So I came into this thead expecting people making lists of their favorite shows. Turns out it was better. But for the spirit of the board, I'm watching:
Better Call Saul
And that's it. I was watching Fargo's second season, and I will be watching GoT. At this point, I think Fargo and Better Call Saul are easily the best dramatic television on-air right now (or now-ish). They're both astonishingly good -- at first it was in spite of their premise, but later it was just plain great storytelling. I mean really, a Saul spin-off and a show based on the movie Fargo? The former I was interested in but had very low expectations for, and the latter I completely wrote off until I kept hearing about how great it was.
BCS is not only just as good as Breaking Bad, but I think it has the chance to be better (way too early say). It's like Breaking Bad without resorting to "easy" drama and tension with violence and drugs and so forth. What's amazing is not just the similarity in quality, but in tone. You could literally watch all of Breaking Bad and then immediately jump into BCS as if it were the same show, and it works flawlessly. The prologue of BCS, in itself, an incredible epilogue to Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad spoilers:
I legitimately got chills from the first couple seconds of BCS's prologue. We know Walter is dead, but it opens with a shot engulfed by the color white, first from snowfall and then from (hilariously and depressingly) the powder of the Cinnbabon store Saul/Jimmy is now working at. The scene is shot in grayscale, which only emphasizes the sensation -- Walt is dead, but the after aftermath of his actions are all-consuming for those who where involved and lived to the tell. Whatever doubts I had about the show evaporated almost immediately.
Fargo...Fargo is just some crazy good shit. Season two especially, having moved further from the format of the movie that inspired it, also has some of the boldest decisions in storytelling on TV that I've seen since...I don't even know. It's effortlessly great, and I can only see it getting better the more it develops it's own identity.
Game of Thrones...well, it went from it's highest highs in season four to its lowest lows in season five, IMO. I'm not a book purist by any means -- in fact many of the original things the show has done were fantastic additions to the series, especially work-arounds of POV characters. But it has rarely improved on the books (even on parts that weren't great to begin with), and season five was pretty goddamn dismal in a lot areas, despite having one of the best large-scale action sequences in TV history, pretty easily rivaling that of most big-budget fantasy movies. But it wasn't enough. I actually think the next season will be better -- the freedom of not having any real source material to adhere to may allow for a more natural plot development than the half-in, half-out nature of season five -- but ultimately I'm less excited about GoT then I ever was, and that sorta sucks.
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Ancient Aliens
Now that I'm finally on-topic, I'm kinda tired of writing so this will be briefer than I intended, and hopefully I'll get around to expanding on my thoughts (heh).
1. I like watching Ancient Aliens because it gives me ideas for sci-fi and fantasy stories, but the inane stupidity of certain things gets old after a while, and I definitely think a lot of borders on being offensive to other cultures and their heritage by robbing them of value because it's just impossible that people could have built a fucking pyramid.
2. I really don't think aliens of any kind (other than perhaps microbial ones) have had any meaningful impact on humanity -- or earth -- whatsoever, though I do believe the universe is probably brimming with life, inteligent or otherwise, and our perceived notion of an "empty cosmos" is more because the cosmos is inconceivably gigantic (both in space and time) to an extent that no human can begin to imagine. We can't even really fathom the size of our own solar system, let alone our galaxy -- or the other however-many-billion galaxies out there. As some guy on that show The Universe once said: Assuming our universe is uninhabited based on our current investigations is akin to taking a dixie cup, dipping it into the foam on the seashore, and declaring the ocean void of fish when it's empty.
3. I strongly agree with MSJ's (and other's) notion that past societies were a bit more sophisticated than we give them credit for. Well, a lot more sophisticated actually. Philosophically, we're still struggling with the mere possiblity that free will doesn't exist, whilst many Buddhists realized -- and fully integrated -- such a notion into their ideology a thousand years ago (though to be fair so did many other religions).
4. I also pretty strongly believe that there were relatively advanced cultures from our past that, from being surrounded by more primitive societies, lacked the supportive "infrastructure" to sustain for any significant length of time. I also think that the common notion of "civilization" only starting 10,000 or so years ago is very likely to be challenged continuously. The timescales involved -- and the specific circumstances required to preserve any evidence of such societies -- are so demanding that, to me, there's simply no way there aren't vast and complex civilizations that existed, but which we simply have no way of knowing about. And I'm not even talking the typical lost civilizations you see referenced, like Atlantis or whatever. I mean history books worth of peoples and customs we literally have no clue about whatsoever.
Native American cultures still have oral histories about woolly mammoths. There were monitor lizards the size of cars in Australia less than ten thousand years ago. And we now know -- or at least, can reasonably theorize based on current knowledge -- that humanity spent a big portion of it's increasingly-recent history living alongside other Homo sub-species, with at least the Neanderthals and Denisovans as contemporaries. I'm not saying every legend is rooted in historical fact -- which at times seems like the secret premise of Ancient Aliens -- but I also think a lot them come from relatively minor embellishments on things that only SEEM crazy and mythical to us today.
