Brows Held High

[M]y primary goal: to get people in nerd culture to explore highbrow culture.

Brows Held High is a comedy review show about Arthouse cinema. It is hosted by Kyle "Oancitizen" Kallgren, who rose to some prominence on the That Guy With The Glasses forums when he wrote a dissertation on Nella's My Little Pony epic.

His signature style usually involves a lot of high-brow intellectual concepts, but explained well enough that they don't go over viewer's heads.

You can find these videos on That Guy With The Glasses and YouTube.

Tropes used in Brows Held High include:

"That's so hot."
Oan: Ewww.
"I use menstrual blood as makeup in my show."
Oan: Ewww!
"It's a period piece."
Oan: Heh-- [frowns] ewww.

Jesu: Do I have to Sparta Kick you through a window? [cracks knuckles]

  • Anime Hair: How he describes the hairdo of the Twilight of the Ice Nymphs protagonist. Also complaints about it in the "Utena" review. "Why does everyone have rainbow hair?!"
  • April Fools' Day: The "Eraserhead" review.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Oan quibbles over misplaced Shakespeare texts and inarticulate-sounding voiceovers ("Well, I just don't think that the gentleman from Motorhead is the best chorus...") while the Snob is left cringing at the real depravities.

Snob: You're concerned about the severed head landing on the family car, but not the incest?
Oan: Well, to be fair, it was foreshadowed.
Snob: WHAT?!

Oancitizen:Ah yes, Botticelli's "The Birth of R Crumb."

  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Oan's cameo in Atop the Fourth Wall consists of him trying to decrypt a conspiracy consisting of copious amounts of religious, political, and cultural mumbo-jumbo, which ultimately concludes with a nuclear explosion, followed by the Messenger from Angels in America appearing before him and telling him the Great Work is about to begin.
  • Ass Pull: Invoked when he gives a high-brow, symbolic analysis of the scene in Freddy Got Fingered that involves Tom Green jacking off a horse while shouting "Look at me, daddy, I'm a farmer."

Oancitizen: Perhaps this horse's phallus represents the onset of manhood.
The Nostalgia Chick: And this interpetation...
Oancitizen: Extracted directly from my anus, yes.

Y: Ruler of Time: You sound like a hipster.
Oancitizen: I Am Not A Hipster, good sir!!

      • Although in the Slacker review he does say he "might or might not be a hipster". He likes a lot of hipster stuff, but doesn't feel like he is one.
    • He also doesn't like being called a Brad Jones rip-off.
    • For the character, dead babies.
    • Starting with the What Is It? review, if snails are ever mentioned or brought into the equation, You may be in trouble.
    • Oan screaming his lungs out after The Nostalgia Chick summarizes the ending of Der Himmel über Berlin as "a long monologue" about "time..and loneliness...or something." Film analysis is Serious Business.
  • Big "What?": 8 minutes into JesuOtaku making him watch Revolutionary Girl Utena. The first of many, as we'll see in due course.

"WHY IS THIS PINK-HAIRED BITCH A CAR?!"

  • Bilingual Bonus: After hearing the nonsensical first line of Exterminating Angels, Oancitizen asks any viewers who have an idea what it means to send their answers to "merdedetaureau@gmail.fr". In other words, send it to bullshit.
    • He closed "The Discovery Of Heaven" by delivering a few lines (unsubtitled) in Dutch.

"<No, really. Why is the film not in Dutch? It's not like there aren't any smart, talented Dutch actors that can play these roles. And I think they would rather do this than shit like Spion Van Oranje! [a Dutch comedy film] And another thing...>"

