Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Having largely munched through the Ghibli catalog at this point, this week my house wandered through a different animation legacy, as we checked out the first and last feature films of a certain Don Bluth. Many of Bluth’s films have a profound nostalgic pull for me; his weird, frequently dark films resonated with me more strongly than Disney’s offerings, and thus I still have fond memories of The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and even A Troll in Central Park. This week I at last checked out his masterful Secret of NIMH, along with the unfortunate Titan A.E., as well as a host of other films and shows. We’ve got plenty to get through, so let’s dive right into the Week in Review!
Category Archives: Week in Review
Spring 2021 – Week 8 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show. I’ve got a bit of an oddball collection for you today, driven by my housemate’s tendency to essentially throw darts at the dartboard of our various streaming services. As a result, I watched a couple films that were not on and would likely never approach my radar, along with the requisite pile of One Piece, and at least one genuine classic. I’ve also been watching some actual airing anime, and have so far been thoroughly impressed by ODDTAXI – I just recently wrote up the first episode, and will have another piece coming soon. I’ll be trying to fit in Dynazenon as well over the next few weeks, but for now, let’s run down the week in films and One Piece!
Spring 2021 – Week 7 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We have got a lot to get through today, and a bunch of it is actually anime-related this time! I finally checked out the Given movie, filled in one of the great remaining gaps in my Gainax knowledge, and even watched Netflix’s Death Note movie – along with which, of course, there was plenty of the usual horror and One Piece. Our One Piece momentum has slowed down just a tad, but we were still able to bound through the Sabaody Archipelago, while leaving more room to return to my crawl through cinema history. We’ve got a lot to break down and I assume you’re supposed to be working or studying right now, so let’s get right to the Week in Review!
Spring 2021 – Week 6 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I ran through a diverse grab bag of films this week, including a few recent features, an old horror classic, and some genuine bullshit. I generally prefer silence when I’m not actively watching something, but one of my housemates is most relaxed when there’s some sort of background noise in the environment, so we tend to compromise with films that categorically could not command our attention: The Meg, G.I. Joe, etcetera. Along with that, I’ve also been surging ahead through One Piece, and have now blown entirely past Thriller Bark. It was a productive week and I’ve got plenty to talk about, so let’s get right to it and dive into the Week in Review!
Spring 2021 – Week 5 in Review
Hello everybody, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve sadly got a pretty quick Week in Review for you all this week, as I didn’t actually get around to too many films. On the other hand, my house did push through a fair amount of anime, even beyond our continuing voyage through One Piece. I’m still keeping up with My Hero Academia, even if it seems like the world at large has moved through several Next Big Things since then, and we also made a final push through the last peaks of Bleach’s adaptation. Shonen series have basically consumed all the time slots I was previously dedicating to exploring western cartoons and prestige dramas, so while I feel a little guilty that The Wire and The Sopranos and whatnot have to wait, I simply cannot imagine I would be having more fun with them than the Straw Hats at the moment. You guys will get your turn, I just gotta see what Luffy does over the next seven hundred episodes first. In the meantime, here are my scattered weekly thoughts!
Spring 2021 – Week 4 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve once again got an oddball collection of films for you all this week, along with more reflections on my ongoing journey with One Piece. I’ve learned over time that you really have to tune down the amplitude of praise people apply to their favorite properties, as they’re generally speaking from a position of deep emotional attachment, and more expressing that than anything essential to the property itself. Because of that, claims of One Piece being some uniquely spectacular shonen kinda faded into the din of claims that every show is uniquely spectacular – thus, I have been completely blindsided by the fact that One Piece actually is as good as everyone says it is. It’s doing stuff in shonen that I’ve associated with Hunter x Hunter and literally nothing else, and I’ve found myself hooked on it with precisely that same HxH intensity, a need to barrel through episodes like I’m stuffing my face with delicious, narratively nutritious popcorn. But we’ll get to that soon enough – let’s first start off with some films, as we bound through the Week in Review!
