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Post by lentlsoup on Jan 9, 2023 5:13:12 GMT 1
LENTIL'S 2023 MEDIA PALOOZA
Hi!!! This is going to be a thread for me to track media i read/watch/play etc for all of 2023 and write some thoughts about! I've seen people do this kind of thing on twitter, and think it'd be fun to do on the forum where there isn't a text limit for posts. I actually wanted to do something like this in 2022 but I got the idea partway through the year, and didn't really want to backlog a bunch of posts for stuff i experienced earlier in the year but I didn't want to start partway through either. I ended up backtracking and writing a list of everything i played/watched/read the months previously and started keeping track from there, and I plan on making something cool with my 2022 media list, but I'm excited to commit to something more detailed starting closer to the beginning of the year LOL.
These aren't going to exactly be reviews (unless I particularly feel like giving one), they're just going to be general thoughts on a thing that vary on detail/length depending on how strongly i feel about it or how much i have to say. Also, when i say media i am mainly referring to movies/shows/books/games but I may include different kinds of stuff there too if i feel it made a big enough impression (like. an album that slaps like hell or a really cool video essay. idk. anything can happen we'll see)
Final note, feel free to reply with your own opinions of anything I post about! I'd love to hear them, positive or negative.
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Post by lentlsoup on Jan 9, 2023 5:17:07 GMT 1
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Post by lentlsoup on Jan 9, 2023 6:49:47 GMT 1
#1 - Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Movie) Date watched: January 1st
Watched this on New Year's Day with my mom and brother in the theatre! I had seen the first puss in boots movie years ago when it came out, but in all honestly it wasn't very memorable to me and i barely remember any of it. Thankfully, its not a necessary viewing to watch and understand the sequel. There is a returning character from the first movie but her role and arc in this movie is pretty self contained and doesn't rely on knowing her from the previous entry. In any case, this was such a blast to watch. Its gotta be up there with one of the best looking animated movies I've seen. It takes a lot of obvious inspiration from Spiderverse (namely animating on 2s during some action sequences to emphasize movement, and adding action lines as flourishes to the 3d animation) but while Spiderverse excels in making the movie look like an animated comic book, this movie really looks like an animated gouache painting. They stylize the animation by giving a lot of painterly flourishes in the textures of the character designs (which were super cool btw) and backgrounds that look like brushstrokes. Along with the bright colour palette it really drives home the aesthetic of the setting being a fairy tale world more than ever before. It looks so so cool. Visuals aside though, I really enjoyed being back in the whole Shrek universe again. I always loved how the shrek movies poked fun at and subverts bunch of fairytale characters and tropes and this movie really delivers on that in some really cool ways, and I really liked the directions they took with every character (but most notably Puss in Boots himself has a really interesting arc). Plus there were a lot of jokes that made me laugh which is the most important part, obviously. Thoroughly enjoyable movie. 
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Post by lentlsoup on Jan 9, 2023 8:22:17 GMT 1
#2 - Turning Red (Movie, Rewatch) Date watched: January 4th
I watched this with Nachtkern and reaperman on a stream together! I'd seen it once before but it was their first times watching. This is a super cute and charming movie.... I think people gave the character designs shit when the trailers came out but they know Nothing. I absolutely adore the character designs theyre so blobby and cute and expressive. Also the movie makes Toronto look visually appealing which i think is a feat. I really enjoyed the group of main characters and how they were very believably 13, and acted kind of cringey but in a cute/endearing way and had very 13 year old interests and ways of speaking. Mei Mei is a really cute protag and i was very invested in her determination to see the boy band of her dreams. I hope there are more animated movies specifically about being small weird teenage girls because I think there should be more of those in general. I also like how Mei Mei and her family being asian isn't just an added bonus that the movie would be no different without but is a very integral part of the story and has a lot of meaningful references to the culture. I also in general just enjoyed seeing the small mundane depictions of an average chinese household they made me smile. Overall a fun and heartfelt movie that I really liked :) its too bad canada isnt real.