  • Biting the Hand Humor: After viewing Sweet Movie, he accuses several of his fellow reviewers (including his boss) of being sheltered. He can't, however, make an argument for The Cinema Snob.
  • Blah Blah Blah/Freudian Slip: The opening speech to Nine Songs is nothing but proper nouns, the phrase "rock music" and slang for genitalia and/or sex acts.
  • Body Snatcher: For the "Freaks" review, Oan's body is possessed by Diamanda Hagan, who proceeds to dye his hair and paint his face in her usual color scheme and then do the review in a faux-Irish accent. He also feels himself up and comments "So that's what one of those feels like."
  • Brain Bleach: After Ken Park, Oancitizen watches The Godfather to erase the terrible memories.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A lot of the comedy of the show.
  • Breather Episode: The Angels in America and The Fall reviews.
  • Breathless Non-Sequitur "That's right Romero fans, board up the windows and rev up the chainsaws, because we're going to talk about gay porn!"
  • Brick Joke: Diamanda Hagan tells her minion to mail Oancitizen his balls (since he's obviously not using his) at the end of the Ken Park review. Two videos later, the package finally arrives.
    • The time travel duplicate of Oancitizen he stuffed in the closet in his Primer review shows up again (and then gets killed) at the end of the What Is It? review.
    • A very subtle one. When Obscurus Lupa tried to review Gerry (before switching to Hard To Kill), Diamanda Hagan tried to stop her by having her minions find every copy of the movie and destroy it. In his own review of it, he mentions it was hard to find a copy as all the local video stores had theirs stolen by Northern Irishmen in black masks.
    • A little while after he slept with his wastebasket at the end of Trash Humpers, he watched W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism and reached the conclusion that he needed to have sex or turn into a crazed murderer. While calling up candidates, he eyes his dustbin with contempt and says "You used me."
  • Brown Note: arguably some of the movies he's watched, but also Sasha Grey's music, as heard in The Girlfriend Experience review.
  • Buffy-Speak: His early attempts at explaining the plot to Primer results in him just calling everything 'things'.
  • Call Back: His moving announcement was full of them.
    • The mental break during the Eat The Schoolgirl review is the sequel of sorts to the breakdown from What Is It?
    • He refers back to two previous episodes in his review of Nine Songs:

Lisa: Sometimes when you kiss me, I just want to bite you. And not in a nice way. Like, I want to hurt you.
Oan (as Matt): You're not going to smash my balls with a block of wood then drill a hole through my legs, are you?
Oan (as Lisa): No, that would be interesting.
Oan (as Matt): I could sing The Star Spangled Banner into your ass.
Oan (as Lisa): No!!!

Roo: {{[[[Go Mad from the Revelation]] hugs self while trembling on the floor}}]
Oan: D'ja like it?

    • Phil Buni does a cameo in Alice.
    • '90s Kid shows up when Oan reviews The Doom Generation and notes that it combines all the worst traits of Nineties Pop Culture.
    • Ed Glaser made two cameos in the review of A Serbian Film, first as his voice to joke about his resemblance to the movie's villain and as the NATO president who dropped fictional bombs in fictional Serbia.
    • There is an extended cameo by Rap Critic in the Ghost Dog review, which starts off with RC explaining who RZA is, and he butts in on occasion to explain things that Kyle doesn't get.
    • Kyle himself has become the site's go to guy for cameos whenever something avante-garde is brought up.
  • Camera Abuse: He taps it pretty hard during What Is It?, causing visible glitches in the video.
  • Captain Obvious: The Snob challenging him to "make [himself] useful" and try interpreting Troma-Juliet's dream sequence with the killer penis.

Oan: (astutely) Wild guess. ...I think she's afraid of men.
Snob: Thank you. That was very insightful.

    • It there anything we can say about Tom Green's love interest in this movie?

Oan: She exis--
Chick: Besides the fact that she exists?
Oan: She has a nice place.

Oancitizen: Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a number of prostitutes dressed like Catholic school girls that I need to teach the intricacies of Proust.
Diamanda: ...I'm going to assume I imagined that.

"Listen, Korine, if I ever meet you in real life, I will end you. I will take apart your camera and feed it to you. You will suffer I SWEAR TO GOD [voice quavers] OUR WORDS ARE BACKED WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS--" {{[[[Inelegant Blubbering]] deteriorates into sobs}}]

    • The modern interpretation of Laertes has a gay dance instructor. ..who looks like Mike Myers in Sprockets.

"I want to punch him in his sideburns."

