Berri's Couch

The oft maligned and deemed lesser of Laika's productions is now getting a good look in through our eyes and like a judge of fine cheese (I assume there are cheese judges and competitions) we shall pour over all of the details and find deeper meaning than others maybe thought was there.

Stop motion, horror and a moral about acting out in fear. Just a small portion that makes this Laika film what it is and we are digging it up, casting a spell and seeing if their is magic in this film or if we should just leave it alone to its visions.

Elementary wins goodnight. There are reasons we list out and we try to not devolve into just listing the bungling of one of the most popular detectives in known fiction but we don't need to be Sherlock to figure out it's just Elementary our dear Watsons.

Finally we hit the mid point of any character story to archetype pipeline, when we start making our own stories with characters that are only vaguely reminiscent of the book characters. Who handled this changed better Guy Ritchie with RDJ playing the well known detective or Disney with their small rodents in a hidden world that looks like ours?

The clues are being uncovered in the murder of the Sherlock Holmes character and his stories. We found the first set here with Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett's filmed adaptations. How will this connect to the larger picture if at all? Let's begin to unravel this mystery.

Now in a trend we accidentally started last year we look at another character archetype borne from a popular English literature character. Using deductive methods we will find out how this character was murdered in public knowledge and those who are responsible. But before we find the guilty parties we must start at the beginning....with Arthur Conan Doyle's books.

TW: Talk of dead animals from 34:34 - 36:00 The final offer of reality TV and it focuses on the home and whether or not it is acceptable. From home improvement to hoarders, from purchasing a fixer upper to getting the dream home over a wedding the home is something we all have but not always own for yourselves.

Sometimes we need help improving ourselves physically and mentally, and sometimes people make shows about beating all the individuality out of you for the approval of rando's on the street who you have never met nor care about. We look at the reality phenomenon that may have lead to an uptick in social anxiety for fear of being told you are wrong and should feel bad despite harming no one and bein...

One of the eternal issues we all face at some point that has now been monetised and exploited by networks while claiming possible educational purposes. Some walk this tightrope better than others and some are just cruel, but can any show in this genre be slightly redeemable?

*Quick correction it's Filmrise Television who are the producers who have the show on YouTube and Fuji Television were a producer as well* Iconic, often replicated never duplicated and game changing, all these are just the beginning of describing Iron Chef. we try to surmise not only the appeal of this cooking show but how it changed the landscape of cooking shows and all the children it spawned.

Now the avatar for girlhood and the other icon sacrificed on the alter of pop feminism. Her legacy is long and many have come for her crown but still she stands as a beacon of high femme power. We try to brief and run through all of her histories and relevance to both us and pop culture at large.

TW: Talks of SA, non-consensual sex relations and sexual violence from 45:46 - 51:55 A nice easy, breezy, beautiful, Covergirl style topic, that in no way is a mine field of a Gordian knot topic can lead to tripping on words as we try to empathetically explain the complicated relationship real life women have with sexuality and how media's exploitation and then demonization of it, is confusing and...

One of the most rapidly changing forms of storytelling and capacity for telling stories gets a look at how it handles feminine presenting characters. Does the young one of media forms do better or is it following in the well worn footsteps of those that came before?

Changing social norms, expectations from our stories and the surprise entry of a disguised villain, all the ingredients that went into making the marketable ideas of femininity presented in the renaissance era princesses of Disney. There is a tangent none saw coming but the discussion of complexity when creating the new heroines must be had as we will not be just brushing over them like some pop c...

Allrighty people we begin our defence of the feminine with the classic trinity of bad faith criticism princess. These poor girls are dragged enough and we stand tall and defend them and their narratives, they do have value and aren't bad role models despite what pop feminism says.

The ending of a legacy and we wish it was with more of a bang. Discovering the past through the journey of Strife while a world and lore building wonder how does the story itself hold up? How do we feel about the final horseman and O.G influencer Strife? Why does this feel unsatisfying as a Darsider game? All of these questions answered and more.

So we finally talk about the only female horseman and her girl fail journey through dealing with the deadly sins of man. In true human fashion we do mostly focus on the presentation of the often treaded, duplicated and revisited personifications of mankind's sins.

We're getting into the lore now, Bee is tethering herself down to try and stay on focus as we delve into the follow-up and expansion to the small breadcrumbs set up in the first game. Did the sequel hold up as far as story or should this have been a DLC to the first game?

In a change of pace we start to look at the video game Darksiders and the story it's telling through it's medium. Bee tries to stay focused on just this first game, Jerri looks into the uniqueness of storytelling through interactive media, and why this particular game stayed in our minds and quickly won us over.

How does a stylised Irish animation studio handle short films and shorter content? Really well as it turns out. We close off the discussion of Cartoon Saloon with a look at their short films and easily accessible behind the scenes content.

We finally watch a timely (and hard to find) film that stands out amongst the Cartoon Saloon filmography, The Breadwinner. A story set in Afghanistan during the beginning of the war on terror and how a family through bravery makes it despite their circumstances. Beauty, horror and a reminder that people are not the regimes they live in all balanced in this film and we discuss it to hopefully get y...

Despite the roughness in a voice we look at the finale in the Irish mythology trilogy produced by Cartoon Saloon and how it holds up amongst the others of its pack.

Selkies, sea, parallel story beats, Bee spewing ideas out at record speeds, family drama. We have everything in this episode that we dive deep into the themes and symbolism used in Song of the Sea. No seriously this film is deeper than one may think once you start paddling out into ocean of interpretation. Okay I'm out of swimming and ocean bits now.

An animated movie about the debated history of a book of prayers from the 9th century is certainly a description that could put off some viewers, but not us! Enter the forest of animation with us and see if there is an act of higher power or if all that lays there be wolves of mediocrity.

It is totally thematic for us to be all over this place for this *eyes move shiftily* totally thematic. We take a look back at the music video program that weirdly became a huge part of Oz kids lives because we needed something to watch before Saturday cartoons started. So what was Rage and why do we remember it?