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Post by Nachtkern on Jan 12, 2023 16:54:32 GMT 1
#2 - Turning Red (Movie, Rewatch) I was there! When watching this with you! And I liked it! I'm not much into Disney movies (as I've described to you in detail), but I really enjoyed this one. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece or anything like that, but it's fun to watch, and it does what it's meant to, which is being a perfectly decent children's movie. More than can be said for some other Disney's LOL. I really liked the character designs too - it's in that sense clearly more of a Pixar movie than a Disney one. I think they're loosening up on it a *little* after how much criticism they've received after Frozen, but Disney movies are kind of notorious for their doe-eyed, twiggy characters. I can't imagine liking that better than the blobby Pixar ones - I'd even take the Inside Out character designs over that, and you know what my stance is on those. And, not to mention, something both Disney and Pixar are guilty of, is sticking too closely to their characters 3D models when animating expressions and body language. It leads to the final product ending up really stiff-looking compared to exaggerated 2D animation. Turning Red could have done more with it than they did, but Mei Mei's expressions are definitely a huge improvement over other Disney/Pixar movies I've seen. Anyway, we should watch animations together more often. It's been a while since I've really kept up with them, and I wouldn't mind doing some catching up or rewatching a few. I may complain a lot, but it's just because I really enjoy watching animated movies and form a lot of opinions on them. |
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Post by lentlsoup on Jan 23, 2023 8:50:26 GMT 1
#3 - The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (Series) Date watched: January 4th
This show was dumb as hell and I wish I didn't watch it LMAO. It wasn't really on purpose, I was cooking something for dinner and my mom turned on Netflix and put some random show on to unwind after work and I sat on the couch to give her some company while I ate and she was on the 2nd episode. While i didn't watch the first episode it didn't take me too long to catch onto the context of what was going on, it was some sort of psychological thriller murder mystery thing. A lot of the dialogue was cheesy as hell and kind of cringe-edgy but I was still guessing abt what was going on and wanted to see the whole Murder Mystery part play out and see whoddunnit by the end. The episodes were short so we binged the whole thing in one evening and the ending pissed us both off because it was literally so dumb. We felt like we had wasted our time watching it and kept thinking "what the hell" until we googled the show and realized...... its supposed to be a parody/satire of classic psychological thriller movies and was meant to be comedic the whole time. I felt silly for not really catching onto that fact earlier when it probably should have been obvious from the absurdly long title alone, and i thought to myself "well i guess going into a parody not knowing its a parody can dampen the experience. so thats probably on me." but the more i thought about it, the more it bothered me because i felt like even if i had gone into it knowing what it was supposed to be, i still wouldn't have enjoyed it.
I asked my brother a few days later "hey so like. what makes a good parody" since he's more well versed in that than I am and he told me the crux of a good parody is that it doesn't punch down it's source material/whatever genre conventions its parodying, but instead celebrates them while still poking fun at them. He cited Young Frankenstein as a good parody which I've seen before many years ago and really enjoyed. And its true, it's a movie that's undeniably a spoof of frankenstein but it never feels like it's saying "the story of frankenstein is dumb as fuck" but instead is just focused on having a fun time using the tropes and plot beats of frankenstein but in a sillay way, and its such a funny and delightful watch as a result. The show we watched on the other hand didn't feel like that at all. Majority of the intended comedy comes from the absurdity of stuff happening in the story or character decisions that feel completely out of nowhere, while paradoxically taking itself completely seriously in its tone, which just results in a Mess that ultimately reads as Just Dumb And Bad Writing at best or mean-spirited at worst. I realized that's Actually why i didn't clue in to the fact it was supposed to be a parody while watching it, because the tone was all over the place and I couldn't tell what parts I was actually supposed to take seriously and which ones I wasn't. It dealt with some heavy subject matter but poked fun at those subjects in the same breath. I am being vague and not getting into examples because I do not care to recall any more of the show than I have to and articulate things that happen in it. In any case the silver lining of watching this show is that it really got me thinking about the Technical Construction of parodies and what makes them tick or not. My brother gave me more examples of good parodies that I haven't seen yet and I want to watch those sometime bc the genre still mystifies me a little. I am now on a mission to truly understand parodies wish me luck
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 20, 2023 22:28:12 GMT 1
#4 - M3GAN (Movie) Date watched: January 7th
I watched this at the movie theatre with my brother! We had seen the trailers and memes for it beforehand and we thought it was going to be absolute dogshit but still a fun watch. It was indeed an extremely fun watch but also we did not expect the movie to be actually good. The concept of a Horror Movie With a Creepy Doll (and one thats particularly, sentient and moves around instead of sitting still bringing bad vibes) just Sounds silly and hard to take seriously. Fortunately the guys who made this movie knew this and leaned into the absurdity of the concept completely, and made the movie super campy and over-the-top instead of taking itself too seriously. It also helps that the movie isn't really that condescending about hammering in the idea that "oooooo technology bad" which was the direction I was kind of expecting it to take. It looks like its about to veer into some social commentary about Technology at Some points in the movie but Thankfully it knows that's not what the audience is here for so it doesn't ever commit fully to exploring the idea.
