https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dUGhEtptZE
Well, I’m back from my short hiatus. It was a turbulent few days. But it’s good to be back.
Speaking of short hiatuses, James Rolfe and Mike Matei are taking a much needed break. But don’t worry. They’ll be back in February.
Wait. February? That’s seven months from now. What an oddly specific time. What’s happening in February? Are they going to do a big Black History Month celebration? Four games celebrating Black American culture. So…I don’t know…Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Def Jam: Fight for NY, ummm most any boxing game that uses real life characters, and…fuck. I don’t know. Oh. Moonwalker.
0:15 – James says, “All television shows take breaks”.
Mike will rebut this soon.
“Mike has always brought up to me like, ‘Hey, one of these times we should take a break and just catch up on stuff.”
Did he specify a time period? “Hey, James. We’ve been doing these James & Mike Mondays videos for eight years now. Maybe we should take a SEVEN MONTH break.”
It’s fucking insane. In case you’re unaware, these videos are filmed in six to eight hour blocks ONCE A MONTH. So once a month, James and Mike get together and play video games for six to eight hours.
Whoa. Slow down there, James. That’s A LOT of work. Do you need a break, champ? I don’t want to stress you out. Maybe we should take seven months off to let you recoup.
And watch these videos. I used to really look forward to them. That was YEARS ago. James stopped even pretending to care years ago. He can’t even fucking stay awake any more.
One day a month. One eight hour “shift” of playing video games. He can’t do it. Fucking Erin is playing more video games than this.
He’s special needs. I don’t say that as an insult. But yeah, there is no way that he could function in a regular job. “Working” one day a month, playing video games, it’s too much for him. He needs a seven month break. Recharge the old batteries. Then in February, he’ll be fresh and ready to go again!
Anything can happen seven months from now. Maybe Youtube will demonitise everyone. Maybe Irate Gamer will suddenly become the angry video game reviewer that everyone watches. Maybe there will be a total breakdown of society leading to a Mad Max type of anarchy. Everyone starts dressing in S&M gear. James becomes Mike’s bitch like that blonde guy who gets killed by the boomerang in the second movie.
You can bet that James will be regretting this decision then. “If only I would have worked one day a month for a little while longer, I might have made enough cash to avoid this grisly fate.”
The gravy train won’t last forever. One day people are going to say, “You know what? I don’t care what these two boring old fucks have to say about NES games.”
Indeed, that day may have long since come and gone. The series has been awful for ages.
1:00 – Mike says, “Giving us a break for a while will help us catch up for a while so we’re not so stressed out by it.”
He said this right after he talked about how they film this shit in batches. And sometimes they’re way ahead (by months, presumably) and sometimes they have to do a video by next week.
Oh dear. You mean that you only have seven days to make a 10 minute video where you play a video game? How do you guys do it? It sounds very stressful. I mean, that’s like two hours’ worth of work right there.
Here’s an idea. Work full out for one week. 40 hours. Now, hold on. I know 40 hours is a lot. But that’s how most people live every week of their adult lives. Try it out as an experiment. And then afterwards, you’ll have FIVE MONTHS of material. So you don’t have to do this awful shit where you play video games for FIVE WHOLE MONTHS. Pretty good reward for one weeks’ worth of work.
It can be done. Just get a bunch of different shirts to create the illusion that you do these every week. And don’t talk about current events. Not that you do anyway. It’s all about that delicious *nostalgia*. Then you’re done. You can relax for the next five months. Totally stress free.
Or what the fuck, do two and a half weeks of full-time “work” playing video games to get your ENTIRE YEAR done.
1:15 – James interrupts, “I really enjoy doing these and people enjoy watching them.”
He sounds totally unconvincing. But he knows that this is what he has to say because it’s blindingly obvious that he has no fucking interest in this shit.
1:45 – Mike says, “James was mentioning that it’s like a tv show, I know that James & Mike Mondays is a Let’s Play thing, it’s not a tv show but we’ve been doing it for eight years and we just need a little bit of a break.”
Oh, go ahead Mike. You need a SEVEN MONTH break from playing video games one day a month. You two go-getters have earned it.