Spring 2021 – Week 3 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve got a bit of an odd selection for you all this week, as a fair amount of my standard movie-watching time was once again consumed by One Piece. I am loving the heck out of One Piece, but I’m also noticing a problem developing here – given my amount of free time, the show is more or less functionally infinite, so I’ll have to find a better way of managing my watch schedule. Still, having a pile of Chimera Ant-scale arcs in my future is a nice feeling; it’s been some time since I felt this much natural incentive to plow through an anime, so I’m cherishing the feeling, and letting it serve as a reminder that plenty of great shows are still hiding out there. I’ll find you, great shows! Just listen to the sound of my voice, or… no, no, I’ll come to you. Just wait right there!
Anyway, the Week in Review.
Spring 2021 – Week 2 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We ran through a wild grab bag of films this week, touching on fantasy, action, comedy, and even a Musical Filmic Journey that more or less defies characterization. Along with these various films, I actually have been watching a fair amount of anime in my free time, though I haven’t even started with the spring season yet. Instead, I’ve mostly just been gorging myself on One Piece, powering through Skypiea as I work on Monster Hunter Rise, and having an altogether terrific time with it. Did you folks know One Piece is good? Niche property, I know, but probably deserves a second glance. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll dig into that at more length, so let’s dive right into the Week in Review!
Spring 2021 – Week 1 in Review
Hey all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I watched a grab bag of horror movies this week, along with continuing my journey through the Ghibli catalog. I’m frankly getting a little anxious about that Ghibli journey at this point; I now only have one Miyazaki left, two Takahatas, and then a light scattering of their non-royalty productions. That’s not enough movies! Like my dive into Mamoru Oshii, I’m realizing that what initially felt like an intimidating library of canon classics actually comprises just a handful of films, and when I’ve watched them, that’ll be it. Anime is extremely young among art forms; if you’re judging from Tezuka onwards, its birth is actually still within living memory. Fortunately, there are still plenty of other mountains to climb – I certainly need to watch the pre-Ghibli Toei Doga films, I’ve got a bunch of key ‘70s and ‘80s series to examine, etcetera. But it’s an odd feeling to realize a once-imposing slate of historical context is now largely behind me, and when I’m done, there will be no more Miyazaki or Takahata films to enjoy. I guess you can’t really have a journey without a journey’s end.
Anyway, enough of that melancholy nonsense. Let’s break down some films!
Winter 2021 – Week 13 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Lately I’ve been thinking, as I often do, about just how terrible fandom can be. In the past, I saw fandom as just another natural expression of art appreciation; but lately, it’s beginning to feel like art appreciation and fandom are actually contradictory poles, antagonist routes you can pursue in your relationship with art. Obviously, a great deal of fandom is harmless and empowering – sharing personal experiences of shows you loved, creating new art based on them, etcetera. But fundamentally, a great deal of fandom seems to be about the search for community and validation – we find the works that resonate with us, and then build a home inside their fandom. We accept a fictional universe as it is, and set to work cataloging it, rather than questioning or critiquing.
In contrast, to actually grow as an art creator or enthusiast, we must seek the new. We must broaden our horizons, accept the limitations of our existing perspective, and embrace humility as we explore new artistic experiences, rejecting the idea that we are “bonded” to any one work in particular. These two instincts don’t have to be at odds, but they often prove to be – and with fandom at this point overwhelming art discourse in general, often any pointed criticism or urges for expanding your horizons are met with an emotionally empowered wave of anti-intellectualism. When you gesture towards the distant, alluring mountains of artistic history and achievement, fans frequently respond with “there are no mountains, all ground is equally flat, and how fucking dare you imply otherwise.”
Fans see their favorites as their identity, and thus a call to expand their horizons sounds like an attack on their personality – but in truth, the fundamental error here is defining your identity by your favorites in the first place. Art can play a different role in different people’s lives, and there’s no shame in simply not being that curious about exploring art – but in an era where consumption is identity, art critique can often sound like character assassination. And of course, production studios are happy to encourage their fans to be rabid defenders of their IP; if they could sell audiences the same product every year forever, they’d be delighted to. We’re currently at a point where fans are defending their right to be condescended to from the “mean” critics, who are bullying them by pointing out that other art exists. It’s a strange state of affairs, and I’m not really sure how we can “fix” this discourse, but it’s been on my mind lately, as I watch folks hang up their artistic curiosity and become Brand Defenders.
Anyway, I also watched a bunch of great movies this week. Let’s talk about those.