Despite all the sillygoofy Scary Doll funnies though, the movie had a pretty solid emotional core... Which had me wondering to myself after the movie was over. Why was it that I really enjoyed this movie, when I didn't enjoy the previous entry on this list, the show I'd watched just a few days ago? Both were supposed to be comedic, but one succeeded where the other didn't. And both tackled some sensitive subject matter with emotional plot beats despite the Overall comedic tone but only one felt genuine while the other fell flat. It was also then that I asked my brother the question of "what makes a good parody" which, upon reflection was maybe a silly thing to ask in relation to this movie since I don't think it was necessarily parodying anything in particular like that one show was. But it helped me come to a conclusion anyways: While that show's tone was all over the place and made it hard to tell which parts you were supposed to be taking seriously and which you were supposed to be laughing at (which was made Worse with the inclusion of topics like mental illness and bereavement being mixed into the whole thing), M3GAN makes the distinctions between its scenes way more clear. The movie also touches on the topic of grief/loss and takes those scenes seriously when needed, while having nonserious fun just about everywhere else. On a different unrelated note though I was a bit surprised that the violence in this movie was kind of tame overall? I was expecting it to be really gory but that's probably because I was subconsciously linking it to the Child's Play series in my brain because they both have Wacky Murder Dolls LOL. Fun Movie :)
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 1:22:11 GMT 1
#5 - Mob Psycho 100 III (Anime) Date finished: January 8th
At long last..... the Mob Psycho 100 manga has been adapted in its entirety....... and my god I loved it. I watched the final mp100 season gradually together with Nachtkern , reaperman and sincerelybii , but I didn't go in completely blind. I read the manga in its entirety some time after watching the second season so I knew what events were going to happen for the final stretch of the story. I don't regret doing so, but it did make watching the third season kind of a different experience than watching the first two. I inevitably knew what got cut out and I could feel the absence of some scenes that I had really liked while reading the manga, but on the flipside I got to be pleasantly surprised by the addition of new scenes, and got to appreciate the specific ways the decided to adapt some panels or story beats into the anime format.
It was an absolute joy seeing everything come to life and I found myself paying more attention to the way scenes were composed and animation than ever before... Its so clear to anyone watching this show that the animation team put their whole heart and soul into making this adaptation, and it pays off in spades. The expressiveness of the designs and animation, the tiny little details they put in the background for fans to pick up on a second or even third viewing, the instrumentals and lyrics of the MUSIC... it all comes together so so so well. I was a little disappointed that they didn't use Exist anymore once the Divine Tree arc had concluded, since its such a good song, but after reading the lyrics it does make sense... the meaning of the song is exclusively about mob's relationship with dimple. They wrote a whole song JUST for the two of them!!! When news came out of there being an episode in this season with 20,000 frames of animation everyone thought it'd be used for one of the epic fight scenes or action sequences but instead they saved that treatment for the most lowkey slice-of-life story arc!!! They animated the most quiet and peaceful parts of the season so fluidly, and its such a strong highlight!!!!
