It seems anti-interpretation is jumping at those who insist everything is allegory, that the Wizard of Oz is about the gold standard, or The Lord of the Rings is about World War 2. It’s the worst characterization of a High School English Class, to restrict a work of art to a single coded language of hidden meanings. Ideally, interpretation should expand, not dilute nor restrict, and acknowledge interpretation is parallel to a work, not a replacement of it. I think when an author comes up to you and says, “I never intended that,” the response should be, “You are not your work,” and not, “You did, and I can prove it.”

Yeah, I'll probably never be able to hear the name Cocteau without muttering 'Cock ain't got no toes. Idiot.' under my breath. You did that to me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

"This is not a horse, it's a lie" just about killed me. Ceci n'est pas une pipe, indeed.

28:48 nah, Kyle you cracking joke after joke about art house movies in your older videos made that whole area of film less intimidating to me because for the first time I didn't feel like an idiot if I didn't get all of it or didn't like it for whatever reason - it was OK to laugh at times if something seemed absurd to me to begin with in an otherwise deep film and I was actually seeking them out because that fake barrier screaming 'you are not worthy nor have the intellect for such a supreme form of ART' got dismantled. It also meant I could break down the barrier for my sister too and now we love looking out for the more art house movies when we come across them. Also your older videos were still incredibly insightful on the topics that those films were about or exploring compared to... other critics that shall not be named from the time - and basically blew my mind open on certain films and what they can be.

"balls to the wall" annihilate me thank you. It seems like Sontag is someone I would have really appreciated while rage screeching through my english degree. After getting stuck with a bunch of academics who were stuck so heavily in the armpit of ~meaning~ while staunchly ignoring ~meaning~ in anything that might actually be entertaining to a broader audience, I got pretty fed up with that brand of academia and from the excerpts here it seems like she might have resonated with me. But I think my ire (and possibly hers) was misplaced. I was so surrounded by the academic attitude of "things are only art if they're a boring symbolism puzzle for me to put together with my big smart brain" I thought that was the problem. But I think what I was really chafing against was the staunch refusal of academia to look at far more manifestations of art, including the "low brow" and looking at how it ticks, and why, both in form and meaning. Like even if something was somehow crafted to perfectly turn off an audiences' critical thinking skills...the fact that it can *do that* seems worthy of study, right???? Then enter Cinema Sins and their refusal to knowledge meaning even exists... I hadn't really thought about how they implemented that Pavlovian bell to turn off an audiences brain. Which is a bit horrifying. And, well. Worthy of study.

Kyle I definitely agree with some other of your fans when they say you're too harsh on your earlier content (and all your content in general really). When I first started watching you, I was a young teen who was really interested in film, the kind of schlock the cinephiles of the world would say is good, I'd watch, understand none of, but feel snobbish about having sat through. You definitely helped expand my horizons and kept focused on thematic analysis instead of just your subjective opinion of each individual scene. You've definitely improved since your beginnings but I still get the same entertainment from your earlier content and it's still interesting. You definitely made "high brow" films more accessible, more interesting, and showed how popular media can blur the lines between high and low brows. If I had only watched the kind of egosmug tasteless cynic-critic that saturated the landscape in the golden age of youtube film crit, instead of your stuff, I'd probably be significantly more of a tasteless asshole. And besides, if you can admit CinemaSins is miles better than the 8 hour oh my god theres no bigotry in this mass marketable childrens movie type of guy, surely you can admit you are an exponent better than that.

Your analysis of the shiny ding was perfect. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I struggled to recall any of the statements CinemaSins ever made that wasn't regurgitated dozens of times over because they move through topics at such a breakneck speed without giving the audience time to reflect. That little bell really does signify a demand for an end to thought. 🔔

Linking the Cinemasins ding as the Pavlovian denial of thought and reflection of art was not something I would’ve thought to construe at first, but then again this is why I watch your channel instead of theirs. I’ve actually learned more ways to appreciate and understand cinema than to give into the lazy impulse of consuming media on a surface-level. Aesthetics without meaning is not inherently bad, but the rejection of finding beauty in those aesthetics as they are reinforces that banal pessimism that has inundated critical discussion. Down with the antf*ckers. Great video. 👍🔔

Sontag's 'Against Interpretation' essay really hasn't aged well. The idea of Interpretation being the revenge of intellect upon art is interesting, but the essay is, by Sontag's later admission, really strident and clearly off centre for the prospects of film criticism.