Started watching Westword, I feel like the show will be talking about consciousness, in a manner which TSAers will appreciate.
Finished the show last week and this was absolutely fantastic. Probably one of the best TV series I have watched - right up there with some of my favourites.
A wild SilentRoamer appears!
I too finished Westworld recently and it is damn awesome. While there were a few pretty minor quibbles I had with it, there's nothing even close to ruining the show for me -- nor dampening my anticipation for the next season (like three years from now). And I think almost all of my issues would have been removed or alleviated if I watched the show once all the episodes were available. There were a lot of random things that were bothering me (particularly a certain character death near the end of the season) that felt out of place or like it was going nowhere, but given that this was a Jon Nolan project, I held out hope that the finale would fix them all -- and boy did it ever. Honestly the entire season is a set-up for the payoff of that finale (not that there weren't great scenes elsewhere, the finale felt like the show was done trying to mislead the audience or feed them mystery after mystery, and instead it was tying knots left and right in a most dramatic fashion.
It's also fucking WEALTHY with great actors in the main cast. Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris need no introduction, but Christ, hat scene in the bar between them with Teddy feels like the new DeNiro vs Pacino diner sit-down from Heat. Jeffrey Wright is always, always good, and his character was the one I ultimately felt most attached to other than perhaps Maeve, whose characterization and acting was phenomenal. I've seen a lot people elsewhere complain about that plotline -- the only part I didn't like was the redheaded guy, and simply because his acting wasn't up to snuff (which is extra irritating when the actual character is meant to be unlikable, because it's sort of a double whammy).
Evan Rachel Wood is really the "breakout" here though -- she's had plenty of other roles, many good, but I haven't seen anything as demanding as this one. She spent a tremendous amount of time this season being very believably "robotic" and then at least as much, if not more time, utterly distraught and on the verge of mental breakdown in an utterly human way. Sustaining either of those modes is challenging enough for a long period even in a movie, let alone a show of this scale. While I thought her plot-line did loose speed a bit in the middle, again like every other strand in the story, the finale rectified it completely.
If I had one legit critique, it would be that I wish they spent a little more time discussing the nature of the technology at hand, more details of the park's inner-workings (especially security), and of course the notion of consciousness itself. I would've traded several of the action scenes for more of Hopkins and Jeffrey Wright talking the Bicameral Mind theory or what have you -- and I fucking love a good action scene, I just wasn't super impressed with the filming and choreography of them. The Man in Black's action was the best because it was the most orchestrated, and Hector Escaton (great name for a very fun character) and his crew's robbery sequence was well shot and scored, even seeing it a couple times over. Also, the scene with Maeve's friend from the brothel when they demonstrate the robots combat prowess was equal parts disturbing and bad ass.
Oh yeah, speaking of the score -- fantastic. The intro song and accompanying visuals are immediately among the best ever,
Also (finale spoilers): That grin on Ed Harris's face when he saw what came out of the woods and realized -- at least on some level -- what was really going on here with "Ford's new storyline"...priceless. Almost wish that was the closing shot. It's funny, but this show genuinely captures intrinsic elements of a video game better than literally any video adaptation ever made -- I mean that's not a high bar exactly, but still. There's a lot of clever stuff tucked in there that will be familiar to fans of gaming, especially open world games or MMO's.
Better Call Saul -- Continues to be far, far better than a sequel/spin-off series has any right to be. The "big courtroom scene" was amazingly well-done. Howard Hamlin is my favorite supporting character other than Kim (whose basically the third main protagonist at this point). The way he ran-without-running around Chuck's yard in the one episode was fucking hilarious. Also really liking how the feud between Hector and Gus is being fleshed out, with Mike and Nacho's storylines being folded into that.
Fargo -- Still good, though this season is much slower burn than the first two seasons, especially the second. That being said I think it will likely have a very strong ending and the pieces are starting to come together. Some people (not here, just generally) seem a little down on this season, but I recall that the first season was only "suprisingly strong" until that one-year jump in the last couple eps, at which point shit really kicked in gear
. I feel like a similar thing is happening here -- a lot of set up being done for a balls-to-the-wall crazy finale.
Aside from the policewoman (drawing a blank on the character's name), I actually think this season's actual "heroes" are intended to be Nikki and Sy rather than the Stussy twins, who serve almost as red herrings for their respective supporting characters. Both twins have relatively minimal agency, instead making decisions and actions based on influence from Nikki on Emmit's side, along with Sy and/or Varga on the other brother's end.
BSC ep 9 was really good. For Jimmy to do that to poor ol' Irene..I think Saul is about be born. Kim, I feel so bad for her, yet you knew something like this was gonna happen, with the way she's been pushing herself. Nacho, give me more Nacho. He's scenes are great and he's an excellent actor to boot.