And God the final arc....... even before reading the manga Mob Psycho quickly cemented itself as my favourite anime of all time within just the first season. Everything it sets out to do, it does extremely well, with so much heart and humour to go along with it. This story was something very special to me well before I finished it, and I thought I couldn't love it any more than I already did, but when I read the finale arc for the first time I was blown away. The amount of narrative payoff was absolutely insane to me and so cathartic to read through. I was so so SO stoked to see how they adapted that final story arc in the anime... and all things considered, I think they stuck the landing for nearly every story beat. They cut out one Specific scene that really left an impression on me while I read the manga which was unfortunate, but I can't be too mad. Pretty much everything else was absolutely perfect, and I couldn't be happier with the way this adaptation brought justice to this story. I really do hope we get an anime adaptation of the Reigen Spinoff manga sometime down the line, but until then I'm going to continue rotating these characters around in my brain. Mob Psycho 100 holds a special place in my heart and I'm glad I got to see this anime through from beginning to end.
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 6:29:55 GMT 1
#6 - The Stepford Wives (Movie) Date watched: January 14th
I watched this movie with my Mom as she was randomly browsing our TV catalogue and took notice of it. She listens to a podcast series of comparisons between a book and its movie adaptation, and she had just listened to an episode about The Stepford Wives a few days ago and was curious to watch the movie, so I joined her. I hadn't watched it before, nor had I read the book its based on, but I did actually know the full plot of the story going in. This is because years ago, after I watched Jordan Peele's movie Get Out for the first time in theatres, I immediately looked up everything I could about it once I got home because I was really impressed by it. I found interviews with Jordan Peele where he talks about some of the inspirations for the movie and the concepts it explores, and he cited The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby as the main two. After that I looked up information about both those movies and watched a few analysis videos on them, and I got the gist of the influences from them that went into making Get Out. Still, even though I'd spoiled myself on every front, this was a really cool movie to sit through! It had really well paced tension and was quite an unsettling watch. I did get that same feeling as I did with watching Get Out, of horror through incrementally growing confusion and alienation. Except while Get Out was Absurdist Racism Horror this movie is Absurdist Misogyny Horror. I might pick up the book at some point to see what it's like. I might also have to actually watch Rosemary's Baby at some point as well... and just more older movies in general. They're really cool to look at.
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 7:08:30 GMT 1
#7 - Everything Everywhere All At Once (Movie, Rewatch) Date watched: January 26th
Well it was a bit late, but I did it! I finally went through the experience of rewatching EEAAO except with my mom this time! It was alright LOL. (The experience of watching with my mom, to be clear. The movie itself is awesome but everyone knows that already by this point.) My mom had a really hard time following the plot for the first third of the movie and kept asking me questions and telling me she doesn't get it. She laughed at some parts, but for the most part I don't think the type of humour the movie had going on really clicked with her all that much, and the absurdity of a lot of the jokes/gags did more to confuse her even More than it did to humour her. By the middle to second third of the movie she seemed to get more used to the overall Vibes though and followed the narrative more easily. She found Jobu Tupaki annoying and aggravating (especially in the climax of the movie) and didn't really understand her perspective of the conflict fully, but despite that she did get the broad strokes of the Messages and Themes and enjoyed her time overall. She spent a while afterwards talking to me about how much she loved Waymond and also how glad she is that she watched it on a TV and Not in the big screen because otherwise she would have gotten a headache and retained even less about the movie than she did here LMAO. Thus ends my turn of the EEAAO mother experience.
