Television

[josiahmorgan11]

anyone watched the new refn thing ??
going to start it tomorrow after i finish my history exam [wish me luck please i'm dying & never been so stressed about an exam before]

[DT.]

^ Gonna start it after Deadwood, haha.

Good luck with your history exam. I don’t miss them myself.

[josiahmorgan11]

I saw the first episode and really liked it but it has some galaxy-brain post-feminist critique stuff going on. If you like other Refn, you'll be onboard, I guess, but this one seems blatantly not self aware at all. Will have to rewatch, though. Didn't pay enough attention; had/have too much on my mind.

[eleanor]

I've been considering it - not really big on Refn and I have a bunch of stuff I want to watch soon but it's definitely a possibility

[josiahmorgan11]

I thought the first episode (film? 90mins?) was absolutely hilarious. If you're not a Refn fan, this is all of his worst tendencies, and he's at his least self-aware. But it's hilarious, well-made, and often strikingly similar to Twin Peaks: The Return in its use of silence and 'gaps' in action.

[pabs]

I just finished the first season of Netflix's Suburra (2017).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GcC9kduhO4

It was excellent. I love Rome, I like gangsters, I enjoy partners-in-crime, sexual tension, and family drama.

8/10

Onto season 2!

[pabs]

DARK, a German Netflix series. I'm up to the third episode of season 1, and really enjoying it. It's about mysterious disappearances of kids and time-travel. I much prefer it to Stranger Things, which I tried watching but couldn't get into at all, giving up on it mid-way through episode 3 of its first season.

[wba]

Watching Sex and the City and enjoying it. I'm currently at season 6, should finish this week (also the two features).

[Roscoe]

Season 6 -- is that about the time that Carrie Bradshaw relocates to Paris, and gets all pissy at Baryshnikov because he actually has a career that gets in the way of him spending all his time revolving around her and her alone?

[vaka]

I watched first season of Atlanta and it was really good. It digs into some psychological and social classes struggle with a sense of realism.

Also watched Ricky Gervais After Life, highly recommend it.

[Roscoe]

Watched a few episodes of SCHITT'S CREEK, and found once again that the high quality of the performances is the main draw. I'll keep going with it, despite that goddamn Chris Elliott.

[wba]

Season 6 -- is that about the time that Carrie Bradshaw relocates to Paris, and gets all pissy at Baryshnikov because he actually has a career that gets in the way of him spending all his time revolving around her and her alone?

Yes, that's the one. Although she's more like "I'm not THAT into you and that whole Paris thing" in the end.

[Roscoe]

Yeah, how dare that internationally renowned artist dare to think of anything other than her and her column. Carrie Bradshaw's abject stupidity and sheer GREED knew no limits. It came as no surprise that Mr. Big's first name turned out to be John.

[---]

Watched a few episodes of SCHITT'S CREEK, and found once again that the high quality of the performances is the main draw. I'll keep going with it, despite that goddamn Chris Elliott.

that's a canadian classic!

[Roscoe]

I'll be honest -- nine tenths of the appeal is that tasty Daniel Levy.

[kanafani]

Stuff I've seen in the past few months:

Better Call Saul (Seasons 1->3): Super-fun show. Pretty much on the same level as Breaking Bad, (expect maybe for Breaking Bad season 4).
GLOW (Season 3): Only 10 minutes to go in season 3. One of the very few Netflix series that's not total derivative garbage. Feels like some creative people actually enjoyed themselves making this. Wonderful cast.
Deadwood (Season 1): Cocksucker fuck cocksucker fuck I like it, I'll watch season 2 soon.
The Expanse (Season 3) This is a good sci-fi series. Kind of weak on compelling characters and engaging dialogue, but the world building and the plot are engaging, in case you're into that kind of stuff.
24 (Season 2): I could not finish this shit, maybe watched 25%.

[pabs]

I just finished the second and latest season (2019) of DARK. I was very impressed and at times got quite emotional. It was excellent in so many ways. I was thrilled. This is top notch stuff. There are only 18 episodes in all (10 in the first season and 8 in the second), so I got through it quickly - it's so addictive. Pop psychology and amateur philosophy are thrown in at times to give it a sense of weight and seriousness here and there, which is fine by me.

I've seen it described as "'Stranger Things' for adults".

Best thing about it was the writing and the cast. An exceptionally talented bunch of actors.