Started Taboo last night.
Got through first 3 episodes and I'm really liking it. Tom Hardy is great. I hope we get to learn about his mom. I also love the way he is playing The Crown, East India and the US against each other all at once.
Ok! Time for updates on Tao's tv watching experience.
Finished Fargo season 3 - this was the most brutal of the 3 seasons in my opinion.
Loved what they did with the girlfriend - she was presented as a cheap destructive hustler, turns out she's a ninja,
LOL! It was slow moving, but wow, what a great story and even greater characters. The acting was sublime, so many characters were so cool and acted so well.
Finished BSC season 3 - and the greatness goes on and on ...
Felt awful for poor Kim in the end, but appears she needed that accident ... the quality of her work is outpacing her constitution. The BB characters have been great, looking forward to season 4. How many seasons until they run into the BB story line, I wonder ... with the writers being so clever, I bet they don't end it right there.
And Beard, you fuck! You never gave me the scoop on Peaky Blinders and why I should give a shit about that show. Is it art or just booollshit?
Watched the first two episodes of Haunting of Hill House.
It's some scary fucking shit.
I was thinking of watching this, I'll check it out, thanks!
EDIT: wow, it has a 9.0 rating on IMDB - not easy to get a rating that high. I don't put a lot on ratings as my tastes often don't align, but 42k+ people averaged to yield such a high rating, must be really good.
Yeah the IMDB rating was part of what convinced me too.
I liked the show, in particularly the first couple of episodes. It starts to oscillate a bit in quality after that and the ghosts lose effect as they're shown more and more. The ending just sucked though. Saccharine bullshit that doesn't match the tone of the rest of the show
Penny Dreadful
I'm a big fan, 3 seasons, so so love the theme, the time, the place, the cinematography ( horror makes me happy ). Fun to watch, but it does get long in the tooth with one of the central characters, Eva Green's character, Vanessa Ives. So this show brings to life the horror stories of the late 1800's/1900 into a single connected story ( vampires, Frankenstein, etc ). I don't give it an A+ as it drags at points and the ending was a missed opportunity, for which I'll discuss below as bad bad spoiler, as in I discuss the ending in detail. If you have the patience, it is worth the time and you'll like it. Extremely dark, very beautiful, fun story, great characters, but Frankenstein, his monster and his bride steal the show - all 3 upstage the main character, Vanessa Ives - but not her fault, Green appears to be a very strong actor, so the blame lies at the feet of the story and director. Genius mixed with some blah, gorgeous cinematography with exceptional "secondary" characters ( I put that in quotes as the supporting cast get a lot of screen time, I was actually surprised Green's character is listed as the primary protagonist, but makes sense as she has the most total screen time, but not more than 50% of it ). The show is worth it just for Frankenstein and his monsters - brilliant. And the other characters are great as well. Kinda odd they struggled the most with the primary character of the show, but at times Ives shines and is interesting.
Be warned, bad bad spoiler here, hope if you read it doesn't deter you from checking this gem out.
The Ives character fails and embraces her destiny as the Mother of Evil, the harbinger of the End of Days. She's essentially resisting this eventuality and is racked with possession like attacks throughout the show. The rest of the cast confronts her and her boy friend, a powerful vampire ( don't recall if he's Dracula, but would make sense if he was ). Yeah, they "win" and stop/kill her, but the ending sucked, pure and simple. The Frankenstein monsters weren't a part of it - it would've been perfect as the "heroes" confronting Ives/Vampire were outmatched and couldn't beat them, so it would've been perfect for the monsters to show up being unaffected by Ives' powers ( they're dead already ) and the Vampire ( no blood to suck ) and kicked some evil ass with their own brand of evil. At the very least, Frank monster bride ( Lily ) should have been there, arguably more evil than Ives, but in a more worldly way which is ironic as she's not even a "person". John Clare ( Frank's monster ) and Lily ( monster's bride ) were A-MA-ZING. The show is worth it just to see them, but the other characters beyond Ives were exceptional as well. Anyways, the director missed an opportunity to have a wild cool ending in lieu of the "heroes are out classed, no way to win, but just finally find that string to pull ... ", kinda boring, kinda formulaic. Sad really considering the rich depth of the rest of it. It was like they didn't know how to end it and ignored the obvious.
Dark
Dark is a German TV show on Netflix. They did a good job with the dubbing, so you can watch it in English if you want. 2 seasons out, 1 more to finish it off. I can't discuss it meaningfully without spoiling it, so here goes. I don't give away any plot, but the frame of the story will be ruined for you which, while revealed during 1st season, will take the fun out of discovery for you if you read my thoughts on it here.
