Update Blog - 12/2/23 (Patreon)

I'm not gonna lie, this week started out very rough for me. I should've known this would come with all the work I had to do for both November and December, but I had a burnout after pushing through review after review. It got to me so badly that I had to eventually stop everything and spend a couple of days away from making any videos to set my focus on other stuff like the holidays. Thankfully, I'm feeling much better about myself and I'm back to work on the next big project I have in store, on top of delivering two musical reviews. With that said, here's how my week has been.

- Released my review of Under the Boardwalk: You know what's funny about this review? I titled this as 'Paramount DOES NOT Want You to See This', and they were giving me a hard time keeping it up on YouTube. These situations are frustrating for sure, but I can't help but laugh at the irony of all this. Paramount was somehow extremely picky with the copyright of this film that it took me several re-edits and uploads to make sure it stays up. But the weirdest thing is that they keep claiming me only several hours after I upload it and first tell me that it's all good. They did it again the day after the review was released, so now I'm disputing the claim and wait until Sunday when the video can be public again. Kind of weird how Netflix is giving me a much easier time on this. Anyways, I do find this to be surprisingly good. Despite the lack of marketing and keeping Russell Brand in the cast, there is a bit of charm to this one that kept me invested during the experience. Is it among the best animated films this year? Honestly, no. It's still rather plain compared to some of the other offerings we got, but there is some fun to be had in this. At the very least, it does deserve more attention than what Paramount did with the marketing.

- Released my review of Leo: It's a miracle! There's an animated Adam Sandler movie that I actually like! Well, I don't consider this one to be that great and I do think Under the Boardwalk is one step better than Leo, but I can see the appeal of this movie and how others have enjoyed it. Personally, there is a side to it I find that it can be very forgettable. Debatably, it's possibly the safest animated film this year where it's just about a talking lizard helping 5th graders with okay animation and musical numbers that don't leave a strong impact. Then again, the film delivers a lot of funny moments that do give me a lot of good laughs, and the heart carried the whole picture to make Leo, both the character and the film, very charming. Again, not the best of the year or even the best we got from Netflix this year, but I find that watching this movie is not a bad choice.

- Recovering from a Burnout: I guess with the holidays, the new releases and other videos I had to work on, I lost focus where I forgot to take care of myself during all of this. By the end of last week after I finished working on my Leo review, I had a headache, my appetite shrunk, and my morale was way low. I thought that my low self-esteem was from the negative reception from Wish and that posting a positive review would hurt me, but it's actually because I haven't given myself a true break. Like I said before, that's why I had to take a couple of days off where I didn't do any work and just focused on myself and getting ahead of the holidays. That turned out to be exactly what I need and now I feel more refreshed than ever to continue my work. I was able to finish off some of the small stuff that I started in the weekend like the prep up for the next reviews, and I feel like my old self again, and feeling better knowing that the following projects I'll have to work on won't be as labor intensive as the last videos. It was a tough lesson on why self-care is important, even when you have so much going on in your life.

- Writing Animation Lookback: The Muppets Part 8: In the meantime, since this week was a break from any new animated releases, it was time that I finally got back to working on Part 8 of AL: The Muppets. I am so thankful that I already did most of the writing before, and now that I've come back to it, this week was all about finishing up the first draft of the script and making sure everything is in place before I go and send it to my fact checkers. I will admit that it wasn't easy jumping back into this after the many reviews I had to work on, but eventually, I did switch my AniMat mind into Historian mode so that I look through everything and that this part will be great will an engaging story to tell about the Muppets' latest projects. It's still technically work, but it feels nice to have a break from reviews and create something a little more different that I still highly enjoy.

So that's been my whole week of climbing my motivation and self-esteem from the very bottom to a more healthier and optimistic spot. I wanna take this moment to thank you all for your loving support, even during my rougher times. I did help that I'm not alone and serve as a great reminder that what I do is bringing joy to others, even if it's just me talking about cartoons. I'll be sure to keep an eye on myself while I'm working, so until next time...

See ya later, dudes!