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 7:32:13 GMT 1
#8 - Cats & Soup (Mobile App) Date played: January 30th
I downloaded this game on a whim after seeing an ad for it while watching some random video on YouTube. The ad showed a bunch of small kitty cats. Making soups. "Wow this looks specifically catered to my interests" I thought. So I checked it out and started playing through it. It's one of those waiting games, where you wait for x amount of time to pass to get enough of x thing to get upgrades to lessen the x amount of time or increase your capacity for making more of x thing at once. Except its cats, making soups. You assign each kitty a different vegetable to cut and eventually once they get enough ingredients a soup is made. When you make lots of soups you get currency that you can exchange for more cats to make more soups or cosmetic things like accessories or decorations to add to the cats or the background scenery. The animations were really fun to look at. Just a bunch of kitty cats chopping dicing or shredding veggies and some stirring a big ole pot much larger than them with a wooden spoon. It can't get better than this!!! Then I looked at the updates section of the app and saw a ton of NFT collaboration events plastered on the front pages and proceeded to immediately uninstall the game. It sure was really cute for the, like, single hour that I played it for though.
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 8:42:42 GMT 1
#9 - Nayuta of the Prophecy (Oneshot Manga) Date read: February 3rd
I'm a big fan of Tatsuki Fujimoto's stuff. Chainsaw Man is of course the obvious highlight of his work, but his recent oneshot mangas are really striking and well done. I was curious about delving into some of his older works (most of which are other oneshots) so I decided to check out Nayuta of the Prophecy first. It was really cute!!! Or well. As cute as a story about your little sister being a demon who constantly speaks unnerving nonsense and is prophesied to destroy the world can be. Which is still really cute! I really enjoyed the siblingisms between the two main characters and reading how they can't really understand each other but still try their best to take care of each other in their own ways nonetheless... I think Fujimoto is really good at writing relationships between characters, which works well for his long running series but shines even brighter in his oneshots imo, precisely because of their shorter lengths. I think I read somewhere that his favourite character among everything he's ever drawn or written is Nayuta from this oneshot, and I can get it LOL she's so charming in a really odd kind of way. I think its interesting that he decided to take the core concept (and character) of this oneshot and place them directly in Chainsaw Man (with some tweaks) and expand on those ideas. I'm Very excited to see more of what CSM grows from the seed this oneshot planted.
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 9:23:52 GMT 1
#10 - Quest for Fire (Movie) Date watched: February 28th
Well they didn't lie. This movie is exactly what it says on the tin. That sure was a quest for fire. More specifically this movie was about a group of cavemen who's continuous supply of fire that they keep feeding to stay warm goes out and so they appoint a select few guys to embark on a quest. for more fire. fucking dumbasses don't know how to make their own fire
I kind of got Trapped into watching this movie because my mom's friend who was over for dinner brought it up in conversation and then was like "actually. lets watch it Right Now" and I was there in the immediate vicinity. I didn't really think I would enjoy it much based on the premise and the first few scenes of the movie, but I ended up getting pretty invested. The fact that none of the characters actually Talk and communicate in a bunch of grunts and gestures because language isn't really a thing yet turned me off in the beginning, mostly because I was a little grumpy from getting trapped into unwilling moviemode and I did naught want to sit through like 2 hours of Grunting and Gesturing but it made for a very entertaining watch. This was like a riveting Dramedy but with a bunch of barbaric characters grunting and gesturing. Partway through the movie when they started introducing other clans that were more Advanced and Civilized i thought to myself "wait is this even historically accurate" so I looked it up after the movie was over and it was Not. None of this was historically accurate in the least. But it still made for an interesting story so whatever LOL. The guy who pushed us all to watching the movie all of a sudden said that was like his 5th time rewatching it and that he enjoys it so much because he catches new details on every rewatch. I don't think I'd rewatch this movie let alone that many times but it was a fun experience.