Dark deals with time travel - a "what if" in a normal small town in Germany. It deals with Time Loops and Paradoxes better than any show/movie before it, even 12 Monkeys. This show gets an A+ from me - clever, strong writing, good acting. Very fun to watch and doesn't get long in the tooth - which is it's genius, really, as there is quite a bit of slow reveal to the story, yet it doesn't dull at all. Slow moving horror, love the stuff. And it cleverly helps you out keeping track of who's who in different time periods by showing the the same person when it changes time periods - so the last person you're looking at is the first person you see when it jumps forwards or backwards. While complex, you don't have to take notes to follow it. Tricky stuff to pull off, pretty impressive. I like the Paradox concept, when something goes back in time, it's source/creation is no longer valid - it no longer has a source creation point, so you can have events occur that couldn't have occurred without the item/person going back in time which makes you scratch your head as to how it could've happened in the first place, which came first. So what does that mean to a person who cuts their cord by going back in time ...
Thanks for the heads up, I missed first episode and it ain't on In Demand, so I missed it.
H - be a sweetie and provide a Spoiler response here with a quick run down of episode 1 so I can just jump into the 2nd this Sunday? Pretty please :) :) :)
Wait you want me to spoil it? Haha, well, ok. It's a really good episode though, so I'd highly suggest watching it, if you somehow can. But, if it's not possible, well, then here you go:
So, the episode starts out with Angela confronting Price. She basically lays it all out there, how she wants revenge on White Rose. It's a pretty powerful scene, I'd highly suggest at least watching this clip here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYir1_e4x70).
Now that you are back, what happens next is that two Dark Army guys show up and promptly execute her. Turns out, Price was wearing a wire for White Rose. Price is pretty unhappy (remember, Angela was revealed to be his daughter) with how things turned out.
Jump to Elliot, basically having an interlude where he blackmails a lawyer to get info on White Rose/Dark Army. The end result is the guy give him some info, but ultimately decides to kill himself rather than play the whole thing out.
Darlene shows up and is way cracked out. That is basically her only role in the episode, she refuses to believe that Angela is dead, which we learn, aside Darlene, Elliot was provided evidence of. So, Darlene spends the episode losing her shit.
Then we have the FBI lady. She has kind of locked herself in her mother's house, not doing to well. After a brief interlude to show how paranoid she is, we get a scene where, basically, it's shown that the Dark Army is on to her and is going to do bad stuff to her family if she doesn't go back to the FBI and cover for them.
Tyrone Wellek is basically being hailed as a hero, it seems that the Dark Army or whoever, has gotten the economy back to functional and he is the figurehead. He doesn't seem happy about it all though.
Elliot gets impatient and despite only having scant info from the lawyer guy, moves on it. Turns out, it was a trap. Elliot gets caught, dragged back to his apartment and they cut and cook some presumably sketchy heroin, or a heroic dose or the like. They hold elliot down and give him an obviously-intended-to-be-fatal dose of it.
They go and he spends a fairly long time on the floor, trying to get to the phone, but he can't do anything, he just flops around a bit and then is pretty clearly dying. He stops moving, screen fades to black, credits roll, end of episode.
If you bothered to read all that:
Except not.
Cut back, Elliot on the floor, same guys who drugged him give him intranasal narcan and he wakes up. We see it is Price there, not Dark Army.
Actual end of the episode.
Sorry, had to at least try, in lieu of you actually seeing the episode to capture at least some of the suspense.
The Watchmen TV show has also been quite good. At first I was figuring I wouldn't care, since these were new characters, but in actuality, the show is well done and quite interesting in it's own right, plus there seems to be tons of nods to be movie and the comic books. I'd recommend it, but only if you already saw the movie first.
+1 ... I do my best to go into something with no expectations, but fail frequently ( reminds me of an enlightenment precept to be without thought ... I digress ) and thought I would be let down. Not at all - this thing has legs. It's weird comic-booky is best I can explain it, but stays true to the comic/movie atmospheric contrast of pop music/imagery and violence - some is kick you in the gut kind of stuff, you'all will dig it being fans of PON. The lead Sister Night is awesome - always like the actor playing her, but she shines in this thing and tickles me when she, "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!", the indignation of it comes through. Kinda a spoiler as this part I'm about to talk about is in the current episode 7 ( show ain't over yet ), but nothing earth shattering, but I'll put it in spoilers anyways for any who might care. So far so good, I love the show and has a mystery going on that's on it's surface looks simple, but underneath it's getting really cool.
Jeremy Irons, in his typical fantastic self, plays Adrian Veidt and apparently is stuck in some bizarre kind of ( Manhattan? ) prison and is at a "trial" and he's the defendant representing himself. When it's his turn to present his defense, he just leans forward and lets out a loud long fart and declares, "the defense rests" - I know, sophomoric, but it's really funny. Sorry, had to share that, the show is so much more than this simple ( not so simple ) scene
I'm purposely not reading the Joker discussion as I've not seen it - my oldest son screwed me over, we were supposed to go see it together and he ditched me to go see it with his friends - so now looking like I'll be waiting for it on demand, sigh ... looks good.
