notoriety you have. But our protagonist can’t just go out and beat people up, because his initial power is granting wishes to other people in exchange for things.

So you’d think this would be a cool “control the world from the shadows” style story? No, idiot, this works on notoriety, so the main character has to still go out and beat people up. Then he grants random wishes which he exchanges for physical stats, and he beats people up harder.

Just a series of weird worldbuilding decisions that pile up. The story kept fighting against itself, and, combined with the extremely slow pacing, made me drop it.

The reviews on RR all point out these issues, but I accidentally found it through a forum instead and didn’t notice, whoops.

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Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart & The Venture Bros.★ & Girl Adventurer

Venture Bros is more than just “a parody of old adventure cartoons like Johnny Quest with a bunch of unrelated parodies thrown in”, but that sure is the description I’ve decided to go with.

It’s one of those stories with unbelievably funny and snappy auteur-level dialogue (think Community), but sometimes it’s just really dumb in a funny way. It’s hard to explain, there’s nothing like it. So I guess this is going to be one of those terrible reviews that misses the point. Here’s a clip:

The movie, Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, was a great sendoff. Many people were upset because not all questions were answered, but I think much like LOST, the writers just decided to focus on the answers that mattered the most. The climax of the movie stands out as probably the best action scene in the series.

Highly recommended for both the series and the movie, though I suggest watching with subtitles, because the media references are hard to catch if you’re not ready for them.

Girl Adventurer is not official, it’s the first VB fic I’ve read. It’s essentially a novelization of the original with a few novel dialogue lines by a boring new character. The show’s script is so good that I basically don’t care. It was a great way to review the first couple seasons before watching the film, but uh, don’t bother otherwise.

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Indelible

A by-the-numbers Sasuke self-insert, except Naruto is a girl for some reason. You’d usually say it’s obviously for romantic purposes, but it doesn’t seem like the author is interested in writing that.

It’s essentially just a long training arc. Not much has happened yet, 100k words in, but the arc is at least competently executed to the point I never got bored. That said, I forgot every single scene less than two weeks after finishing it, so maybe its sin is being extremely forgettable.

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The Raid

Honestly, this fic⁶ is hailed as one of the best action movies ever, but I didn’t think it was stellar.

Though it’s ostensibly about three plucky cops and some nameless goons raiding a tall building taken over by criminals, there aren’t THAT many guns fired. What really shines is the use of the Indonesian martial art—Silat—by the main characters.

The story is laughably simple until it piles on a bunch of pointless double crossings at the end. It kind of wants to be a heist movie when it should have stuck to being a purely action film, especially because once the twists are stacked up, it doesn’t amount to anything new. It’s still good guy vs bad guy.

I’d compare this negatively to RRR,⁷ which had more of a plot, more varied action (almost to parodic levels), and a soundtrack. I have no memory of any sound from The Raid besides meaty hits and guns firing.

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Inevitable

A Harry Potter fic by the author of Indelible, who I guess likes his naming schemes.

Harry travels back in time to his fifth year and instantly gets entangled in ancient family politics. He gets ahead of Umbridge and opens the study group as an official school thing, tricking her into thinking he’s on her side.

For whatever reasons, he makes new friends at school, as he harbors some resentment over the events of the original books. Lots of the Slytherin fanon characters we’ve learned to love. The standard Harry/Daphne relationship.

Almost none of it is all that original, but I think it makes for some decent slice-of-life style scenes, and it’s slightly better paced than the Sasuke fic. I think this author just can’t write action to save his life.

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Black Dynamite*

Much like Naked Gun, I don’t have much to say about this. It’s a parody of Blaxploitation films, but intentionally putting in all the worst production mistakes and continuity errors they could manage. One of the classic BAD ON PURPOSE-type media, but well executed. Recommended if you like things like Darkplace.

Shout out to this scene, and the one where the lead and a random extra had their lines switched, making the titular character start speaking in technobabble. Every time I’d hear about Black Dynamite before, I would assume it was just a dumb low effort action movie like (hot take ahead) Kung Fury, but turns out it’s a notch above.

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The Secret Society*

Harry as an information broker in Slytherin. We’ve skipped ahead a few years, where he’s friendless and has only survived so long by assuming that role. Voldemort is now back, and Harry’s backstory has switched with Neville’s, so he’s the guy with formerly death-eater murdering parents stuck in the death-eater house, without any special privileges or prophecies to defend him.