A true re-bell-ation. Not an admonishment of CinemaSins, as much as a calling for us to seek out, enjoy, examined, and be challenged by the art we experience. There are worse things in life, in art, and on KZfaq.

I started watching CinemaSins as a liberal in my mid-20s, and the algorithm fed me a Shaun video debunking CinemaSins, and the algorithm fed me his and others alt-right debunking videos, which fed me anarchist content, which included Philosophytube's videos on Marxism, and now I'm a literal communist because CinemaSins sucks.

The phrase "cinephilic edging" is so brilliant. Lol if it makes you feel any better about you're old format, Kyle: you were the only critic from the old blip days that actually made effort to teach your audience how to appreciate meaning in cinema. And this the only "online movie critic" I took seriously at the time :)

Really insightful! 🔔 And I agree with other comments on here: you can be too hard on yourself and you shouldn’t be. Yeah, your older videos had a more comedic bend, but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable or meaningful. You’re the reason I fell in love with Cocteau and Kurosawa. When you covered The Fall and Name of the Rose, I was excited for both, because I wanted to see what insights you brought to the table for films I love. I’m so happy when I see you’ve posted something new, because I get to see you show me a different perspective than what I might have on my own. Please keep doing what you do; we wouldn’t be the same without you.

Reclaiming the music performance in reviews that *you started* as a thing, and was appropriated for the aforementioned blip commentaries, but has since been used by the luminaries of the video essay community as a way to add transcendent fun and humanity to commentary - its wonderful to see as someone whose been watching it all more or less from the start. Keep it on, Kallgren. And eyyy Laura Crone!!

Is the thumbnail the soundwave for the cinema sins audio clip ding? Kyle u dawg.

All I have to say is the editing on the counter was superhuman at times. Kyle Kallgren confirmed superhuman. 🔔

I really enjoyed this, though...Kyle, I do think you're too hard on your old videos. Yeah, you made gags and jokes about arthouse films, but you did touch on...like, what they meant and were about and I usually left the videos thinking more about stuff. It was thought inspiring, not thought terminating. ...though, I do think you should re-review Zardoz because I rewatched it recently and it's actually a *lot* better than I remember it being.

I'd love to hear more the "sins" of Harry S. Plinkett.

"Kyle makes another great essay" cliche 🔔

If I may mount a defense of your earlier video style: watching your earliest videos served to make the movies you featured much more accessible to me, by helping me see that one need not approach a film as a sacred object. A great deal of the cultral attitude toward cinema-as-art places it on an unreachable pedestal, and being given permission to laugh at it took it off of that pedestal, helping me to give myself permission to engage with them more directly. 🔔

As a fan of both you and RLM, I now kind of wish that you'd dig deeper into criticism of their stuff. I assume you'd mostly centre around the Plinkett reviews which kind of spunned off entire genre of KZfaq video essays. You know how many times I saw on stuff like RLM subreddit and similar recommendation to one of those shitty alt-right video essayist which make an 8hour videos on the most inane topics? I feel there's a not that small sub-section of the fan base that thins that digging into every detail is what criticism is. And don't get that many of the criticisms that were presented in Plinkett reviews only work and make sense for those specific movies. Like some fans would call out "Shot-reverse shot" in their other reviews, because it's something Mike complained about in one of the Plinkett reviews. Yet even RLM members themselves went on record, that there's noting wrong with it in general, it's just not something you'd expect in sci-fi epic like Star Wars, especially of people sitting down discussing space politics. Man my comment is way too long, and I feel like I have so much more to write about... I'll just repeat that I wish you'd make this video, but that I also understand if you don't given how rabid the exact fans that are the problem of RLM can be.

🔔 I remember CS videos on Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz where they “sinned” the musical numbers. *Musical numbers* were counted as *sins* in *MUSICALS*. Kyle’s videos always give me something I never knew I wanted.

Aside from taking too many screenshots of films I've not seen and now want to look up, I really appreciated this self-aware but very solid commentary on surface level antfcuks. The ding as Pavlov criticism cutting off any further contemplation / analysis was spot on.