Mr. Robot Spoiler Discussion
Hmm ... not sure I really dig the finale all that much. I liked the show, thought it was pretty cool. I thought the father issue reveal was out of left field and the mastermind personality reveal - I don't know, just seemed to fall flat, having a hard time articulating why
Consolidating - rating 2 movies that under-performed:
Ad Astra: has a 6.7 IMDB rating and deserves it. I watched it last night on a friend's recommendation ... wtf. Good story, should've been more exciting. Boring as fuck for a fascinating topic and theme. Stupid cheapo thrill stuff added for no fucking reason ( like getting attacked by "raiders" on the Moon - you're the US fucking military, you can't have it both ways with a Mad Max meets the military scenario - whatever ). Has a few moments, I guess - the theme/message/story all was sound, just dumb directing.
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. Fuck, man. Big let down, I guess I'll put my comments in spoiler, but don't bother, too fucking stupid to watch. I mean, I was so excited for Abrams treatment given how much I liked Rogue One ... but then this descent into mediocrity, sigh, someone shoot me in the head and be done with it.
I need to be a fucking director. The Sith are fucking evil mother fuckers - shelve all of the over the top power shit and add some grease to the thing and you would have a really cool, horrifying story. Like I wouldn't show the Sith, just make it a mystery like a hunting thing where you only see the evidence of their passage. I know Star Wars ain't a mystery, but mystify them more. The ending was over the top, he's dead-no she's dead-no he's dead crap. Arbitrary massive powers showing up - just really bad writing, artificial ( not artful ) surprise, real amateur hour stuff. I guess Abrams ran out of ideas or something. It's like it decided episodes I/II/III weren't so bad after all and made episode IX just like them, wtf. I don't know how this train got derailed, the new movies showed promise, but this one sucked.
Not sure if anyone was/is watching the Netflix show Messiah, but it was fairly interesting.
I plan on watching it. Gonna watch The Witcher first.
I watched The Terror, Season 2. Not as good as the first season, but that's a pretty high bar, the first season was excellent. But Season 2 was pretty good. It's a slow crawl to the end, but worth it. Some not-really-so spoiler stuff below, but it is information you don't get until near the end, so I'll put it in spoils. The only knocks are the first 2/3 of it is an investment, it's slow moving. But it's a pretty good period piece, some nice historical fiction about the Japanese Internment Camps here in the USA ( some serious bullshit going on there - the actual history, I mean, hard to believe it really happened given our "protections" ). Good story, acting and ok directing. Certainly not required viewing, but some good stuff with this thing.
I really like how 2 different myths/lore/religious rituals from 2 different cultures come together/clash and yeah, some arbitrary elements that weaken this show some, but not too bad.
I like your observations on the characters - maybe I'm dismissing this too quickly as I've soured on the pacing of popular television and too quick on the draw to write it off. And I like the Q discussion with you and H on Manicheanism and Gnositicism vs Evil as perspective. Not really much of a spoiler, but regarding current episode:
What did you think of our demon villain's ( hero? hee hee ) at the end of this latest episode "therapy" session? The more I think about it, the more genius I think it is - just too funny seeing his therapist being an actual demon creature and he's hallucinating, perhaps? I'm guessing much of what the team discovers can be eventually scientifically explained with the subjects simply being mad - but the music episode is hard to argue that's just science. And at the end of the first season, we'll get a taste it's actually real.
I watch so much fucking television, you'all don't need to watch any of it, just wait for my reviews ;D
I watched The Irishman. Long movie, but very well done. It was a real treat getting to see Pacino, Dinero and Pesci all on the same screen at once, pretty cool. Pacino and Dinero's parts were not new to them, but still excellent per usual. Pesci stole the show, he really strutted his acting chops in this thing. It's worth the investment, I'll put more on kinda spoilery
The slow crawl to "the incident" is fantastic, it creeps up on you and when you realize it's happening, it's very intense - very well directed.
I watched The Witcher. I liked it. After a few episodes, it appeared to be just a rehash of the short stories in the first book, which I read and I initially thought that was a mistake as a collection of stories with no epic tale would be boring. But stuck with it and glad I did as as an epic story does emerge. The magic is, well, hmm ... not sure what to make of it, it's very witchy and fairy tale-esc, seems both limited and unlimited and depends on the sorcerer's gifts - I guess we're supposed to learn that on our own, which is good the show doesn't hold your hand on everything - but that said, it's challenging to write overly powerful characters and abilities as you can always think, "why didn't they do that, they did it before ... ". Given the OP nature of the magic, they still did a descent job with it.
Caville did a good Witcher - not too challenging due to the lack of dialogue with the character, just brooding around being a badass, but he did it well. The monsters and lore all fairy tale style, quite a bit of violence, typical fantasy female hotty tropes and nudity ( not tasteful, but also doesn't seem too gratuitous, but that could be me becoming jaded ).
