One Year on The Illusive One's Reviews

V.S.

            Well, this is it!  My one year anniversary!  For exactly one year I have been writing and publishing posts to this blog!  Honestly, I can't believe I made it this far or with as many views I've raked in.  So for this special occasion, I decided to pay homage to the blogger who got me into this, Korsgaard.  And how do I plan on paying homage to this person?  Well, I intend to pick out the top ten fuck-ups on his blog, Korsgaard's Commentary.  Now I know what you're thinking.  “Isn't that a messed up way to thank the guy who got you into blogging?”  Well, he normally values my criticism but I don't always get in what needs to be said and sometimes he flat out ignores my opinions and advice.  So consider this both constructive criticism and revenge.  AH HA HA HA HA HA!  So anyway, here are The Top Ten Fuck-Ups of Korsgaard's Commentary.

Number Ten

Editing Errors

            I don't think I have ever seen a blog so well written yet with such piss poor editing.  For example, I cannot begin to count how many times I have seen “a lot” spelled as “alot”, various misspelling of words or just writing words that don’t exist, see sentences with very bad structure, and those that were just unfinished.  The most notable example I can think of is his post entitled Mila Kunis accepts Marine's date offer (AKA the idea me and every other member of the military wish we had thought of first).  Are you fucking kidding me dude?  You don't need a Masters in English to know that the “me” should have been replaced with “I” and “I” should have gone after “everyone in the army”.  What else can I say?  It's a fuck up but it's one that can be easily rectified by proof reading and spinning the post through Microsoft Word.  Let's hope he does it in the future.

Number Nine

My Thoughts on Avatar Post

            Yea, there was no way in hell this one was going to escape my radar. Now I put this one fairly low on the list because it was actually a fairly well written post and points out a lot of problems with the film.  The only problem is that I had already heard them all before and it sounded like he just ripped off every generic or nitpicking argument people have against the film.  It was beyond obvious that he looked up every generic and nitpicking argument against the film such as its Dances with Wolves type plot, (and who the fuck are you to say that was a second-rate film you dick?), and the supposed racism themes the film employs.  As far as the acting goes, it wasn't Oscar worthy, nor was the writing but it wasn't nearly as terrible as he made it out to be and considering the acting he’s praised in his blog it doesn’t make any sense that he would pan the acting in this film, (oh and well get to those later).

            His biggest fuckup in this entire post, however, is the picture he uses for it shown below.

            Now I know what you’re thinking.  It’s kind of amusing so how does it constitute as a fuck up?  Well, he takes credit for it as his own creation yet it’s not.  The actual site this picture comes from is another blog site called Adam Thinks.com where he has a picture that is identical to Korsgaard’s posted below. 

How do I know Korsgaard ripped it off?  Well for one thing, the post came out in December of 2009 and Korsgaard’s post didn’t come out until after August of the next year and he didn’t add that image for several months after.  If that isn’t proof enough, if you zoom in to the bottom left corner of the image you can see where Korsgaard tried to smudge out the site’s label.  Nice try dude, but not good enough.

Need I say anymore?  You lacked originality in this post, took every generic argument you could find, and tried to pass someone else Photoshop image as your own.  That’s just wrong dude.  Just wrong.  

Number Eight

Myths V.S. Realities of Military Service

            From what I gather, Korsgaard's intention with this post was to dispel what he considers to be common misconceptions about the military.  Did he succeed?  Well, not really.  In fact, if anything, he seemed to have reinforced some of those misconceptions.  From his own experience in training camp, he describes what seems like something directly out of Full Metal Jacket and most of that part of the post is dedicated to describing it despite the fact that he is trying to dispel it.  That in itself made me want to stay as far away from the registration areas as possible.  Then he tries to say that most other training camps aren't like that but by then the damage was done and the idea was already reinforced.  The bigoted area he had a bit more success in, and the food area didn't seem to dispel it or reinforce it.  The area where he explains that all soldiers aren't models of discipline is one he also seems to reinforce.  Some of them, like the PTSD time bomb myth he seemed to downplay, almost as if it was true, he knew it was true and he wanted to ignore it.  However, his biggest fuck up in this entire post was that he failed to address the most common conception of the military; when you enlist the government owns you.  Why didn't he include that?  I honestly don't know but it annoyed me.  In the end, this post wasn't a complete failure but he failed to dispel most of what he considers to be misconceptions and that constitutes as a fuck-up.

Number Seven

Korsgaard V.S. Twilight





V.S.

