'Mommy XXX', 'Facehunter', 'Love Pop Trash' Try to Pass The Mustard

[Ed: This is the latest installment of our new weekly web series critic column Pass The Mustard. No sugar coating, no doublespeak, no hand holding. Just brutally honest reactions from one guy: Ned Hepburn. We’ll throw a handful of web series at him each week. Agree, disagree, love him, hate him, but please don’t punch him. Got something clever to say in retort? Leave a comment below. He’ll probably read it and embarrass you later. His opinions are his own, so take them or leave them. See last’s week’s column here.]

So this week, I got sent four shows. And I learned a lot about myself, and hopefully you’ll learn a lot about you. And then we can all learn a lot about each other. Say it with me: Friendship.

Also, I pan four web shows. I didn’t even mean to! That’s just what I got sent! So there’s that. Enjoy!

Love Pop Trash
Friends. Romans. Countrymen. What do I think about this? What do I indeed think about this. Is it good? Sort of. Is it bad? Kind of. I watched all of the episodes in the time it would talk to make most people to make microwave dinner, which I think is the fault of this show. How do you build a narrative in two minute episodes? They have character here, but nothing I can damn follow. God dammit. I’ve had whippits that have lasted longer than this thing. With a little more push on story, this could go further, especially the narrative between the mall cops. Other than that, it doesn’t hold my attention any longer than I remember this computer is also a machine I can view porn on.

The Facehunter Show

I LOVED BRUNÖ. Oh wait this isn’t Brunö. This is a guy with a bow tie doing a similar thing. This is giving me a headache. I can’t get into it. It’s mind numbingly pretentious, but, like how I like, I at least appreciate the fact that it knows that. Other than that it’s just awkward. I remember this guy’s original blog – when he wasn’t talking – and I enjoyed it a lot more then. I just can’t get into him talking.

Listen, I hate to shit on web shows – I really do. But this encapsulates the kind of vanity project that turns so many viewers off. Are you going for anything other than the 250 people that might “tooootally” get this show, Francois McCameraFace? This might appeal to the NYLON crowd, and for that, TADA.wav, I salute it. It might appeal to you if you can tell your Wintour from you windbreaker, other than that, I had to turn it off after two plays.

Sperm’s World

OH BOY. Really? Is this what you’re giving me this week? A web show about a sperm?

No. Capital N. Let’s just pretend I didn’t watch this. I liked this better when it was called Family Guy and it was the year 2003. Yawnsville.

Mommy XXX

Now, I like porn. And I like web videos. And I like porn web videos. And out of the four that I got screened this week, this was the most watchable. This is the most “episodic” web show I’ve seen, and wouldn’t be out of place on a (slow) night on A&E. (That being said, have you ever been to what we Los Angelenos call “The Valley”? This is that show. This is The Valley in a show. If you live in the area code and understand how blah-zay ‘the valley’ can get, you might understand how this show fundamentally is; as in, it’s a million fucking miles from Shakespeare).

I’ll put it this way. It’s like an Errol Morris documentary that I didn’t learn anything and Philip Glass was out to lunch. It’s aiming for greatness but seems to stop at the mall before it gets the library to learn anything. If they eased up on the “Gshaw! We’re filming a porn star!” thing, they might have something. It tries to be a popcorn show when it would serve better as an actual case study. Really, trust me. It’s close to brilliance, but shoots for schamltz. Why does it do that? Irony is a dead scene, friend-o.

Got a show you want to throw mercilessly at Ned? Email tips[at]tubefilter.tv