It is very well directed, doesn't hold your hand, we're on our own to piece it all together. There are time jumps with no date/time stamps, but it was fun to keep up and it beautifully weaves together toward the climax. And there are no maps either, so you're having to visualize the continent ( which has no name, it's just The Continent ). This is a strength of the show, it doesn't mire you in a historical introduction and just gets right into it. I think you cats would dig it, not the greatest thing ever, but it's different enough and good enough to enjoy it.
Apologies for being unkind, but His Dark Materials is a weird fucking show.
Someone told me it's young adult fiction, which is fine ( then likely not for me ), but there's some evil shit in this thing that makes me scratch my head as to the intended audience - unless the new young adults are into hyper-violence ( violence/torture against children, in this case ). Many legs of the story are stupid, but the story arc has potential, could turn out to be pretty cool. Most of the day-to-day story isn't good, but it's being acted by some exceptional artists, so we end up with a blob of genius with the inane. Ariyon Bakare and Ruth Wilson are excellent and pretty much steal the show. The child actors are poorly directed, so hard to tell if they have any talent. I don't know - I watched the whole thing, but it was a crud splicing of "kids can save the world from the adults" and some seriously evil shit. I'll watch the next season, it's got me too confused to pan it just yet ( confused as to whether I like it or not, it's not a complex story and it's easy to follow ). I'm guessing the approach for this is inspired by Stranger Things - not the story itself, it's completely different - but from teen heroes facing real horror, but the nasty in this is even worse and the heroes younger still.
I watched The Outsider - pretty good, I liked it.
I would've liked it more if it didn't involve the supernatural, but that said, not sure how it could reconcile the cool mystery of someone being in 2 places at once without the boring missing twin solution. But it was pretty good horror all in all.
Yeah, The Outside turned out decently. I think they did, ultimately, fail to capitalize on how good the first couple episodes were, but the show was still entertaining.
Yeah, the first episodes were really good mystery/horror. I was mulling over how it could've been a time travel or ghost thing - the "thing" shooting birds at the cameras when it was intentionally generating evidence of it being in town when it couldn't have been, like a which came first - the person falsely accused and it's ghost/future self coming back to screw over the people/cops/lawyers who arrested him, destroying his family's lives. I hadn't put much work into this idea, but if it was a revenge thing of some kind toward the protagonists and the pros were the real fuckers, a modern day witch hunt gone bad kinda thing, that might've been more interesting than the devil's comes down to Georgia theme it took. I'm not a writer, so I'm not expressing my idea here very well. But otherwise, why was "it" shooting birds at the cameras? Just something cool/confusing toward the cops? Expressing it's hatred of it's food/humans?
Yeah, the first episodes were really good mystery/horror. I was mulling over how it could've been a time travel or ghost thing - the "thing" shooting birds at the cameras when it was intentionally generating evidence of it being in town when it couldn't have been, like a which came first - the person falsely accused and it's ghost/future self coming back to screw over the people/cops/lawyers who arrested him, destroying his family's lives. I hadn't put much work into this idea, but if it was a revenge thing of some kind toward the protagonists and the pros were the real fuckers, a modern day witch hunt gone bad kinda thing, that might've been more interesting than the devil's comes down to Georgia theme it took. I'm not a writer, so I'm not expressing my idea here very well. But otherwise, why was "it" shooting birds at the cameras? Just something cool/confusing toward the cops? Expressing it's hatred of it's food/humans?
Well, I don't know that there is a "good" reason for it, but we could sort of invoke the notion of, if we don't know why someone did something, figure it was to do exactly what it, in fact, did. So, it was to incite the cops, make them more zealously move to prosecute the accused. In this way, they would, at least in theory, be less likely to really consider the contradictory evidence that might present itself. I worked pretty well honestly.
We could likely come up with others, but that seems at least sufficient to me.
War of the Worlds
On episode 4, and man, this is some evil shit ;D ;D ;D
Yeah, we went ahead and just watched the whole thing, all 8 episodes. Pretty good show, although I don't speak French, so after some dedgy subtitles, I probably missed a bit on few parts, but likely not much. I hope they do go ahead and make a second season.
Ok, I finished it. This show has legs, pretty fucking good.