            Yea, I'm actually kind of ashamed to mention this because this was easily Korsgaard's best post.  But, sadly, it also contained a large number of flaws to it.  For starters this post came out in month of 2010, yet he claims he weekend was ruined by a Twilight book that was released earlier that summer.  Interesting considering that the last Twilight book came out in 2008.  Then you had a paragraph on how much he hates Twilight yet had done his best to avoid writing an “I hate Twilight” post.  Who were you trying to kid dude?  This one was obviously planned out and there is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of other people I know who read this post that you intended to write this one.  I mean come on.

            After that, unlike all of his other rant posts, it turns into a well thought out and flat out hilarious post on all the things that make the series stupid.  However, he actually goes a little too far with it.  In one part, for example, he actually accuses the author of writing about her sexual fantasies and later describes the books as horribly disguised fetish-fuel.  Maybe this was intended to be a joke but it kind of rubbed me the wrong way and seemed to cross the line.  Later he also claims that Edward rapes Bella but to my knowledge that isn't true at all.  I know in one book they have sex, (don't ask me how I know this because I'm ashamed to admit that I do), but as far as I know it was consensual.  Later in that very same paragraph he calls him a jail bait chasing pedophile.  Who are you kidding dude?  Pedophiles go after little children and are not the same as jail bait chasers.  As far as chasing jail bait goes...well can you honestly see him going after women who are over a hundred? Not to mention, jail bait laws tend to differ from country to country and even state to state so saying this really didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

            The last problem is that everything in this post is out of context.  From what I gather, it makes a lot more sense and isn’t nearly as bad when you actually read the books or see the movies but here Korsgaard just rants about everything that is wrong with them out of context and that constitutes as a fuck up

Once again, I really am ashamed that I'm defending Twilight in pointing out Korsgarrd's fuck ups but it is what it is.  It's a very funny post and I would highly recommend reading it, but it still goes just a little too far with its panning and makes statements that aren’t entirely true and that merits a place for the number seven spot.

Number Six

Korsgaard's Commentary Pictures

Yea, lets ignore the for mentioned Avatar picture and just focus on all the others and no he didn't use the Korsgaard V.S. Twilight pictures I have above.  This was something he never even considered doing before I started doing The Illusive One's Reviews yet it couldn't have been simpler.  Add in pictures to relieve the strain on your readers’ eyes and make it seem like what they're reading isn't as long.  It's something that pictures always seem to do yet Korsgaard can never seem to get them right.  It's not something that can really be explained but the images on his blog just never look right to me.  Sometimes it has to do with the way he places the images and at other times it has to do with the ones he used but they never seem to part of the article and do nothing to relieve the strain on his reader’s eyes.  It's an area he certainly needs to work on and can improve on but for now it remains one of his fuck up. 
By the way, don't ever, and I mean ever, click on his site's banner.  It will send your internet into an oblivion where the site will constantly open a new window browser.  Finnaly found out where all your views come from ass hole!   

Number Five

Korsgarrd's Bio

            My God, did this one stink of arrogance, self-importance, and looked like someone screaming for attention.  Here's how it reads:

            “I am an just an interesting person, with a unique take on most things. On this blog, I give my perspective on a wide range op topics, ranging from pop culture and current events, thoughts of mine or things I have noticed, to things going on in my everyday life. I hope that since you are here viewing them, you can enjoy the humor and insight they provide. Feel free to subscribe, leave a comment, or even request for me to do a piece on a certain topic. And, as always, welcome to Korsgaard's Commentary! If you wish you contact me, request a future blog post topic, or just let me know what you think, email me at korsgaardscommentary @gmail.com.”

Need I saw more?  For starters the writing style, grammar, editing in this is horrible but then there is the context of the bio itself.  The first line alone just stinks of arrogance and self-importance.  Actually calling yourself “an interesting person” doesn’t make you sound interesting.  It makes you sound like a stuck up asshole with a high opinion of yourself.  You really need to change that dude.

Number Four

Why Wisconsin Needs to Face Down the Government Unions

            Now originally this was actually my number one pick but I dropped it down a few points, mainly because it's not really a relevant issue anymore.  Like a lot of Korsgaard's political posts, they just address what's going on right now and, like the events themselves, are quickly forgotten about.  But this one still gets me to my boiling point.

            I knew from the moment I saw the title of this post, I was going to want Korsgaard's heart on a plate for it.  When I got done reading it however, not only did I want his heat on a plate, I wanted to take his soul out of his living body, give it to Satin to torture for a thousand years, and keep his soul locked in purgatory for all eternity.  That is how much this post enraged me. 

