Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jan 7, 2021 9:34:35 GMT -8
Hey, it's a new year, and I think it's going to be a much better one than 2020! Other than yesterday, I mean. Me personally, I'm cautiously excited to see if Mr. Mayor is any good. Oh, and on the topic of NBC, Zoey is back and, uh, alright so far. You can read about that elsewhere.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jan 8, 2021 9:47:28 GMT -8
Me personally, I'm cautiously excited to see if Mr. Mayor is any good. UPDATE: It is, with slight reservation. The cast is unsurprisingly great and the gags (major and minor) all land. I think it's leaning a little too hard on Bobby Moynihan, who's the least funny character, arguably. Also, the show is blithely "apolitical," by which I mean Danson's character is an independent with no stated political views who stages a Perotesque upset, which feels very out-of-step with the political climate we're entering now. Your mileage may vary on whether this is refreshing or bad.
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Post by Jay on Jan 8, 2021 12:21:17 GMT -8
My ma and I needed something new to watch in quarantine. She will watch anything with Eugene Levy and I'll watch anything with Catherine O'Hara, so we've picked up Schitt's Creek and the quick episode pace has meant us getting through two or three a night. Already, we're on the downhill side of S4. I initially had some reservations about it because I'm not into the cringe elements and I felt like David too often read like an author / creator surrogate, getting all the best storylines and quips while never being held accountable for anything. However, the writing started to improve in Season 3 and has been consistently better with Patrick in as his foil, even if I do love the David / Stevie dynamic.
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Post by Jay on Jan 10, 2021 12:18:32 GMT -8
Forgot to reply to this... Jay, what was your opinion of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist? It was low-key one of my favorite shows of the year, because the good parts were good and the bad/cliched parts were funny bad. I'm sort of excited to see what the show is like when it comes back in a week or two. I didn't actually watch any of it as my ma was veryquick to hit pause the second she could hear me, such was her guilty pleasure in it. My experience with musical TV shows is quite limited indeed ( The Simpsons? Futurama's opera episode? That Buffy ep?) but when it comes to covering other works, I generally hold the same attitude I do to karaoke: I get bored with the staples and wish there were more variety available. I get that it's kind of the point to have the social experience of known crowd-pleasers and trying to play off the audience's enthusiasm, but it's worth trying to bring newer or forgotten or overlooked material into the mainstream, like Wayne's World did with "Bohemian Rhapsody" I guess. I could continue musing on that topic but from here on out it devolves into "It's okay to know no songs by The Replacements or at least two but it's not okay to know one" and various other forms of "Get off my lawn" commentary that have nothing to do with what you were asking.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 10, 2021 18:14:33 GMT -8
The cast is unsurprisingly great and the gags (major and minor) all land. I think it's leaning a little too hard on Bobby Moynihan, who's the least funny character, arguably. Also, the show is blithely "apolitical," by which I mean Danson's character is an independent with no stated political views who stages a Perotesque upset, which feels very out-of-step with the political climate we're entering now. Your mileage may vary on whether this is refreshing or bad. I think it's a good thing, in the sense that Mr. Mayor is trying to poke fun at the general absurdity of the modern political climate without bringing up the bitter partisan undertones that have been shaping real-life politics as of late. We could absolutely use more of that on TV nowadays. All in all, I thought the show's premiere episodes were decent, though nothing special. The cast is already jelling and there are some funny lines, but the attempts to incorporate actual political issues into the scripts (like the plastic straw ban) can feel awkward. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock are great at balancing smart and dumb comedy, though, and I'll stick with it a while to see if it can reach the levels of 30 Rock or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (both of which also took a few episodes to find their feet). And is it just me, or is every female character in the series a parody of woke culture?