I gave up on CinemaSins years ago, but it's weirdly refreshing to hear such a nuanced take on them which takes into account the grander scheme of things. 🔔

The one at 2:07 resonates with me. It baffles me when people give an artist absolutely no credit whatsoever when it comes to self-awareness, intention, etc. It's a part of why I'm afraid of sharing my music sometimes. People will hear a sampled violin or something and be like, "you didn't make that sound exactly like the way a physical violin is naturally played live, you must be an idiot". -_-

Really appreciated how you mentioned that the CinemaSins style of criticism not only ignores the interpretation side of media engagement, but also just the less cerebral, more baseline emotional enjoyment people take from films. It makes me think about how even if a review isn't a point by point breakdown of the themes of a work, it can still be a satisfying experience in itself by sharing that kind of emotional engagement with it; how the person felt about scenes, if they connected it with their own experiences, etc. Also, not necessarily a critique of the video, but I hope you're doing alright. The world certainly seems [Comedically bad censoring noise], but talking about stuff as pointless as film criticism can bring people together and feel connected in this hellhole.🔔

I'm a master's student at the University of São Paulo, studying phonetics of whistling and currently taking a class on the semiotics of music. The college to which my master's program belongs, the Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences, was founded on the idea of not allowing artists in, it was a critic's school and to this day still is, while the college in which I am taking the mentioned class, the School of Communication and Arts, was founded on the opposite idea, a school for artists and aspiring artists. First class of the semester, which was just last week, we talked about this as I was the only student from my college in that class, and the professor mentioned the current state in which we find ourselves coalescing out of spontaneous need. The School of Communication and Arts lives and dies on the idea of absolute art, which expresses that which can never be put into words, while the Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences absolutely rejects absolute art. And I find myself in this odd position right in the middle where I'm not even a literature student, I'm a linguistics student, studying a form of speech that exists in this state of quantum superimposition of music, spoken word and social practice, where none of the three accurately describe it at all, and noticing here that cinema exists pretty much in the same position. Ding.

that "Freddy Got Fingered" callback was like being clotheslined in the brain. Edit: And the ending musical number was both genius theme-wise and kicked off a personal bout of nostalgia for a former stage crew geek. Great video! 🔔

Besides how great this video essay and editing is, you have a lovely singing voice! I wouldn't mind hearing more of you singing during the credits more often 🔔

"The quantification of qualitative properties is the death of all art" is the bell I've been ringing for years, whether it be in regards to CinemaSins and its film illiteracy or MauLer and his six-hour reviews about why the most recent few Star Wars/Black Panther/Captain Marvel/any blockbuster starring women or POC are "objectively bad", but you've put forward that thesis in a more refined way than I ever could. And yeah, a lot of those problems with the discourse go back to RLM and the cynical, joyless, only-ever-talk-about-pop-culture monster it spawned. 🔔

This was an insightful video, with where the internet is, to not engage means you don’t have an opinion like your words weren’t committed to the minutes. It makes it hard to critique content that you believe doesn’t deserve a response. This navigated that really well

Wait, RLM has done more damage than Cinema Sins? I would really love to hear more about that.

Now, I'd be really interested to hear your take on Red Letter Media, seeing how they're more or less the precursors of KZfaq movie reviews as a phenomenon. I have a feeling their fault lies in the fact that people who've watched Plinkett Reviews and were inspired by them took all the wrong lessons out of the videos, and contorted the discrete, localized criticism of a singular cultural product into a persona of caustic critic, not quite understanding the intent and reasoning behind the reviews. Because, if we were to pay attention to their other shows, like Re:View and Best of the Worst, they're more or less the polar opposite of profane erotics of art exhibited in Plinkett Reviews^ they're dedicated to the intimate enjoyment and personal value the team finds in the substandard, in your own words. "sinful" cinema, celebrating the experience rather than the technicality. Also, Sontag made quite a bold statement about Bergman, I have to say. as for your earlier videos, I still hold your review of A Serbian Film in high esteem, even if it wwas a bait-and-switch. Would be an interesting sight to see you revisit the Black Wave of Yugoslavian cinema with a more mature position after all those years.

