Category: Documentary Films

Finishing the Complete Eleventh Season (2022)

Well! when it came to the 2nd half of our 5th anniversairy celebrations, I decided to try and do a bit of everything. Part of me wanted to cover movies i’d wanted to do for years (“Flight to Hell“, “Cannibal Girls“, “Camp Blood“) Some were movies i’d promised id do in the future, and then totally forgot to do in the future (“The American Ninja 4“, “Cyborg Cop 2“, “Alien Species“) and some were first time watches that arrived on short notice and genuinely caught me off guard (“Gatwick Gangsters“, “Night of the Demon“, “Dont go in the house“). Hell, we even rounded off the TYTD Reviews episodes by revisiting our very FIRST video for the channel “The Dragon Lives Again” hopefully finally doing justice to a film I’ve long admired and wished my review of could have been better.

It was a celebration of the old, and a look forward to the future of the channel. With this series marking a few milestones, it being the last season edited in 1080p,the last season edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, The last to use the branding we’ve been using now since 2020 across all fronts and the last season predominantly recorded on my focusrite condensor mic, a mic thats pretty much been what you’ve heard me through since AT LEAST 2020, which also made a few on and off appearences between 2017 and 2019 too.

What does the new season hold? well as seen in the review for “Dont go in the house” i’ve had a systems and kit upgrade on almost all fronts! including a new machine, a new mic, new lights for the packaging shots, new editing software and some other new tools to help give a bit more variety. As such we have new branding across all our main shows, we’ll be solely uploading in 4k going forward with better quality sound and visuals, faster processing power means it takes less time to export and convert reviews now, and as such it means we’ll be able to *hopefully* turn things around a bit quicker which’ll give me some time back to be able to enjoy a sunset or eat a well prepared meal!

There have also been some changes that are not quite as pleasent to announce, but here we are. After 2 years or so of monthly uploads and over 50 feature length commentaries, “The Comedy Dining Experience” will be swapping back to an irregular upload schedule, as it was when we first launched in 2018. Part of this is down to the amount of time it takes to edit the commentaries, part of it’s down to lower uptake than our other shows (we’ve had some episodes record less than 20 views after 3 weeks of being live in some cases) and part of it’s down to both myself and Ben just being absolutely ram jammed with stuff going on at the minute. Im in the middle of writing/recording and editing next years episodes (and I still have stuff to finish with Season 12!) and Bens recently had several good news stories that means he’s a lot busier than he was at the moment.

What this means in practical terms is that the Comedy Dining experience isnt going anywhere, it just means that, for the moment at least, it’s going to be on pause while we sort life stuff out, and when it does come back it’ll be likely an “As and when” affair rather than a regularly scheduled “thing” which will allow me more time to work on and refine our reviews, and it means we wont be oversaturating the channel too.

What it ALSO means is that we can do other fun things like monthly game night streams (we’ve done 3 so far and a pilot) AND it’s meant I can start an official Discord from which we’ll be hosting various watchalongs, games nights and other good stuff, alongside chats on everything from good and bad movies to music and weird youtube oddities, so do please tag along for that!

Season 11 marked a change in the wind for the channel, and with Season 12 currently rolling out weekly, I hope your enjoying the direction we’re taking the channel in, I had an absolute blast working on this season, I think it’s one of my favourites i’ve worked on alongside Season 10 and the chance to work and hang out with so many interesting people in collaboration has been an absolute delight. I couldnt have asked for a better 5th year on the platform.

by tytdreviews

Doc Shock 2: Electric Boogaloo (Documentary Reviews 2) (2022)

Well; we’re back on the documentaries again, and honestly, it’s been WAY too long. EVERY season since the original “Doc Shock” I’ve sworn BLIND that i’d do another doc shock that season. EVERY. SINGLE SEASON. I’ve sworn id do it, and every time for one reason or another it’s completely fallen through. WELL! for my 5th anniversairy i’d be DAMNED if I was going to let one of the oddities of “The Red Triangle” go unloved! So here we are!

the big downer with this one was unfortunately the copyright aspect of the whole thing, at least 3 out of the 5 documentaries I covered in this video were almost ENTIRELY made up of archive footage. basically narratives built using news stories, old interviews, stock footage. a patchwork of history woven together to tell a story. and the problem with documentaries that are built like that from a critical standpoint is two fold.

First, it makes it difficult to convey exactly WHY the documentary is so good, because the footage isnt strictly indicative of the quality. me showing you news footage of Frank Sidebottom riding on a riverboat or Obama giving an interview wont tell you DIDDLY about what the documentary is like…it just tells you Frank Sidebottom and Obama are in those respective documentaries. and in the case of “The Silent Minority” the footage is SO harrowing, that even though it IS on youtube and available to view in full, I wouldnt feel comfortable showing it for the purpose of recommendation (seriously it’s that hardcore) So this is one of the rare cases where really, for the most part, I felt that including footage was kind of pointless…not that that matters really because…

Secondly; including all this archive footage is basically like trying to will youtubes copyright system to nuke the video. Seriously; it’s bad enough when I cover ONE movie in terms of getting worldwide blocks, takedown notices and other such bunkum. So IMAGINE trying to upload a review of a documentary that uses HUNDREDS of clips from various TV channels, films, internet uploads etc…it’d be a massacre. and one im not entirely interested in trying to clear.

So in the end this ended up being “Audio Only” a little underwhelming…true. But! this isnt a standard review…this is really more a list of recommendations. and I really hope you find a documentary thats right for you!