  • Damned By Faint Praise / Overly Narrow Superlative: Twilight of the Ice Nymphs is "easily the greatest Canadian film about ostriches ever made."
  • Dead Baby Comedy: Defied, with strong effort, during his Antichrist review, where he mentions that normally he's above that sort of humor, but it's so hard not to make a joke like that when there's an actual dead baby five minutes into the movie.
    • This, by his own admission, is why he's never reviewed a Todd Solondz film.

I'm not sure how many jokes I can get out of abortion, pedophilia and sexual abuse.

After all, [menstrual blood]'s the only bodily fluid that has any stigma attached to it. *swigs from a wine glass* My semen is watery today.

  • Dude, Not Funny: In-Universe. He struggled hard to snark What Is It? without invoking this trope, as much of the cast had Down's Syndrome and one member had cerebral palsy.
    • He says he's not even going to try to make a joke during the attempted rape of an Apathetic during Zardoz, though he does pull out of this depressing nosedive by making a joke about a scene immediately after that. "Here, have Sean Connery imitating Donkey Kong!" (Connery throws a barrel).
    • While possessed by Diamanda, he stated that "Freaks" was hard to make fun of, as most of the cast was, well... ...Whatever-you-call-it concludes that it would just be "dickish."
  • Dull Surprise: Invoked by name in Anatomy of Hell.
    • Hamlet the Vampire Slayer:

Lupa: INCEST JOKE!♥
Oan: [stonefaced] Ew.

"So, a gay zombie political documentary porno. ....Wat.

Snob: Pah! Roger Ebert gave that zero stars. Therefore, I hate it!
Oan: (wounded) ......what?

Snob: (rubs eyes) Wait a minute, wait a goddamn second... You're telling me that there's a 400-year old public domain script involving incest and murder called "'Tis Pity She's a Whore", and the intellectual crowd likes it?

  • Fridge Horror: In-Universe. He comes to the conclusion that the orgy in Perfume would have incest and sex with children due to people bringing their families to the execution.
  • Funetik Aksent: After dealing with the cavalcade of outrageous accents in Blood for Dracula, he finally puts up subtitles that transcribe everything phonetically ("What the heck is a 'sackhufbens'?")
    • It comes back sporadically in his Flesh for Frankenstein review. ("Come to Serbia! Try the 'nasum'!")
  • Gag Censor: Just about any time a Censor Box has to be used.
  • Genius Bonus: Due to the nature of the show, he of course likes to slip a few into the reviews. He's even commented on wishing to be listed on this trope in his commentaries.
  • Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Delivers this to the camera (re: the Nostalgia Chick) when he's obliged to 'correct' her opinion on a film's message.

"You! You! Yes! You, Chick, you! YOU should be explaining this to ME!! I am offended! Offended that I have to spell this out for you, I mean DEAR GOD--!!" {{[[[Throw the Book At Them]] hurls book at the wall}}]

    • A positive example to the Snob, who suggests they join forces to corner the grindhouse and the arthouse. ("I knew there was a reason I respected you.")
  • Godwin's Law: Couldn't get past the ending of Jubilee without constantly going back to the fact that there was a short scene featuring what he described as "Old Man Hitler".

"This film just Godwinned itself!"

"It's here that Roo's notes read 'Oh my God I can see forevarrrglblahhhh.'"

    • Most of Zardoz.
    • Revolutionary Girl Utena reduces him to a cackling lunatic.
    • Eat the Schoolgirl leads him to hogtie Diamanda Hagan in a bathtub and then attempt to dress her up as a snail.
      • Though part of that was apparently the result of being loaded with horse tranquilizers and having his testicles removed, as once the tranquilizers wear off he can't remember a thing.
      • Coincidentally, it was also a nod to Uzumaki.
    • After mailing Oancitizen Freddy Got Fingered, the Chick and Nella go to his hotel room and find a Room Full of Crazy.
  • Groin Attack: In the Zardoz review, Oancitizen takes "The gun is good! The penis is evil!" a bit too literally - he whips out a gun, walks into the bathroom, aims it at his crotch, we cut to black just as the gun goes off...