Kyle, my guy, your old content was MILES above anything your peers were putting out at the time, you need to give yourself more credit! 🔔

I was initially a bit exhausted by the schtick, but once the video picked up, my god, you went on a tear here. Also, I am *so* ready for a conversation about how damaging to film discourse the Plinkett Reviews were (having always loathed them), and for that matter for, if I may be so bold, an erotics of art which actually meets art on its level as opposed to a hermeneutics which hollows it out or the vapid simulacrum of either which so often passes for comedy or, worse, analysis. 🔔

Amazing video! I’d be SO down for Plinkett discourse! And the nature of fandom-as-religion in general. I’ve always been interested in longform lefty video essays.

You're singing again! What a nice surprise ending and thanks for giving the little bell the attention and recognition it was long due 🔔❤

I wish Kyle did more music. He's got such a wonderful voice to listen too. As a creator myself I totally sympathize with being regretful of your earlier works. But for what its worth, i think they hold up much better than its contemporaries, and alot of people agree that it was more beneficial to them since you covered a niche that was seemingly inaccasseble, while everyone else was taking safe pot-shots.

Thank you for a really nuanced and thoughtful analysis. It made me think of this story I read in an opera history book describing how, when opera was first developing audiences found it weird that characters were "just breaking into song," to the point that there were a ton of early operas about the story of Orpheus and Eurydice because then they had an "excuse" for the music. When you learn to let go of that surface-level, knee-jerk rejection you get the delight of losing yourself in the magic of opera.

"Thought terminating soundeffect" is the perfect way to decsribe Cinema sins ' use of the🔔

Once I watched The Company of Wolves with friends and they got so hung up on the theatrical, artificial presentation and, to be fair, jank of the production that they missed almost all of its content in favor of tearing it to shreds for "not making sense". And one of them had a masters degree in literature. Excessive ribbing really can tear a potentially worthwhile movie apart if you're not careful. 🔔

Wow, the editing on this is astonishing

I love this idea so much. A mix of Parodie and Review

Anyone else reminded of this Fantasia segment where they honor the sound?

I stopped watching CinemaSins years ago when I felt it was just endless complaining about minor things. But I do enjoy CinemaWins, because it's nice to be positive about even the little details that go into a film, or even about films that are considered trash. 🔔

I do have to wonder (if I've interpreted the sections of Sontag you were quoting correctly, ha!) about the idea that trying to find 'meaning' in art is harmful to the art itself. If it's the same as the interpretation of scripture, where each school of thought claims their interpretation to be the absolute truth, then I can see the harm in that plainly. But in modern media criticism, at least when the audience is a thoughtful group of people and not victims of cultish demagoguery, the idea that any interpretation is 'true' is regularly laughed out of the room. Also it makes me appreciate MST3K that much more.

Now this is the spiritual comeback I was hoping for. Such positivity, and a bit of a stand for appreciating cinema for its own regard while holding up critique as an art in itself. A balanced view illustrated well, and the supercut though ironic, is still highly and simultaneously educational and efficient for getting the spirit of film as an artform. I highly appreciated every moment of this, even with those dings I'd grown so sick of long ago XD

For awhile there I thought the video was going to be a parody. Relieved when it switched to an essay. Very well done, as usual. "Average dude's opinions about average movies" is all that needs to be said about Jeremy from here on in.🔔

It always felt that a lot of the reason CinemaSins got pegged with the "death of film criticism" tag was due to them not really being part of the KZfaq media/film criticism movements or cultures. They were not part of the "angry critic" culture like Angry Video Game Nerd or Nostalgia Critic. They aren't part of the lefttube/breadtube or leftttube/beadtube-adjacent creators like Kyle, Lindsay Ellis, Jenny Nicholson. Nor are they associated with those creators like Channel Awesome was with Kyle, Lindsay Ellis, and many others, or like Screen Junkies was with Jenny Nicholson. They don't really resemble the look or feel of the movie commentary/reaction style of videos that recently come into fashion on KZfaq. Even though they make similar content to Screen Junkies or ScreenRant, they never embraced the corporate aspect the way those other two did. They have many imitators, but none of those ever got big enough to be a leader of its own movement. The right-wing reactionary/anti-feminist movement is obviously much worse and destructive film criticism than CinemaSins, but is usually disregarded as art criticism, and viewed as a socio-political recruitment/conditioning for reactionary right-wing politics (as it should be). So that leaves CinemaSins in the unique position of being a singular and distinct target of criticisms that could be leveled against lots of other, similar content. Personally, I don't think they should be viewed as film criticism at all, and remain unconvinced that many others do either, but that is beyond the scope of this post. 🔔

