[TaoHorror]

I watched Succession - another rich family fucked up deal - but it was another one I liked more than I expected. Not as good as Trust, but still fun to watch, give it a B+, maybe an A- for a good last episode for the season.

[TLEILAXU]

Watched the first two episodes of Haunting of Hill House.
It's some scary fucking shit.

[TaoHorror]

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.

[TLEILAXU]

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.

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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

[TaoHorror]

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.

(click to show/hide)

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.

[H]

If anyone has Amazon Prime, the new show Homecoming is rather good and definitely worth watching.  From the same director as Mr. Robot, but not written by him.  The show is good and engaging, only 10 twenty-something minute episdoes, so it doesn't drag or anything.  Definitely recommended, not to mention it does go into some tangential aspects of Bakker's "Semantic Apocalypse" sort-of territory.

[SmilerLoki]

Well, I'm a mature, manly individual, so I watch (re-watch, in fact) RWBY. It's awesome!

[TaoHorror]

If anyone has Amazon Prime, the new show Homecoming is rather good and definitely worth watching.  From the same director as Mr. Robot, but not written by him.  The show is good and engaging, only 10 twenty-something minute episdoes, so it doesn't drag or anything.  Definitely recommended, not to mention it does go into some tangential aspects of Bakker's "Semantic Apocalypse" sort-of territory.

I watched this, finished just now. I enjoyed it, bit more going on here than the fast pace of the story lets on. I agree, the 1/2 hour episodes helped, didn't hurt it ( as I thought it might ).

I like Esmail's stories take on "conspiracy" in that it's got only one toe in it, not immersed, which emerges a more plausible story. So, yes, there are "discreet" human networks/connections in leadership, but be wary of participation as you can be cut off/out unfairly, you're not 100% protected, these discreet relationships are not protected from the chaos they can yield, and there's infighting between leaders and bureaucracy has emerged from the complexity of modern society which exerts its agency as well. He really does a beautiful job of weaving these together in something both fun and believable/buy-able with Mr. Robot and now this, Homecoming. Nice rec, H.

[TaoHorror]

Well, I'm a mature, manly individual, so I watch (re-watch, in fact) RWBY. It's awesome!

I was getting into anime about 20 years ago ... and then I got married. I watched The Vision of Escaflowne back then and blew my mind, wow! Would be cool to take a dip back into it, but there's so much out there I wouldn't know where to start. I'm open to a road map ... hint hint 

[SmilerLoki]

Well, I'm a mature, manly individual, so I watch (re-watch, in fact) RWBY. It's awesome!

I was getting into anime about 20 years ago ... and then I got married. I watched The Vision of Escaflowne back then and blew my mind, wow! Would be cool to take a dip back into it, but there's so much out there I wouldn't know where to start. I'm open to a road map ... hint hint 

While RWBY is marketed as an anime, it's actually an American production, and distinctly low-budget one at that. In no way, though, does that take anything away from the show. I particularly like how it improves with each subsequent season. The only thing is, it's fairly simplistic, more so in the beginning.

Considering anime in general, I'm somewhat versed in the subject, but at the same time reserved about it. In essence, anime falls completely within the purview of Sturgeon's law, thus being not what exalted young people would lead you to believe it is. Furthermore, I would say it's very hard for mature audiences to get into anime, since it's either very strange or childish. Me, I like childish stuff, so there is no problem. But it's not for everyone.

All of this is compounded by the fact that many great anime shows are completely genre works, requiring you to watch many of their predecessors. It's the case with Puella Magi Madoka Magica (magical girls, with Sailor Moon as the trope codifier) and Kill la Kill (80s-style fighting animes). I think both are interesting to watch, with Kill la Kill being amazing and funny in particular, but I don't think it's possible to enjoy them outside of context.

That being said, my hands down favorite anime (manga, to be precise, but anime follows it almost word for word, fillers notwithstanding) is One Piece. It has, so far, only around 800 episodes. It's not even close to being over.

An anime show to start out and get a somewhat relevant look at the medium is, perhaps, Fullmetal Alchemist. More specifically, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, because it's a complete and concise story lifted entirely from the original manga (it's a good thing, and I wish it were done more in the West).

[TaoHorror]

Finished Altered Carbon. It was pretty entertaining throughout, though I never read the books. The nudity bit got less ridiculous as it went on, each episode probably a little less than the last, though still an unnecessarily part of every one.