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 21, 2023 21:45:11 GMT 1
#11 - Symbiotes (Webcomic) Date read: March 4th
This is a short webcomic made by an artist I follow on twitter, Krokodilyura. Instead of updating on a schedule, she made a tweet saying that she started working on a comic, posted sporadic updates on her creative process along the way, and then dumped it on tapas all at once in two batches. I had followed this artist for her drakenier fanart + metaposting and she cited it as an inspiration for her comic, so I was really curious about what it'd be like and eagerly kept up with her tweets talking about how she worked on her comic. While she was working on it, she posted some insights into comic-making that I found nice to take note of. I'll copy-paste her words verbatim:
She also talks about how she wanted to write a lighthearted adventure story for a long time, but when she tried to do it in the particular way she wanted she didn't enjoy the end result. Then she honed in on her Tastes and decided what she really enthusiastically wanted to write after consuming more media and analyzing what she liked about them, and thought about how she could play into what she perceived to be her own weaknesses as a writer and turn it into a strength for her short story. Its always really cool to read about someone's creative process (I eat up gamedev interviews like Candy) and I think it goes doubly so for smaller creators and their tiny projects.
The art for the comic itself is rough around the edges, but it adds to the charm. The artist prioritized making a Finished work over a Super Well Polished one and while she describes it as Ugly I think it's nice to look at. I can definitely tell how drakenier inspired her, the story has a dark edge and focuses on death and war and has a concise plot with an unsettling atmosphere. I really have to go out of my way to find more small projects from small creators more, there's something so satisfying about experiencing them, including the way that they can be seen as Imperfect. I have a sizeable backlog of small indie visual novels I want to read though, so hopefully I'll get around to them this year...
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Post by lentlsoup on Apr 22, 2023 8:06:53 GMT 1
#12 - The Last of Us (TV Series, Season One) Date finished: March 14th
I'll preface by saying I had not played or watched a lets play of the game this show is based on prior to starting this series. Back when the game was All The Rage i had already crawled deep into a The Walking Dead Video Game Series hole and had no interest in getting out for another zombie game (or well. zombie-adjacent technically). But I was curious to see the show when it was announced, since the games were this Huge thing that people were clamouring about and calling it one of the Best Stories Ever and i just completely ignored them. I was unable to completely ignore the Discourse though and discussions around the controversy of the way the first game ended did reach me, so I went into this show with a strange position of knowing Solely about the ending and fuck all about anything else leading up to it.
That said though... I really liked this series! I enjoyed the concept of Mushroom-Infected Humans being the "zombies" and the costume and makeup design for the infected were really well realized + cool to look at. The actors' performances were really top notch too, and sold the character interactions really well. I got invested really quickly. Episode 3 is easily the best hour of television I've watched this year thus far. I think it could've been just been a Little more spaced out with One More Episode but I can get why they didn't. Video game adaptations in the past have not always been very Good (except you gyakutan saiban movie ily mwah) and I don't think a video game adaptation made into an actual Series has ever been done before? Not to my knowledge, at least. So getting this series off the ground was probably seen as a risk to begin with but it evidently paid off in spades. Though to be fair I don't know how the video game was paced so I can't really tell how well the pacing was done without a reference. It just felt a little bit to me like it should have been longer. I absolutely loved what we got though and I am a little curious to watch a lets play of the game to see what was changed for the adaptation. I'll probably hold off until the series actually ends though. Ironically because of the even Bigger discourse surrounding the game's sequel several years back I actually know more about it through unwilling information osmosis than I did for the first game, so I know the broad strokes of the plot already. I am super curious to see how they adapt the second game onto television because it seems structurally like it'd be kind of hard to pull off without making some pretty major changes.
So was the story as God Tier Peak Fiction as I heard everyone else say it was? Well..... no I don't really think so. It's not bad by any means, but I think the general narrative and even the whole twist at the end isn't really anything that I haven't already seen before. But it still executes nearly everything it sets out to do really well, so I wouldn't say this is necessarily a bad thing. The only thing I'm a bit iffy about is the ending... I completely get what they were going for narratively, but the logistics of it kind of bothered me. I am a Strong Believer of suspension of disbelief and how just "ok whatever"-ing a story is optimal if the questionable thing makes for a better story anyways, but I struggled a bit with this one. Oh Well Though. It did make the final scene of the season really compelling and I'm still eagerly awaiting the next season whenever it drops.
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