25:50 Speaking as someone who got onto RLM with shows like Re:View or Best Of The Worst and didn't actually put together what made their claim to fame until years later, yeah I can agree with you that Mr Plinkett was a horrible mistake that way too many people took seriously

The little hook that caught me was the illusion of having seen a film contained within. That was a big draw in my youth: Not having to invest the emotional energy in an entire film and still feeling like I knew something. 🔔

I would recommend looking at KZfaq channels that have been popping up that look at what worked for films and TV, evaluate some of their lasting impacts and even themes and messages in them channels such as Breadsword, CinemaWins, Cinema Therapy, Nerdstalgic, Rerun Zone, SavageBooks, Story Dive, And The Discarded Image to name a few. They don't always go positive, but they are no where like the toxicity and blatant ignoring of good in films like Cinema Sins.

Others have recommended channels like Cinema Therapy and Breadsword in these comments, and while I’ll restrain the obnoxious impulse to just list film critics channels I like as well, I think that very impulse is why I still have hope for the medium of film criticism. Despite understanding and relating to Kyle’s laugh of existential dread at 16:10, there IS plenty of evidence out there to suggest that, just like film itself, there is meaningful, impactful, productive *breakthroughs* happening in the margins of the film critic space on KZfaq, even as the comparatively shallow and restrictive stuff is what remains popular. The specter of Cinemasins may never go away in any meaningful capacity, but I refuse to let that dread overwhelm my appreciation and expectation for what criticism and interpretation of art (even on a platform as anathema to those things as KZfaq) can be, and what it can accomplish. The artists are making their art. It is out there. It’s in places like THIS channel. Frankly, it’s always helpful to remember we COULD be much worse off than we are.

Wow what a great video! I think your analysis here is spot on, and really captures something new and distinct from the already existing discourse: what does it mean to sin? what does the bell sound do? No one has really engaged with these questions. And you're right, we absolutely do need to talk about RLM's damaging effect on Star Wars discourse.🔔

Thank you for your time and work. And especially for making "high art" much less intimidating, even with the older videos you seem to dislike now. 🔔

I was waiting for a cinematic quote of Hector Salamanca's final scene: blowing up the world by frantically dinging his little bell.

I have to say, after working tech on a production "Guys and Dolls" a few years ago and hearing every song 10000 times, I didn't think I'd ever be able to enjoy one of them again. You proved me wrong. I still have a Pavlovian reaction to "Follow the Fold" though. Great video! 🔔

Simply excellent video, and really crystalizes a lot of feelings I've had about video essays/reviews in the online space the past decade and a half verging on two. That said... I still adore them. I adore this video, I adore a lot of those older videos, I adore the purity of CARING enough about something to make a video on it. Give me a pitch video that tells me how what should be a challenge is barely an inconvenience. Give me an esoteric send up of a Z-movie actor who never earned a spotlight in their career but that YOU want to give them. Give me a passionate shout of symbolism or betrayal or... anything! I adore when folks care. But not when they pretend to care, or pretend to not care. Even stripping away the hateful rhetoric of those 2-6 hour slogs where someone will bitch about POCs or women in their sci-fi safe spaces (my dudes, sci-fi was featuring both extensively long before you drew breath), what I despise most about them is the sense they're doing it solely for the views. That it's as much a painful drawn out schtick as that turn of the 2000s/2010s brand of the reviewer playing a dozen characters to give their show a plotline beyond 'review movie, make joke', with the downside of never being funny, never being inventive, never making me laugh or care or engage, and just generally making the world worse. I would take five thousand Bum spin-offs that are just a reviewer in a stocking cap asking for change before I would take one more diatribe about the failures of woke media because woman-exist-therefore-bad-give-views-now. And like you said, Cinema Sins doesn't sink to that level. Or rise anywhere. It's just... there. Being neutral, being staid, being perfectly even at ground level. And in the same breath, I neither hate nor like them. I simply recognize they exist, because to me, they're just static. Little more than a sarcastic reading of a film's wikipedia page. I don't begrudge them their success... hell, my wife watches Cinema Sins (and this channel, so this vid will be a fun surprise for her), and if she can get enjoyment out of them, points to her. Whatever helps you sleep at night, as someone once said. But when I look at essays done with heart, and care, and consideration like... well, like yours, Kyle... I can't help but begrudge them that they take up so damn much oxygen on this platform. And yes. The true star of those videos, and the true impact on the medium, is decidedly that ding. Forever, always, eternally echoing... that ding. 🔔 (P.S., I would like to point out that a lot of those older essay videos- yours included! -got me to broaden my own cinematic viewing experiences and how I engage with media outside my bubble. There's a lot of films I came to love I would never have even known existed before you came along to give them a spotlight all their own. So, buck up. You did more good than you give yourself credit for.)