            This post in itself would not have been so bad if it hadn't been for a few things.  For one thing, the guy goes out of his way to demonize Unions.  Not the government unions but all the unions in the private sector as well and claims that they no longer serve a purpose.  In fact, he actually goes so far as to accuse them of being the key cause of the recession.  Not poor management.  Not bad spending or gambling on the stock market.  The Unions.  That is just ignorant and stupid.  Later he goes on to say that the Unions, not government unions, have no real place in the modern world and are crippling our industry.  Ok, for one thing, how would you know?  Have you ever worked in car or steel factory?  Have you ever worked in a meat processing factory?  Have you ever worked in any kind of place with those kinds of conditions?  Didn't think so.  You don't have any more right to decide or judge that then I do.  As far as companies not being able to get away with worker abuse goes, that just once again shows stupidity and ignorance on your part.  You would be surprised at kind of abuse and mistreatment a person can and will go through just to keep a job, especially if they have a family to think about.  And are you suggesting that we feel sorry for our bosses just because their making three billion a year rather than three point one billion a year?  Yea, you're not convincing anyone on that one dude.

            Now all of this was more than enough to merit a fuck up on this list but there was one final thing that drove this one over the edge for me  To quote Korsgaard's post, “I would like to point out that the three most essential government jobs are also the occupations not unionized: soldiers, police officers, and fire fighters.”  Soldiers, I honestly don't know about but I know for a fact that in Wisconsin and many other states both police officers and fire fighters are unionized.  In fact, I distinctly remember fire fighters being right alongside the other government union members in protest.  Honestly, I don't know what Korsgaard was thinking when he wrote these things.  I'm honestly not sure if he was ignorant to these facts or if he was just lying to give his argument more strength and honestly neither would surprise me.  When I actually addressed this he insisted that I was wrong.  I don't know why but I don't think it was for any reason other than he was afraid to look stupid and that in itself was stupid.   

          In the end, this entire post was just wrong.  It was wrong in its facts, it was wrong politically, it was wrong morally, in showed Korsgard in an ignorant and stupid light, and worst off, half of it wasn't even about government unions.  And that is why it's one of Korsgaard's biggest fuck ups.   

Number Three

The Contradicting/Contrarian Nature of Korsgaard's Commentary

            What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Well, give me a minute and I'll tell you.  If you’ve read Korsgaard’s blog for as long as I have, you’ll probably notice a not so subtle pattern emerge.  Mainly, that whenever something is popular, Korsgaard, with one or two exceptions, tends to hate it and will dedicate entire posts to how much he hates it.  The most notable examples of this include Avatar, Twilight, Glee, Justin Biber, among many others.  And, like his Avatar post he never says anything that a dozen other people haven’t said a dozen other times.

            Then there are times when he chooses the less popular thing over the more popular thing for no apparent reason other than it’s less popular and there are many examples of this throughout his blog.  For example he chooses How to Train Your Pet Dragon over Toy Story 3 and Iron Man over The Dark Knight, (well get more into the latter later), and throughout various other posts chooses the less popular thing over and over and over.

            Granted, every now and then this will turn out a good post but for the most part they don’t do anything other than get me pissed off at the guy.  He just always seems to choose the less popular of any two simply because it's less popular and it pisses me off beyond belief.  Worst of all, it almost seems like he's trying to attract attention to himself just by doing this and given his bio that would not surprise me at all.  It's like his idea is just to garner as much notice as possible by saying Avatar sucks or Iron Man is better than The Dark Knight.  Maybe I'm completely wrong about this but I honestly don't think I am and I'm not sure Korsgaard is even aware it.  I'm not saying he should lie and say he likes these films more simply because everyone else does but don't do it just to attract attention to yourself and make you stand out in a crowd.  It's just....wrong.

Number Two

Any of Korsgaard's Movie Reviews

            To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what the point of these reviews are.  I can't tell if they're just supposed to be his thoughts on them, meant influence his readers to see or not to see the films, or if he's trying to be a serious movie reviewer.  The way he reviews these films seems to indicate the former two but at the same time, the way he writes them seems to indicate that he wants to be taken as seriously as film critics like Rodger Ebert or Richard Roper.  If the latter is true then he is definitely failing at it.

