Television

[josiahmorgan11]

I saw the first episode. I'm not interested in continuing it, mostly because of how busy my personal life is over the coming months. I might catch up further down the line. I do think the idiosyncratic nature of King' voice is largely intact: it's all about maintaining a sense of minutiae among the bombast. I thought that Doctor Sleep did a fantastic job of showing King's voice in 2019, as well.

[josiahmorgan11]

I think in many ways 'The Outsider' plays like post-Twin Peaks: The Return television in its use of silence and manner. Stephen King's work has a lot more 'noise' in it and these days especially - since 'Lisey's Story,' at least - his work is kind of ruthlessly speedy with very little fat and flab at all. Curiously, I think the meditative tone of the show actually draws this out rather well. It was an admirable start in quite a few ways.

[...]

Dang. I was kinda interested in the Watchman series, but figured I'd be fine waiting until it hit my library or whatever, but now The New Pope is on HBO too and that's a show I really want to see. The Young Pope was one of the only "prestige TV" shows I've actually liked so far and season two, with the new title, has Malkovich. That's making an HBO subscription seem awfully attractive since I don't want to wait for a year to see it.

[Silga]

Escape at Dannemora (Ben Stiller, 2018) 9/10

Exquisite directing from Stiller and three amazing performances by Paul Dano, Benicio Del Toro and, especially, Patricia Arquette.

I rarely watch tv shows or mini-series, but this one took my interest because of the cast involved and because I remember hearing about the actual escape on the news, although had no memory on how the events unfolded and how it all ended.

Stiller, thanks to Governor Cuomo, was granted access to the Clinton Correctional Facility with many real employees featured as extras in the series.

One of the best moments in this 7-parts series was one 'flashback' episode that centers on the events that led to the incarceration of the two main characters.

I hope Ben Stiller will use his skills on something in the vein of this series in the future.

[therouxxx]

Really liked the first 2 episodes of Andy Greenwald's new show Briarpatch. It's an adaptation of the eponymous Ross Thomas novel. Haven't read any Thomas yet but it feels similar to the Crumleys I've read.

[nrh]

the seventh on cinema oscars special - feels much more like a fully functioning feature film than mister america, a wonderfully uncomfortable mix of hubris and resentment and the last word on just how awful weddings actually are. there is one incredibly long static shot at the end that is...impossible to explain without ruining some of the surprise.

[MrCarmady]

Been watching the 90s BBC programme This Life which they've decided to show in its entirety again and put on iPlayer so I can watch it on my commute. Only three episodes in but it's pretty engaging stuff, very GenX (there's a fun dialogue exchange where the two lawyers are discussing someone which goes something like 'she's taking drugs' 'so do we' 'yeah, but on weekends, that's different'). Egg is a classic mopey existentialist type, and a Utd fan to boot, but well acted and likeable, his girlfriend is superb, and the gay character isn't defined by his gayness without having that identity be erased, either. Less bothered about the main heart-throb guy, Miles, even though I had an enjoyable nostalgia trip a couple of years back watching Coupling, another very 90s show with the same actor starring. I mean, sure, the whole thing is fluff, and why do I even feel nostalgic about an era I was still wearing diapers in? But it's comforting and the cast is good enough to counteract the clichés.

[Roscoe]

And the pure crystalline bracing genius of BETTER CALL SAUL returns to us on Sunday, with a second episode on Monday, and I am counting the moments.

[Roscoe]

And the pure crystalline bracing genius of BETTER CALL SAUL returned to us last night, with a second episode later tonight, and I am beside myself with delight. Saul's outlandish new wardrobe and bright dye job, together with the circus theme of his first venture handing out burner phones and offering cut rates of 50% for non-violent felonies -- hard not to get a bit of a Joker vibe.

[Roscoe]

Corona has closed most of NYC, and there it was, a marathon of Season Two of WESTWORLD on HBO, leading up to the premiere of Season Three of WESTWORLD on HBO, and I couldn't quite muster the energy to turn it off or find anything else to watch, and watched damn near all of it all over again, and my respect for the good stuff, like the unbelievably high quality of the performances, went way up, and my annoyance with the bad stuff, like the arch overcleverness of certain scenes set in a cyber-reality, stayed about the same.

And then Season Three came on, and hopes were raised for a more straightforward narrative to come. Looks good so far.

