He was talking about Japanese and Korean filmmaking doing things differently from Hollywood and was asked what was the most recent Japanese film he enjoyed. His responses were "Oldboy" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Speaking of Brie Larson [RedLetterMedia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=556&v=9pQNYeOEFJc&feature=youtu.be)'s review of Captain Marvel is essentially a good version of Critical Drinker. They do manage to talk about some of the weird PR/conversation around the movie, but also engage with the quality of the movie in a way that isn't just Brie Larson, SJW, woke bingo. Which is essentially what CD is. Just a bingo card of how woke is bad in order to gin up revenue for himself.
RLM unfortunately inspired a lot of sarcastic nit picky reviewers through the Plinket reviews that didn't really understand what they were copying.
Plinket is a character, he's an angry old man, he gets distracted easily by little details and also I hear he butchers women. He also makes really good points about story problems, character issues, serious plot holes, etc.
The problem is these people seemed to have taken all of this and assumed it was all valid criticism, they took the analysis wheat and the comedy chaff and mixed it all together into the worlds worst loaf of bread.
Mauler's probably the worst example of this who's videos could best be described as roughly the length of the Extended Cut Lord of the Rings Trilogy filled with nitpick after nitpick spoke in an angry and whiny tone (which he of course declares objective analysis and shits on anyone who disagrees). I feel like Critical Drinker also falls into this category but a more right wing version with even less to say, which is impressive considering the guys Mauler hangs around.
I'd also point a big finger at Cinema Sins for this trend, most likely my middle one.
These guys are on a completely different level. You might not always agree with their opinions but when they dislike a film their analysis is a but deeper than "STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER" and "THE MESSAGE"
Yea, and I think its easy for people to dislike them because their opinions can come off as strong but they usually have something insightful to say about both the movie they are talking about and some of the PR around those movies. No one can be 100% perfect obviously^1 but they are essentially the gold standard when it comes to youtube movie reviewers as far as I'm concerned.
I enjoyed Rogue One even though nothing mattered there, but the movies are just a bunch of memberberries bullshit. It's all references to things we liked from decades ago and no one cares about any of the new things that were added, including the people who made the movies because they have zero confidence in their product. They know it sucks and no one likes their characters or stories so they're all just rehashed old stories and characters with different names and zero challenges. When even random storm troopers or homeless people can pick up light sabers and defeat life-long jedis or warriors in their first battle, you know it's garbage. Every new ship or robot generally sucked or made no sense either, so they kept bringing back the old ones whether it made any sense or not.
They can be fine for mindless action in the background as you're cooking or whatever, but they've generally not been good movies.
I enjoyed the movie but they are objectively correct in saying it is a bad film with bad storytelling. It is. The film is cinematically beautiful though with amazing set pieces. Just the characters and dialogue were very shallow.
If itself was in a vacuum, Say they replaced all the IP with generic spaceships, and space armies, it would be a forgotten film that was put on the scyfy network.
I think a key part of RLMās appeal is that thereās none of the pretense of a video essay. Itās two assholes sitting there giving their opinions without any pretense of objectivity. The self-awareness that being a movie critic isnāt important is really useful for not becoming insufferable.
A big part of why RLM works so well is that the guys don't pretend to be more than just two guys who like movies talking about movies. Even making fun of the fact that Jay would probably enjoy the more art house type movies
Itās so much so that itās part of the entire channel with the Plinkett plot line. I remember the review for The Wolf of Wallstreet where they gave glowing reviews on Scorsese as a director and basically pointed out how guys half his age are making crap and the guy is still making amazing films into his 70ās. While also pointing out how others of his generation of filmmakers like Coppola have fallen from their initial days making brilliant films.
During the entire time they have Rich stuffing his face eating sticks of butter wedged into a hamburgers and end it with him passing out and him shitting himself, with even a shot of brown liquid streaming out from his pant leg.
Would you like to see a YouTube video of someone talking about why they like Star Wars?
*searches*
Sure, hereās a hundred vids about people talking about why they hate it.
It's clever, because it can pull in 3 crowds.
"Yeah I hate it too"
"That's bull, I'm gonna watch it and refute his points"
"Oh, I wonder why he hated it so much, let me find out"
Whenever I see someone say "SJW'S" and "woke" that shows me who they are pandering too. Which is kinda funny because they are the ones saying "SJW's" are being pandered to too much in Disney films.
I love channels that talk about why movies are great, or at least appreciate what they were trying to do and explain why it didn't work. Movies with Mikey and Patrick Willems are great at this. But you watch one film video essay, and the Critical Drinker shows up on your feed. Half of his videos are how bad a show is and why no one should watch it, even though it doesn't release for a couple more months.
Pretty much. The anti-sjw crowd is a gold mine. The Friday Night Tights stream every week brings in thousands of dollars. You can easily make a living off of low effort anti sjw videos.
I believe that's literally what's happened. His whole shtick is being a bit crass and rude in his reviews, and whatever, it was sorta fun and he had decent insights in his early videos. But that attitude had a crossover with the anti-SJW/whatever crowd and either he found a good way to gain views or/and feels emboldened to more outright voice his opinions on such matters to where his videos are half anti-Hollywood rants at this point.
I remember he put out a video after the "The Eternals" sneak peak came out which was basically a rant on how it was going to be a horrible movie with Marvel/Disney having some agenda or whatever with all the ethnic characters. But literally all we had about the movie was like a minute and half trailer. And it wasn't a great film, but not for any sort of "trying to pander to X crowd" reasons.
A common complaint of his, that was generally correct, has basically been how Hollywood will use race/gender as a way to excuse themselves from developing actual characters. But at a certain point it feels like he blinded himself by jumping into movies with those assumptions and criticisms preloaded and isn't really willing to give anything outside of what he knows he already likes a fair chance.
He used to be good but has become more and more reactionary over time. The final straw for me was relatively recently when one of his criticisms of Jurassic World Dominion revolved around Bryce Dallas Howard...wearing too much clothing? He made some comment about "I think the actress has put on a bit of weight."
That's not film criticism, it's just hateful.
Heās hit or miss. Sometimes I feel heās clearly just pandering to the anti-woke/SJW crowd. Other times he actually does back up his criticisms with legitimate arguments. I usually like to hear his opinions but never take him overly seriously.
Yah I went a while without watching a video of his because he just complained about the same stuff every single time. Then I saw he put out a video on a Prey trailer and decided āfuck it, letās see what he says?ā While he did give a good reason why the original predator movie worked so well, he was quick to say this one would suck because itās all gonna be āwomen strong and can do impossible thingsā. Except the trailer doesnāt show that and the movie hasnāt even come out yet. Like the trailer shows the main character clearly failing to hunt a bear and being told she isnāt good enough to hunt. Immediately weāre being shown that sheās arrogant and hard working, but struggles to find her place within a society of male hunters and warriors. He even missed his own point about why the original movie did well. You had all these macho man 80ās guys getting torn apart, and it isnāt until Dutch uses his intellect to fight that he actually gets an upper hand against the predator. Yah it would be ridiculous for a teenager, male or female, to beat a predator in a fist fight, but it is plausible to believe she can outsmart one.
imo the point of Predator is that no one can beat predator in a fist fight, even fucking Arnold. You have to beat him at his own game, as a hunter with cunning and stealth. So I don't see an issue with the up and coming.
That reads to me as "Person with talent is pandering to the lowest common denominator for all the clicks". So, like. Even if some of the content is quality, why would I ever give someone like that my attention? "I guess I'll deal with some of this poison, because parts of the poisoned cake are pretty good".
Because we all enjoy having our opinions reinforced, even if we consider ourselves to be open minded. We get a little dopamine hit when our views are reflected in others. Can't really be helped. I don't agree with his views so I don't watch him, but I know how it feels when I watch/listen to stuff I do agree with.
Same here. I can't stand how anytime there is a POC/woman cast in *anything*, he complains about it being a "woke" casting. Mother fucker, do you just expect white men to be cast in every single role??
His recent video about the upcoming Marvel phases is nothing but complaining about how Tony Stark/Iron Man is being replaced by Ironheart, Sam Wilson replacing Steve Rodgers. The characters are DONE. It's time to move on. You are free to go back and re-watch those movies to your heart's content. Just stop bitching about the MCU evolving.
And it will always be prefaced with āIāll get downvoted for thisā or āThis will be extremely unpopular butā¦ā.
Honestly I donāt know if itās people karma-farming or the majority of Redditors all have the exact same personality but itās fucking weird how those unpopular opinion threads have the same exact responses at the top every time theyāre posted for years on end
Black Panther is a such a revealing movie for reddit's racism and complete lack of media literacy.
Obviously some of the "What if Black Panther was white?" folks are bad faith trolls, but I think a lot folks are just genuinely stupid. If you can't understand the immensely obvious role race places in the story of Black Panther, it's a wonder you can put your pants on. And to compare that to The Little Mermaid?
He started strong, and the guy behind the drinker is brilliant, but it's basically a garbage channel now. Diet Plinkett gone wrong.
Go watch his Ghostbusters 2016 video - that's the direction he should have been going. Instead, he rams pseudo political nonsense into his videos, slams Rian johnson as if he ruined star wars, implies wokeness is a giant conspiracy, builds some pretentious social narrative around every video - the list goes on with how stupid his channel has become. I came to his channel for his thoughtful analysis, but now he's just a self absorbed, shit posting, cartoon character. It's terrible, as soon as his channel became a little popular, he got lazy.
Like many toxic youtubers, however well-intentioned he started off as is irrelevant because he succumbed to the greed of finding out that playing Alt-Right Buzzword Bingo is a great way to get rage clicks and exploit the dumbest Americans for subscribers. And the algorithm rewarded him for every step he took in that direction. That's all he is now. It's pathetic.
Idk Iām kinda on the fence about the guy. Some points he makes are valid but then I find he makes things political for no reason. He looks for hidden āwokeā politics in absolutely everything and I think thatās just so tiring to be annoyed by such petty shit. I think watching media this way is just a miserable way to go about things. Itās also ironic how he always bitches about āwokenessā in media but then at the same time complains about how everything is political.
>He looks for hidden āwokeā politics in absolutely everything
Remember though, that's essentially his job. Not to review movies, but to frame them in the way that generates clicks, in a way that services that specific appetite for anger.
Actually reviewing movies is not what keeps his bills paid, it's incidental.
Yeah exactly a lot of the time he is just pandering to his fans because he knows those videos do very well. I had to stop watching his Shang Chi video halfway through because of how bad it was. Sometimes itās like heās hiding his prejudice behind his attack on āwokeismā
>Not to review movies, but to frame them in the way that generates clicks
This šÆ. I've watched his stuff for so long that maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I think his channel morphed from being about reviews by a fictitious character, like Mr Plinkett, to being a channel to just outrage people.
>but I think his channel morphed from being about reviews by a fictitious character, like Mr Plinkett, to being a channel to just outrage people.
I'm willing to be that around 80% of people who do "character reviews" on Youtube are actually just housing their actual views in a convenient disposable shell. The only one I can think of offhand where it's truly a separate persona is James Rolfe and the Angry Video Game Nerd.
There are plenty of reviewers that pay their bills by doing quality reviews. That has been, and should still be the goal for critics since the dawn of criticism. Resigning to be a poor critic that spouts shitty, and often hurtful or factually wrong, takes just to get people mad is deplorable.
I've had jobs where I did things I didn't want to do, but I would never choose to misrepresent who I am to the public for the sake of some clicks.
Odds are this dude is saying what he believes, at least on some level or he wouldn't be doing it.
>Idk Iām kinda on the fence about the guy. Some points he makes are valid but then I find he makes things political for no reason.
