Year of Critique

Picks: December Theme: Snow Hey all! It's been quite a while since I last made a post here. The holidays have had me away from home for quite a while, so I've been a bit delayed in getting out new posts. Before the year ends though, I'd like to take a moment and let you guys know what I've been checking out this holiday season! This is the last month of my year of critique, it's been a blast I hope you've all enjoyed. I'll get to the posts I'm behind on early next year, for now let's get into my picks! Album: 50 Words for Snow Kate Bush Why I chose this Album: Jazz is the first genre that comes to mind when I think of the winter season. Cuddled up by the fire listening to Jazz when it's cold outside is a pretty traditional american past time, which makes this album such a treat. It's not only a jazz album (the first I'm doing for YoC), but also a concept album about the winter season. Originally I planned to do an alb...

The Shining Stanley Kubrick Review/Critique: "How could anybody write an entire thesis paper on one movie?" This is a question that may have crossed my mind before watching The Shining , but will never cross my mind ever again. Knowing as much as I did going into this movie I really wasn't expecting to be confused, but lo and behold come the end of it I'm wondering what the fuck just happened. I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey earlier this year, so I thought that I was prepared for the worst Kubrick could throw at me. Clearly I was mistaken.           The Shining  is one of those movies that you could talk about with someone for hours and still barely scratch the surface of what you think the movie might be trying to say. Even with it being one of the most famous horror movies ever made, one that literally has another famous movie dedicated to analyzing it, there's still so much that hasn't been said. I think this is the biggest strengt...

Hvis Lyset tar oss Burzum *Sorry for the Delay, I came down with the flu recently so it put a damper on most of my YoC reviews. I'll try and get through these as fast as possible for you all!* Review/Critique: When trying to get into new genres of music, there are often a decent amount of growing pains. It's inevitable as you try to expose yourself to new things that there are going to be some things you have trouble seeing the appeal of. For myself and many others, something that tends to be off putting are harsh vocals. They've certainly grown on me over the last year, but I would be lying if I said I particularly enjoy them. I was totally enamored with  Through Silver in Blood  for example, but the screaming on  Hvis Lyset tar oss just didn't do it for me. So I'm going to try and go a bit more in depth on why that may be, and give you my honest feedback on the album - which is hopefully the first of many black metal albums I will listen to in an at...

Theme:  Dreams Album: Teen Dream Beach House Why I chose this album: I had quite a large number of dream pop albums to choose from going into this month, and the  seemingly quintessential listen within the genre  Teen Dream checks all the boxes. It's spacey, airy, and most importantly has Dream, in the title ! Of course I'm only joking - when listening to a few samples of the albums I was deciding between,  Teen Dream really just best set the mood I was going for, and was definitely the album I most wanted to hear more of. Film: Lucia Pawan Kumar Why I chose this Film:   To be honest with you all, my first instincts for this month had me picking Requiem for a Dream, not Lucia . Upon looking a bit more into the movie though, I realized it's just not as relevant to the theme as it seems. Lucia though, was a perfect match. It deals not just with dreams as they pertain to sleeping, but also with dreams in the aspirational sense. The s...

Majora's Mask Nintendo Review/Critique: I'm going to start off this review by saying that I've been a Zelda fan for as long as I've been able to hold a controller in my hands. Starting with Wind Waker on the Nintendo Gamecube all the way up to Breath of the Wild just a few year ago, my love of the series has not waned for a second. Because of this, it's rather awkward as a long time fan of the series to tell people that two of it's most critically acclaimed games, TLOZ Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask , are games I've hardly touched. What makes this even more embarrassing is that I've had access to physical copies of both of these games for over a decade and still never played them. I have the collector's edition for the gamecube, the 3DS port of Ocarina, and as of a short five years ago, a physical copy of  Majora's Mask for the N64. Even though I haven't played these games before however, they still feel like cornerstone piece...

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson “I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.” Review/Critique: " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " is a really weird book to review properly. Like most of it's contemporaries, it's a wildly popular and influential piece of literature that has solidified its place in pop culture indefinitely. Many people (myself included) know the general ideas explored in  " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " through their frequent parody in other pieces of fiction - similar to how most people know the baseline story of Frankenstein and Dracula.  Unlike its contemporaries though,  " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " is at its core a mystery novel, and importantly one who's mystery occupies the entirety of its length. It...

The Face of Another Director:  Hiroshi Teshigahara Review/Critique: Of all the pieces of media I've consumed over the year, not one has been as hard for me to comment on as The Face of Another . I've been dreading making this review, as I honestly don't know exactly how to comment on a movie as weird or different as this one is. If I had to categorize it I would say it's a drama, but even then that categorization feels wrong. It's somewhere between Horror, Drama, and Mystery. The mystery element thrown in there because trying to figure out what the fuck is going to happen or at what pace would require you to invite over a team of trained detectives. This isn't to say there's no consistency to the film at all, just that it follows its main story thread so infrequently and at such a bizarre pace that it's hard to know exactly what's going on and how each scene is relevant to the main themes or story. Overall though I'd say that the mov...

Vol 3. The Subliminal Verses Artist: Slipknot Review: I can remember pretty well the time in which I became aware of Slipknot's existence. I was in middle school, 6th grade to be precise, and I discovered a little website called Youtube. With this fancy website I could search and find any music my heart desired. It was the first time I had any agency in deciding what kind of music I actually wanted to listen to, and was a super exciting time for me. I was super into music back then, but up until that point I was at the mercy of whatever my parents were into. In 2006 though, I actually got to choose the music I wanted to listen to, the music that would shape my adolescence. It started with My Chemical Romance, and quickly moved to any angsty song I heard on a Naruto AMV. There was definitely a limit to what my young brain could handle though, and some music tangential to the pop-punk I was listening to definitely went a bit hard for me. One of these bands was Slip...

Theme: Horror Hello there! NieR took quite a bit longer to complete than I was expecting, so I was a bit delayed in releasing my picks for October to you all. I just finished the game though, got the review out, and now it's time to release my picks for October. The theme is a pretty broad one I know, but it's only fitting for the month of Halloween to get some spooks going. Album: Hvis lyset tar oss Artist: Burzum Why I chose this Album: When you think musical horror, black metal is definitely one of the first genres that comes to your head. Hvis lyset tar oss (or Until the Light Takes Us) is the third studio album by Norwegian black metal band Burzum, one of the most influential bands in the Black Metal scene. I was originally going to listen to their fourth studio album; however, on recommendation from a friend of mine I decided on  Hvis lyset tar oss as it is their most well received project and that which is the most horrific. Not sure what to expect goi...

NieR:Automata Platinum Games Review/Critique: Back in 2017 during finals season, something really terrifying happened. While myself and all my friends were studying for finals, a massive fire was heading our way at a terrifying pace. As we all sat in our rooms ashe falling from the bright red sky, there was only one thing I could think of. I really, really, really wanted to play NieR:Automata. It was the new hotness in 2017, and unfortunately my hunk of junk PC at the time (bless her heart) couldn't handle it. It's kind of hard to say whether my desire was in fact an attempted distraction for the events surrounding me or a genuine desire to play the game, but either way that Christmas I was determined to get a new PC and play " NieR:Automata ". The day before finals week was set to start, there was a mass power outage, during which all of us at UCSB got an alert. " Evacuate immediately ". Finals were cancelled, we all headed home as conditions were ...