If I'm getting some of the subtext/mystery correctly, this is some pretty cool, evil stuff - weaving apparently beautiful side effects of the eschaton into mad fucking designs ( again, if I'm understanding it correctly ). Made to have multiple seasons, the first season does not conclude a story arc, so a kinda awkward cliff hanger to the season. As long as there are more seasons, I won't knock it for just stopping in mid air. Very well written, directed and acted. A few weak spots in the writing with some convenient situations, but that's offset by many more unfortunate events and it's not as clumsy as Walking Dead with perpetual last second saves by fellow survivors, so it's much better directed in this respect. I like Walking Dead, but this show is better.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
So, head and shoulders better than that piece of shit The Hateful Eight, but that's a really low bar to clear. I guess I'll put this in Spoiler, but you don't have to waste your time watching this. A mishmash of excellent directing with poor writing. Tarantino's evolution has been bizarre, guess that's fitting given how he comes across in public. His directing skills appears to be as good as they've ever been, but his writing has gone into the toilet. Another alternate history with ( I think ) a beautiful capture of what it was really like in late 60's Hollywood with real and fictional characters mixed in fictional events/endings. So the "history" of this is very good with tiny textures that tickle like seeing people's dirty feet up on theater seats, but that's what it was like back then, there was a lot of bare-footing going on and while now the sight of that is ugly, back then it was normal ( I grew up in the 70's, we weren't so dainty, even many of the rich weren't ). The big problem is the movie is just boring. Too much of it is historical texture, not enough gas. A story/production is as good as it's weakest component, so this was a long slog watching this thing. He weaves the story with apparently unrelated events/unconnected characters, but he simply did so much better with Pulp Fiction than he's doing now.
Yeah, with all of the nice tapestry to this film, it's just too boring. Nice feint in the end, the ending is really the only part that gets going, but since we've sat through 2+ hours of slog that would impress the Skin Eaters, it doesn't propel ( like a great melodrama would ) and simply stalls on us, too steep a hill to climb. But there is some clever stuff in this, I'll admit. So in the end sequence, there's narration which was absent for the movie up til now. And the narration is one that explains the weave - but it actually doesn't and was not only unnecessary, but irrelevant as well, which I think is humor to Tarantino's thinking, kinda leveraging the 50's/60's narrative we get in movies/shows as a thing in itself, not something that helps the viewer and indeed, detracts for what actually happens - a feint. I think Tarantino was both giving homage and shitting on 50's/60's movies, but it doesn't have the interesting mystery of Pulp Fiction or the action of Inglorious Bastards. He shits on hippies and kinda shits and loves on Hollywood in equal measure. The "gist" of this was to build to something historically accurate and then takes a left turn into fiction. Interesting idea, just too much time spent in the texture of an era without really saying much about it. I will give it props for Sharon Tate - in a way, since she doesn't get murdered in the movie, it highlights how awful the reality is that she did - so some nice art there.
Killing eve.
Wow, that was a great show. Jodie Comer does a fantastic job acting. She plays a psychopathic killer and does an amazing job being cold/uncaring psycopath, but she also jumps back and forth between that and and a persona of caring/loving/human emotions. The range it great to watch, she makes the show.
Finished season 2 and thought it was the end (I think that's all that's on hulu). Great ending, though its up to season 4 now... I thought ending at 2 made a lot of sense, so I'm a bit skeptical of the other seasons.
This is a fun show - something that purposely does not take itself too seriously, some cool humor to it, but weaves with some nasty callous violence and pulls the campiness off without being too absurd or campy. I'm caught up to current season and it's been fun to watch. Nothing to learn from this thing, just straightforward quality entertainment. Agreed, Comer steals the show and offers us a special blend of a person who enjoys the mundane silliness of life with a ( somewhat fantastic - but fuck it, keep it fun ) highly skilled/effective assassin. Psychopathy is correct as she is not shallow, but eliminate human life without pause if same is "inconvenient".
The internal conflict with her "enemy" is pretty cool, such a mind job to be hunting someone you know is deeply in love with you.
We watched Dark on Netflix. Went with the original German, rather than the dub, since I usually hate dubbed things.
I don't usually go in for shows like this one, but I have to say it is well done and entertaining. Season 3 comes out in 11 days or so.
VERY FUCKING SPOILERY
Some damn fine writing with this thing, imho. Someone fighting with their different selves from different time periods is some cool stuff - there's 4 versions of him running around now, right? I kept track of 3, but the 4th one I forgot his timeline. Having the pro and antagonist as the same person and it not being a split personality thing is great stuff.
We watched Dark on Netflix. Went with the original German, rather than the dub, since I usually hate dubbed things.
I don't usually go in for shows like this one, but I have to say it is well done and entertaining. Season 3 comes out in 11 days or so.
VERY FUCKING SPOILERY
Some damn fine writing with this thing, imho. Someone fighting with their different selves from different time periods is some cool stuff - there's 4 versions of him running around now, right? I kept track of 3, but the 4th one I forgot his timeline. Having the pro and antagonist as the same person and it not being a split personality thing is great stuff.
Yeah, I still have some doubts about it actually being him, but maybe that isn't the actual "gotcha." Maybe the kicker is already implicit in his "new" name. Why an Adam with no Eve? Not that there can't be, but perhaps Martha (or Marta, I can't tell what he name should actually be) is the Eve to his Adam?
In other words, while this alternate universe Martha seems like a surprise, maybe she isn't really, and all of that has also already happened before.