"AAAAAAHHHH! OHHHHHHH! How did I MISS?!"

Black and White Thingy: Then we will celebrate with many scoops of iced cream!
Oan: I... I can't make that line funnier.

Snob: Oh, come off it. We're nothing alike. Your suit is....green.

    • ...Along with Kyle and Brad's dodgy acting.

Brad: You didn't even memorize your lines!
Oan: (looks down at script) "I have no idea what you mean."

  • Inadvertent Entrance Cue: According to the Revolutionary Girl Utena The Movie review, any time someone is confused by an artistic movie, Oancitizen is teleported to them against his will. JesuOtaku notes that now that it's known, it's highly exploitable, and he then teleports away from the review, and once back, angrily tells her to not give fans any more ideas on how to misuse the spell. This could also be a meta-joke about how Kyle become the go-to guy for cameos about symbolism and artistic topics.
    • Kyle has sensitive ears and is very territorial about PHWOOLLIAM SHAXPAHR being reviewed by others. So much so, that he gets suckered into crashing Hamlet the Vampire Slayer.

Oan: I have drunk and seen the spider. There is a plot against my niche, my show. All's true that is mistrusted! Thou has usurped my art, and I remain a pinched thing; Yea, a very trick for you to play at will!
Lupa (helpfully): You drank a spider?

"He's turned her mummy into a...mummy."

"You want porn (points upward), the address bar is up there!"

    • From The Girlfriend Experience, on porn actress Sasha Grey:

"[she is known for performing] extreme acts on scree. I went online, and believe it or not, I found some clips of her doing these acts. I had to pixelate some things though [cue entirely pixellated, flesh colored screen and loud moans]

  • It Got Worse: Oan experiences a string of these near the end of Ken Park:

Oan: "Yes, director, I will allow myself to be filmed while drinking beer and simultaneously urinating. For the craft." I don't think it can get grosser.

  • cue molestation scene *

Oan: That was the most despicable thing I will have ever seen in my-

  • we cut to another character covered in blood *

Oan: Oh, God, he killed the three-legged dog, didn't he? I mean, I can't imagine him doing anything worse than that.

Oan: D:

  • It's Not Porn, It's Art: He has to deal with a lot of nudity in some of his film reviews.
  • Jacob Marley Warning: Todd in the Shadows hovers over Oan's bed at MAGfest, half-hardheartedly waving his arms. Finally, he resorts to just punching him.
  • If You Know What I Mean: The Anatomy of Hell opens with its female protagonist getting slapped by a random man, who then just stands there looking sullen. Wordless apology, or is she just handing him a stick of gum?

[unzips fly]
Oan: Hey, he did want some gum! ...'cause her gums are in her mouth.

  • Lampshade Hanging: Points out background noise picked up by his mic in his review of Primer.
  • Layman's Terms: So, Jason Witter replaced the original language of Hamlet with endless pop culture snark?

Oan: Wherefore is this columbarius film before mine eyes shown?
Lupa: [beat] Is that a real sen--
Oan: Why the fuck am I watching this turd?!

    • Freddy Got Fingered - The Nostalgia Chick starts to ask him how this film is "Dada", only for Oan to scream, "THIS CANNOT BE DADA! IT'S TOO NORMAL TO BE DADA! IT'S TOO SHIT TO BE ANYTHING ELSE!!"
  • Le Film Artistique: Aside from the films, and occasional film-within-a-film, in the show, the credits sequence is styled as one, including Gratuitous French credit "Kyle 'Oancitizen' Kallgren Presente:"
    • His film school movie PREtension, a parody of art films.
  • Limited Wardrobe - He wears basically the same clothes in every review.
  • Lost Episode: The Girlfriend Experience (only exists with commentary) and Sh*t TGWTG Fans Say.
    • And now What is It? due to legal reasons.
  • Mary Sue: He calls out the protagonist of Exterminating Angels on this.
  • Memetic Mutation: Invoked at the end of the Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs review.

Oancitizen: Now if you'll excuse me, I have to turn that whole tree thing into a meme.