Spoony! I feel for the guy. I have similar mental troubles and 2016 caused my life to go splat too. I'm back now in 2023. Fingers crossed for him

Delightful from start to finish, particularly the end number~ Here's hoping to hear more such songs in future vids! ^^

On the RLM point- it's interesting to see how they've grown up and turned into really smart and on the nose critics whom often are right on the money with hypercapitalist blockbusters endless monotonous hellhole. Compare Mr Plinketts prequel reviews to their re:views and analyses of TNG, and you really see a channel that's grown up in a way that the critics who knock them off don't. Great video. 🔔

Great video! 🔔 And I second what a lot of other people in the comments have said, you are too hard on your old work. It's not as good as your more recent stuff but you always did have insights to share, even if you also did a lot of riffing. It inspired me to think critically of what I was watching, unlike most of the content on the site we will not name, and I'm not sure I would have gotten my BA in film studies if it weren't for you (or started my masters).

I always thought you used humor to ease your audience into films that are more 'out there'. It certainly helped me. You've been a gateway to rare movies I probably wouldn't have found otherwise, and I can't thank you enough for that.

I'll definitely be doing a list later of all the movies in this video. 🔔

Anxious for another masterpiece by Kyle Malgren 😶

Film ends with a musical number without accompanying choreography: 🔔 And as someone who followed you from Blip and Channel Awesome to now, you've shown me, at least, corners of the cinematic world I'd never imagined. So don't be too hard on yourself for cracking jokes, even dumb ones, doing a bit, leaning into character, breaking out into song. At least, where I'm concerned, I'm still watching.

Excellent -- really enjoy how you meld your well-read aesthetics, philosophies, and comedies into such a unique and educational experience.

🔔 As always, a fantastic piece that treats something generally agreed upon to be "weird" or, more strongly in this case, "bad" as offering something of value, so to speak. Finding the interesting angles has always been your specialty, Kyle, and as much as I adore Shaun's (speaking of BreadTube) occasional tradition of just giving them a good drubbing, you've found something perhaps more constructive to do with CinemaSins - Use them as a lens to view the broader, well, everything as it relates to film criticism, especially in the internet age. Not "Look what CinemaSins is doing to criticism!" but "What sort of reasons are there for CinemaSins having 9.1 million subscribers and an influence far beyond that?" and of course, the all-important "In what ways could things be worse?" gets a pointed mention. I guess that last one, which I'm sure there's plenty of angles to write about, also boils down to "Is it better to put on a blindfold and earmuffs and deliberately ignore any point that movies are trying to make whatsoever or to actually engage with the movie somewhat, but from from such a hostile and/or absurd position based on factors both real and imagined, Watsonian and Doylist, that the criticism of the film itself is drowned out in favour of just using it as an excuse to vent one's own rantings and ramblings?" I'm with you on this one - I'd take thousands of easily-ignored CinemaSins-knockoffs/Pale MST3K-wannabes over having to endure the alt-right getting its hooks into susceptible people via decrying "The fall of all modern [pop] culture (As evidenced by this innocuous background element of a single scene taken way the hell out of context and read with the worst-faith interpretation possible." (But, also, as you say, it's not just ideological reasons I dislike those ones more - They're often so poorly structured that it's hard to stay engaged long enough to care about their points. Because taking any actual class/advice about filmmaking for themselves would be a betrayal of what they believe in - Capitulating to whatever vague or specific boogeyman they hate, apparently.)