[Roscoe]

Oh dear -- WESTWORLD is deflating. Now that the show has left Delos, the bogus solemnity has taken over, the speechifying and gimmickry unanimated by the play with Western tropes, samurai tropes, sci-fi tropes. It's now a tale of corporate espionage, like WALL STREET by way of BLADE RUNNER 2049. A major disappointment, but, considering the involvement of Jonathan Nolan, not surprising.

[Roscoe]

At least BETTER CALL SAUL continues as pure bracing awesomeness.

[pabs]

I've decided to introduce myself to CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, but starting at the wrong side: the latest season (Season 10).

So far it doesn't seem to be a handicap to have jumped into it so far into the story, because there doesn't seem to be a "story" at all, just random incidents.

[Roscoe]

I watched a few episodes of CURB, and wasn't taken with it. Just felt like a retread of the SEINFELD dynamic -- how much of an asshole can that guy/those people be every week? But not funny. At all. As opposed to IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA which has often had me beside myself with laughter.

[MrCarmady]

I watched a few episodes of CURB, and wasn't taken with it. Just felt like a retread of the SEINFELD dynamic -- how much of an asshole can that guy/those people be every week? But not funny. At all. As opposed to IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA which has often had me beside myself with laughter.

I really, really love Seinfeld and when I first watched Curb I was non-plussed - the show is extremely focused on Larry so we don't get a break from his personality with alternate storylines the way Seinfeld does it, plus Larry's wealth means all of the more mundane stakes of Seinfeld are completely removed. But I stuck with it and now I love it nearly as much as I love Seinfeld and It's Always Sunny (although I haven't watched the latter all the way through, I think I agree it's the better show.) The improvisational nature, celebrities sending up themselves, the utter psychopathy on display, it's all delightful. I don't know which episodes you've seen but I think it's a show worth sticking with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1nHVU1Qe4I

[greennui]

Hollywood (1980) - Great and thorough documentary series on early Hollwood, narrated by James Mason, featuring lots of interviews from people who were around at the time like Lilian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Allan Dwan, King Vidor, Adela Rogers St. Johns and so forth...It's never been properly released on home video due to all the clips being shown in it.

All 13 parts can be found on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS37kyf ... dex=2&t=0s

[Roscoe]

The HOLLYWOOD series was released in very fine form on VHS and laserdisc -- I still have the laserdisc somewhere. Bummer about DVD and Blu-Ray. I understand Mr. Brownlow is very casual about it being as bootlegged as it is, pretty much allowing it to be put on youtube without hassle. Essential viewing.

[pabs]

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (BBC, 1995)

What marvellous direction. Top notch from start to finish.

[Roscoe]

Dug on a seven-hour marathon of the last episodes of Season 4 of BREAKING BAD, a glorious roller coaster ride of shock surprise and hilarity.

[liquidnature]

Now onto the fourth episode (S1E2) of Columbo and planning on continuing the series. Top-tier art. Wasn't planning on watching more than the first episode as I don't really watch any tv, but Falk's brilliant performances and the consistently solid/experimental direction have pulled me in for good.

All episodes are now watchable for free on IMDbTV.

[Roscoe]

The sublime BETTER CALL SAUL wrapped up its fifth season last night, and not the least of the horrors of the pandemic is that it might be a very very very very long time until we get the sixth and final season.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I really, really love Seinfeld and when I first watched Curb I was non-plussed - the show is extremely focused on Larry so we don't get a break from his personality with alternate storylines the way Seinfeld does it, plus Larry's wealth means all of the more mundane stakes of Seinfeld are completely removed. But I stuck with it and now I love it nearly as much as I love Seinfeld and It's Always Sunny (although I haven't watched the latter all the way through, I think I agree it's the better show.) The improvisational nature, celebrities sending up themselves, the utter psychopathy on display, it's all delightful. I don't know which episodes you've seen but I think it's a show worth sticking with.

I really think this show gets better and better the more you watch it. It's actually a very interesting journey into self loathing, particularly stemming from how wealthy Larry is. Especially the most recent season really started touching on how out of touch he and his country club friends are due to their class situations.
Also I was reading Portnoy's Complaint for the first time while wading through the most recent season, and realized how much Larry David's collective work is one of the most interesting examinations of Jewish cultural neurosis of all time.

[Roscoe]

Finished off a revisit of BREAKING BAD over the weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it all. Every episode is a home run, with the possible exception of one involving a fly, whatever. There's just no greater feast of acting available.