            The first major flaw with his movie reviews is how he opens them.  With most of his movie reviews about a quarter of the post is just him ranting about the franchise, the people who made the movie, or both and how he hates or loves them.  NO ONE FUCKING CARES!  JUST GET TO THE FUCKING MOVIE!  The main problem, however, is that he fails to really weigh the pros and cons of a film and only seems to praise or pan it.  When he likes a film, he praises the crap out of it, and only seems to skim over the bad things about it.  When he hates a movie, he goes out of his way to pan the crap out of it while skimming over everything that's good about it.  Not to mention a lot of what he says is flat out untrue or doesn’t make any sense.  The way he reviews some of these films, I swear he was high or something when he saw them.  The best example of this is in his Tron: Legacy Review.  Now I’ve already gone over this film with a fine tooth comb and if you look at my reviews of the film and his, you will clearly see a difference of opinions but some most of the stuff he praises makes no sense what so ever.  In it, he actually goes out of his way to praise the acting of Garret Hedlund and Oliva Wilde even though their acting was wooden at best and their lines terrible.  To make it even worse, he goes out of his way to pan Jeff Bridges acting when his only flaw was the crappy dialog he had to deal with.  Seriously Korsgaard?

            Whenever I bring this up, he still defends his position on them calling Wilde’s acting quirky.  Let me make one thing perfectly clear about that.  It was not quirky.  The dialog in Pulp Fiction was quirky.  Henry Jones in The Last Crusade was quirky.  John Hurt’s character in Kingdom of Crystal Skull was quirky.  Michael C. Hall in Dexter is quirky in a very morbid way.  Fucking Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons was quirky.  Weeds is quirky.  Breaking Bad is quirky.  House is quirky.  Wilde was not.  It was obvious she was trying BUT FAILED MIERABLY AT IT!  Why he insists on defending this error in his review I’ll never know but I digress.

            A few more recent examples of this include Conan the Barbarian, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Green Lantern, where he continuously gets what he should be praising and panning mixed up and just seem like a thrashing or panning.

            In the end, I still don't know what his intentions with these posts are.  As reviewing posts, they're just not that good.  If his intention was just to give his impression of the film and wasn’t meant to be taken seriously I do apologize to him for including this in The Top Ten Fuck-Ups.

Even if they make no sense what-so-ever.

Now I know what you're probably thinking.  How can anything be worse than the flaws above?  Well, a lot of the for-mentioned things annoy me and piss me off but for the most part, I'm able to overlook or forget about them.  But there is that I haven't been able to forget about.  One that I have never been able to forgive Korsgaard for.  One that completely destroyed his credibility in the subject he was blogging in.  One that no matter how many times I see it, I just want to take a baseball bat to the guy's head.  What was the post that drove to such lengths?  Well take a look below.

And At

Number One

Top Ten Best Comic Book Movies of All Time

My God was this one infuriating.  Everything about this top ten list was just wrong.  The choices were wrong, the ordering was wrong, and, most importantly, a lot of what he said about the films was just wrong.  With the exception of the list I'm doing now, this was the list that killed top ten lists for me and just ruined Korsgarrd's credibility as a film reviewer.  This honestly wouldn't have been so bad if he stated that his list was purely opinion based but it doesn't.   The only thing that even hints at this is when he says “here is my list for Top Ten Best Comic Book Movies of all Time”.  However, everything else seems to indicate that this is the list that everyone should consider right and it just stinks of “I'm right and if you disagree with me, you're wrong”.  Then there is the biggest problem with this list.  He claims that he took several things into account when making this list, “ranging from the more common levels of acting and film quality, to popular legacy and critical impact”.  That's just bullshit.  The entire list was obviously comprised of his favorite comic book films, and not necessarily the best.  So now that that's out in the open let’s take a look at just why this list is wrong.

            If you were like me, you knew the instant you saw his number ten pick that this was going to be a bad list.  When your number ten is a forgettable and obscure film based off of a comic that most people have never heard of like Kick-Ass, you're not setting yourself up to a good start.  Then there was his number nine pick; a very obscure animated film called Akira.  Once again, it stunk of personal preference.  Honestly, if you were to pick a hundred people out of a crowd and ask them about this film, they probably wouldn't have even heard of it.  So how the hell does it get a spot on this list?  Because it was Korsgaard's personal pick for the spot.  Right off the bat I can think of three comic book films that knocked these two off the map.  What are they you may ask?  Why, Batman (1989), Spiderman 2, and Sin City. 