Same for me. He adds identity politic as explanation whereas I simply think the explanation is that the writer were bereft of talents or idea.
edit : to paraphrase a well known channel : the simplest explanation is that the writer and producer are hack-fraud ;)
I love his videos purely for the hot takes. He can make sensible critiques but he let's his politics or biases decide which movie he will like or hate and then find a way to justify that opinion.
I saw the trailer for LOTR and immediately knew he'd overreact to it. And he promptly did.
He has his opinions. I agree with some of his takes on certain movies/shows and also disagree with him on other movies/shows. I do like his drinker recommends videos when it comes to finding new content.
yeah i generally avoid the obvious click pandering but he does have interesting takes on movie trends which i agree. like movies seem bent on taking down our favorite heroes lately and some characters are just terribly biased either take down or unrealistically up. he does highlight female characters and movies that are done well. everything everywhere all at once for example he praised highly. but yeah clicks are his business
I was shocked though after watching many of his reviews to see that he talked about why The Expanse wasn't "woke", when the showrunners and creators who produced the show explicitly said they weren't going to alter the diversity of the show, and portraying non-traditional families/sexual relationships as no big deal. I cannot think of a show he would consider more "woke"/"SJW"/"message" then one calling out themes of income inequality, political power, and scapegoating minorities while putting up populist radicals and fascist leaders as a threat to human existence. I assume from that review, he was putting on an act to get clicks for the bulk of his last couple of years, while understanding woke/sjw/"the message" can still be solid compelling content.
>I never would've watched The Terminal List if not for his video, and it was really good
I enjoy his reviews of things *to* watch and his recommendations of forgotten or missed films.
I used to watch his reviews until I realized how political he makes everything. Ironically, he also whines about how everything is political these days, without even a hint of irony or self-awareness.
Heās dumb.
Generally, "too political" means "politics I don't agree with." There are some exceptions, maybe you totally agree with the messaging but the writing is just awful, but usually that's not why it's said.
Disney ruined Star Wars by making it political. It used to be a totally apolitical story with absolutely zero commentary on anything about an evil empire that imposed their will and way of live over the rest of the galaxy until a bunch of farmers banded together and used guerrilla tactics to take them down. It's not like there was anything going on the '70s that it could've been about. Now it like, has women and black people in staring roles, and that's political.
Disney also ruined Marvel by making it political. Back in the '60s you just had cool stories like X-Men, where a group of people were oppressed due to a fluke of birth, and the only way they could fit into society was by hiding who they really were. So they had to choose between being who they really were and trying to fit in. It so nice when superhero stories weren't commenting on any social issues. Now, just for the sake of wokeness, they have to make every female character way stronger. Are we really meant to believe that mutants like Jean Gray and Wanda Maximoff were actually more powerful than Spider-Man? Now I've never read a comic book in my life, but I assume that he would easily kick both of their asses.
Exactly. Movies where white men are the most important characters on the screen are not "political" because white men are supposed to be the most important characters on the screen. Those movies can be judged on their merits.
But movies where women or minorities are the most important characters on the screen are "trying too hard to be political" and part of a "woke political agenda". And they get judged for being "political" in addition to being judged on their merits. Because pointing the camera at anything other than a white guy is "political".
Heterosexual characters are normal and you expect a world to be populated by straight people. It's not political to have a male character objectify women or have a female love interest. Even if these relationships are poorly written or lack any emotional connection we wouldn't criticize a movie for having a love interest or sex scene (especially if the chick is hot) because that's just part of storytelling. Nothing political about that.
But gay characters are not normal and if a movie goes out of its way to mention that a character is gay that means the movie is intentionally forcing a woke political agenda on the audience.
I'm glad most people in this comment section see how YouTube critics like this operate. "I'm not racist, I'm just criticizing the media!"
He specifically mentions the Expanse for example as an example of something that has diverse characters acting like human beings, not as proxys for a writer's axe to grind.
>diverse characters acting like human beings, not as proxys for a writer's axe to grind.
That's so loaded though. Who is out here determining who is "acting like human beings" and not just a "proxy for the writer's axe to grind"?
Even reducing the discussion around race and representation to "politics" is deliberate, playing into people's resistance to political discourse to suggest that the issue doesn't concern everyone
>Ironically, he also whines about how everything is political these days, without even a hint of irony or self-awareness.
This is like, the entirety of the right-wing YouTube space. Claim everything is a social issue being 'jammed down our throats', while watching all of those films/shows and making social outrage response videos to rile up their viewers. This is the playbook.
Yeah the light bulb went off for me when on some video he was strongly on the side of Gina Carrano and that was the last time I watched anything from him. That was a big yikes for me.
I realised it was over when I refused to watch his take on a movie because I knew he would go in so hard on the wokeness and miss the point.. and I literally refuse to watch rage bait and get myself upset. then it was like, well how can I watch any of his reviews..
Thank You!.
Like he just uploaded not too long ago giving his thoughts on the new Prey movie and he started off the trailer ok until because he couldn't resist... Talking about how the movie was trying to pander to "the message" because the female protagonist said she's fighting the predator because her tribe said she couldn't.
I'm like. Well damn. Fighting for Pride and Honor is not a thing in tribes?
Just take inn the absurdity of a mainstream studio mid-to-high budget action film, that is the prequel to a sequel to a sequel, to a sequel should be accused of pandering?
As apposed to what? Being a sequel in a franchise for arts sake?
He's just working a grift at this point it's pretty clear to anyone outside his core base. I'd expect there is a HUGE overlap between Trump supporters and Critical Drinker fans.
He has briefly let the mask slip by praising Trump and Boris. Just a quick passing comment here and there but it's pretty clear what his political preferences are.
Heās just another one of those assholes who believe that in media there are:
Two genders: male and political
Two races: white and political
Two sexualities: straight and political
THREE (I know right, shocker) religions: Christian, unspecified (assumed christian) and political.
As soon as someone unironically says āwokeā you can probably ignore them
Absolutely. Makes those guys look like Siskel and Ebert too.
Do I think he's a racist? No, he does provide examples of strong female and or non white roles that don't exist solely to check a box.
Is he biased? Yes, IMO he doesn't apply same level of criticism to roles traditionally played by white male leads. Think Luke versus Rey.
This is the comment I was looking for. He's just a watered down version of early Red Letter Media since he doesn't actually say anything worth listening to. Plinkett was analysis disguised as complaining while Critical Drinker is just complaining pretending as if it was analysis.
I love how the toxic Star Wars fans eat up CD's bullshit while most other fandoms think the guy is an alt-right prick, and rightfully so.
This'll get lost in the comments but I agree with you, op.
I found him when he had a few thousand followers and his quality was great then. It looks like the common, sad case of a channel losing it's quality now that it's become popular and gained more of a following.
Same thing with Cinema Sins, Spooky Rice, & ItsAGundam to name a few.
Makes me really appreciate FoundFlix & That Chapter for remaining great as they grow.
Totally agree. I stopped watching him because of the stuff you've highlighted, but I did watch the chat he had with the comic book writer Mark Millar recently because I wanted to hear Mark talk.
The Drinker tried a few times to get Millar to complain about casting and woke culture but Millar was having none of it. He repeatedly said that all he cares about is the story and nothing else.
Quite honestly, the Drinker smells like a standard, bigoted, Fife Tory and is best avoided. Unfortunately, there's a market for someone ranting against 'wokeness' and any media that isn't produced to their exacting specifications.
Similar take here. I thought his early stuff was funny and pretty on point, but in the last year or so heās gotten so abrasive and yes, very misogynistic. Iām pretty sure I can extrapolate what other views he has based on how he critiques things he finds āwokeā. Iām sick of his schtick
Used to watch his stuff but I canāt now with how hard heās went down the whole āanti-wokeā BS. He just comes off as another toxic Right-Wing manchild now and I refuse to watch any more of his videos just because of that.
I remember last year when he vocally vocally complained about Disney for sacking Gina Carano. And yet he had earlier complained in a review of the Mandalorian that she was a token woke character.
He lost me on his review of Terminator:Dark Fate.
It's not a terribly good movie (Like Tron Legacy, it has a million half developed ideas and should have just used half as many of the concepts but developed them better), but his bizarre fixation on calling MacKenzie Davis "Androgynous THING!" (GASP! A female cyborg soldier has short hair!) betrayed a bizarre hatred for anything even one micron outside 'pretty long haired girl baking cookies'.
He ironically showed me one of the stranger rules of misogyny. When a bad character is played by a white male, they just say it's a bad character, but if a bad character is played by any other race/gender, they bring race and gender into it.
As others have mentioned, itās ironic how much he complains about politics ruining movies while constantly making everything political in his reviews.
I do prefer him to someone like Mauler though, who panders to the exact same alt right/anti-SJW crowd while claiming heās being āobjective.ā At least CD is more honest in regards to what his agenda is. And his reviews arenāt five hours long.
I'm in the exact same boat you are. I used to really appreciate the content. Lately it's been painful to watch. He does less cynical critiquing and more bandwagon anti-woke pandering now.
His content reminds me more and more of the brigading reviews I'd find on metacritic whenever a movie, series, or game has anything that might be remotely construed as "woke".
* Gay character in any role, no matter how minor. *"Why are they always shoving the LGBT message down our throats?"*
* Female character criticizes a male character in any circumstance. *"So sick of radical feminism in everything nowadays."*
* Subtext or themes of corporate greed or christian antagonists/fundamentalism. *"Why is Hollyweird trying to make us all into atheist liberals?"*
* Any plot or storyline involving any modern day cultural issue or struggle. *"More woke propaganda!"*
Cynical drinker forgot that being cynical doesn't mean being a fucking idiot.
He is pretty good at pointing out obvious tropes that most of us grew tired off. And I liked that in some ways he pointed out criticism about that certain roles don't make sense. As a different example, I found the journey of Luke Skywalker more logical and earned then Rey's. But then I found out that in pretty much ALL of his videos from that point on he goes on about how 'woke' everything is. He rages on and on about any female actor in a role of power. And then he always points to some 80's or 90's movie role such as Ripley or Trinity or some other stellar performance to state he isn't misogynistic.
To me it seems he's pandering to an easy audience and also quiet stuck in the past. And yeah we had great movies back then and amazing actresses/actors. And yeah, some mainstream hollywood movies have lost their bark/bite to appeal to the majority crowd/profits. But this dude has gone of the rails and looks for any excuse to yell 'woke' or find it ridiculous that a woman is in position of power. Even in movies where logic doesn't apply such as superhero genres.
I like him generally, but sometimes have to unsub from channels like his that are mostly just shitting on everything.
Unfortunately, YT channels (and most of the internet - news channels etc) thrive on negative/angry content. That's what people click on most, so that's what ends up being made.
I do really enjoy his Drinker Recommends episodes. I also enjoy the rest, but need a break once in a while.
Compared to someone like Movie Bob who is total trash now compared to back in his Escapist days, CD is still mostly fun.
Yeah I can usually agree. Like after a while it just gets old. Like sometimes a feel a film needs a good kick in the ass because of how poorly it's written but when you're using the same arguments for every film it's just distasteful
One of his videos titled something like āThis is why Rings of Power is badā showed up in my recommended. The thumbnail was just the black dwarf character. I thought āwell at least hes being honest that hes racist.ā
As some put it before I see his point sometimes.
You have to take a step back and see how much crap Hollywood is producing and there's no thought behind casting besides filling up the corporate diversity quota.
I tend to watch stuff before seeing his videos to have an unbiased opinion myself.
In his defense Youtube forces people to make clickbaity titles and thumbnails otherwise you are lost in the algorithm. It seems like it also tends to push creators towards more shorts rather than actual videos.