8/10 Wunderbar!!

[Roscoe]

The new TALES OF THE CiTY -- watched a couple more episodes of the new series, after having been grossly disappointed in the first episode, and found no real improvement. The characters remain resolutely one dimensional, social issues in period clothes preaching issues and exposition to the converted. The relative humor and warmth of the original is NOWHERE in evidence.

[pabs]

I finished watching the 2019 UK 6-part series YEARS AND YEARS.

It's a family drama set in the near future, 2019-2035, and it's oh-so very depressing. A far-right populist party eventually wins elections and the nation, morally and ethically, goes to the dogs, with so-called undesirables spirited away in the dead of night and made to disappear.

All in all, a solid cast, though I'd tire of certain characters sometimes. Emma Thompson was absolutely terrifying as the vulgar, uneducated Vivienne Rook, the leader of the populist party that ends up ruling the UK.

If this is what the future holds, we're all fucked.

[thoxans]

watching the west wing. halfway through the second season now. enjoyable stuff so far. of course, i'm a sucker for political dramas and snappy dialogue, so...

[Roscoe]

Very taken with FLEABAG -- laugh out loud funny and sad and infuriating. She's marvelous, and you get Olivia Coleman, Bill Paterson, and in Season Two that dear little Andrew Scott.

[pabs]

^ Yes, it was marvellous.

[nrh]

kind of struggled with the first season of mindhunter - there was a stiffness to everything that i found unappealing, and while fincher's disdain for his subjects (especially the holden character) is welcome it doesn't give the series a lot of room to breathe.

by the end of season two it's turned into a near great show though - all of the characters are interesting to watch, andrew dominik and carl franklin as directors get to exercise pretty distinct touch as directors (for tv), the end notes are of great frustration and broken hopes, kind of like tv version of fincher's own zodiac. not perfect by any means but one of the only prestige streaming shows i've liked so far.

[Roscoe]

Finished up FLEABAG -- yeah, I got it. One of the best acted series I've seen in a while. And any chance to watch good old Bill Paterson, man...

[pabs]

I put links for the whole of series 1 of Babylon Berlin (2017) in the R section in case anybody'd like to see it.

[Roscoe]

Meandering through SCHITT'S CREEK, and finding a lot to admire and enjoy. Catherine O'Hara gets me laughing more than I'd thought humanly possible.

[Roscoe]

WATCHMEN on HBO. Caught the first episode. Can't imagine bothering with any more. It worked so hard to be so Very Very RELEVANT and so very very clever scattering visual clues all over the place to be picked up in later episodes that it never for a moment got around to putting anything even remotely like an actual person onscreen. And a cheap easy irony at episode's end was only saved from utter vulgarity by the fact that I didn't recall ever hearing a certain character addressed by name -- I found that little nugget of foolishness only when checking out the AVClub's recap.

[josiahmorgan11]

Counterpoint: I thought WATCHMEN on HBO was one of the most brave, potentially inflammatory pieces of work I've seen in a long time. It was VERY challenging viewing and frequently frustrating, and playing with absolute present-day fire. It's still to be determined whether the show can balance the ballsy stuff it's playing with and may turn out to be in bad taste after all, but.... well, I wouldn't write it off just yet, even if you didn't enjoy it :: Lindelof has earned a lifetime of goodwill after The Leftovers and tends to play the long con. I'll be sticking around. I thought it was excellently directed, to boot.

[Roscoe]

Interesting -- WATCHMEN certainly seemed to reach for braveness and inflammatoryness, and it was that very effortful "look how CONFRONTATIONAL we're being!!" that was a good deal of the annoyance for me. The episode screamed its own IMPORTANCE in every single frame.

[josiahmorgan11]

I think there's a degree of that sense with the provocative imagery at the end; I'm particularly drawn to staging the 1921 Tulsa Massacre as a reworking of the "Superman-escapes-Krypton" origin story wherein Black Wall Street is the Utopic foreign planet orphaning a child. Maybe that imagery is, in itself, tiring and problematic, but I'm at least interested to see where the show takes its racial text - if The Leftovers is anything to go by (and I assume it probably should be - much of the directorial team is the same, too) - the show may not be about race at all, though we'll see that develop as time goes by.

I know people who felt that The Haunting of Hill House was similarly self-congratulatory, another show I love, so maybe I'm just a fan of extravagant controversial imagery, ha?