Movie Nights

Allison Pregler is my favorite reviewer. The only two that come close are Grace Randolph and Lindsay Ellis. Movie Nights (formerly known as Obscurus Lupa Presents) is a ridiculously entertaining review series where Allison Pregler (Lupa) takes a look at some of the worst movies ever produced, as well as an assortment of her own favorites, and a good amount of cult tv. Her crowning achievement in my eyes, is her Charmed review series.

Charmed, was a WB show that debuted in 1998 that I was a fan of when I was younger. Allison completely dissected it and came to so many hilarious conclusions about the show and made one of the most incredible and extensive reviews in history in the process. Her season eight review was a two hour long epic rant on the final season and the show as a whole. Even recently she released a review of the first season of the Charmed comics published by Zenescope, and it was equally hilarious, and showed Allison's proficiency at reviewing different mediums.

Although Charmed is probably her best and most extensive work, Allison puts so much effort into all of her reviews, and some of my favorites include her Star Trek episode reviews, First Person Shooter (The X-Files) review and her reviews of the Tremors series of movies and short lived tv series. Movie Nights is well-researched and often times hilarious.

For some odd reason, I had a memory of the early 1990s TV show "Cop Rock." So I punched it into Google. That brought me to a website called That Guy with the Glasses (which I was already familiar with because of "The Amazing Atheist/Distressed Watcher) and a reviewer who goes by the name Obscurus Lupa.

A week after that, I was reading a diary on The Daily Kos about the awful film version of Atlas Shrugged. Films called "Birdemic" and "The Room" were suggested as even more hilariously bad (and entertaining). I Googled them and that, in turn, brought me back to That Guy with the Glasses and Obscurus Lupa.

Obscurus Lupa turned out to be a pretty young redhead with a witty, and very polished (considering her age) style, and I quickly became addicted to her reviews of bad martial arts and horror films. I grew up watching bad martial arts films on Saturday afternoon network TV, and greatly enjoyed seeing someone who seemed both smarter than I am and also seemed to genuinely enjoy the movies I had taught myself to look down on.

I realized why. Bad films leave their narrative strategies hanging out in the open. They can teach you as much about narrative and film making as good films. But it takes a good eye to put together a review that throws them into relief.

Obscurus Lupa has that good eye.

She approaches movies without the heavy handed moralism of some mainstream film critics. She has a cool, detached, almost deadpan style. She's so good at keeping a straight face in the face of the ridiculous that some of her jokes only hit you hours later.

All in all, Obscurus Lupa is a skillful critic and a talented comic actress. Highly recommended.