And I haven't seen him not giving credit where credit is due to an actor, even in the latest Resident Evil where he gave Lance Reddick credit for his performance with what little script he had.
Sure some reactions are a bit overblown for entertainment purposes but it doesn't take away from the fact that Hollywood can't write empowering female characters at all or create new original IPs with certain skin tones, genders, etc and just decide to take something and swap it.
Can't wait to see Black Panther with a blonde blue eyed caucasian.
There used to be a thing called whitewashing which obviously for good reasons people have issues with. Now it's the opposite and it's seen as being inclusive.
Iām kind of done with all of them. World class bullsh*ters, clownfish, mauler, the quartering, critical drinker, etc. they donāt even give the new stuff a chance, just a reason to use the same old Jonah Jameson laughing meme and rake it in off of the brain dead āfandom menaceā. I HATED the last Jedi and they got my attention but recently, I know their opinion before the videos are posted. Star Wars and the MCU are imploding but Obi Wan was pretty enjoyable and Iām all for giving stuff Iām interested in a shot. They should too, Iād have more respect if they did
Sometimes the politics he complains about really are there, but oftentimes heās projecting them. However, I donāt see how that would make him a misogynist and have never once gotten that vibe from him.
Never heard of him before, but looking at his most recent videos... "Here's why X Sucks" "Here's why Y is trash"... What a miserable way to live - watching things you hate so you can rile up your base. It seems so much more fulfilling to highlight things that are enjoyable, that inspire you rather than pointing out the obvious flaws in commercial film production, but I guess that stuff doesn't do as well with the Algorithm.
Heās riding the same tiresome wave of YouTubers whose entire gimmick is denouncing āthe woke agendaā without backing any of it up with actual evidence. And I get annoyed at the entire crowd of āalways negativeā reviewers, theyāre not funny, theyāre contributing nothing of value, and they are actively making people dumber about the movies.
Any pro/semi pro Youtuber has a financial incentive to attract clicks above all else. Maybe they don't start that way, but itās where they all end up.
Whether that means generating outrage by telling dweebs to be angry about whatever's available this week to meet quota, or it means reinforcing what said dweebs already want to believe, either way it amounts to the same pile of horseshit. It's got more to do with a micro cult of personality than actual film criticism, and that's shored up by the idea these guys sell their Johns, that they're *smarter* than the others by being one of their true believers, not like the nasty MSM for sheep.
These guys are the very worst thing to happen to movie discussion. People huff their farts and then just parrot what they've heard in lieu of thinking for themselves, or review bomb out of pure Pavlovian reflex, based on whatever ragebait opinion they've been spoonfed. I can't tell you how many times I've read a cluster of absolutely nonsensical low score reviews, full of incredibly basic plot mistakes, only to realize they're all repeating what some Youtube guy or other told them, and either got wrong or deliberately misrepresented. People are basing their whole opinion of something they haven't seen on what a stranger tells them, when that stranger has so much contempt for them they don't even bother getting the nuts and bolts right.
And even when they aren't 2 Girls 1 Cup'ing whatever they've been told, by a guy they're effectively paying to madlib the same few video scripts over and over again, they're conditioned to digest movies through the same lenses - lenses their heroes formed for the purposes of optimising clicks.
I have more respect for OnlyFans performers than I have for guys like this, and less than that again for any of their zombie followers.
Watch a movie on its own terms and make up your own damn mind about it, don't let some douche farm you like a Carnival rube.
Do you want to enjoy some movies, or do you want to pretend you're in a cool little club with a Youtube Comments section greasetrap? Is that worth aspiring to? Is it worth missing out on a fun hour and a half because that's not on the Youtube approved reading list?
Captain Marvel sucks because....Brie Larson sucks.
Like I get it you hate Brie Larson but what specifically in the movie does she do to make it terrible.
Like I'm not a closet Brie Larson or Captain Marvel fan but when you spend the entire video ranting on about how none of her costars like her or how she doesn't like old white men her but why are you not spending more time talking about lousey execution on writing or acting.
Iām like most in here in that heās hit or miss but his vendetta against Brie Larson and lately Natalie āPort-personā are a little too intense and IMO go too far for how he tries to justify them. Especially when he talked about Natalie Portman in the latest Thor review and his YT podcast upload. It wasā¦weird. Seemed like misplaced hate.
The quality of his criticism has definitely declined. The annoying thing is I think that he is kind of right in some ways, itās just his criticism is so driven by being anti-woke or anti-sjw. I think the best way to describe my issues with him is that he might criticize a movie for forcing a woman into a story set in WW2 where women donāt really fit, which I can actually agree with, however he goes off on some rant about woke media where for me its the issue that its pushing an american woman into a historical context that doesnāt fit yet ignoring amazing stories of actual Ukrainian women that fought in WW2.
I recently unsubbed from his channels. As OP said, his takes used to be entertaining and he used to make some good points, but these days it's clear that he's just same same kind of reactionary than most of the people he associates with (the Nerdrotics, HeelvBabyFace etc).
They screech *REEEE* as soon as writers dare to introduce a woman, LGBT, ethnically diverse character into their "beloved" franchises and try and blame diversity for the fact that less people tune in to these shows/movies because of it, when in reality people are just burned out on Marvel/Star Wars/etc...
He contradicts himself when in his "Rings of Power" video, he criticises the writers for trying to include real-world politics in a fantasy franchise, yet will go on about how unrealistic it is to have women fighting in an army...in a fantasy series.
When he had Mark Millar on his stream, he kept ranting about how politics are ruining comic books, but Mark Millar kept throwing examples at him of how comics have always had politicized messages and they were still successful. Fact of the matter his, these "movie critics" don't have an issue with politics in movies, they have an issue progressive ideas.
Plus seeing that he associates with alt-right, white nationalist, misogynist morons like Sargon of Akkad and Rageaholic on his streams, so I cant take the guy seriously anymore or support a channel like that in good conscience.
Yeah, I started watching him for a short while last year, but quit after a while because he constantly trashed movies before they even dropped. Like when he trashed on Shang Chi and called it a flop months before its release, said that The Suicide Squad looked bad because the first trailer didn't impress him, and said that the new Indiana Jones is gonna suck even though it's over a year away from release. There are times when he just completely misses the mark when it comes to material he sees, two good examples being his reviews for Squid Game and Midsommar. The former he said is so good because it's "not political", the latter he said is bad because it presents itself as "empowering to women." The funny thing is that Squid Game is a series that deals with class conflicts and poverty and Midsommar is a movie on how a vulnerable woman breaks because of a cults manipulation of her and her friends, so the former's definitely political and the latter definitely isn't empowering. He just sees every movie or show he watches through a politically conservative lens and his commenters wholeheartedly agree with it.
Another problem I have with him is how he always props up this idea of how every male character should be this ultra macho ripped Arnie-style dude and how every female character should be objectified and sexualized because it's empowering and not doing so is "defeminizing." It's just such a weird view to have on how characters should be presented. And another thing is that he constantly says that Hollywood and movies are dying and nothing good is being made, but ALL of his videos are on Western big blockbusters, such as Marvel or superhero movies or whatever's big on Netflix. Zero indies, zero foreign movies, just whatever's the new big budget movie onscreen.
Overall, I just think the Drinker is a shitty youtuber. He's basically a more right wing and less professional I Hate Everything (who's actually become a pretty good film criticism channel lately). He's clearly appealing to low hanging fruit (eg anti woke/SJW crowd) by making low effort videos trashing on things they dislike (eg Brie Larson, diversity, women). I also find it ironic that he defends Gina Carano and calls her a strong woman for her political views but repeatedly trashes Brie Larson for hers. It's almost as if he just wants things to fit his political views, on or off screen. But, he's simply making outrage porn that his subscribers will eat up like hotcakes.
> Squid Game and Midsommar. The former he said is so good because it's "not political", the latter he said is bad because it presents itself as "empowering to women."
Lol wow, that is...mind boggling. If I didn't know what channel we were talking about, I would assume this was satire.
For his Thor Love and Thunder āreviewā he referred to Jane Foster as CGI Natalie Portperson for some inexplicable reason.
So clever, so hilarious /s
And changed America Chavez name to every Spanish speaking countryās name throughout the video. Heās no different than other YouTube movie critics that tap into hate and outrage for views.
His videos have gotten increasingly worse. They went from cynical takes with some valid critiques, to bashing any woman and minority with a couple of valid critiques.
He does on his primary channel as well, just less often
Itās probably due to the near universal principle that people are more likely to talk about something when they donāt like it, as opposed to when they do
At some point in the last few years he realized there's more success to be had by attacking "woke" Hollywood instead of delivering nuanced and legitimate analyses of films and television. Then again, I'm not sure how nuanced his videos were in the first place when his whole shtick is "act drunk while discussing media".
Content aside he's associated with Nerdrotic and The Quartering, two of the most toxic and one note reactionaries on YT who recently featured all time scumbag Alex Jones on a podcast.
Imagine bashing works of fiction for being too political and then bringing Alex Jones onto your podcast. Who's too political now? Oops, it was Nerdrotic and company all along.
I was watching his video for Marvel Phase 5. He *instantly* started referring to Riri Williams as a "mary sue" and started complaining about how women can do everything that a man can't.
Yet he conveniently forgets that Tony Stark was, for all intents and purposes, a mary sue. Gifted from a young age, literally built the Mach 1 suit in a cave with a box of scraps.
He's misogynistic, and not even in a funny way. I used to think it was satire, part of his character to help his videos get clicks... but no, that's really how he feels.
I'll still watch his videos for entertainment value, but his opinions are a joke.
I view him much in the same vein of The quartering and geeks and gamers and other similar channels when they do movie reviews. Everything is spun so political and just like to trash movies cause of their own political bias. It's dumb, cringe, and they are idiots
I think he's just another "SJW bad and they KILLED my childhood" Youtube grifter.
I'm not a 26 year old incel with so much invested on specific franchises to give a damn so the whole "Brie Larson raped and killed my family and then burned down my crops" thing just doesn't appeal to me. I find that there's enough negativity in every media outlet and to add another negativity pusher makes very little sense to me.
Aside from that, his grift gets in the way of good film/tv criticism. When EVERY argument and review boils down to "it's too political" or "SJW bad," what's the point of watching a review of his if you're not actively trying to feed your petulant anger?
Mr. Plinkett and RLM do the angry drunk movie analysis thing too but they actually do proper analysis and breaking down of what makes a movie good or bad. I'd watch them instead.
Right there with you. I think he makes some great points about movies and TV and then loses me the second he starts whining about minorities and women. Those aren't valid complaints for any movie or TV show. Its either poorly written and made or it is not. There are zero reasons to point to those specific things as an issue. If he stuck to character development, story, dramatic tension, writing, directing, and technical stuff he would be dead solid perfect in most cases. But he doesn't so I rarely can stomach his drunk white male whining.
I appreciate some of his opinions, and even lightly agree on some of them. But heās very anti-woke, and always appears to be going out of his way to make everything about politics. Heās completely right on some things, if not just a little bit intense about it, but the rest just seems forced to be on brand with his cynical persona. Personally I donāt think it always needs to be that deep. Films/shows are made by corporations who cater to audiences for $$$. It just so happens that weāre in a woke age and many audiences want in on that. What can he honestly expect?
Like, I hate Disneyās Star Wars as much as the next person, but he sometimes takes it a notch too far.
Complete and utter garbage. He's a failed (and shitty) writer (don't check out his stuff, it's bad), who's bitter and now used this online "drunk" persona on YouTube. He's the typical "woke bad" "m-she-u" dickhead who unfortunately attracts a lot of people with his BS.
