The Critical Frog: Teen Titans Go Revisited (A long Frog Rant)

It's been a long time since I talked about Teen Titans Go, the somewhat lacking spinoff to what I consider to be one of the best cartoons of all time. And in that time, I've heard a lot of different opinions about it. I've seen more episodes. And people think interesting things about it. I've heard the critics, the neutral parties, and even some people praising the show as a pure comedy focused cartoon that tries to make it's own identity. And after listening to these strong opinions I think it's safe to say that I HATE THIS SHOW MORE THAN EVER.

Everybody, I really tried to like this show. I stayed with it through the bad episodes in hope that maybe one day, maybe once, this new show would capture the essence of the original. If there's one thing the original Teen Titans taught me, it's not to give up on something, even if it seems to be a lost cause. Determination can be rewarded with animated brilliance sometimes. We stayed with MLP: FIM and wound up with "Twilight's Kingdom". We stayed with the original Teen Titans and were rewarded with episodes like "Troq" and "How Long is Forever?". But what has this series given us for keeping it afloat?

We've been given "Waffles", which features formerly deep characters saying the exact same word approximately 180 times in the span of 11 minutes. We've been given "Friendship", which spends it's entire run time mocking the brony phenomenon and having the characters beat up on innocent animals. And we've been given "Staring at the Future", which has two of the characters purposefully ruin the futures of their supposed friends in an effort to avoid basic responsibility. And the list goes on. The series that I once considered my childhood has taken a dive into idiocy.

Look, there's a reason this angry post is going on so long, and I think it's a good time to explain this. Do you know why I say so much good stuff about cartoons like Teen Titans and Courage the Cowardly Dog? Because they Try. They flex the boundaries of what you can and can't put in animation, and brought some truly beautiful things to the field of animation. When an animation tries, they can do some spectacular things- they can address issues like racism and abuse that gets the issue across without talking down to their audience. There was a time when animation companies understood this, and gave us things like the Titans and Hey Arnold to ponder. They could discuss racism, segregation, domestic abuse and even sexuality through the medium.

It seems like most modern cartoons have lost this luster. Most of today's cartoons rely on annoying characters being idiots with poor animation and inappropriate jokes. I remember when cartoons meant something and really had something to say. You could walk away from an episode of Teen Titans and have something to think about. Nowadays you look at a cartoon and see nothing of value. They're black holes for the attention.

Once upon a time, people saw animation as a means of creation and movement. It could be used to express, to display, or to create art and feelings. It taught people to ponder, taught people to dream and think. To come up with new ideas. To put all of this short: Not only are new cartoons failing compared to the old ones, they stifle the creativity and ability to think meaningfully. You're not just giving us terrible animation, you are literally SLOWING DOWN THE PROGRESS OF IMAGINATION YOU STUPID CARTOONS.

*Pant, pant, pant*...... OK, I'm good. Got that out of my system..

The Critical Frog: The Benchwarmers

First, Rob Schneider was a woman. That was bad. Then, he was a male prostitute. That was worse. Now Rob Schneider is, for the first time, not doing something either racist or sex-related. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It's difficult to say.

The Benchwarmers is your typical film about the team of outcasts that is allowed to play in a baseball tournament, and against all odds, manages to win the big game. Whoops, I just gave away the ending to the film, in case you have never seen one like it. 

Now I'm not saying the 'outcasts win' formula is downright terrible- I love "Meatballs" and "Major League"- but with how much it's been used in the past, it's pretty hard to pull off correctly. Practically every time we see this formula the plot is expected and unsurprising, and The Benchwarmers is no different.

After that little rant, it seems pointless to even explain the plot here, but then again if I didn't explain I wouldn't be doing my job as a critic. Rob Schneider meets two dunces who are bullied by a group of younger kids on a baseball team. They'll only let the guys play catch or ball if they can beat the team in a game. Schneider, of course, accepts and carries the team to victory. Eventually, a rich businessman who's son admires the group offers to sponsor a tournament. The prize is a new stadium. Of course the group of three is allowed to enter (despite being three grown adults against nine children), and Schneider must train the two while working out his own problems.

For once, Schneider's character is (thankfully) reserved in this flick- he makes few jokes and plays the part with a certain laid-back attitude. Of course, this doesn't mean he's changed- it is a Rob Schneider film after all, and has it's fair share of unfunny dirty jokes- but it is more reserved than some of his other little excursions.

There really isn't much else to say about what separates this from other films of it's genre. Of course Schneider is going to work out his problems. Of course the team will win the big game. Of course one of the other teams is going to try and cheat. This is a vortex for the attention, just another product of the cookie-cutter mentality of sports films. Is it horrible? No. But it's not worth spending so much time and money to bear witness to yet another underdog story.