I also like CinemaWins. It's not deep, or philosophical,. but it does celebrate the fact that movies can be a lot of fun. (also, Kyle, you have a lovely singing voice) 🛎🔔

Video does not contain a lap dance. 🔔

22:09 No, no, no. It's "They showed Eve eating an apple to make her look more like an asshole in this scene."

I'd never heard of Susan Sontag before this, but the comparison is fascinating and striking. Fantastic job on this one, your editing and dedication to citing sources in the moment continues to astound!🔔

Never watched Cinema Sins. Never knew you could sing. Enjoyed this.🔔

Incredible video, incredible self reflection and critique of the past in context of the present. Love the complexity you inject into this topic that so often gets ignored

(bell) for all that you called yourself on the impossibility of doing both a parody of and video essay about cinema sins, the first 9 and a half minutes of this were absolutely walking that tightrope successfully! I agree with the other commenters, your early work may have had a bent to it you no longer want to perpetuate, but it was nonetheless made with utter love for film and that really shows more than you can imagine from within. also i gotta go back and compliment the way you did the opening to this some more: i have aspirations to do some youtube-essay-ing (put off for now due to illness) and my dreams and goals are to attain a sort of collage, essay and analysis by virtue of juxtaposition. I think what you did here is sort of a cousin to what i want to make, and that's very cool to see!

I enjoy Kyle's singing at the ends of his essays. it's a nice emotional beat to leave off on. 🔔

The beginning of this review was realy hard to watch, in fact I had to skip foward. I think I'm gonna have nightmares about the *ding* tonight. On another note, don't be so hard on yourself for your older reviews. Those actually helped me learn english, introduced me to some great films and showed me the magnificence of Bowie's music. So thank you Kyle and don't forget to be kind to yourself.

Villains win when the hero wastes precious resources -material or otherwise, on henchmen and side quests.🔔

20:24 Ah! We have that in Denmark as well: Flueknepperi, or Fly-f*cking.

Commenting before watching the video cliché *DING*

"Cinema Sins are mere centrists, they can still be saved!" I loved that line

This was quite a journey. Thanks for including the fisik kitty clip. Edit and DING

🔔 It's fascinating how difficult the first part of the review was, and it served as a beautiful counterpoint to your arguments at the end. The mildly higher amount of distaste/sarcasm you deploy makes the opening 'sins' feel more grating, highlights their arbitrary nature, and drove at least me to think "well, yeah, obviously their system for poking fun at blockbusters doesn't work on art films." And then, boom, that very point is laid out and dissected. I particularly loved the 'musical instrument" section, which riffs on the now-bludgeoning nature of the "ding" into a broader soundscape, seeming to highlight how much more beautiful a different variety of 'dings'/critical thoughts can be.

What a great video, as always. Cinema Sins get too much flak for being the worst thing that's ever happened on the internet, when, as Kyle points out, their worst crime is merely mediocrity.

As someone who appreciates the Plinkett Prequel reviews, I'd legitimately love to get Kyle's take on RLM.

🔔 I had a great time watching this. Your discussion of the DING sound as a thought-terminating signal was particularly insightful to me.

I was a little "afraid" how this essay turns out to be as from your list of ideas it seem to me the least compelling one for me (also I've never seen anything made by CinamaSins). But recently I started to "meditate" about media criticism: the things I watch and read or used to watch and read, and about my own dabbling in writing cinema-impressions, and also about my own history of media-critical consumption, so this essay was perfect for my current state of mind. Great work Kyle! Sanding lots of love! 🔔

I get the feeling that Sontag's essay would be completely at odds with CinemaSins' critical method - a total void of aesthetic sensibility.

Both can exist by the way, we can have Kyle doing a massive video essay and some dudes making fun of a movie for very silly reasons.

