American Vandal (2017)

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   Siskoid

   American Vandal is billed as a satire or spoof of true-crime programs, with high school kids trying to solve the case of teachers' cars being vandalized, but beyond the rude ridiculousness of a story where 27 dicks were spray painted on 27 cars and the ensuing dissection of those events, I wouldn't call it a spoof at all. It uses that format (warts and all, I don't think this a Netflix show needs the same repetitive syntax you find on TLC or whatever), but actually presents an engaging mystery story. It can be funny, but it can also go dark, and methodically thinks through not just the crime, but the impact a student documentary series would have on its makers and the people around them. It's a mockumentary, and yet very honest. A quirky and memorable surprise, that in the later episodes, becomes compulsive watching.
   
   Season 2: If you liked the first season of American Vandal, Season 2 just dropped and while you can never recapture the freshness of the original experiment, it provides just as a good a mystery, set of twists, and resolutions... As easy to chug as the original. The high school criminal - and they switched up schools, but not documentarists - is @theshitburglar, a poop-centric terrorist someone has confessed to being, but it's really not that clear cut. Though nominally a parody of "true crime" shows, American Vandal is rather a fair satire of high school culture (by fair I mean that it isn't a take-down job) and thus Millennial culture (on which it has something interesting to say). It seemed to have great fun this time around with its crafting of hypocrites whose dialog reveals more than they'd like. But turns out, it was all in servive of its theme. Will Peter and Sam graduate to a college crime next year? I sure hope so. 6 years 6 months ago

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