I was introduced to this channel several years ago, at a bus when talking to a random stranger. I then went home and immediately checked the channel and really liked it.
To me, these videos - despite their brief length - are sharply edited, decently structured, and covers a wide range of topics, from live action movies, animated movies, to even tv shows (featured in some videos). In a sea of what I now considers as the bloated YouTube Video Essays scene (these videos nowadays are at least 20-30 minutes long), videos like these are quite valuable to me, because they get their points across (even though I disagree with some of them) while not overstaying their welcome. My favorite videos from them are the ones they did on Michael Bay, Satoshi Kon, How Vancouver never plays itself (a nice examination and tribute to the city of Vancouver and its place in the filmmaking industry), Jackie Chan and Chuck Jones.
Another reason why I wrote this review is to address the elephant in the room - The review written by user adam_cook. I don't think that review is entirely fair. Firstly, Tony Zhou (the showrunner of the channel) and Taylor Ramos (who help co-run the channel and provide feedbacks to Tony) have examined and complimented the modernity traits films and televisions have embraced in recent years, which is evident in the video "A Brief Look at Texting and the Internet in Film". Secondly, the channel also covers lesser-known films and filmmakers like Wolf Children and Satoshi Kon (seriously, that video was amazing), who may be well known within a certain niche circle, but certainly not to the general public. Thirdly, while these videos mostly feature the so-called "Masters" like Kurosawa, Fincher, and Spielberg (I do wish that the channel could examine more diverse filmmakers during their run), the channel pick a specific trait (or traits) on why these directors' films work well and show examples of it, in a manner that I find approachable and digestible.
But what really got my reaction is this sentence - "It takes no courage whatsoever to praise films that are already glorified as great...and it really speaks to one's cowardice when they crap on films that have already been thoroughly denigrated."
My counter argument for the first half is this: it certainly takes efforts and skills to effectively showcase "HOW AND WHY" are these movies considered great, especially towards the general public who doesn't know anything about film, and that requires painstaking efforts and courage. In that front, I think that this channel does a generally good job. For the second half, I would like to offer a counter example: "Michael Bay - What is Bayhem?" Tony and Taylor could have made a 10 second video saying, "Michael Bay's film sucks, goodbye!" and call it a day, and had they done that, I would call that cowardice. However, the video does a solid job on explaining how and why Michael Bay's filmmaking styles are the way they are, from Bay's usage of telephoto lens to how the original "West Side Story" (not the Spielberg remake) and other blockbusters influenced Bay's visual language. I did not know about any of this and upon learning them, I gained a better understanding on certain aspects of Bay's filmmaking style.
So yeah, this channel is a solid introduction to people who wants to learn more about movie techniques and niche films/filmmakers. I liked it.
Edit: The channel also got a shoutout from Epic Rap Battles of History, in the "Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock" video. Your favorite channel could never.
To me, these videos - despite their brief length - are sharply edited, decently structured, and covers a wide range of topics, from live action movies, animated movies, to even tv shows (featured in some videos). In a sea of what I now considers as the bloated YouTube Video Essays scene (these videos nowadays are at least 20-30 minutes long), videos like these are quite valuable to me, because they get their points across (even though I disagree with some of them) while not overstaying their welcome. My favorite videos from them are the ones they did on Michael Bay, Satoshi Kon, How Vancouver never plays itself (a nice examination and tribute to the city of Vancouver and its place in the filmmaking industry), Jackie Chan and Chuck Jones.
Another reason why I wrote this review is to address the elephant in the room - The review written by user adam_cook. I don't think that review is entirely fair. Firstly, Tony Zhou (the showrunner of the channel) and Taylor Ramos (who help co-run the channel and provide feedbacks to Tony) have examined and complimented the modernity traits films and televisions have embraced in recent years, which is evident in the video "A Brief Look at Texting and the Internet in Film". Secondly, the channel also covers lesser-known films and filmmakers like Wolf Children and Satoshi Kon (seriously, that video was amazing), who may be well known within a certain niche circle, but certainly not to the general public. Thirdly, while these videos mostly feature the so-called "Masters" like Kurosawa, Fincher, and Spielberg (I do wish that the channel could examine more diverse filmmakers during their run), the channel pick a specific trait (or traits) on why these directors' films work well and show examples of it, in a manner that I find approachable and digestible.
But what really got my reaction is this sentence - "It takes no courage whatsoever to praise films that are already glorified as great...and it really speaks to one's cowardice when they crap on films that have already been thoroughly denigrated."
My counter argument for the first half is this: it certainly takes efforts and skills to effectively showcase "HOW AND WHY" are these movies considered great, especially towards the general public who doesn't know anything about film, and that requires painstaking efforts and courage. In that front, I think that this channel does a generally good job. For the second half, I would like to offer a counter example: "Michael Bay - What is Bayhem?" Tony and Taylor could have made a 10 second video saying, "Michael Bay's film sucks, goodbye!" and call it a day, and had they done that, I would call that cowardice. However, the video does a solid job on explaining how and why Michael Bay's filmmaking styles are the way they are, from Bay's usage of telephoto lens to how the original "West Side Story" (not the Spielberg remake) and other blockbusters influenced Bay's visual language. I did not know about any of this and upon learning them, I gained a better understanding on certain aspects of Bay's filmmaking style.
So yeah, this channel is a solid introduction to people who wants to learn more about movie techniques and niche films/filmmakers. I liked it.
Edit: The channel also got a shoutout from Epic Rap Battles of History, in the "Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock" video. Your favorite channel could never.