Finally watched Altered Carbon. Strange experience - I did not think I would like it ( over the top for shock value shows are embarrassing, for which I thought this would be ), and after the first few episodes I was pretty sure it was crap - the technology just seemed too convoluted and arbitrary ( needlessly complex ) ... but ... I watched it to the end and I was pleasantly surprised, it was a lot of fun. Fun mystery and after a while I finally caught on to the "tech" of it ( maybe my small brain struggled with the overload of sci-fi information, you get schooled quick with a lot of detail on it - I'm like, Jesus Christ, where does it all end - but that's kind of the point of the environment, if we "advance" to this state, you're gonna get a lot of weird shit/by-products ). While not "amazing", it did turn out to be really good. And I'm a fan of Joel Kinnaman, he was great in The Killing - highly recommend that show, great detective(s) story. Joel sports a very impressive American accent, being a native Swede. He's damn good in Altered Carbon, I recommend it. And if you like detective shows, The Killing gets an A+ from me, great slow building suspense.

[Wilshire]

Finished Altered Carbon. It was pretty entertaining throughout, though I never read the books. The nudity bit got less ridiculous as it went on, each episode probably a little less than the last, though still an unnecessarily part of every one.

Finally watched Altered Carbon. Strange experience - I did not think I would like it ( over the top for shock value shows are embarrassing, for which I thought this would be ), and after the first few episodes I was pretty sure it was crap - the technology just seemed too convoluted and arbitrary ( needlessly complex ) ... but ... I watched it to the end and I was pleasantly surprised, it was a lot of fun. Fun mystery and after a while I finally caught on to the "tech" of it ( maybe my small brain struggled with the overload of sci-fi information, you get schooled quick with a lot of detail on it - I'm like, Jesus Christ, where does it all end - but that's kind of the point of the environment, if we "advance" to this state, you're gonna get a lot of weird shit/by-products ). While not "amazing", it did turn out to be really good. And I'm a fan of Joel Kinnaman, he was great in The Killing - highly recommend that show, great detective(s) story. Joel sports a very impressive American accent, being a native Swede. He's damn good in Altered Carbon, I recommend it. And if you like detective shows, The Killing gets an A+ from me, great slow building suspense.

Yeah the first episode appeared to mostly hope to grab people with explosions and sex, after which is then gave you a story and characters. Glad you ended up enjoying it - I think I felt mostly the same way as you.

[TaoHorror]

Finished Altered Carbon. It was pretty entertaining throughout, though I never read the books. The nudity bit got less ridiculous as it went on, each episode probably a little less than the last, though still an unnecessarily part of every one.

Finally watched Altered Carbon. Strange experience - I did not think I would like it ( over the top for shock value shows are embarrassing, for which I thought this would be ), and after the first few episodes I was pretty sure it was crap - the technology just seemed too convoluted and arbitrary ( needlessly complex ) ... but ... I watched it to the end and I was pleasantly surprised, it was a lot of fun. Fun mystery and after a while I finally caught on to the "tech" of it ( maybe my small brain struggled with the overload of sci-fi information, you get schooled quick with a lot of detail on it - I'm like, Jesus Christ, where does it all end - but that's kind of the point of the environment, if we "advance" to this state, you're gonna get a lot of weird shit/by-products ). While not "amazing", it did turn out to be really good. And I'm a fan of Joel Kinnaman, he was great in The Killing - highly recommend that show, great detective(s) story. Joel sports a very impressive American accent, being a native Swede. He's damn good in Altered Carbon, I recommend it. And if you like detective shows, The Killing gets an A+ from me, great slow building suspense.

Yeah the first episode appeared to mostly hope to grab people with explosions and sex, after which is then gave you a story and characters. Glad you ended up enjoying it - I think I felt mostly the same way as you.

I agree, it didn't need any of that - I'm not easily offended and as long as the visuals work for the story, I'm good with it. I guess I'm saying there is something to "gratuitous sex" being crap. But this quickly rises above it and becomes something. Maybe the writers thought it needed it to round out how callous the rich are to all else with the all else living in the mud. Blade Runner pulled this off much better in this respect - but in the end I did think AC was a very good show and look forward to season 2.

Now stop what you're doing and watch The Killing 

[sciborg2]

Happy! of Syfy.

As a Grant Morrison fan I liked it, I think it did a good job fleshing out a 4-issue comic short story.

[TaoHorror]

Happy! of Syfy.

As a Grant Morrison fan I liked it, I think it did a good job fleshing out a 4-issue comic short story.

Looks interesting, I'll check it out.