Overall Rating: 4/10
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Personally, I'm not a fan of Rob Schneider. It's just all the same dirty humor and no changes. Just once I'd like to see him grow up and make a serious film. Adam Sandler, despite his fair share of garbage, at least managed to crank out Hotel Transylvania. The Benchwarmers is not Rob Schneider's redemption. It's a little sad that my favorite Schneider bits are all from the same episode of South Park. What else can I say? He was a great stapler.

The Critical Frog: 50 Shades Of Grey (The Movie)

(Scene: School, Frog's off block in the media center. Frog is listening to the Rainbow Rocks soundtrack for about the fifty billionth time when he notices something nearby.)

Frog: *looks over* what are you guys doing?
Stoners: We got 50 shades of grey, man.
Frog: ....Isn't that still in theaters?
Stoners: We pirated it, dummy. Did you wanna watch?
Frog: Meh, what the heck. I've got nothing else to do.
Stoners: Awesome. Want a brownie, bro?
Frog: No thanks. Seriously, I'm good.


Ladies and gentlemen, I understand many things in my life. These include,

-That no matter how much I hope, Honey from Space Dandy will never be my girlfriend

- That I own possibly the only existing copy of And the Bombs Keep Falling in the world and must protect it with my life (or possibly someone else's)

-The ending to "2001: A Space Odyssey"

-The meaning of life (As learned from "The Amazing World Of Gumball")

.......But 50 Shades Of Grey? I don't understand why it's a film at all.

How exactly can you describe a film like this without breaking my blog's normal PG rating? You don't. You just can't describe this film without saying that it's basically just artsy porn.

There's no other way to say it: this is big-budget porn. Now I've never looked at pornography, but if I had any ideas about what would be defined as "artistic pornography", this would be it. 

The plot, because apparently porn needs a plot: A journalist sends her roommate to investigate a mysterious billionaire, who is apparently so famous  that he can walk into crowded stores and restaurants without anybody knowing who he is, and his moneymaking schemes. The two take a liking to each other and talk until the billionaire decides to invite her over to keep as a slave. And..... porn!

No kidding, the rest of the film, aside from it's bare-bones plot, is practically just a 60-minute sex scene that goes on for way too long. We see bondage, submission, foreplay, and of course lots of sex.

But do you know what ticks me off? The fact that, whether the film admits it or not, this is an abusive relationship taking after the textbook example. It's clear that there is a master/slave relationship here, and not a good one (not implying that master/slave relationships are good to begin with).

...What exactly am I doing reviewing this? You have a point. Review over.

Overall Rating: 3/10
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Isn't this kind of like what the director of "Boogie Nights" wanted to make? 'Porn, but artistic' ? Kind of, assuming you leave out the 'artistic' part.....

The Critical Frog: The D.U.F.F

I'll be the first to admit it: it sucks to be labeled. Labels can hurt someone by forcing them to adapt to a certain personality expected by others, and can be uncomfortable for the adaptee. And what better place to display their effects then in a Teenage Girl film?

The DUFF is a film about how a content teenage girl is labeled by a jock in the first 20 minutes- and then spends the rest of the film changing and embarassing herself to prove that she is not, in her own words, "the Designated Ugly Fat Friend"- despite the fact that she is neither fat nor ugly. Her actions lead to isolation and ridicule in her quest to become the stereotypical popular girl.

Our "heroine" Bianca leads a comfortable life: she has two best friends, a crush, and likes zombies (as evidenced by the poster that blatantly reads "ZOMBIE"on her wall). But one day she goes to a party, where a stereotypical jock labels her the "DUFF" of her group of friends. The more she thinks about this, the more it creeps into her life,and the more extremes she tries in her attempts to become "un-duffed". She strikes up a deal with the jock to help her become popular and beautiful in exchange for her helping him pass chemistry (by giving him her notebook), and so our story begins.

We have all the standard teenage girl stereotyped characters here: the mean popular girl, her lackey, the geeky outcast we're supposed to like, the hot guy she likes even though they have nothing in common, and the outcast's friends who exist only to be fodder for her rage.

The character of Bianca is one-dimensional in the wrong way: she is called something and obsessed over what it means for her life and becomes increasingly determined to discover a way around it. But the ironic thing is, her attempts to become more likable and popular only make her more UNlikeable in my opinion. She ostracizes her friends for not knowing the word, yells at people trying to be kind to her, bothers random people in the classroom and performs a horrifying display in a store.

Of course, we all know how it's going to end: she'll become the cool girl and beat the mean popular girl for the affection of guys, her cool crush will be a louse and she will fall back to her tutor, and everything will resolve itself in the end. But why?

It's not like the girl did anything to fix her reputation- if anything, she made it worse. Is this how popularity works? Is cyberbullying, slander, insults and smut really how you become known? If s, count me out. The DUFF paints a wrong image of popularity and reasonable behavior that teenage girls would be unwise to follow.

Overall Rating: 4/10
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DUFF can stand for 2 things:

1- Designated Ugly Fat Friend
2- Dumpy Useless Failed Film

I'll let you figure out which one is mine.