WebVideo Strictly Formula In A Good Way
When people say that things are Strictly Formula, it's rarely used as anything but a criticism of a long-running series that has gotten stale as a result of lazy and complacent writers. This can often be true, but there's also something to be said for staying true to what made the series great in the first place, and giving viewers a sense of comfortable familiarity, something that Screen Rant's Pitch Meetings pull off well
Basically, the concept of Screen Rant Pitch Meetings involves a screenwriter pitching a movie idea to a producer (implied to be Inexplicably Identical Individuals that are stand-ins for whoever pitched and approved the actual idea), highlighting the good parts and feebly trying to justify the bad parts. Each installment includes at least one of each of the following.
- The episode begins with "So you have a (type of work) for me?" "Yes, sir, I do."
- The phrase, "Super easy, barely an inconvenience," describing something as "tight" or saying "Whoops" after pointing out something wrong.
- For movies or TV shows that were released before the end of 2017, some sort of remark that ends up predicting the future. The older the subject of the review is, the more likely this is to happen.
- The meeting ends with the two discussing something, before an article pops up, often disproving what they're saying.
In most cases, this level of adherence to Strictly Formula would come off as lazy, but it actually has a sense of comfortable familiarity to it, as you can often predict the gags before they're coming. For example, if the Producer suggests that the heroes of a movie are in a tight spot, you can practically say "Super easy, barely an inconvenience," before the Screenwriter talks about the plot contrivance that gets them out of that mess. Part of the fun is seeing how they'll use the standard catch phrases, which can be applied in a variety of ways.
Of course, while I generally like the pitch meetings as a whole, I do especially enjoy some of the earlier videos, such as The Last Jedi, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, in which the creator was still finding his voice and experimenting with things. Said videos had fewer of the aspects that were standard to the series, as well as things that would seem unthinkable nowadays, like one controversial scene in The Last Jedi being the Producer's idea, rather than the Screenwriter's.
A part of me wishes that there were more pitch meetings that were similar to the early episodes, but I can understand that series evolve over time, and can appreciate Pitch Meetings for what it is- a comedy series that mercilessly pokes fun at various films' shortcomings and asks who would greenlight such films. As such, I consider Pitch Meetings well worth watching, especially for films that you didn't like, or like despite acknowledging their problems.
WebVideo So, you have a TV Tropes review for me?
Screenwriter: Yes sir I do.
Producer: Great, what is it?
S: Well it's for this series of short comedic videos where a screenwriter and a producer discuss a proposal for a film that recently came out.
P: Great. Who could we get to produce this?
S: I was thinking Screen Rant.
P: What kind of stuff do they already do?
S: Oh you know, videos with big red circles and arrows in the thumbnail and names like '17 Things You Missed in the Aquaman Trailer'.
P: So, garbage?
S: Exactly sir, garbage.
P: So what would set this series apart from every other nitpicky internet series out there?
S: Well I was thinking that unlike them, we could actually... be funny.
P: Oh, really?
S: Yeah I figure that instead of acting as if we're the self-appointed arbiters of objective quality, we could just try to make people laugh.
P: And you really think having one good series will be enough to make Screen Rant seem relevant?
S: Well it worked out for The Escapist.
P: Fair enough, so tell me more about this series!
S: Well it features a screenwriter and a producer and they're both hilarious.
P: Alright, I don't like where this is going.
S: Well the screenwriter is a complete idiot who doesn't understand how films work.
P: I feel like there's some subtext here but go on?
S: And then there's the producer, who sometimes points out the problems with the film, but other times he's the idiot who doesn't understand how films work.
P: Wow, I feel personally attacked; I considered us friends and that's really hurtful.
S: Oh whoops.
P: Whoopsie! So anyway, is it going to be hard to make that entertaining?
S: Actually it's going to be super-easy, barely an inconvenience.
P: Oh, really?