Out of all of these, I probably enjoyed “Thats Sexploitation” the most, though “Being Frank” is a close second!
by tytdreviews

The “Drug Stories Vol. 1” Comedy Dining Experience (Part 1)

Triv’s Back! and we’ve decided to take a look at the AGFA’s FABULOUS job in remastering some of the weirdest and wildest Drugs PSA’s from the 50’s through to the 70’s. the sets over 3 hours long, so rather than run ourselves into the ground, we’ve decided to split it into 2 parts, part 2 will be coming towards the end of the year, but for now! dim the lights, grab your munchies and prepare to just say NO!

by tytdreviews

Slade In: “Flame” (1975)

It was Iain Lee who first introduced me to “Slade In: ‘Flame’ ” via his radio show a few years ago. If memory serves he dedicated nearly an hour of one of his shows to Slade, the band and this film in particular. mentioning that it was one of the best films he’d ever seen. So naturally I immediately went to look for a copy, at which point my testicles retracted into my pelvis as I saw the price was way more than I could ever afford.

I was incredibly lucky last year to score this film for a tenner. when; at the time prices were between 75 and 200 pounds for a copy. Since making this review the price has drastically decreased…it’s still a bit pricy for a nearly 10 year old DVD (Between 15 and 25 pounds at the time of writing) but if you like what you see in this review, I say go and grab it. it’s a really nice little movie…I’d maybe stop short of saying it’s essential. But Im happy that I have a copy and if nothing else it introduced me to the world of “Slade” which; well, other than that christmas song. there wasnt really a whole lotta Slade going on in my life.

I would genuinely like to see what a Bluray scan of this film would surface…it’d also be nice to have a proper “Making of” for this one, as while the hour long interview with Noddy Holder present on the disc is MORE than welcome…it’s only really one side of the story and it’d be nice to hear about the whole bands experiences (Or even the writers and directors thoughts…assuming they arnt suffering from a case of fatal death)

A great little film. genuinely. and one I’ll probably end up digging out again sooner rather than later.

 

(This poster is WAY too busy…but the DVD art is WAY too minimalist…it’s all or nothing with Slade…this was the learning curve I’ve been on.)
by tytdreviews

DOC-SHOCK! (Documentary Reviews)

A shorter post than usual from me this time round but I thought I would try something a bit different with this one. I’ve wanted to cover Documentary as a genre on my youtube channel now pretty much since I started it over 2 years ago. but whenever I’ve tried (And their have been many failed attempts) they’ve either come out WAAAAAY too short or I just wasnt happy with the end result. I always felt they were lacking…and while Im not going to say im exactly a beacon of high water level quality; I do want to make sure that im at least happy with what I put out.

And so the idea to compile a few of these was born. apart these reviews felt a bit orphaned. but together I feel like it forms a comprehensive look into some of the films I’ve wanted to talk about for years but never actually had the chance to. I didnt really get into watching documentaries until my mid to late teens (More often than not I was having them thrust upon me rather than me actively deciding to seek them out) so im not exactly brimming with documentaries to recommend. but I have a few I’d like to share (And this video did a bit better than I was expecting) so I may well do a DOC-SHOCK 2 (Electric Boogaloo) at some point in the future.

For now. I can recommend any of the 4 I speak about in this review and they’re all (For the most part) quite easy to find. I hope you get a kick out of them in the same way I did.

 

(Out of all of these my favourite poster has to be the Video Naties one. Though “The Nomi Song” also has a soft spot in my heart in terms of posters)
by tytdreviews

Dan and Ben Take the P.I.F’s!: The “Charlie Says Vol.2” Comedy Dining Experience

In celebration of hitting a 200 subscriber milestone I thought I’d offer up a bit of a bonus video this week! here’s a commentary we recorded in November 2018 covering over 150 Public information films. We were really rather “Merry”. and we will admit it’s a bit more towards the “Derek and Clive” end of the spectrum as a result. Still! here’s to the next 200! and we hope you enjoy this dealve into the terrifying world of the UK in the 1970’s and 80’s

 

by tytdreviews

Power to the P.I.F! – Public information films: A Retrospective (2018)

I did it! One year on Youtube and it’s a double celebration because with this article the entire site is now backdated which in turn means I can finally make this site public to the public! So Hello if you’ve seen my nightmare fueled advert and welcome! you’ll find plenty around here to keep you busy so please feel free to leave a comment or say hi!

Public information films have been something that i’ve been interested in for a number of years, as a kid I mainly remember the “Think” campaign but there were many others that happened around this time that really stuck in my mind.

It wasnt really until I met my very good friend Ben that I discovered there was an active following for public information films, and that further more he’d been collecting them for years. we’d swap stories of P.I.F’s from around the world regularly and he’d happily point me to some form of carnage as and when he found it. Ben produced a documentary called “Out of your tiny minds” or something similar (Titled from the pif that shares the same name) So when it came to tackling these films I really couldnt think of anyone better to help me. I really cant thank him enough for giving up his time to help me make this and to do it right.

It was very difficult to decide which public information films would make it into this special and which wouldnt, but after the positive response i’ve recieved from this video i’ll almost certainly do a follow up in future. Though quite when that’ll be I couldnt honestly say.

For now though, im happy. A year might not seem like a long time to be doing youtube but it’s been an eye opening experience and I really hope Im here this time next year telling you just how excited I am to have been here now for 2 years!

Thank you to everyone who’s regularly tuned in and followed me on this Journey it really means a lot and thank you in particular to everyone who’s reached out and offered either video recommendations or collaboration opportunities. you’ve really made me feel very welcome and I hope there are many further good times ahead.

 

(Warning! the rabies P.I.F is in this episode…you know the one…well you’ve been warned now it’s out of my hands…)
by tytdreviews