The 3 1/2 Minute Review: The Wind in the Willows (+ More thoughts on The Wind in the Willows) (videos)

My 3 1/2 Minute Review series was one of the few YouTube series I introduced in 2015 to make it to four entries before I shut it down in 2016. This, then, is the only entry I'm premiering this spring - the fifth and last to focus on a fantasy/sci-fi topic (previous entries included Neon Genesis Evangelion, The End of Evangelion, Revenge of the Sith, and The Dark Crystal). The Wind in the Willows - both book and adaptations - remains one of my most-covered subjects on this site, perhaps the most covered next to Twin Peaks. In fact, I had so much to say about it that I ended up breaking the "3 1/2 minute" format by creating a bonus video, "More thoughts on The Wind in the Willows." The first video follows the usual format of the series, discussing a single film - in this case the 1987 Rankin-Bass adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame novel; the second video expands to include clips from numerous other adaptations and also addresses the Disney World ride (and its replacement), the VHS tape on which my family recorded an airing of this film in the eighties (including some memorable kids' commercials), my own experimental film incorporating clips from Willows, and glimpses of all the famous voice actors in other roles. This follow-up concludes with an excerpt from my most extensive coverage of Willows, in which I lay out the "psychogeography" of the story, now illustrated by moving images of the various elements (like the River Bank, the Wild Wood, and the Wide World). I had a lot of fun putting this together, and hopefully you have fun watching it.

For more on The Wind in the Willows, check out my Wind in the Willows series exploring different themes of the book, my written review of the Rankin-Bass film, and my aforementioned experimental film What a Long Strange Trip It's Been. To browse these and several other Willows posts, explore my "Wind in the Willows" label.

Watch both Willows video essays combined into a single video on Vimeo:

The 3 1/2 Minute Review of The Dark Crystal

Continuing the fantasy/sci-fi trend of the previous "3 1/2 Minute Reviews" (the next one will culminate this approach before looking elsewhere), I cover The Dark Crystal, focusing on its ambivalent status as children's entertainment, my own diverse responses on different viewings, and the film's odd genre status. If you've never seen or even heard of this ghoulish fairy tale, a dazzling display of puppetry and animatronics, I encourage you to watch the video and check out the film (there are vague spoilers, I guess, but the outcome of this fable isn't really supposed to be a big surprise and I don't discuss the plot much at all). I also wrote a review of The Dark Crystal in 2012.

Vimeo upload & an additional note after the jump.

The 3 1/2 Minute Review: Revenge of the Sith (video)

Update 1/12: The video is up.

With all the Star Wars hype, I was inspired to revisit the prequel films, which I haven't seen in five years. I watched Revenge of the Sith in anticipation of this video review. It's up a day late due to difficulty (ten years after it became a massive box office hit, the movie is surprisingly hard to acquire on DVD). I actually ended up watching the film twice before I made this. What do you think of Revenge of the Sith? Is it the best of the prequels by default? Is it underrated by its many detractors? How does George Lucas' visual sense compare to J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens?

The 3 1/2 Minute Review: The End of Evangelion (video)

This video is an entry in End of Evangelion Week on this blog: every day a new post on the film will go up.

Here is my follow up to the last "3 1/2 Minute Review" video, which covered the TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion - a brief essay devoted to the remarkable follow-up feature film, The End of Evangelion. The first half of the video is spoiler-free; halfway through there is a prominent spoiler warning so that those who haven't seen the film yet can tune out.

Apologies for the poor audio quality of the narration, due to technical difficulties on my end. (update 11/18: I was able to fix the audio on the Vimeo version but not the YouTube)

The 3 1/2 Minute Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion (video)

My regular YouTube series begins with the first entry in The 3 1/2 Minute Review. Appropriately enough, it covers Neon Genesis Evangelion, the anime TV show I've been writing about every Wednesday on this site (and will continue to discuss for several months). Not an anime fan? Great! You're actually the person this video is intended for, although of course I hope those who already admire Evangelion will enjoy it too. In less than four minutes, I recap my initial experience watching the show, from initial doubts, to growing interest, and finally captivation as the second half of the series hit its stride. There are no plot spoilers, though I do include images from late in the show. At the end of the video, there's a brief preview for my next video (the first entry in my Side by Side series). Although yesterday I missed the mark by a few minutes, from now on every new YouTube video will go up every other Sunday. As for the next 3 1/2 Minute Review, you can expect it on November 1 (which happens to be my birthday). If you are wondering about its subject, at the risk of giving too much away I'll say that if you think something is missing from the following video it isn't missing - it simply deserves its own independent 3 1/2 minutes of glory.