            His picks from eight to four weren't bad but several were, again, inferior to the for-mentioned films above in several of the things he claimed to take into account and the ordering of these films never seemed right to me and placing 300 at number four was just stupid.  I'm sorry dude, but for as much ass as that movie kicked it didn't deserve that high of a spot.  Then there was his number one pick, Watchmen.  Now I have to admit, the placing of this film at number one didn't bother me that much when I first saw it because I loved that movie also.  But after re-watching it and discovering what the critical and financial reaction to it was I discovered that it was a pretty shitty pick for number one.  Again, I loved the film, but it didn't deserve the number one spot by any means.  Why do I say this?  Well, it was a success at the box office but it was nothing noteworthy and the critical reaction to it was mixed.  That aside, no one really remembers it so it doesn’t really have much of a critical legacy and all that more or less keeps it from any real critic's number one spot.  So why did he place it their?  Because it was his personal favorite.

            Then there is the worst part of this entire post.  All of these other things I could forgive but this was what really pushed it to the number one spot and forever destroyed my faith in Korsgaard's ability to review and critique films.  What was this?  He put Iron Man at number two and The Dark Knight at number three.  In short, how the fuck do you place Iron Man ahead of The Dark Knight?!  It makes no fucking sense!

            Here's why:  Iron Man had nothing, and I mean nothing on The Dark Knight.  For starters, The Dark Knight grossed over twice the amount of money Iron Man did.  Second, critical reaction to The Dark Knight was overwhelmingly better.  Third, The Dark Knight appeared in very high on nearly every major film critics' top films of the year lists.  Iron Man, not so much.  When The Dark Knight got snubbed for a Best Picture nomination, (something Korsgaard actually addressed in an earlier post), people got pissed.  No one made a peep for Iron Man.  Then you have the individual things that were all around better.  The acting was better, the story was better, the themes are better, characters were better, the special effects were better and just had layers of depth to it that no other comic book based film, (or many other films for that matter), have been able to match.  And this isn't just my opinion.  Just about every film critic out their agrees with me on this and most people who aren't contrarians or prefer popcorn movies agree with me on this as well. 

            Then there was the way he described these two films which goes back to the way he reviews films and to his contrarian/contradicting nature.  With The Dark Knight he actually goes out of his way to pan the damn thing, something he doesn’t do in any other descriptions calling the plot to complicated and praises Iron Man up the ass, while ignore all its faults.  I mean what the hell!?

            We've had many debates over this and neither one of us relents but in all these debates, he has only made two valid points.  The first is that Robert Downy Jr. was a perfect casting decision for the part.  Ok.  Fair enough.  But here's my argument.  Does that make the character himself better?  No!  It doesn’t.  That lies in the writing and the writing for Batman's character was a lot better.  Second, it's his belief that the popular legacy of Iron Man is what pushes it ahead of The Dark Knight.  What does he mean by this?  Well, the fact that it spawned a sequel, two spinoffs and an up and an up and coming Avengers film.  True, but here's my argument.  Doesn’t that just prove I'm right?  The fact that he has to go into the sequels and spinoffs just shows that film itself can't stand on its own two feet in comparison.  And have any of those films proven to be better than The Dark Knight?  Have any of them out grossed the film?  Have any of them had such a critical impact?  I didn't think so.  Saying that a film is better than another just because it spawned a few spinoffs just isn't true.  By that logic The Land Before Time is the greatest animated film of all time just because of all the sequels it spawned.  It just doesn’t make any sense and I don't really know what else to say about it.  It just infuriated me.  Granted I would never debate that Iron Man deserves a spot on this list but it DOES NOT deserve to be ahead of The Dark Knight.   

What else can I say about this list?  It was his worst top ten list.  That's about it.  It was full of personal picks and preferences orders, stunk of his contrarian nature, forever destroyed top ten lists for me, and destroyed all of my faith in Korsgaard's abilities to review and critique films.  I think one of the worst parts about it, however, is how good a lot of his other top ten lists are in comparison.  Granted they all have their faults, but they're still pretty damn good.  This one, however, just seemed like it was put together by a contrarian, contradicting dickhead trying to attract attention to himself and it's just infuriating    All of this gives it more than enough power for me to declare it his biggest fuck up.

And those are Korsgaard's Top Ten Fuckups.  Bad movie reviews, fucked up editing, stuck up bios, contradicting/contrarian nature and of course the worst top ten list ever.  Now these aren’t his only fuck ups and there are a lot of others that I couldn’t squeeze on this list but in my opinion these are the worst.  Odds are that he will not acknowledge any of these mistakes and will defend his position on them till the day he dies and prove to me that this entire post was a wasted effort.  If I'm right...well thanks for ruining my one year anniversary post you contrarian, stuck up, dick head!  So until next time, this is The Illusive One saying happy birthday to my blog and signing off! 

And NO!  I'M NO DOING A BEST OF KORSGAARD POST SO STOP ANNYING ME ABOUT IT!