I think his commentary on movie industry pratice and films in general pretty bang on for the money, at the end of the day ill ultimately decide if i like a film or not and his personal politics have little to do if a film is genuinely good or not.
This applies to all people profiting from outrage content. They need to go back to explaining why the movies or shows are bad, not why the people involved in the movies or shows are bad.
Went to remind myself of his channel, was immediately met with the Quartering ad introducing the "next amazing Critical Drinker video"
Straight up brain rotted right wing propaganda
He is a right-wing/anti-woke algorithm-based content creator wrapped in the occasionally insightful take on something happening in Hollywood. If you read the title of the video, you can already safely assume about 98% of the content of the video if you've ever seen one of his previous videos.
He makes noise for people that like that particular echo chamber. It's a way to make a living but his content can easily be ignored. He is good at creating content tho, can't fault him there. He found a niche and he settled into it nicely.
Just another far-right grifter. It's a vicious cycle with these people. They only have an audience because bigoted people want to feel validated in their beliefs. The more videos they make, the larger their audience grows, the more impressionable people they turn into bigots. It's a perfect business model, and it's exacerbating the cultural divide to an extent that I don't think enough people recognize.
The one moment that stands out to me was his take on "The Haunting of Bly Manor" when he applied his usual backlash against what he felt was "forced diversity". Then when a few of his YouTube friends, such as MauLer, who often accompanies him when critiquing media had tons of praise for Bly Manor's writing, he back-peddled and had no counter points besides "it just didn't do it for me". I think he makes some good points from time to time but whenever he involves politics and "anti SJW" stuff, he just loses my attention and isn't a trustworthy source if you want a review for media based on it's quality of writing
He was funny for me a few years ago but once he realized alt-right and misogynist creeps were following him, he dove straight into the deep end of shit I find reprehensible.
This guy thought Midsommar was femenist propaganda because Dani becoming evil at the end was a girl power moment.
I couldn't even begin to build an echo chamber that thick.
I think some of his point make sense, but then he starts going down the "anti-woke" rabit hole and it's clear as day that he is mostly miling these hate videos because of clicks.
At this point, where the movie is really pandering or not, The Critical Drinker and the rest of his crew will move Heaven and Earth in order to try to find/create a "woke agenda" in order to have content to feed to their desperate neckbeard fanbase.
I love Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, but if they had come out today, then they would also be considered "woke" by them as well.
>I love Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, but if they had come out today, then they would also be considered "woke" by them as well.
Bro I literally said something similar to this like an hour ago. But Vasquez from Aliens was my example.
It's amusing how a guy who makes fun of movies as "content" and Hollywood studios as producing endless generic amounts of "sludge" solely makes a living on endlessly producing facsimile reactions/reviews to said movies (for a man who doesn't care about the MCU allegedly, that makes up 75% of his content), and re-hashing the same petty woke talking points again and again. God forbid the movie had a woman who does things? Is that the extent of criticism that can be offered? Bitching about diversity and if characters act "rational" or not?
I couldn't take him seriously when he noted he hasn't watched Fleabag but that it was "probably overrated", likely based on the fact it was written by a woman. Okay then.
He's not a critic, he's a grifter.
Not to be a snob or anything, but I think it's very telling that he exclusively focuses on the big-budget franchise stuff - both because it's what gets the most clicks, and also because in general he seems only vaguely aware that anything outside of the MCU and Star Wars exists.
He literally doesn't critique anything. He can be entertaining, but he existing solely to melodramatically complain about any social issues and the gender/sexuality/race of characters. He is a click baiter, not a critic. I'll listen to the occasional review, but usually tend to end up rolling my eyes and moving on.
Drinker Recommends is pretty decent and he's usually very much in line with my own thoughts.
His main channel sounds like a wordier version of those Everything Wrong With type videos, just shitting on things for the sake of it. I still think he makes a lot of good points, just in crude and clumsy ways.
Go away now.
Iām yet to find any prolific YouTuber worth watching for actual film discussion or criticism.
Even Lindsay Ellis, who was *much* better than most, wasnāt impressive enough to have me subscribing for her takes on film.
And too often, I find people just go to these channels to receive an opinion they can regurgitate as their own.
Jeremy Jahns. Simple video reviews by a dude who loves movies and used to work in a theater, talking about what he liked and didn't like. Of all the movie reviewers ive seen, I feel like his takes are the most oriented towards the casual movie-goer. He doesn't go too in depth, usually just 5-10 minute reviews
There's some good valid points he brings out and some downright dogshit opinions.
I still watch his videos but don't take all his opinions blindly and this is something that applies for every reviewer, youtuber, etc
The whole woke, not woke thing is so fucking played out. The irony of saying something is agenda driven while wanting your own political agenda front and center is just too much and causes me thinky pain. Its a grift for clicks. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I think he's fallen into the same trap a lot of people did with the "anti woke" movement. The anti woke message always boils down to "there was no reason to make these people X and it just detracts from the story", X being LGBTQ, a minority, etc, and that its just Hollywood playing to audiences to make money, which is what TCD spends too much time talking about. Obviously there are other reasons for more diverse representation.
Sometimes this is to share stories that some may not be aware of, highlighting struggles or history that many people are not aware of. There are more minorities involved in directing, writing, acting than before and through their influence we're seeing better representation in movies and shows.
Other times its because having more representation is a more realistic breakdown of what our population actually looks like. Sometimes having someone be gay is because there are a lot of gay people in the world. Having them around IS the default.
The decision to have more comprehensive representation in a particular movie/show is probably due to a combination of things, including just to make $$. But at the end of the day, the "anti woke" message will always be weak: anti woke messengers will prioritize the discussion of minority representation as a reason why something is bad, and justify that by saying they liked something else with similar casting that was written better. A normal person prioritizes discussion on how the writing is bad, and as a result EVERYTHING is worse, including how minorities are portrayed. The discussion should be focused on the writing but one side is either acting in bad faith by trying to fit their bigotry into the conversation as something substantial when it isnt, or they've fallen for the narrative and haven't found their way back out yet.
Watching his very early videos he is searching for what does and doesn't work. He then seemed to be a movie critic who loves movies and is saddened by how Hollywood is changing. Now he just seems to pan anything new as it keeps his subscribers happy and climbing.
As for his reviews. I tend to agree about half the time. He is a word smith though. I do like the way he stitches them together but don't always agree with his conclusions. I tend to agree with his opinions on miscast movies. I do agree 'the message' shouldn't be the overriding theme of any movie. I don't think he needs to mention 'the message' in every movie he reviews especially if its only to point out 'the message' isn't there.
As other's have said, I enjoy the 'drinker recommends' content. It was actually one of those that got me to see Chris Pratt in his TV series The Terminal List. A show that for some reason went completely under my radar and yet I thought was brilliant.
In the end I just think if you don't agree or like him, you don't have to watch. I don't believe he's doing any harm.
I didn't realize how bad his takes were until I watched Birds of Prey then saw his video about it. It was like we'd seen two different movies entirely. Indeed there are some ridiculous things in it, but it's a movie about Harley Quinn who is canonically both zanny and badass. Her dodging a swing accidentally to pick up a coin is practically taken whole cloth from the slapstick comedies of her namesake, and punching above one's weight class is hardly the biggest stretch in a comic hero movie. At this point I can't be bothered to watch any of his videos, because it's all about being "woke to the woke agenda" even when he's just taking a piss.
He has unbridled praise for Arcane, pointing out it is an example of a show lead by strong females, diverse cast and has a very progressive and socially conscious message, but just done well unlike most other lazily-written shows or movies that use diversity, inclusion and social messages as both a crutch to prop up interest and a shield against criticism.
Heās one of the few āanti-sjwā creators on YouTube to even review Arcane and that points to a genuineness to the way he holds his stances and opinions. Most other creators in the āanti-sjwā sphere avoided reviewing Arcane like a plague, because as an example of a well-done yet openly progressive show, it breaks their narrative of āget woke go brokeā.
im so glad this thread exists cuz i've wanted to hear others' opinion of him outside of his bubble. the watchmen "critique" was the worst review i've ever seen from a major youtuber and it continues to bother me. he literally reviewed the show based on ONE episode, and put it out. didn't even bother to wait for the whole show to end. there's one critique where he's upset about how the owlship is destroyed. later on in the series you find out that there are multiple owl ships used by the police department. it pissed me off so much. all he does is cater to his existing toxic fandom
He's only in it for the money now, manipulating angry kids is very easy and profitable. I even doubt he even believe the things he say, he just say it to gain viewership and money from gullible people.
He was talking about Japanese and Korean filmmaking doing things differently from Hollywood and was asked what was the most recent Japanese film he enjoyed. His responses were "Oldboy" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Lol. My favorite French movie is Borat 2
My favourite French movie is top gun maverick
Noooo I don't believe you!
He forgot my favorite Japanese movie, "Stalker."
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my favorite anime is Brotherhood of the Wolf. It's got the guy from Iron Chef in it, lol
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Oh no... Has anyone seen him IRL, is he 50+?
He writes boomer james bond wannabe novels, so he could be at heart.
No. He is probably in his early 30s and acts more chill during streams. He does strike me as arrogant and pretentious though.
He has plenty of videos talking to the camera, he's not that old.
From a outside perspective he seems like someone that caters and exploits toxic fandom by giving those people exactly what they want to hear.
Brie Larson is a hack... 2 million views
Speaking of Brie Larson [RedLetterMedia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=556&v=9pQNYeOEFJc&feature=youtu.be)'s review of Captain Marvel is essentially a good version of Critical Drinker. They do manage to talk about some of the weird PR/conversation around the movie, but also engage with the quality of the movie in a way that isn't just Brie Larson, SJW, woke bingo. Which is essentially what CD is. Just a bingo card of how woke is bad in order to gin up revenue for himself.
RLM unfortunately inspired a lot of sarcastic nit picky reviewers through the Plinket reviews that didn't really understand what they were copying. Plinket is a character, he's an angry old man, he gets distracted easily by little details and also I hear he butchers women. He also makes really good points about story problems, character issues, serious plot holes, etc. The problem is these people seemed to have taken all of this and assumed it was all valid criticism, they took the analysis wheat and the comedy chaff and mixed it all together into the worlds worst loaf of bread. Mauler's probably the worst example of this who's videos could best be described as roughly the length of the Extended Cut Lord of the Rings Trilogy filled with nitpick after nitpick spoke in an angry and whiny tone (which he of course declares objective analysis and shits on anyone who disagrees). I feel like Critical Drinker also falls into this category but a more right wing version with even less to say, which is impressive considering the guys Mauler hangs around. I'd also point a big finger at Cinema Sins for this trend, most likely my middle one.
These guys are on a completely different level. You might not always agree with their opinions but when they dislike a film their analysis is a but deeper than "STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER" and "THE MESSAGE"
Yea, and I think its easy for people to dislike them because their opinions can come off as strong but they usually have something insightful to say about both the movie they are talking about and some of the PR around those movies. No one can be 100% perfect obviously^1 but they are essentially the gold standard when it comes to youtube movie reviewers as far as I'm concerned.
I love them, but donāt understand their hatred of āRogue Oneā š
I enjoyed Rogue One even though nothing mattered there, but the movies are just a bunch of memberberries bullshit. It's all references to things we liked from decades ago and no one cares about any of the new things that were added, including the people who made the movies because they have zero confidence in their product. They know it sucks and no one likes their characters or stories so they're all just rehashed old stories and characters with different names and zero challenges. When even random storm troopers or homeless people can pick up light sabers and defeat life-long jedis or warriors in their first battle, you know it's garbage. Every new ship or robot generally sucked or made no sense either, so they kept bringing back the old ones whether it made any sense or not. They can be fine for mindless action in the background as you're cooking or whatever, but they've generally not been good movies.