I was a teenager in highschool, about 16-ish when the Blip crew were popping off, and found you, Kyle, on the ocular site. I think this essay helped me contextualize why I still loved all those classic reviews but never clicked with CS. "The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even *that* it is what it is, rather than to show what it means." And for all the critique one can sling at a guy in front of a camera talking into it like it's a 2-way portal to someone across the globe, or that games and shows can in some way come to life and physically attack us... Sometimes, and more often than not, it did just as Sontag asked. More than anything, that style of blending review with fiction, making "Internet Reviewer" into a title that granted you the freedom to break into musical numbers on cue, or have a fist-fight with a flying comic book, brought these fictions up to a level we could almost touch, or at least more easily integrate. More than just flexing a mug on a camera, though, it was a formula built to elevate the feeling of a movie or game or whatever, and impart the meaning of it even without the full experience. Watching your video on _The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover,_ we as an audience got to experience that growing tension and mounting uncomfortable comedy that we just couldn't turn away from. When it all burst down and we got to see those censored shots in the end, as you yourself appeared to bust a gut, it was as though a compressed and accessible experience of the movie without going through it. We as an audience got to experience this art we might not have had a chance to otherwise, through you, and if we liked it, we could go check out the original source or other works. If we didn't enjoy it, we could click off, let it be, and walk away with the compartmentalized version as an experience anyway. It wasn't just you, either. Noah's early optimism shifting to desperate depression and regret over the course of the Ultima Retrospective is both a reflection of his own experiences with the series and a fantastic reflection of the games themselves, elevating the meaning and emotion of them even without reviewing anything technical beyond what hurt or helped the experience. Linkara's meta-plot skits are themselves a loving tribute to and pastiche of comic book universes, often creating the kind of engagement that can interest a viewer to experience those same long-running franchises as he does. SomeJerk's manic energy, Suede's heartfelt focus, on and on and on... In a way CS never does, these old reviews had a touch of emotional connection to the pieces in them that just can't exist when a content creator/reviewer/critic/whatever removes their identity from a piece. We connected with the pieces being 'reviewed' specifically because they were being elevated above just frames of images, into... Well, erotic stimuli. Academic essays try so hard to remove themselves from the piece, never referring to the writer's perspective or emotions, only cold facts that can be backed up with respected sources. Yet, just as there is a place for that... there will always be a place for those who immerse themselves in the art, and reflect it to an audience. Never regret what you've done in the past. It's done a *lot* of good.

That song at the end was not only a brilliant choice (🔔) but it took me back to when I was a kid performing in youth-friendly versions of Guys and Dolls. Thanks for the nostalgia. Like the others here, I still like your older content, especially when you went from a more linear style to a more analytical style. I got into Iranian cinema thanks to you and even wrote an essay on it for uni.

I just feel like people give so much shit to Cinemasins when they should be focused on idiots who think every sin carries the same weight and is super serious. You can clearly tell that some “sins” are just taking the piss and others are actually worthy points. Plus they even did a Cinemasins video on themselves. Meanwhile Cinemawins gets praised for being a clone only doing positive stuff, which ok pointing out positive is fine, but everyone ignores that there’s a toxic positivity element around its fans too. You have to like a movie and only say positive things or else you are a “negative person” like Cinemasins. Plus, no one ever mentions how Cinemasins does bring up positive things and will take away sins for them. I guess that doesn’t work with the click-bait exposed narrative they are trying to spin to ride the tail of a popular channel. We need sins and wins equally. But, most importantly, we need critical thinking that allows us to see that at the end of the day we take all of these with a grain of salt and ultimately make our own assessment from both positives and negatives.

Life to not fascism!

Just wanted to say, the clips you put in the intro made me even more excited to watch a bunch of those movies I already wanted to see. Thanks Kyle.

Must this blessing shield you from the wrath of the Holy Ones & Zeros.

This already reminds me of Shaun's earlier videos talking about CinemaSins. I like it! EDIT: I like the second half of this review even more. You are sooooo correct. 🔔

Missed opportunity: ending call to action does not include reminder to ring that 🔔 DING (excellent video, btw)

I'd be really interested in a discussion about Red Letter Media and their influence.

25:50 “Folks, Red Letter Media has done way worse damage to the discourse, but we are not ready for that conversation” BASED

Now I need a full rant about Red Letter Media Also you have a gorgeous singing voice 🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