Absolute Cinema 🪓

Plus: It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later

blog.eighty-four //  If you scroll past our weekly edition of The Neighborhood Watch, you’ll find an accompanying section titled “Judd’s Corner.” 

I am Judd. And that is my corner of the blog, where I document whatever fragment(s) of the Internet caught my eye during a particular week.

I try to find things that make me stop scrolling—things so compelling that I can’t help but delve deeper into the why and the how.

A couple of you have even told me, in person or by message, that a certain video hit the same way that I’d hoped. Nothing brings me more joy than hearing that. Seriously, thank you.

Unfortunately, though, with my time in Chicago coming to a close—and my semi-professional commitments (school) looming closer by the day—I fear I’ll have to shutter “Judd’s Corner” for the near future.

But that doesn’t mean our time together is over just yet. So without further ado, scroll down to enjoy your weekly Neighborhood Watch review. And, if you find yourself craving more must-sees from the wonderful world of creators (and beyond), feel free to scroll a little further, too.

— judd the intern

judd the intern, signing off

P.S. Want to contribute a review for Neighborhood Watch? Pitch us here.

P.P.S. Last blog, we recapped a very special one-year anniversary. You can read it here.

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Video: ‘1000 Players Simulate Civilization: Rich & Poor’ (2025)

Creator: Alex “ish” Kisiel

Runtime: 2h 34m

Review by: Nate Graber-Lipperman

Darth Vader. The Joker. Fluixon.

Three pop culture legends that will go down in the history books for their dastardly contributions to the very meaning of villainy.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Star Wars is a universe first created by George Lu—er, wrong review. No, Fluixon steals the show of Alex “ish” Kisiel’s latest Minecraft masterpiece, a social experiment that begs the question you never knew you needed the answer to:

What would happen if you mixed Lord of the Flies with the most popular video game of all time?

In Kisiel’s block-filled world, one thousand players are picked from his Discord server and split evenly among two islands. Each player is given no instructions, free to do whatever they want over a ten-day period…with one exception. They only have one life; if they die in the game, they’re removed from the server.

But the true twist arrives alongside the islands’ introductions: one island is a “rich, green paradise” full of resources. The other “is a barren wasteland.” And the players have no idea what surprises the islands have in store.

One island was welcomed to lush fields (left), the other… (right) / ish

What follows is a two-and-a-half-hour cinematic experience that truly needs to be seen in order to fully grasp its scale. One player, Schpood, arouses suspicion upon giving his peers rare food for free. Following an assasination attempt on his life, he rides his newfound martyrdom all the way to becoming the bloodthirsty Emperor Schpood, going so far as to build his own rendition of the Colosseum.*

Another player dons pink and reserves room to create her own Barbieland. Upset with this land grab, a rival assumes the identity of *checks notes* J. Robert Oppenheimer—and quickly begins assembling a nuclear arsenal (the nukes miss their target; Oppenheimer and Barbie resolve their differences and host a wedding by the end of the ten days).

Two media companies even emerge, with a New York Post-esque tabloid accused of sensationalizing stories and spreading fake news on who murdered whom. When some players catch wind of in-game journalists tracking their sins, the players concoct crisis PR strategies—strategies often involving some form of skipping town overnight.

The real heartbeat of this epic saga, though, is the relationship between Fluixon and his old pal, Saparata, a duo that had collaborated in Kisiel’s previous simulations. Yet after a fatal betrayal—and a conspiracy plot aptly named The Conspiracy—the-friends-turned-enemies wind up on a collision course from which one shan't emerge unscathed. And no venue could better play host to the final showdown than, you guessed it, Emperor Schmood’s Colosseum.

At this point in the review, you may be asking yourself, four hundred words about a Minecraft simulation? Really?

The players rally in their own death game Colosseum / ish

But as a former child who never yearned for the mines, I can confidently say that Kisiel’s piece succeeds because of his clear knack for storytelling. Sure, the video is cut in a similar vein to the challenge genre that continues to dominate YouTube, with essentially no shot lasting for longer than five seconds and heavily-stroked text accompanying the majority of VO.