  • Mind Screw: What Is It?, both the movie and the 'sketch.'

Oancitzen: I have three ties!

Rap Critic: That's him! That's RZA!
Oan: Oh, yeah, the-the Whooping Clan guy, right?
Rap Critic: WU! TANG!!

Oancitizen (in shock): NAKED NAZI Shirley Temple MASTURBATING WITH A RIDING CROP!

  • Nipple-and-Dimed: Since nudity crops up in his video reviews, he's forced to censor it creatively. Pictures of titmice, cats, donkeys, and Wii remotes are common, but sometimes, if he's feeling really silly, he covers them up with cropped pictures of nude statues.
    • Perfume - The Story of A Murderer actually managed to break the censor bar.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: An on-screen message pops up during '90s Kid's rant about the finer aspects of The Doom Generation to tell us that his words were actually part of the film's marketing.
    • Assuring that his MythBusters reference wasn't just random. Jamie Hyneman really did work the special effects on Naked Lunch.
  • Not So Different: In the review of The Girlfriend Experience, he 'inadvertently' draws similarities between escort and porn wesites, and being an internet reviewer. At the end of the review, he goes to work on his other job, as a host on webcam site LiveJasmin
    • Possibly the reason some see him as a The Cinema Snob ripoff is that the difference between a lot of his "arthouse" films and the Snob's exploitation movies seems to be purely In Name Only, as they both tend to contain similarly dark and disturbing content. (The other reason is that Kyle is a straight version of what the Snob is a parody of--a sophisticated cinemaphile). This is lampshaded in the Tromeo and Juliet review.
  • Not So Stoic: He very rarely breaks down or goes over the top, making those few instances much more powerful (i.e. his reaction to a disturbing scene in his review of Alice).
  • Obligatory Joke: Has openly stated he will not do some of the obvious jokes, as they would be "Too easy".
    • "Kenneth Branagh plays Hamlet. Emphasis on HAM."
    • "Here's a diagram -- a primer on Primer, if you will. [snooty chuckle] Huzzah."
    • And so, the characters of The Doom Generation "invoke the Power of Three!"

" Aaand I'm more than three-fourths of the way through a film starring Rose McGowan, and I finally make a Charmed reference. Go me."

    • Tideland's deranged beekeeper. "Aaaaand meme in 3....2....1..."
    • When a character in Ken Park randomly asks his girlfriend's mother, "can I eat you out?", Kyle explains that even though it's become cliché, he now has to play the infamous scene from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.
    • Hamlet the Vampire Slayer:

"This guy must be on loan from A Raisin in the Son of the Living Dead. A theatre joke, thank you! [to Lupa] Don't use that take.

  • Odd Couple: With Obscurus Lupa in their Hamlet the Vampire Slayer review; he's a highbrow critic and serious intellectual, she's a cheerfully goofy shlock reviewer who doesn't understand long words.
  • Oh Crap: During the "Otto" review, when he realizes he is about to see a gay zombie orgy.
    • During the Trash Humpers review (bear in mind, babies... don't tend to fare well in these kinds of movies):

"Was that a baby?...(looks horrified) Was that a baby?!"

    • Yet again during The Brown Bunny, when he discovers, to his abject horror, that the film is revisiting Gerry.

"...No. Oh, no..."

    • He realizes one second too late that he's invoked Rule34 and mentioned a Civil War real-person slash fic.
  • Oh My Gods "SWEET HEAVENLY MITHRAS!"
  • One of Us/TV Tropes Trollers: In his commentary for his review of Ken Park, he mentions using TV Tropes to find films to review when he started the show, particularly on the now-deleted Euroshlock page. He has now taken on W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, Sweet Movie, Exterminating Angels, and A Serbian Film, along with several of the American examples that were on that page.
  • Old Shame: When he posted the old review of The Girlfriend Experience on TGWTG, some comments came in, which he agreed with about the review coming off as slutshaming, and he contemplated removing the review altogether. He did say the intent wasn't to mock Sasha Grey for her adult film work, but the message he meant didn't come across clearly.
  • Overly Long Gag: "TREES!"
    • 55.5555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555...
    • The point in his review of Gerry where he tries to make up background music... a cappella style.
  • Phantasy Spelling: Oancitizen jokes that Mandragora from Twilight of the Ice Nymphs is "also probably a place for people who spell 'fairy' as 'faerie.'"
  • Pass the Popcorn: Admittedly as what he's doing is in fact watching movies him breaking out a bowl of it in a review normally would be considered a normal film watching activity. However he's an arthouse film reviewer which people don't usually associate with popcorn, therefore he uses it in his review of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai to highlight the more action movie aspects of some of the scenes.