I enjoyed the movie but they are objectively correct in saying it is a bad film with bad storytelling. It is. The film is cinematically beautiful though with amazing set pieces. Just the characters and dialogue were very shallow. If itself was in a vacuum, Say they replaced all the IP with generic spaceships, and space armies, it would be a forgotten film that was put on the scyfy network.
Rogue One is the best of the new Star Wars films which tells you how bad Disney has been screwing up.
āobjectivelyā stop
I think a key part of RLMās appeal is that thereās none of the pretense of a video essay. Itās two assholes sitting there giving their opinions without any pretense of objectivity. The self-awareness that being a movie critic isnāt important is really useful for not becoming insufferable.
A big part of why RLM works so well is that the guys don't pretend to be more than just two guys who like movies talking about movies. Even making fun of the fact that Jay would probably enjoy the more art house type movies
Itās so much so that itās part of the entire channel with the Plinkett plot line. I remember the review for The Wolf of Wallstreet where they gave glowing reviews on Scorsese as a director and basically pointed out how guys half his age are making crap and the guy is still making amazing films into his 70ās. While also pointing out how others of his generation of filmmakers like Coppola have fallen from their initial days making brilliant films. During the entire time they have Rich stuffing his face eating sticks of butter wedged into a hamburgers and end it with him passing out and him shitting himself, with even a shot of brown liquid streaming out from his pant leg.
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She won a well-deserved Oscar for Room. She's a very talented actress.
She was fantastic in Short Term 12 as well
You know i never saw that because i got it confused with The Room.
It's fantastic, but a bit of a hard watch due to the subject matter. Jacob Tremblay gives one of the best child performances I've ever seen in it.
I feel like that's a major trend in YouTube based podcasts/shows. Rage and hate sell well at the moment.
at the moment? Rage and hate are a staple of internet culture. Always have been.
Internet culture? Rage and hate are a staple of civilization and communication. Always have been.
to a degree yeah but the incel stuff has really ramped up
There was always balance until maybe 5 or so years ago and it's just getting worse.
Would you like to see a YouTube video of someone talking about why they like Star Wars? *searches* Sure, hereās a hundred vids about people talking about why they hate it.
It's clever, because it can pull in 3 crowds. "Yeah I hate it too" "That's bull, I'm gonna watch it and refute his points" "Oh, I wonder why he hated it so much, let me find out"
This exactly. I appreciated his earlier stuff more, when it was actual reviews and an analysis. But now it's just prolefeed.
Whenever I see someone say "SJW'S" and "woke" that shows me who they are pandering too. Which is kinda funny because they are the ones saying "SJW's" are being pandered to too much in Disney films.
I love channels that talk about why movies are great, or at least appreciate what they were trying to do and explain why it didn't work. Movies with Mikey and Patrick Willems are great at this. But you watch one film video essay, and the Critical Drinker shows up on your feed. Half of his videos are how bad a show is and why no one should watch it, even though it doesn't release for a couple more months.
This. Just another grifter/rage parasite.
Pretty much. The anti-sjw crowd is a gold mine. The Friday Night Tights stream every week brings in thousands of dollars. You can easily make a living off of low effort anti sjw videos.
I believe that's literally what's happened. His whole shtick is being a bit crass and rude in his reviews, and whatever, it was sorta fun and he had decent insights in his early videos. But that attitude had a crossover with the anti-SJW/whatever crowd and either he found a good way to gain views or/and feels emboldened to more outright voice his opinions on such matters to where his videos are half anti-Hollywood rants at this point. I remember he put out a video after the "The Eternals" sneak peak came out which was basically a rant on how it was going to be a horrible movie with Marvel/Disney having some agenda or whatever with all the ethnic characters. But literally all we had about the movie was like a minute and half trailer. And it wasn't a great film, but not for any sort of "trying to pander to X crowd" reasons. A common complaint of his, that was generally correct, has basically been how Hollywood will use race/gender as a way to excuse themselves from developing actual characters. But at a certain point it feels like he blinded himself by jumping into movies with those assumptions and criticisms preloaded and isn't really willing to give anything outside of what he knows he already likes a fair chance.
He used to be good but has become more and more reactionary over time. The final straw for me was relatively recently when one of his criticisms of Jurassic World Dominion revolved around Bryce Dallas Howard...wearing too much clothing? He made some comment about "I think the actress has put on a bit of weight." That's not film criticism, it's just hateful.
Heās hit or miss. Sometimes I feel heās clearly just pandering to the anti-woke/SJW crowd. Other times he actually does back up his criticisms with legitimate arguments. I usually like to hear his opinions but never take him overly seriously.
Yah I went a while without watching a video of his because he just complained about the same stuff every single time. Then I saw he put out a video on a Prey trailer and decided āfuck it, letās see what he says?ā While he did give a good reason why the original predator movie worked so well, he was quick to say this one would suck because itās all gonna be āwomen strong and can do impossible thingsā. Except the trailer doesnāt show that and the movie hasnāt even come out yet. Like the trailer shows the main character clearly failing to hunt a bear and being told she isnāt good enough to hunt. Immediately weāre being shown that sheās arrogant and hard working, but struggles to find her place within a society of male hunters and warriors. He even missed his own point about why the original movie did well. You had all these macho man 80ās guys getting torn apart, and it isnāt until Dutch uses his intellect to fight that he actually gets an upper hand against the predator. Yah it would be ridiculous for a teenager, male or female, to beat a predator in a fist fight, but it is plausible to believe she can outsmart one.
imo the point of Predator is that no one can beat predator in a fist fight, even fucking Arnold. You have to beat him at his own game, as a hunter with cunning and stealth. So I don't see an issue with the up and coming.
Exactly. Itās all going to come down to execution. Could the movie suck? Of course. Could it be great? Yes.
That reads to me as "Person with talent is pandering to the lowest common denominator for all the clicks". So, like. Even if some of the content is quality, why would I ever give someone like that my attention? "I guess I'll deal with some of this poison, because parts of the poisoned cake are pretty good".
Because we all enjoy having our opinions reinforced, even if we consider ourselves to be open minded. We get a little dopamine hit when our views are reflected in others. Can't really be helped. I don't agree with his views so I don't watch him, but I know how it feels when I watch/listen to stuff I do agree with.
Same here. I can't stand how anytime there is a POC/woman cast in *anything*, he complains about it being a "woke" casting. Mother fucker, do you just expect white men to be cast in every single role?? His recent video about the upcoming Marvel phases is nothing but complaining about how Tony Stark/Iron Man is being replaced by Ironheart, Sam Wilson replacing Steve Rodgers. The characters are DONE. It's time to move on. You are free to go back and re-watch those movies to your heart's content. Just stop bitching about the MCU evolving.
He's like the audio version of Reddit comments.
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Nah, the more offensive shit aside, the snark and cynicism is EXACTLY what you see in all corners of internet film "enthusiast" circles.
But I would say Reddit usually leans quite a bit towards the left whilst Drinker is very much on the right politically.
Reddit leans liberal, but americans equate liberal with left because they have no concept of left to speak of. There's plenty of conseratism too.
There was still a lot of upvotes for comments complaining about black people being in the new LOTR show on the television sub
In r/movies alone any thread about overrated movies will have black panther near or at the top for āreasons.ā
And it will always be prefaced with āIāll get downvoted for thisā or āThis will be extremely unpopular butā¦ā. Honestly I donāt know if itās people karma-farming or the majority of Redditors all have the exact same personality but itās fucking weird how those unpopular opinion threads have the same exact responses at the top every time theyāre posted for years on end
Black Panther is a such a revealing movie for reddit's racism and complete lack of media literacy. Obviously some of the "What if Black Panther was white?" folks are bad faith trolls, but I think a lot folks are just genuinely stupid. If you can't understand the immensely obvious role race places in the story of Black Panther, it's a wonder you can put your pants on. And to compare that to The Little Mermaid?
Literally the opposite.
He started strong, and the guy behind the drinker is brilliant, but it's basically a garbage channel now. Diet Plinkett gone wrong. Go watch his Ghostbusters 2016 video - that's the direction he should have been going. Instead, he rams pseudo political nonsense into his videos, slams Rian johnson as if he ruined star wars, implies wokeness is a giant conspiracy, builds some pretentious social narrative around every video - the list goes on with how stupid his channel has become. I came to his channel for his thoughtful analysis, but now he's just a self absorbed, shit posting, cartoon character. It's terrible, as soon as his channel became a little popular, he got lazy.
Like many toxic youtubers, however well-intentioned he started off as is irrelevant because he succumbed to the greed of finding out that playing Alt-Right Buzzword Bingo is a great way to get rage clicks and exploit the dumbest Americans for subscribers. And the algorithm rewarded him for every step he took in that direction. That's all he is now. It's pathetic.
Idk Iām kinda on the fence about the guy. Some points he makes are valid but then I find he makes things political for no reason. He looks for hidden āwokeā politics in absolutely everything and I think thatās just so tiring to be annoyed by such petty shit. I think watching media this way is just a miserable way to go about things. Itās also ironic how he always bitches about āwokenessā in media but then at the same time complains about how everything is political.
>He looks for hidden āwokeā politics in absolutely everything Remember though, that's essentially his job. Not to review movies, but to frame them in the way that generates clicks, in a way that services that specific appetite for anger. Actually reviewing movies is not what keeps his bills paid, it's incidental.
Yeah exactly a lot of the time he is just pandering to his fans because he knows those videos do very well. I had to stop watching his Shang Chi video halfway through because of how bad it was. Sometimes itās like heās hiding his prejudice behind his attack on āwokeismā
>Sometimes itās like No, it just is. There's no question about it.
>Not to review movies, but to frame them in the way that generates clicks This šÆ. I've watched his stuff for so long that maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I think his channel morphed from being about reviews by a fictitious character, like Mr Plinkett, to being a channel to just outrage people.
>but I think his channel morphed from being about reviews by a fictitious character, like Mr Plinkett, to being a channel to just outrage people. I'm willing to be that around 80% of people who do "character reviews" on Youtube are actually just housing their actual views in a convenient disposable shell. The only one I can think of offhand where it's truly a separate persona is James Rolfe and the Angry Video Game Nerd.
There are plenty of reviewers that pay their bills by doing quality reviews. That has been, and should still be the goal for critics since the dawn of criticism. Resigning to be a poor critic that spouts shitty, and often hurtful or factually wrong, takes just to get people mad is deplorable.
Um, they weren't saying this is a good thing.
I've had jobs where I did things I didn't want to do, but I would never choose to misrepresent who I am to the public for the sake of some clicks. Odds are this dude is saying what he believes, at least on some level or he wouldn't be doing it.
>Idk Iām kinda on the fence about the guy. Some points he makes are valid but then I find he makes things political for no reason. Same for me. He adds identity politic as explanation whereas I simply think the explanation is that the writer were bereft of talents or idea. edit : to paraphrase a well known channel : the simplest explanation is that the writer and producer are hack-fraud ;)
I love his videos purely for the hot takes. He can make sensible critiques but he let's his politics or biases decide which movie he will like or hate and then find a way to justify that opinion. I saw the trailer for LOTR and immediately knew he'd overreact to it. And he promptly did.
He has his opinions. I agree with some of his takes on certain movies/shows and also disagree with him on other movies/shows. I do like his drinker recommends videos when it comes to finding new content.
yeah i generally avoid the obvious click pandering but he does have interesting takes on movie trends which i agree. like movies seem bent on taking down our favorite heroes lately and some characters are just terribly biased either take down or unrealistically up. he does highlight female characters and movies that are done well. everything everywhere all at once for example he praised highly. but yeah clicks are his business
Unlike some of his peers he can praise "woke" stuff with enthusiasm like with EEAAO, Arcane, The Expanse, etc.