Nevertheless, sweeping visuals of a custom-built Minecraft server can only carry a story for so long. No, it’s the way Kisiel mixes all the unique subplots that emerge into one cohesive narrative, capturing every twist and playing his participants’ dialogue off of each other in a way that, quite simply, flows. The creator has shared that it took him two years to complete his magnum opus, and that effort clearly has not gone unnoticed (“this is one of the greatest videos on youtube,” top gaming creator Ludwig Ahgren tweeted this week).

Of course, as a viewer, the video does get hard to track at points. Yet creative storytelling devices (like highlighting the gossip raging in the server’s chat) help bridge the gaps. Besides, even after two-and-a-half-hours, it's not like every thread can be closed, anyway.

"It's a big world, so it's not a surprise that many stories like these won't end,” Kisiel narrates. “But I think there's beauty in that."

A Minecraft Movie (2025) may have made a billion dollars at the box office. The People’s Minecraft Movie, however, is hiding in plain sight.

Nate’s Score: 4.5 / 5

Series: the zurkie show (2024– )

Creator: the zurkie show

Runtime: 15m 19s

When I’d first pitched the idea of Judd’s Corner, this guy (and this video) popped into my head. Zurkie has been in the creator world for a while, bouncing from childhood skits recorded with friends and Minecraft let’s plays to Brockhampton fandom videos and, now, journaling.

On TikTok, Zurkie shares adapted excerpts of his journal entries with the world. It started in October 2022, when Zurkie first showcased his filled-to-the-brim journal, which he had been working on for two years. Let’s just say the video resonated.

Zurkie’s notebooks are more than ready to burst at the seams / zurkie_

Nowadays, he has the aforementioned voiceover journal talks on TikTok, yes—and they’re as raw and unfiltered as a one-minute TikTok can be. But he also has what he likes to call a “21st century fireside chat” via his YouTube channel, the zurkie show. 

The channel’s videos range from four-to-thirty-plus minutes in length. They're uncut, lyceum-like talks about what's on Zurkie’s mind.

Today’s choice—a video that touches on wasted time, and our relation to it—showcases all the skills Zurkie has built up in his lengthy vocation of creation: a camera-friendliness that has to be trained; a library of thoughts that can only emerge from journaling, day after day; and a brand new scenic background to accompany each individual episode.

With the zurkie show, Zurkie has built something where he is able to completely communicate his thoughts with the world—on a much deeper level than he ever could’ve in his past creative lives. It really is the case of someone finding their niche and flourishing in it, and I couldn’t be more happy to see how far he takes it.

Judd’s Score: 4/5

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Video: ‘Friko - Where We’ve Been (Official Video)’ (2024)

Creator: Friko

Runtime: 5m 8s

I feel like I can’t end Judd’s Corner without mentioning a group with some of my all-time favorite creators—who just happen to be from Chicago.**

Friko, as a band, has been iterating upon itself for a while; demos from former permutations of the band date back to 2019. But it wasn’t until 2024 that the group came together to release their first full-length album. 

The record—borne from hundreds of hours of studio sessions that lead vocalist Niko Kapetan, drummer Bailey Minzenberger, and producer Jack Henry clocked in between their day jobs—has a broken exquisiteness ringing through it. The indie album crashes orchestral and atmospheric aspects with Niko’s elegantly-aching vocals. Plus: guitar distortion beyond belief.  

“Where We've Been,” the title track from the album, characterizes all of these elements perfectly. And the video—a raw, almost visceral picture of their performance through a digitally-degraded lens—only emphasizes it.

Every time I watch this video, or just listen to this song, I’m brought through a wild cyclone of emotions that hasn’t been properly replicated by anything else. These fragmented orchestral-like ballads and anthems hold these two opposite elements—the beautiful brokenness—in flawless tension.

Judd’s Score: 4.5/5

Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.

* Chaos is a ladder, after all.

** Quite randomly, all three of today’s featured creators are from Chicago or the surrounding suburbs.