James & Mike Mondays started as low-effort filler material. They were trying to capitalise on the low effort videos that Pew Die Pie and the like were making. “Why are we putting all of this effort into bad skits and whatever when we can just yell at a video game like Pew Die Pie?”
Now they need a break from this low-effort filler material. Even low-effort filler material is too much work for them now.
2:00 – Mike says, “We’re taking a longer break now but in the future, I want to build in breaks so that this doesn’t happen again.”
Oh poor baby. You guys need breaks from your one day a month “job” of playing video games. I get it.
I work like 15 hours a week on average. The job is really easy. But compared to James and Mike, I’m a real dynamo. I’m hustling my ass off compared to those lazy fucks.
2:15 – “Maybe we’ll record videos for a year and then take a month off or something.”
Oh my god. I said that as a joke earlier. Is that really what he’s saying? So they’re going to work for two and a half weeks, straight out, 40 hour weeks, and then they’ll take…a month off? What does that even mean?
Oh. Maybe he means that they’ll do a year’s worth of videos in their usual one day a month fashion and then they’ll take a month off because they’re extremely lazy.
“Like any other tv show, normal thing would get, you know?”
I’m afraid that I don’t. Earlier, Mike said that it’s not a tv show. But here he’s comparing it to tv.
A tv show is a big production. You have writers, actors, directors, network executives, sponsors, whatever. It’s a lot of work.
James & Mike Mondays is two unemployed do-nothing fucks sitting in front of a stationary camera playing video games, poorly, for a couple of hours at the most. James can barely even keep his empty head up during these.
2:45 – James mentions that Rental Reviews is also done and says, “So it’s not like the same sort of relentless schedule.”
ONE DAY A MONTH for James & Mike Mondays. And I’d say the same for Rental Reviews. Two days of work A MONTH is a “relentless schedule” for James. It’s insane.
He didn’t even work on this shit. For Rental Reviews, he just showed up, half the time he didn’t even watch the movie, and then he says, “yeah” a bunch of times and periodically checks his notes. He was god awful and put no effort whatsoever into these.
And for James & Mike Mondays, he just shows up and plays a video game. These are even less effort than the low-effort Rental Reviews.
3:15 – Mike starts talking about other hip and cool content that they can do during this SEVEN MONTH break. “Remember that Abbott and Costello thing we did?”
No. No, I don’t remember that. I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. It couldn’t have been good.
His other example is that TMNT pizza taste test video. Yeah. That was stupid. And that was like 20 years ago. It’s one thing to see college kids doing stupid shit, it’s a whole other thing to see middle aged men doing stupid shit.
3:30 – Mike concludes, “We will be back in February so we will see you then.”
He sounds desperate. It’s wishful thinking. The series is done. We will all have moved on by February. Indeed, James checked out YEARS ago.
Then they start the final edition of James & Mike Mondays. James is still hiding in his home because he’s afraid of getting coronavirus. I guess. Much more likely is that he’s the world’s laziest man and can barely even get out of bed in the morning.
And then Mike plays this fucking game. I already watched 11 hours or whatever of Mike playing this game on Twitch. And in this James & Mike Mondays thing, he has no clue how to play it. So this was obviously filmed before the Twitch stream. I don’t want to watch this shit. It’s awful. It’s just Mike playing the game really poorly, not knowing what he’s doing.
So that”s that. I have to assume that the cancellation of James & Mike Mondays as well as Rental Reviews is because James just can’t be bothered to do this shit any more. He wants to devote more time to his true love: poop. Rectal Reviews: coming soon.
Tony has taken up Rental Reviews. I’ve seen it, I’ll do a review of it, but spoiler alert: it’s so much better with Rainman out of the picture. I’ve said this for years. James is the worst thing about Cinemassacre. By far.
Mike & Tony Tuesdays, again, way better than James & Mike Mondays. Bizarrely, Mike seems to be sabotaging it by acting like an asshole in every episode but it’s still better than the dreadful James & Mondays. And the weak link in that series is, of course, Mr Autism himself: James Rolfe.
Anyway…I’ve spent? What…an hour on this shit? Maybe two. I need a seven month break now.