While this makes you think of an angstfest of a story, his interactions with Gryffindor and his “accidental” good deeds escalating into friendships (all while Harry deludes himself into thinking he’s just manipulating them) are very well handled, pacing the dark and light parts expertly. The AU-changed characters like Neville, and surprisingly Dumbledore also add a twist to the formula.

Very unpredictable, original story. It’s not a masterpiece and has some weak points like inconsistent power levels, but you won’t be bored and I recommend it.

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Starship Troopers (the movie)*

Haven’t read the book. I hear the original plays the premise straight: evil aliens have attacked Earth, so here’s a war story set in space with three protagonists placed in strategic viewpoints: the main character is a ground-level grunt, his love interest is a pilot in a spaceship, and his best friend is working for the army’s intelligence department.

The movie takes that premise and twists it into a not-all-that-subtle parody of jingoism.

I thought it was really good. Unlike many other parodies, it didn’t rely on overusing humor, and the action is relentless and consistent, so that you can enjoy it at both levels.

It turned out it’s a source of a surprising number of reaction images, famous phrases, and alien/space tropes, to the point I recommend this on cultural relevance alone, if that’s your kind of motivation. It’s not The Lord of the Rings for sci-fi, but it gets close.

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The White Knight

A self-insert into a minor character of the “prequel-era” of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

Fics in this period are rare, so the novelty kept me reading for a bit, but it just becomes another “self-insert wins the tourney and characters fall around them to let them live” power fantasy fic.

The writer seems to also be unsure of whether their SI is a goody two-shoes or a mastermind, and whether their narration is reliable or not.

Just trash. Avoid.

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Shoganai*

Your mom lets you have TWO Naruto self-insert fics.

In this case it’s an original character, but with a twist. The character only has knowledge of the series through cultural osmosis, which means he incorrectly assumes tropes like Naruto winning every fight apply, and doesn’t know basic lore facts, such as his parentage.

It’s also really well written, by an author who uses misdirection expertly where it concerns the main character’s backstory. He lets the SI invent some original magic tricks, but they’re never overpowered and every fight feels properly balanced, which is really rare in this type of fic.

Stations-of-canon are also butterflied away often, and the writer doesn’t bring attention to it (that misdirection again) which leads to surprising scenes that nonetheless make a ton of sense. Recommended, but it does require some Naruto knowledge.

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Soft Magic Sucks

Aaand the inevitable HP self-insert fic.⁸

Uniquely, and perhaps contrivedly, the OC SI meets Harry at his middle school and defends him from bullies, which makes Harry unrecognizable by the time they arrive at Hogwarts.

Largely slice-of-life, it’s focused on the main character building some kind of merchant empire by using muggle products, though it’s in the early phases.

I think this fic, even if it weren’t seemingly dead, is going to fall apart soon because it keeps adding characters to the main cast. Though character interactions are the author’s strong point, he doesn’t seem to understand scope creep. I’d avoid it unless it comes back.

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Barbie

Okay, so after watching this movie I was unable to decide which typology this falls into:

• Is it a purely feminist movie that is just really really bad at making you root for its message, and with a bunch of scenes working against it?

• Is it a clever parody of corporate feminism that nonetheless has an unironic ten minute monologue that my cinema audience unironically clapped at?

• Is it a complete shitpost produced by letting a feminist director and a bunch of unrelated third parties work on the script simultaneously?

My conclusion: I don’t fucking know. All I know is it’s worth watching. It’s got genuinely funny jokes, a really good musical number, and so many weird scenes that will make you think, mostly about who exactly this is for. Maybe it’s everyone.

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And that’s it for this month. Jesus Christ, I need to better balance my time. Remember June? How pathetic that month was.

1. Not that Tony isn’t a massive hypocrite, but the show tends to make it obvious when he’s being one.

2. Speaking of ambiguity, I’m still convinced Paulie had the most motive to kill Tony’s horse, and he took the painting as a trophy, leading to tension and Paulie’s constant fear from that point onward. But, apparently, Chase or one of the actors also accidentally mentioned it was clearly Ralphie. My version is better.

3. I’m almost tempted to agree with 4chan that “skip all the female-character-centric episodes” is good advice, but I’m sure you’d miss some good stuff that way, such as the end of Adriana’s storyline.

4. It’s one of those stories where the presentation of the twists matters more than the content, so I enjoyed them anyway.

5. It mainly uses Garry’s Mod/Half-Life 2 assets, which many of you might remember from shitpost videos over a decade ago. It’s like fashion trends.

6. I’m leaving that in.

7. They both have the letter R in the title…

8. You’ll notice that despite complaining about lack of novelty, I sure read a lot of this genre. It is what it is.