[Roscoe]

Checked out the first episode of THE LAST KINGDOM on Netflix, and yeah, that'll be that for that. Early English folks facing invasion from the Danes, and it's kind of based on history apparently. Lame, cheap cheesy and cliche-ridden -- a scene involving a baptism has, of course, the priest holding a kid's head under water for too long and comic sputtering and coughing. Tripe. Rutger Hauer appears with sharpie-drawn facial tattoos to dispense gnomic wisdom and plot exposition, and the reliable Matthew MacFadyen seems to be cursing his agent with every line of heavy-handed crap he has to deliver.

Life's too short.

[nrh]

there hasn't really been a full success out of all the indian streaming series that emerged over the last few years (i did like what i saw of raj + dk's family man but never finished) but paatal lok might be it - a bleak, slow burn investigative thriller set in delhi, with an out of his depth beat cop charged with solving what seems to be a politically motivated hit on a television journalist. rare tv series based on mystery investigation where the whole solution is elegantly thought through. ends in exactly the right kind of despairing anti-climax that this sort of fiction needs but is so often botched.

there are a few rough edges (like a lot of recent indian media it sometimes feels like a grand tour of everything wrong with the country; i understand the impulse but it can seem almost a much at a point), and maybe one central metaphor is a little overstated, but otherwise it's very impressive, with a murderer's row of underused character actors and a ton of young interesting behind the scenes talent - series creator has been co-writer on a ton of great movies including last year's best hindi film sonchiriya, and everyone else is almost equally as interesting.

[pabs]

Little Fires Everywhere.

1 episode in and the main actors are good. I also think I might have a small crush on Witherspoon.

[Roscoe]

BARKSKINS on the National Geographic channel, started because my dear husband knows one of the producers. The first episode suffers a bit from SeriesOpeningitis, lots of plot introduction and clumsy exposition, but it seemed mainly to handled with a sense and skill and style that eluded anyone concerned with that LAST KINGDOM thing. Basically, it's set in colonial Canada, with French and English settlers vying for control, and there are Native Americans, and a bad-ass Puritan who takes no shit, and a glorious turn from David Thewlis who is just having a grand old time. We're digging on it. Mainly.

[nrh]

we're about halfway through panchayat on prime, a short 30 minute comedy series about a young man who takes a job as secretary for a rural panchayat (kind of an elected village council) to raise money while he's studying for cat exams.

it's definitely great to see a middle-cinema comedy approach to the rural north that doesn't rely on the post gangs of wasseypur violence thing for plot; at its best it resembles some of the fable like construction of the later, short story malgudi days episodes (though lacking much of that series quiet bite). and of course it's great to see late parallel cinema and television staples rughubir yadav and neena gupta as the married couple at head of the council.

[pabs]

I finished LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, and though it was overly-dramatic and predictable at times, the production was top notch and the cast, terrific. Witherspoon, especially, is excellent as the beautifully turned-out suburban matron in exquisitely tailored clothes who secretly seethes with resentment for her past choices and missed opportunites. She's absolutely sensational here. The rest of the cast is pretty good, too. All eight episodes just flew by, especially the final three.

[Holymanm]

Struggled to get through Breaking Bad, after putting it off all this time... could not have been more, I dunno, disappointed. Is my 'critical' thinking so dulled these days that I can't recognise quality when it kicks me in the face with 63 double-length episodes? Apparently, because this is the most widely-acclaimed show ever made and it just seemed pretty much the same as any other silly American drama to me...?*

Too comic bookish to be serious; too serious to be fun or amusing.** Like Chris Nolan moved to America, stuck his head up his ass (American English for "arse"), and set out to make The Best Show Ever. And then watched some Tarantino movies, got drunk, and re-shot it all in a day. Crikey!

I'm sure there's a decent show buried deep down - deep under the endless 5-minute conversation scenes, buried under the 10-minute reaction scenes of characters conversing with other characters about their previous conversations they just had, buried under the 5-minute cold opens of nothing at all... and under the inexplicable need to make almost every single character as boring and unsympathetic and unbearable as possible... and under the absolute turgid filth of every single scene in the show being buried under I-Took-English-1100-in-Uni level "dramatic devices" such as "foreshadowing" and shit... so yeah. Chop it down to 20 episodes, rewrite everything, and maybe there'll be that better-than-films quality level and deeply intelligent and riveting meditation on good and evil that I was promised (I'm mad)

* but given more license to be "artistic", i.e., make every 1-minute shot 2 minutes instead
** except of course for the pizza scene and the tracking device to the face scene