(stuffing his face) "Ohh, right, the--the appropriation of foreign philosophies and the separation of idiosyncratic cultures, yeah, yeah."

Rap Critic: Kyle, NO! There's no way you can make this look good!!

Oancitizen: Then an OB/GYN unicycles into the room and -- I just said that sentence out loud, didn't I?

    • He repeats this little gem several times during 'Goodbye 20th Century':

Oancitizen: Nazi Harry Dumbledore punches Santa Claus in the face.

    • They raped a fictional baby!...I'm really saying this out loud aren't I?"
    • The first (translated) sentence of Exterminating Angels is: "The lampposts are in need of their long scarlet coats." Oancitizen dares the audience to explain what that means. There's also a later reference to "blood of airports...flooding blue grass."
    • "Hamlet's a cheerleader. Why is Hamlet a cheerleader?"
  • Real Song Theme Tune: "Procession of the Nobles" from Mlada by Rimsky-Korsakov.
  • Reference Overdosed: Used mainly to showcase similar tropes or ideas in more mainstream movies to help de-mystify the films to his audience.
  • Refuge in Audacity: He comes to the conclusion that A Serbian Film is attempting this, and since True Art always crosses a line of some sort, this is why he must review the movie despite The Cinema Snob and Phelous having also done it before.
    • "What Is It" was deliberately filled with all sorts of offensive things, the point being that the audience was to decide which of them was actually offensive. Oan takes umbrage at this, though, and says, "This is not art. This is trolling!"
  • Retraux: The intro to BHH shows a montage of auteur films, beginning with classics such as Citizen Kane and ending with Gerry and Trash Humpers, giving them the illusion of being old-timey films.
  • Rule 34: "Yes, Internet, there exists communist porn."
    • The review of Sebastiene contains a joke about American Civil War slashfics
  • Running Gag: During scenes involving male bodily fluids, Oan would take a sip of milk from a wine glass. Lampshaded during his review of Sebastian, when he can't believe it has become one.

"Woman carrying my child hit by a falling tree. FML."

    • During Jubilee, he would point out two "affectionate" guys are brothers, then say "Ew,".
    • A Serbian Film: "NEW! BORN! PORN!".
  • The Scream: Time to introduce Lupa's favorite Shakesperan characters: Rosenchad and Guildebrad! "Yo!" "'Sup?!"

Lupa: Geddit? Rosen-- hey, where'd you go?
[cut to bathroom door]
Oan: NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOHHHGODIWILLNEVERRRAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGHGH!!!

  • Self-Deprecation: Oancitizen. Apparently, the man ain't gettin' any. He is quick to point out flaws and mistakes during commentaries.
    • During his Naked Lunch review, he "telepathically" confesses that he does this show to cover up his insecurities about his intelligence.
  • Self-Insert Fic: He describes Exterminating Angels this way.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The man likes his syllables.
    • Used to make a point about Primer's boring cast. "These aren't characters. They're biological plot point initiation units!"
    • Referring to his viewership as "Ahem... enthusiasts of pop culture esoterica."
    • Unfortunately, his gift for verbage fails him when trying to understand anime tropes.
    • "Ah, beg your pardon, I have an inquiry. What is the semiotic denotation of a 'pinky promise'?"

Lupa: I just heard 'Blah Blah Blah big words pinkie promise,' so I can't help you.

Narrator: In our sick society, everyone is sick.
Oan: ...and our bad writers are bad at writing.

Jesu: I think you're beginning to lose your mind.

