This video essay goes into way more than just why they aren’t good movies. It goes into the repercussions it had on New Zealand’s film industry and actors’ unions. It’s incredibly enjoyable and well researched and delivered.

She doesn’t get to it until the 3rd movie, but the most shockingly bad aspect of the film is how it allowed Warner Brothers to swoop into NZ to exploit the labor dispute and change the laws of a sovereign nation, worsening conditions for thousands of film actors and crew.

People seem to be having the wrong idea about what these videos are, seemingly without watching any of them. This is not CinemaSins - it’s actual, real film criticism and investigative journalism, not a collection of cheap jokes about the movie. It’s still interesting even if you liked the movie, in fact probably even…

The first video deals with the storytelling issues the movies had, caused by going from a two movie deal to a trilogy (lack of character development, the forced love triangle, the bad CGI); the second video deals with the studio interference that caused this becoming a trilogy, forcing Peter Jackson to step up as…

The “studio-mandated” Part 3 of 2 gets into the details of not only what went wrong with the movies, but what went even more wrong with New Zealand politics and labor rights in the making of them. It’s unsurprising and yet still genuinely heartbreaking to hear, at some length, how poorly the New Zealander cast and…

Yes, I really appreciated the amount of research she did into this series. Her video essays have been really, really good, but this was on a whole new level, and I appreciate how much work she put into not just positing a theory, but backing it up. She has very few nice things to say about the Hobbit trilogy, but she…

The headline is misleading since this series isn’t a Cinema Sins style “Everything Wrong With” nitpicking video but a careful critique and investigation, down to conducting interviews in New Zealand, about why the Hobbit movies don’t have the same magic as Lord Of The Rings did. It’s an in depth take on “What Happened…

Several years ago, a man named John Tighe maintained a blog about the shady politics of his New York State town. It was called “Saratoga in Decline,” and in addition to documenting the cronyism and abuse he saw in the local political machine, he wrote extensively about NXVIM, which, by the way, is pronounced like the…

Yeah damn, I had a big crush on her when she was on Smallville, Lana was mostly annoying, but damn I wanted to kick Clark in the balls whenever he overlooked Chloe. Recruiting for an abusive sex cult, if true, low key or not, is very bad though. Granted I don’t know the whole story, or how she got involved in it.

My…

Even more surreal? The symbol that they burned into the women’s skin was a combination of Allison Mack’s and the leader (Keith Raniere)‘s initials. (And it was supposedly her idea to brand the women in the first place).

The sex cult was a secret offshoot from a legit-seeming self-improvement/growth series of courses - the organization had several high-profile people involved in various ways. Same leader for both. Various long-form articles have been written recently, and as far back as 2003 - it’s surprising it didn’t get more media…

I can tell you this happens with grooming, trust-building, and time... Not the same exactly, but my ex husband very slowly groomed and manipulated me into some really dark shit that I can see now that I didn’t want any part of (Related to the sub/dom type shit). Our relationship started out completely normal and…

Apparently the actress who played Lana Lang was also briefly tied to NXIVM, but it sounds like she was never involved in the criminal aspects of it (based on her statement). Obviously this is horrible for the victims, but it’s insane to me that CHLOE from Smallville was involved in a sex trafficking cult.

My understanding is 9/10 times they legally can’t. Mainly due to accidental use of of an idea or something from the screenplay.

I worked at a mid-level Canadian film fest for a couple years. My last year there we had a small Canadian film from a well-loved actor as a special presentation. The reason it was special was because it starred this actor, and his wife, who was dying of cancer at the time of the filming, and had wanted this film to be…

Also how Q&A’s get theirs. I went to a screening of LBJ a few months ago and Woody Harrellson and Rob Reiner did a surprise Q&A afterwards. At least half the folks who asked questions somehow made it about themselves. I think that’s just the type of person attracted to this sort of spotlight.

There are only two ways to make a Q&A work:

It sucks so much when Q&A audience members make the question about themselves.

It sucks so much when Q&A audience members make the question about themselves. When I saw Oh, Hello in DC and they did the Q&A at the end, there was a lady in front of us who got called on. She asked an okay question but then kept dragging it out and tried to have a back-and-forth with Gil and George and interrupted…

Penelope Ann Miller was gorgeous and perfect in everything she did.

She was awesome in The Freshman and she damn near stole the show in Carlito’s Way.

Never heard from her again. I can’t help but think she was “Weinsteined.”