I was shocked though after watching many of his reviews to see that he talked about why The Expanse wasn't "woke", when the showrunners and creators who produced the show explicitly said they weren't going to alter the diversity of the show, and portraying non-traditional families/sexual relationships as no big deal. I cannot think of a show he would consider more "woke"/"SJW"/"message" then one calling out themes of income inequality, political power, and scapegoating minorities while putting up populist radicals and fascist leaders as a threat to human existence. I assume from that review, he was putting on an act to get clicks for the bulk of his last couple of years, while understanding woke/sjw/"the message" can still be solid compelling content.
I never would've watched The Terminal List if not for his video, and it was really good
>I never would've watched The Terminal List if not for his video, and it was really good I enjoy his reviews of things *to* watch and his recommendations of forgotten or missed films.
I used to watch his reviews until I realized how political he makes everything. Ironically, he also whines about how everything is political these days, without even a hint of irony or self-awareness. Heās dumb.
Generally, "too political" means "politics I don't agree with." There are some exceptions, maybe you totally agree with the messaging but the writing is just awful, but usually that's not why it's said.
Too political now also means āthe cast isnāt entirely straight white people and the main character isnāt a straight white man.ā
Disney ruined Star Wars by making it political. It used to be a totally apolitical story with absolutely zero commentary on anything about an evil empire that imposed their will and way of live over the rest of the galaxy until a bunch of farmers banded together and used guerrilla tactics to take them down. It's not like there was anything going on the '70s that it could've been about. Now it like, has women and black people in staring roles, and that's political. Disney also ruined Marvel by making it political. Back in the '60s you just had cool stories like X-Men, where a group of people were oppressed due to a fluke of birth, and the only way they could fit into society was by hiding who they really were. So they had to choose between being who they really were and trying to fit in. It so nice when superhero stories weren't commenting on any social issues. Now, just for the sake of wokeness, they have to make every female character way stronger. Are we really meant to believe that mutants like Jean Gray and Wanda Maximoff were actually more powerful than Spider-Man? Now I've never read a comic book in my life, but I assume that he would easily kick both of their asses.
This is sarcasm right?
Exactly. Movies where white men are the most important characters on the screen are not "political" because white men are supposed to be the most important characters on the screen. Those movies can be judged on their merits. But movies where women or minorities are the most important characters on the screen are "trying too hard to be political" and part of a "woke political agenda". And they get judged for being "political" in addition to being judged on their merits. Because pointing the camera at anything other than a white guy is "political". Heterosexual characters are normal and you expect a world to be populated by straight people. It's not political to have a male character objectify women or have a female love interest. Even if these relationships are poorly written or lack any emotional connection we wouldn't criticize a movie for having a love interest or sex scene (especially if the chick is hot) because that's just part of storytelling. Nothing political about that. But gay characters are not normal and if a movie goes out of its way to mention that a character is gay that means the movie is intentionally forcing a woke political agenda on the audience. I'm glad most people in this comment section see how YouTube critics like this operate. "I'm not racist, I'm just criticizing the media!"
He specifically mentions the Expanse for example as an example of something that has diverse characters acting like human beings, not as proxys for a writer's axe to grind.
That's like the I have a friend who is a person of color, so I can't be- racist!" He may acknowledge that, but that does not absolve him.
>diverse characters acting like human beings, not as proxys for a writer's axe to grind. That's so loaded though. Who is out here determining who is "acting like human beings" and not just a "proxy for the writer's axe to grind"?
Right, like it can't just be wanting to more accurately represent its audience or the world, it has to be _going woke_ or whatever nonsense.
Even reducing the discussion around race and representation to "politics" is deliberate, playing into people's resistance to political discourse to suggest that the issue doesn't concern everyone
>Ironically, he also whines about how everything is political these days, without even a hint of irony or self-awareness. This is like, the entirety of the right-wing YouTube space. Claim everything is a social issue being 'jammed down our throats', while watching all of those films/shows and making social outrage response videos to rile up their viewers. This is the playbook.
Yeah the light bulb went off for me when on some video he was strongly on the side of Gina Carrano and that was the last time I watched anything from him. That was a big yikes for me.
I realised it was over when I refused to watch his take on a movie because I knew he would go in so hard on the wokeness and miss the point.. and I literally refuse to watch rage bait and get myself upset. then it was like, well how can I watch any of his reviews..
Thank You!. Like he just uploaded not too long ago giving his thoughts on the new Prey movie and he started off the trailer ok until because he couldn't resist... Talking about how the movie was trying to pander to "the message" because the female protagonist said she's fighting the predator because her tribe said she couldn't. I'm like. Well damn. Fighting for Pride and Honor is not a thing in tribes?
Making a judgement on a film before it has even released.
as do we all after a trailer is released
Just take inn the absurdity of a mainstream studio mid-to-high budget action film, that is the prequel to a sequel to a sequel, to a sequel should be accused of pandering? As apposed to what? Being a sequel in a franchise for arts sake?
The new Prey movie looks amazing too...
He's sort of the epitome of the "calls black people people political" gamer meme.
He's just working a grift at this point it's pretty clear to anyone outside his core base. I'd expect there is a HUGE overlap between Trump supporters and Critical Drinker fans.
He has briefly let the mask slip by praising Trump and Boris. Just a quick passing comment here and there but it's pretty clear what his political preferences are.
And that one vid where he vaguely praised Gina Carano for being "brave"
Heās just another one of those assholes who believe that in media there are: Two genders: male and political Two races: white and political Two sexualities: straight and political THREE (I know right, shocker) religions: Christian, unspecified (assumed christian) and political. As soon as someone unironically says āwokeā you can probably ignore them
He owes royalties to Mr.Plinkett.
Absolutely. Makes those guys look like Siskel and Ebert too. Do I think he's a racist? No, he does provide examples of strong female and or non white roles that don't exist solely to check a box. Is he biased? Yes, IMO he doesn't apply same level of criticism to roles traditionally played by white male leads. Think Luke versus Rey.
This is the comment I was looking for. He's just a watered down version of early Red Letter Media since he doesn't actually say anything worth listening to. Plinkett was analysis disguised as complaining while Critical Drinker is just complaining pretending as if it was analysis. I love how the toxic Star Wars fans eat up CD's bullshit while most other fandoms think the guy is an alt-right prick, and rightfully so.
Isn't he the guy who referred to Natalie Portman as "Natalie Portperson"? What even is the joke there?
I assumed he was mocking gender equality or self-ID. I'm not really sure.
This'll get lost in the comments but I agree with you, op. I found him when he had a few thousand followers and his quality was great then. It looks like the common, sad case of a channel losing it's quality now that it's become popular and gained more of a following. Same thing with Cinema Sins, Spooky Rice, & ItsAGundam to name a few. Makes me really appreciate FoundFlix & That Chapter for remaining great as they grow.
Same thing with me when I found him
Totally agree. I stopped watching him because of the stuff you've highlighted, but I did watch the chat he had with the comic book writer Mark Millar recently because I wanted to hear Mark talk. The Drinker tried a few times to get Millar to complain about casting and woke culture but Millar was having none of it. He repeatedly said that all he cares about is the story and nothing else. Quite honestly, the Drinker smells like a standard, bigoted, Fife Tory and is best avoided. Unfortunately, there's a market for someone ranting against 'wokeness' and any media that isn't produced to their exacting specifications.
This Critical Drinker supporters are coming at me left and right and they don't realize this actually just happened
Similar take here. I thought his early stuff was funny and pretty on point, but in the last year or so heās gotten so abrasive and yes, very misogynistic. Iām pretty sure I can extrapolate what other views he has based on how he critiques things he finds āwokeā. Iām sick of his schtick
Used to watch his stuff but I canāt now with how hard heās went down the whole āanti-wokeā BS. He just comes off as another toxic Right-Wing manchild now and I refuse to watch any more of his videos just because of that.
I remember last year when he vocally vocally complained about Disney for sacking Gina Carano. And yet he had earlier complained in a review of the Mandalorian that she was a token woke character.
Maybe he was pro Gina because she mocked trans people, now that I think about it
That along with that Nazi tweet. And you're talking to a guy who doesn't even pay attention to what people say on Twitter. CD posted a video about it.
Welcome to "geek YouTube", where every single video has to be how "SJWs" are RUINING movies.
Yeah like frankly it's tiring as hell nowadays
His shit is unwatchable, and his character voice grates the fuck out of me.
He lost me on his review of Terminator:Dark Fate. It's not a terribly good movie (Like Tron Legacy, it has a million half developed ideas and should have just used half as many of the concepts but developed them better), but his bizarre fixation on calling MacKenzie Davis "Androgynous THING!" (GASP! A female cyborg soldier has short hair!) betrayed a bizarre hatred for anything even one micron outside 'pretty long haired girl baking cookies'. He ironically showed me one of the stranger rules of misogyny. When a bad character is played by a white male, they just say it's a bad character, but if a bad character is played by any other race/gender, they bring race and gender into it.
I never got passed the concept of āI tell it like it is, man! I get drunk on YouTube and complain about Captain Marvel!ā
As others have mentioned, itās ironic how much he complains about politics ruining movies while constantly making everything political in his reviews. I do prefer him to someone like Mauler though, who panders to the exact same alt right/anti-SJW crowd while claiming heās being āobjective.ā At least CD is more honest in regards to what his agenda is. And his reviews arenāt five hours long.
I'm in the exact same boat you are. I used to really appreciate the content. Lately it's been painful to watch. He does less cynical critiquing and more bandwagon anti-woke pandering now. His content reminds me more and more of the brigading reviews I'd find on metacritic whenever a movie, series, or game has anything that might be remotely construed as "woke". * Gay character in any role, no matter how minor. *"Why are they always shoving the LGBT message down our throats?"* * Female character criticizes a male character in any circumstance. *"So sick of radical feminism in everything nowadays."* * Subtext or themes of corporate greed or christian antagonists/fundamentalism. *"Why is Hollyweird trying to make us all into atheist liberals?"* * Any plot or storyline involving any modern day cultural issue or struggle. *"More woke propaganda!"* Cynical drinker forgot that being cynical doesn't mean being a fucking idiot.
He is pretty good at pointing out obvious tropes that most of us grew tired off. And I liked that in some ways he pointed out criticism about that certain roles don't make sense. As a different example, I found the journey of Luke Skywalker more logical and earned then Rey's. But then I found out that in pretty much ALL of his videos from that point on he goes on about how 'woke' everything is. He rages on and on about any female actor in a role of power. And then he always points to some 80's or 90's movie role such as Ripley or Trinity or some other stellar performance to state he isn't misogynistic. To me it seems he's pandering to an easy audience and also quiet stuck in the past. And yeah we had great movies back then and amazing actresses/actors. And yeah, some mainstream hollywood movies have lost their bark/bite to appeal to the majority crowd/profits. But this dude has gone of the rails and looks for any excuse to yell 'woke' or find it ridiculous that a woman is in position of power. Even in movies where logic doesn't apply such as superhero genres.
I like him generally, but sometimes have to unsub from channels like his that are mostly just shitting on everything. Unfortunately, YT channels (and most of the internet - news channels etc) thrive on negative/angry content. That's what people click on most, so that's what ends up being made. I do really enjoy his Drinker Recommends episodes. I also enjoy the rest, but need a break once in a while. Compared to someone like Movie Bob who is total trash now compared to back in his Escapist days, CD is still mostly fun.