True Crime
So, while not "into" true crime, I have dabbled and it's been descent. I've seen Forensic Files and the like when I was out of town in a hotel - while not great, I've enjoyed much of it. I've seen 2 True Crime "documentaries" lately and will give my thoughts. Guess I'll put in Spoiler, but not really needed since this is "factual".
I'll Be Gone In The Dark
Not very good. Very repetitive. It tries to pull off 2 things: The tragedy of Michelle McNamara's death and solving the mystery of the Golden State Killer. It failed at both. About 10% of this is fascinating, so if you're patient, you might like it. Oddly spends too much time on Michelle and her obsession, but fails to give enough insight into her. Not saying I need to know her, but it was trying to get us to know her, so ...
The mystery is very cool - but didn't spend enough time on it and too much time on the victims ( which they did since they obviously didn't have enough material for this thing ). Makes me wonder what her contribution to solving it really was. If a few things are true, then she did contribute, but they gave it so little focus, it makes me wonder. If it was her idea to use the ancestry websites to zero in on him, then she solved it in that sense and deserves credit. Also, if she did connect more crimes to him than the police/FBI did, she gets high marks for that as well since it widened the amount of available DNA to test ( which was decades old, so pretty important ).
Don't Fuck With Cats
This was pretty good, I enjoyed it. It got to me much more so than I'll be Gone In The Dark - which is either my jacked self feeling more for animal torture than human torture or it was the better work ( maybe both ). It was hard to watch at times, I got to give it that, almost looking away and had to stop to take breaks. That's pretty powerful documenting, if you ask me. Some wicked psychological stuff with the suspect engaging the online group trying to find him, etc.
The ending was classic - so part of this is the obsessive tracking of the suspect by these online sleuths and one of the major players gives "us"/the audience, a talking to, berating us for watching this documentary, that if we weren't the voyeurs we are than this person wouldn't have done what they did. I laughed hard at that, not sure if I've witnessed such a pure act of projection such as this - someone who lives socially on the internet scolding others for being on the internet at all. Like a super gun enthusiast with a stockpile of armaments looking down on me for having a bee bee gun.
Its been awhile and I'm not reading the thread atm. But, have any of you watched Dark on Netflix? The time-traveling one, there a couple different "Dark's" on Netflix....
Its probably...no, definitely top 3 all-time TV series I've watched. Its finished and if you haven't watched, GO WATCH IT!!!
Its been awhile and I'm not reading the thread atm. But, have any of you watched Dark on Netflix? The time-traveling one, there a couple different "Dark's" on Netflix....
Its probably...no, definitely top 3 all-time TV series I've watched. Its finished and if you haven't watched, GO WATCH IT!!!
xxx removed my spoiler response xxx
Yes, we've discussed Dark, but it's so good, it's worth talking more about it.
Very sharp writing, clever directing ( so even if you get lost with the time travel, you can still follow the story - that and they keep you up with the last person you saw is the first person you see in the next time jump, so the show connects who is who for you and does so artfully, not forced or clumsy ). The beginning of the 3rd season is a bit long in the tooth, but if you can stick with it, it pays off in the end. The whole different "versions" of a person fighting each other is very cool and it shows the effects of time travel concepts, providing rich understanding of loops and paradoxes. This show treats the subject better than 12 Monkeys tv show which was very enjoyable as well.
Interesting both shows share a common theme of time travel leading to apocalypses, that pilling paradoxes will destroy reality, etc
Yeah, Dark is really good. I think the only criticism is that it probably could have been a bit better in the end, but certainly well worth watching and it was certainly interesting/entertaining.
ENDING SPOILER
I actually liked the end - it was interesting that it was the "paradox people" were the only ones who grew to awareness that they had to destroy themselves/prevent their births to fix it all - no one else could figure it out and were just going around in time murdering people to fix it, LOL!
"... if I can just kill this one person at this point in time, it'll undo everything ... fuck, that didn't do it, now I have to kill them in another time ... now I have to kill them in a parallel universe ... fuck, killing all of these people is exhausting, phew! ... "
The only way to end the loops is to prevent paradox people from being born as killing anyone else before they can time travel just creates more paradoxes. Several levels of stuff going on with this show, pretty cool.
TH, fixed that..
I actually like the ending too. I thought it was a perfect way to bring all that destruction and heartache to a end. In the "fixed" version, they don't even know what happened. Thought it was really well done. I'd have loved to watch that show season by season and speculate as it came out. That would have been TSA-worthy speculation. Anyhow, its one of my favorite series I've ever come across.
Your Honor
Very good, well done.
Not much of a spoiler, but kinda
These toilet flushing stories aren't my thing, really, but this was very well done for what it was. I call stories which just go south the whole way down without coming up for air "toilet flushing", like Leaving Los Vegas and Bloodline. I like sad or tragic endings, that's fine, but when the thing is just a straight line into a ditch, not fun to watch.