Oan: [dials phone] Hi, mom! Yeah, I just got done watching this French film and--FUCK YOU!

    • His epitaph for Gerry. Hey, it did one thing fantastically right.

"You really feel like you're lost in a desert. The scenery is repetitive, the sounds vacant. You wander aimlessly, every minute spent praying that the end to come. It will come when you reach the finish, or it will come with your own death. Hell, at some points you even begin to feel a little dehydrated at this movie. And should you emerge alive, you spend every waking minute wishing that you had never taken that wrong turn (or pushed that play button) and been dropped into a vast wasteland, traumatized by the void that you were dropped into -- and may never escape.

  • Stealth Pun: The title. While he reviews "Highbrow" films, many of the films we see tend to raise Oan's eyebrows in a different way.
  • Stepford Smiler: Oan spends the majority of A Serbian Film review in this state. Until his nose becomes a BLOOD GEYSER.
  • Sure, Why Not?: Goodbye, 20th Century was such a jumbled mess that it reduced Oan to saying this over and over again.
  • Take That: Halfway into Exterminating Angels, he realizes that the entire film is basically an endless parade of thin, attractive women acting horny around a dumpy middle-aged man. [cue Robert Palmer music video]
  • Tempting Fate: In Tideland, Oan compares the Alice themes to that older, creepier film he already covered.

"Well, at least they got rid of that cheesy, creepy stop-motion animation and [severed doll's head comes to life] -- BLUUAAGH!

    • Since it's animated, Oan is confident that explaining the themes and symbolism of Revolutionary Girl Utena will be a trifling matter for his mighty brain.
    • After being thoroughly mindfucked by the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, Oan resolves that he'll never let himself get roped into reviewing an allegedly deep animated show or movie again. Then the bronies get a hold of him.
    • Since Tromeo and Juliet is busy drowning itself in pornographic Shakespeare puns, Oan decides to join in, too.

Oan: Please. No Titties Andronicus? No Glory Hole Anus? No A Midsummer Night's Cream?
Snob: ...That one actually exists.

  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: Claudius' death in Hamlet (1996). "Oh I have to poison him? That's boring--EAT CHANDELIER, BITCH."
  • Too Soon: After seeing a stark funeral with black-clad mourners in a pure white room in Goodbye, 20th Century, Oancitizen asks, "So, who wants to bet Steve Jobs' funeral looked exactly like this?" He then raises his arms in triumph as "TOO SOON" appears to fanfare.
  • True Art Is Angsty: His description of Ken Park.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: A lot of his points are attacking this notion, either directly calling it out, or pretending to defend it while obviously twisting in logical knots.
  • Unexpected Genre Change: His review of Angels in America is a completely serious, highly emotional piece that has nothing negative to say about the film and ends with him directly urging the audience to educate themselves about HIV.
  • The Unfair Sex: Turns up a lot in the stuff he reviews, be it averted, subverted or played straight. Of particular merit in this regard is Antichrist and Anatomie De L Enfer, which deconstruct and defend this trope, respectively.
  • Unsound Effect: WANK!
  • Very Special Episode: His Angels in America review, made in honor of National AIDS Day.
  • Visual Pun: His censor bars are all about this.

"You have NO idea how long it took me to think of a good visual pun for "footjob".

"Ah Fresh Prince. Well, in the words of another famous rap lyric, DIE MOTHER FUCKER DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE."

Oan: Cannibal Holocaust DIDN'T USE REAL BOD--!! [cuts feed]

  • What Do You Mean It's Not Didactic?: One of his in-universe specialties is finding deep symbolism where it almost certainly doesn't exist. This is emphasized in his early blog posts and "Between The Lines" videos.

Oan: Would it be too didactic to reference Grotowski's Toward a Poor Theatre?
Lupa: I have no idea what any of those words mean. :D

Oan: Don't they know there are children watching this?
JO: Am I going to have to Sparta kick you out of the window? [cracks her knuckles]

"...Well, bunnies, chocolate, snails...trash cans, Italians-- this show is not healthy for me!"

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