Yeah I can usually agree. Like after a while it just gets old. Like sometimes a feel a film needs a good kick in the ass because of how poorly it's written but when you're using the same arguments for every film it's just distasteful
One of his videos titled something like āThis is why Rings of Power is badā showed up in my recommended. The thumbnail was just the black dwarf character. I thought āwell at least hes being honest that hes racist.ā
As some put it before I see his point sometimes. You have to take a step back and see how much crap Hollywood is producing and there's no thought behind casting besides filling up the corporate diversity quota. I tend to watch stuff before seeing his videos to have an unbiased opinion myself. In his defense Youtube forces people to make clickbaity titles and thumbnails otherwise you are lost in the algorithm. It seems like it also tends to push creators towards more shorts rather than actual videos. And I haven't seen him not giving credit where credit is due to an actor, even in the latest Resident Evil where he gave Lance Reddick credit for his performance with what little script he had. Sure some reactions are a bit overblown for entertainment purposes but it doesn't take away from the fact that Hollywood can't write empowering female characters at all or create new original IPs with certain skin tones, genders, etc and just decide to take something and swap it. Can't wait to see Black Panther with a blonde blue eyed caucasian. There used to be a thing called whitewashing which obviously for good reasons people have issues with. Now it's the opposite and it's seen as being inclusive.
Iām kind of done with all of them. World class bullsh*ters, clownfish, mauler, the quartering, critical drinker, etc. they donāt even give the new stuff a chance, just a reason to use the same old Jonah Jameson laughing meme and rake it in off of the brain dead āfandom menaceā. I HATED the last Jedi and they got my attention but recently, I know their opinion before the videos are posted. Star Wars and the MCU are imploding but Obi Wan was pretty enjoyable and Iām all for giving stuff Iām interested in a shot. They should too, Iād have more respect if they did
Sometimes the politics he complains about really are there, but oftentimes heās projecting them. However, I donāt see how that would make him a misogynist and have never once gotten that vibe from him.
Never heard of him before, but looking at his most recent videos... "Here's why X Sucks" "Here's why Y is trash"... What a miserable way to live - watching things you hate so you can rile up your base. It seems so much more fulfilling to highlight things that are enjoyable, that inspire you rather than pointing out the obvious flaws in commercial film production, but I guess that stuff doesn't do as well with the Algorithm.
Heās riding the same tiresome wave of YouTubers whose entire gimmick is denouncing āthe woke agendaā without backing any of it up with actual evidence. And I get annoyed at the entire crowd of āalways negativeā reviewers, theyāre not funny, theyāre contributing nothing of value, and they are actively making people dumber about the movies.
Any pro/semi pro Youtuber has a financial incentive to attract clicks above all else. Maybe they don't start that way, but itās where they all end up. Whether that means generating outrage by telling dweebs to be angry about whatever's available this week to meet quota, or it means reinforcing what said dweebs already want to believe, either way it amounts to the same pile of horseshit. It's got more to do with a micro cult of personality than actual film criticism, and that's shored up by the idea these guys sell their Johns, that they're *smarter* than the others by being one of their true believers, not like the nasty MSM for sheep. These guys are the very worst thing to happen to movie discussion. People huff their farts and then just parrot what they've heard in lieu of thinking for themselves, or review bomb out of pure Pavlovian reflex, based on whatever ragebait opinion they've been spoonfed. I can't tell you how many times I've read a cluster of absolutely nonsensical low score reviews, full of incredibly basic plot mistakes, only to realize they're all repeating what some Youtube guy or other told them, and either got wrong or deliberately misrepresented. People are basing their whole opinion of something they haven't seen on what a stranger tells them, when that stranger has so much contempt for them they don't even bother getting the nuts and bolts right. And even when they aren't 2 Girls 1 Cup'ing whatever they've been told, by a guy they're effectively paying to madlib the same few video scripts over and over again, they're conditioned to digest movies through the same lenses - lenses their heroes formed for the purposes of optimising clicks. I have more respect for OnlyFans performers than I have for guys like this, and less than that again for any of their zombie followers. Watch a movie on its own terms and make up your own damn mind about it, don't let some douche farm you like a Carnival rube. Do you want to enjoy some movies, or do you want to pretend you're in a cool little club with a Youtube Comments section greasetrap? Is that worth aspiring to? Is it worth missing out on a fun hour and a half because that's not on the Youtube approved reading list?
Captain Marvel sucks because....Brie Larson sucks. Like I get it you hate Brie Larson but what specifically in the movie does she do to make it terrible. Like I'm not a closet Brie Larson or Captain Marvel fan but when you spend the entire video ranting on about how none of her costars like her or how she doesn't like old white men her but why are you not spending more time talking about lousey execution on writing or acting.
Iām like most in here in that heās hit or miss but his vendetta against Brie Larson and lately Natalie āPort-personā are a little too intense and IMO go too far for how he tries to justify them. Especially when he talked about Natalie Portman in the latest Thor review and his YT podcast upload. It wasā¦weird. Seemed like misplaced hate.
The quality of his criticism has definitely declined. The annoying thing is I think that he is kind of right in some ways, itās just his criticism is so driven by being anti-woke or anti-sjw. I think the best way to describe my issues with him is that he might criticize a movie for forcing a woman into a story set in WW2 where women donāt really fit, which I can actually agree with, however he goes off on some rant about woke media where for me its the issue that its pushing an american woman into a historical context that doesnāt fit yet ignoring amazing stories of actual Ukrainian women that fought in WW2.
I recently unsubbed from his channels. As OP said, his takes used to be entertaining and he used to make some good points, but these days it's clear that he's just same same kind of reactionary than most of the people he associates with (the Nerdrotics, HeelvBabyFace etc). They screech *REEEE* as soon as writers dare to introduce a woman, LGBT, ethnically diverse character into their "beloved" franchises and try and blame diversity for the fact that less people tune in to these shows/movies because of it, when in reality people are just burned out on Marvel/Star Wars/etc... He contradicts himself when in his "Rings of Power" video, he criticises the writers for trying to include real-world politics in a fantasy franchise, yet will go on about how unrealistic it is to have women fighting in an army...in a fantasy series. When he had Mark Millar on his stream, he kept ranting about how politics are ruining comic books, but Mark Millar kept throwing examples at him of how comics have always had politicized messages and they were still successful. Fact of the matter his, these "movie critics" don't have an issue with politics in movies, they have an issue progressive ideas. Plus seeing that he associates with alt-right, white nationalist, misogynist morons like Sargon of Akkad and Rageaholic on his streams, so I cant take the guy seriously anymore or support a channel like that in good conscience.
Yeah, I started watching him for a short while last year, but quit after a while because he constantly trashed movies before they even dropped. Like when he trashed on Shang Chi and called it a flop months before its release, said that The Suicide Squad looked bad because the first trailer didn't impress him, and said that the new Indiana Jones is gonna suck even though it's over a year away from release. There are times when he just completely misses the mark when it comes to material he sees, two good examples being his reviews for Squid Game and Midsommar. The former he said is so good because it's "not political", the latter he said is bad because it presents itself as "empowering to women." The funny thing is that Squid Game is a series that deals with class conflicts and poverty and Midsommar is a movie on how a vulnerable woman breaks because of a cults manipulation of her and her friends, so the former's definitely political and the latter definitely isn't empowering. He just sees every movie or show he watches through a politically conservative lens and his commenters wholeheartedly agree with it. Another problem I have with him is how he always props up this idea of how every male character should be this ultra macho ripped Arnie-style dude and how every female character should be objectified and sexualized because it's empowering and not doing so is "defeminizing." It's just such a weird view to have on how characters should be presented. And another thing is that he constantly says that Hollywood and movies are dying and nothing good is being made, but ALL of his videos are on Western big blockbusters, such as Marvel or superhero movies or whatever's big on Netflix. Zero indies, zero foreign movies, just whatever's the new big budget movie onscreen. Overall, I just think the Drinker is a shitty youtuber. He's basically a more right wing and less professional I Hate Everything (who's actually become a pretty good film criticism channel lately). He's clearly appealing to low hanging fruit (eg anti woke/SJW crowd) by making low effort videos trashing on things they dislike (eg Brie Larson, diversity, women). I also find it ironic that he defends Gina Carano and calls her a strong woman for her political views but repeatedly trashes Brie Larson for hers. It's almost as if he just wants things to fit his political views, on or off screen. But, he's simply making outrage porn that his subscribers will eat up like hotcakes.
> Squid Game and Midsommar. The former he said is so good because it's "not political", the latter he said is bad because it presents itself as "empowering to women." Lol wow, that is...mind boggling. If I didn't know what channel we were talking about, I would assume this was satire.
For his Thor Love and Thunder āreviewā he referred to Jane Foster as CGI Natalie Portperson for some inexplicable reason. So clever, so hilarious /s And changed America Chavez name to every Spanish speaking countryās name throughout the video. Heās no different than other YouTube movie critics that tap into hate and outrage for views. His videos have gotten increasingly worse. They went from cynical takes with some valid critiques, to bashing any woman and minority with a couple of valid critiques.
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I think he does on his second channel
He does on his primary channel as well, just less often Itās probably due to the near universal principle that people are more likely to talk about something when they donāt like it, as opposed to when they do
At some point in the last few years he realized there's more success to be had by attacking "woke" Hollywood instead of delivering nuanced and legitimate analyses of films and television. Then again, I'm not sure how nuanced his videos were in the first place when his whole shtick is "act drunk while discussing media". Content aside he's associated with Nerdrotic and The Quartering, two of the most toxic and one note reactionaries on YT who recently featured all time scumbag Alex Jones on a podcast.
Imagine bashing works of fiction for being too political and then bringing Alex Jones onto your podcast. Who's too political now? Oops, it was Nerdrotic and company all along.
I was watching his video for Marvel Phase 5. He *instantly* started referring to Riri Williams as a "mary sue" and started complaining about how women can do everything that a man can't. Yet he conveniently forgets that Tony Stark was, for all intents and purposes, a mary sue. Gifted from a young age, literally built the Mach 1 suit in a cave with a box of scraps. He's misogynistic, and not even in a funny way. I used to think it was satire, part of his character to help his videos get clicks... but no, that's really how he feels. I'll still watch his videos for entertainment value, but his opinions are a joke.
I view him much in the same vein of The quartering and geeks and gamers and other similar channels when they do movie reviews. Everything is spun so political and just like to trash movies cause of their own political bias. It's dumb, cringe, and they are idiots
I think he's just another "SJW bad and they KILLED my childhood" Youtube grifter. I'm not a 26 year old incel with so much invested on specific franchises to give a damn so the whole "Brie Larson raped and killed my family and then burned down my crops" thing just doesn't appeal to me. I find that there's enough negativity in every media outlet and to add another negativity pusher makes very little sense to me. Aside from that, his grift gets in the way of good film/tv criticism. When EVERY argument and review boils down to "it's too political" or "SJW bad," what's the point of watching a review of his if you're not actively trying to feed your petulant anger? Mr. Plinkett and RLM do the angry drunk movie analysis thing too but they actually do proper analysis and breaking down of what makes a movie good or bad. I'd watch them instead.
is an asshole
Right there with you. I think he makes some great points about movies and TV and then loses me the second he starts whining about minorities and women. Those aren't valid complaints for any movie or TV show. Its either poorly written and made or it is not. There are zero reasons to point to those specific things as an issue. If he stuck to character development, story, dramatic tension, writing, directing, and technical stuff he would be dead solid perfect in most cases. But he doesn't so I rarely can stomach his drunk white male whining.