S: Yeah, by focusing on Rapid-Fire Comedy and switching between jokes about the film and jokes about the quirky behaviour of the characters, we should be able to make a consistently entertaining series.
P: Wow wow wow. Do you have anyone in mind to play these roles?
S: No, I thought we'd just get the same person to play them both.
P: Why would we do that?
S: Because it's funnier that way!
P: Is it?
S: Maybe. So anyway, every episode will end with an ironic cut to an article about the film they were talking about.
P: Oh, I like that, it could be like a dig at how film media are always trying to force drama out of every-
S: And the screenshots will be of Screen Rant articles.
P: Oh ok.
S: So yeah, what do you think?
P: Well I kind of like it, but I have one big concern.
S: What's that?
P: Well, Pitch Meetings already did this themselves, a self-deprecating look at their own premise. So isn't this review just a rip-off of a joke that they already did?
S: Well sir, I can explai-
Too long! TVTropes reviews are limited to 3,000 characters.
WebVideo The same joke ad nauseum.
I don't hate the series, but it's basically the same formula repeated over and over.
1: Guy summerizes plot of film. 2: Same guy without glasses questions plot holes, and flawed logic. 3: Guy refuses to change the story to address issues. 4: No-Glasses Guy pretty much lets Guy 1 have his way. 5: End episode with cut to ironic news article. 6: Repeat ad nauseum for 100+ episodes.
Once the initial charm wears off. The series just gets monotonous and repetitive, and the overall smug attitudes of the characters portrayed does not help matters.
Might be worth a watch if you wanna see the piss taken out of your favorite films, but it's not for me personally.
WebVideo Pop-criticism done right
There's a very powerful cottage industry dedicated to poking holes in whatever movie came out this month. It draws in outrage clicks, people looking to commiserate on the most recent film they didn't like, and the Sauron-like gaze of the Youtube Algorithm. And the Pitch Meetings are definitely near the top of the heap of that realm of facile, surface-level criticism—something which I ordinarily really dislike.
So it's rather funny to me that I actually quite like the Pitch Meetings. Even moreso because the rest of Screen Rant's content is the kind of stuff that I avoid on principle. And the reason for why I felt the need to write this was because I don't normally like this kind of content, and so when I look at this, I say "since it's going to exist, this should probably be the bare minimum."
The main thing that makes Pitch Meetings work is simply what it attempts to do. It isn't pretending to be a review of the film, nor is it pretending it's here to make a deeper statement; it leans very heavily on its formula, and that pretty much establishes it's here for a roast, not a critique. Its videos are brisk, almost never breaking eight minutes for an individual film, which makes them good to watch in bite-sized chunks. And due to that short-form format, it really only needs to do the greatest hits. No film is perfect, and that's reflected in the fact that it hits acclaimed masterworks and utter slop with the same brush; in both cases, all it has to do is find the things that just about everyone can agree are kinda weird or silly or not all that well-thought-out, and then fill the remaining space with quick-paced jokes. In some movies, those things are individual scenes or the occasional wonky line delivery, in others, they're pivotal parts of the narrative or entire major characters, but either way, no film is absent them. Hell, you can actually kinda figure out his opinions if you read between the lines.
One of the weaknesses of this contractual Accentuate the Negative style is that it's great for Outside Joke humor, but tends to crumble in the eyes of people who are actually familiar with the source material. And so it surprised me when I decided to watch his take on The Suicide Squad, a film I really liked, and found myself actually nodding along to what he discussed. Sure, it was more marginal things than his critiques of truly awful stuff, but most of it was stuff that I had to admit either didn't make sense or required some reading between the lines to figure out. Add in a lead that manages to capture that smarmy, self-assured ideal of a dipshit producer extremely well, and you have a series with a very good groove.
So is it Strictly Formula? Sure. Does it cover all the jokes that everyone makes about those movies? You betcha. Is it arguably lazy? Yeah. But these kinds of videos are a lot like fast food: sure, they're all cheap and common, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the fries.