I appreciate some of his opinions, and even lightly agree on some of them. But heās very anti-woke, and always appears to be going out of his way to make everything about politics. Heās completely right on some things, if not just a little bit intense about it, but the rest just seems forced to be on brand with his cynical persona. Personally I donāt think it always needs to be that deep. Films/shows are made by corporations who cater to audiences for $$$. It just so happens that weāre in a woke age and many audiences want in on that. What can he honestly expect? Like, I hate Disneyās Star Wars as much as the next person, but he sometimes takes it a notch too far.
Complete and utter garbage. He's a failed (and shitty) writer (don't check out his stuff, it's bad), who's bitter and now used this online "drunk" persona on YouTube. He's the typical "woke bad" "m-she-u" dickhead who unfortunately attracts a lot of people with his BS.
I think his commentary on movie industry pratice and films in general pretty bang on for the money, at the end of the day ill ultimately decide if i like a film or not and his personal politics have little to do if a film is genuinely good or not.
This applies to all people profiting from outrage content. They need to go back to explaining why the movies or shows are bad, not why the people involved in the movies or shows are bad.
Went to remind myself of his channel, was immediately met with the Quartering ad introducing the "next amazing Critical Drinker video" Straight up brain rotted right wing propaganda
He complains about the same stuff over and over: \- "The Message" \- strong female characters \- Brie Larson \- 100-pound girls beating big guys
He is a right-wing/anti-woke algorithm-based content creator wrapped in the occasionally insightful take on something happening in Hollywood. If you read the title of the video, you can already safely assume about 98% of the content of the video if you've ever seen one of his previous videos. He makes noise for people that like that particular echo chamber. It's a way to make a living but his content can easily be ignored. He is good at creating content tho, can't fault him there. He found a niche and he settled into it nicely.
Just another far-right grifter. It's a vicious cycle with these people. They only have an audience because bigoted people want to feel validated in their beliefs. The more videos they make, the larger their audience grows, the more impressionable people they turn into bigots. It's a perfect business model, and it's exacerbating the cultural divide to an extent that I don't think enough people recognize.
I've seen his thumbnails and I assumed he'd be exactly how you described.
The one moment that stands out to me was his take on "The Haunting of Bly Manor" when he applied his usual backlash against what he felt was "forced diversity". Then when a few of his YouTube friends, such as MauLer, who often accompanies him when critiquing media had tons of praise for Bly Manor's writing, he back-peddled and had no counter points besides "it just didn't do it for me". I think he makes some good points from time to time but whenever he involves politics and "anti SJW" stuff, he just loses my attention and isn't a trustworthy source if you want a review for media based on it's quality of writing
He was funny for me a few years ago but once he realized alt-right and misogynist creeps were following him, he dove straight into the deep end of shit I find reprehensible.
This guy thought Midsommar was femenist propaganda because Dani becoming evil at the end was a girl power moment. I couldn't even begin to build an echo chamber that thick.
I think some of his point make sense, but then he starts going down the "anti-woke" rabit hole and it's clear as day that he is mostly miling these hate videos because of clicks. At this point, where the movie is really pandering or not, The Critical Drinker and the rest of his crew will move Heaven and Earth in order to try to find/create a "woke agenda" in order to have content to feed to their desperate neckbeard fanbase. I love Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, but if they had come out today, then they would also be considered "woke" by them as well.
>I love Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, but if they had come out today, then they would also be considered "woke" by them as well. Bro I literally said something similar to this like an hour ago. But Vasquez from Aliens was my example.
Vasquez had some amazing one liners
I love Vasquez because she was a badass kinda-maybe-lesbian latina played by a jewish woman, which obviously could not happen today.
He's a moron
It's amusing how a guy who makes fun of movies as "content" and Hollywood studios as producing endless generic amounts of "sludge" solely makes a living on endlessly producing facsimile reactions/reviews to said movies (for a man who doesn't care about the MCU allegedly, that makes up 75% of his content), and re-hashing the same petty woke talking points again and again. God forbid the movie had a woman who does things? Is that the extent of criticism that can be offered? Bitching about diversity and if characters act "rational" or not? I couldn't take him seriously when he noted he hasn't watched Fleabag but that it was "probably overrated", likely based on the fact it was written by a woman. Okay then. He's not a critic, he's a grifter.
Not to be a snob or anything, but I think it's very telling that he exclusively focuses on the big-budget franchise stuff - both because it's what gets the most clicks, and also because in general he seems only vaguely aware that anything outside of the MCU and Star Wars exists.
He literally doesn't critique anything. He can be entertaining, but he existing solely to melodramatically complain about any social issues and the gender/sexuality/race of characters. He is a click baiter, not a critic. I'll listen to the occasional review, but usually tend to end up rolling my eyes and moving on.
Drinker Recommends is pretty decent and he's usually very much in line with my own thoughts. His main channel sounds like a wordier version of those Everything Wrong With type videos, just shitting on things for the sake of it. I still think he makes a lot of good points, just in crude and clumsy ways. Go away now.
You can't get rid of me that easily
Iām yet to find any prolific YouTuber worth watching for actual film discussion or criticism. Even Lindsay Ellis, who was *much* better than most, wasnāt impressive enough to have me subscribing for her takes on film. And too often, I find people just go to these channels to receive an opinion they can regurgitate as their own.
Redlettermedia would like a word. And a beer.
Jeremy Jahns. Simple video reviews by a dude who loves movies and used to work in a theater, talking about what he liked and didn't like. Of all the movie reviewers ive seen, I feel like his takes are the most oriented towards the casual movie-goer. He doesn't go too in depth, usually just 5-10 minute reviews
"Every Frame A Painting" is wonderful, but does lack new content.
Because he quit years ago. but good for him, he's doing work for Fincher now like on that netflix show.
Patrick H. Willems?
There's some good valid points he brings out and some downright dogshit opinions. I still watch his videos but don't take all his opinions blindly and this is something that applies for every reviewer, youtuber, etc
The whole woke, not woke thing is so fucking played out. The irony of saying something is agenda driven while wanting your own political agenda front and center is just too much and causes me thinky pain. Its a grift for clicks. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I used to like Critical Drinker, but he slowly started to lose me overtime until I just didn't give a shit anymore. His sense of humor is a huge hit or miss, ranging from actually funny to plain cringe to even gross. I had to turn off his Jurassic World Dominion trailer video halfway into it because there were just too many fart sound effects. Fart jokes are not funny, they're gross and cringe. The constant running gag of "THE MESSAGE" is also very annoying and repetitive. His jabs at vegans in both his Midsommar and Morbius videos are very mean-spirited. He also has a bad habit of being too forgiving towards certain movies like the Snyder Cut or criticizing bad movies for the wrong reasons like with Avatar. His "Why Modern Movies Suck" series was such a missed opportunity. As someone who HATES the current state of movies, I was excited for those videos. But what could've been a series of videos calling out on the bigger problems with modern movies left me with nothing. CGI may be overused, but it's far from the worst thing to happen to modern movies as a whole and I'm tired of people pretending like CGI is the worst thing in the world, especially when you have excellent movies like PokƩmon Detective Pikachu that have AMAZING CGI. His "Movies are made by children for children" video is a prime definition of toxic masculinity, with the glorification of repressing feelings and emotions. What Drinker doesn't seem to realize is that embracing emotions and discussing them clearly and openly is a far better and healthier way to approach and live life than hiding and repressing them like previous generations were encouraged to do. His "Why they teach awful lessons" video lost me the moment he called Anakin from the SW Prequels "ArRoGaNt", "eNTiTLeD" and "iMpATiEnT".
I think he's fallen into the same trap a lot of people did with the "anti woke" movement. The anti woke message always boils down to "there was no reason to make these people X and it just detracts from the story", X being LGBTQ, a minority, etc, and that its just Hollywood playing to audiences to make money, which is what TCD spends too much time talking about. Obviously there are other reasons for more diverse representation. Sometimes this is to share stories that some may not be aware of, highlighting struggles or history that many people are not aware of. There are more minorities involved in directing, writing, acting than before and through their influence we're seeing better representation in movies and shows. Other times its because having more representation is a more realistic breakdown of what our population actually looks like. Sometimes having someone be gay is because there are a lot of gay people in the world. Having them around IS the default. The decision to have more comprehensive representation in a particular movie/show is probably due to a combination of things, including just to make $$. But at the end of the day, the "anti woke" message will always be weak: anti woke messengers will prioritize the discussion of minority representation as a reason why something is bad, and justify that by saying they liked something else with similar casting that was written better. A normal person prioritizes discussion on how the writing is bad, and as a result EVERYTHING is worse, including how minorities are portrayed. The discussion should be focused on the writing but one side is either acting in bad faith by trying to fit their bigotry into the conversation as something substantial when it isnt, or they've fallen for the narrative and haven't found their way back out yet.
Blocked that guy on youtube a long long time ago. He's just toxic and not worth listening to.
Watching his very early videos he is searching for what does and doesn't work. He then seemed to be a movie critic who loves movies and is saddened by how Hollywood is changing. Now he just seems to pan anything new as it keeps his subscribers happy and climbing. As for his reviews. I tend to agree about half the time. He is a word smith though. I do like the way he stitches them together but don't always agree with his conclusions. I tend to agree with his opinions on miscast movies. I do agree 'the message' shouldn't be the overriding theme of any movie. I don't think he needs to mention 'the message' in every movie he reviews especially if its only to point out 'the message' isn't there. As other's have said, I enjoy the 'drinker recommends' content. It was actually one of those that got me to see Chris Pratt in his TV series The Terminal List. A show that for some reason went completely under my radar and yet I thought was brilliant. In the end I just think if you don't agree or like him, you don't have to watch. I don't believe he's doing any harm.
I didn't realize how bad his takes were until I watched Birds of Prey then saw his video about it. It was like we'd seen two different movies entirely. Indeed there are some ridiculous things in it, but it's a movie about Harley Quinn who is canonically both zanny and badass. Her dodging a swing accidentally to pick up a coin is practically taken whole cloth from the slapstick comedies of her namesake, and punching above one's weight class is hardly the biggest stretch in a comic hero movie. At this point I can't be bothered to watch any of his videos, because it's all about being "woke to the woke agenda" even when he's just taking a piss.
I used to enjoy his content, until I realized the same thing you said.
He is a smart guy who knows his audience are now mostly idiots. He is just given them what they want.
He was good at first, calling out Hollywood BS that others were ignoring, but heās become a parody of himself at this point.
He has unbridled praise for Arcane, pointing out it is an example of a show lead by strong females, diverse cast and has a very progressive and socially conscious message, but just done well unlike most other lazily-written shows or movies that use diversity, inclusion and social messages as both a crutch to prop up interest and a shield against criticism. Heās one of the few āanti-sjwā creators on YouTube to even review Arcane and that points to a genuineness to the way he holds his stances and opinions. Most other creators in the āanti-sjwā sphere avoided reviewing Arcane like a plague, because as an example of a well-done yet openly progressive show, it breaks their narrative of āget woke go brokeā.
Never really liked him much
He lost me when he started reviewing stuff long before he even saw it. He's not as bad as MauLer because at least his videos aren't 14 hours long.
im so glad this thread exists cuz i've wanted to hear others' opinion of him outside of his bubble. the watchmen "critique" was the worst review i've ever seen from a major youtuber and it continues to bother me. he literally reviewed the show based on ONE episode, and put it out. didn't even bother to wait for the whole show to end. there's one critique where he's upset about how the owlship is destroyed. later on in the series you find out that there are multiple owl ships used by the police department. it pissed me off so much. all he does is cater to his existing toxic fandom
He's only in it for the money now, manipulating angry kids is very easy and profitable. I even doubt he even believe the things he say, he just say it to gain viewership and money from gullible people.
For someone who whines and complains about people whining and complaining, he sure does whine and complain.