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jan 10, 2021 19:45:01 GMT -8
My ma and I needed something new to watch in quarantine. She will watch anything with Eugene Levy and I'll watch anything with Catherine O'Hara, so we've picked up Schitt's Creek and the quick episode pace has meant us getting through two or three a night. Already, we're on the downhill side of S4. I initially had some reservations about it because I'm not into the cringe elements and I felt like David too often read like an author / creator surrogate, getting all the best storylines and quips while never being held accountable for anything. However, the writing started to improve in Season 3 and has been consistently better with Patrick in as his foil, even if I do love the David / Stevie dynamic. Not a TV show, but I watched A Mighty Wind this weekend and could not comprehend that Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy were in both that and Schitt's Creek. Very dissimilar. I think that's what they call ""range"" ? (Also, Jeremy, did you know Eugene Levy was one of the names in consideration for playing Toby Ziegler?? Can you imagine Toby with hair??)
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Post by Jay on Jan 18, 2021 13:43:12 GMT -8
Not a TV show, but I watched A Mighty Wind this weekend and could not comprehend that Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy were in both that and Schitt's Creek. Very dissimilar. I think that's what they call ""range"" ? They were also in Best of Show as the owners of a Norwich terrier and Levy's character had a condition where he literally had two left feet. They came up through The Second City / SCTV together in Toronto and have been in a lot of stuff together (mostly other Christopher Guest mockumentaries)
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Post by Jay on Jan 27, 2021 11:36:21 GMT -8
I've made my way through The Queen's Gambit and have a take that is surprising in every way except for how bad it is:
Add to that, "former rivals become precious nakama in advance of the final showdown." This is related to Jeremy's point, I suppose, which I read after the fact, in that most shonen anime tend to be repeatable and predictable but give you just enough to sink your teeth into.
I would say that one thing I couldn't cleanly quip about is the weirdness of the Benny Watts character, not that his role was bad, but he looked like many manchild programmers I knew in the aughts who thought the Indiana Jones aesthetic was the surefire path to objective coolness despite being the wrong body type for it. Was anyone wearing full-length oversized leather dusters in the mid-60s, carrying around a combat knife "for protection?" It seems like an anachronism to me, but I know very little about period fashions beyond the obvious.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 27, 2021 20:42:13 GMT -8
I think Benny's look was a holdover of the Western era, which was dying down by the '60s. A better question is why they cast a British actor in such an obviously American role. (Not that I'm complaining; Thomas Sangster is a good actor, and I loved what precious few lines he had as one-half of the title duo on Phineas and Ferb.)
And your take is certainly more original than mine, which is simply that The Queen's Gambit is good comfort food at a time people need it. Also, that it would have worked better as a two-hour film than a seven-hour miniseries. (Of course, Allan Scott spent 30 years trying to make it a movie, and no one was interested, so he took it to Netflix and produced a massive hit, which is a very telling commentary on the diverging pathways of TV and film.)
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Post by Jay on Jan 29, 2021 10:33:47 GMT -8
Ah, yes, the John Wayne bit, that makes more sense than me projecting The Matrix or Indiana Jones on it. There are a lot of other things I could probably comment on, like I think that the set designs and musical choices and cinematography all kept chess from being boring, but the main beat I noticed was the similarity in structure to shonen / shojo anime in its structure and devices and I'd argue that those two are also a kind of comfort food. I'm kind of curious though as to why you thought it was better off as a two-hour movie, not that I think it couldn't be done, but I was considering the pressures of adaptation from a book and how a longer-running limited series might be preferable to either bowdlerizing it into nothing or trying to kick start an ultimately meandering franchise.
Quarantine dinnertime watching has led me to finally pick up The Good Place. We'll see how that goes.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 29, 2021 12:01:05 GMT -8
I just thought the series started growing repetitive after a while, with the typical Netflix bloat setting in around episodes 4 and 5. There certainly was room to fill up over two hours, but I'm not convinced there was enough for seven.
But I don't believe a Queen's Gambit film (at least not one so lavishly financed as they show clearly was) would be made nowadays. Most studios have their sights set on surefire blockbusters, and it would simply be too costly for the indie market. (I imagine "Who would want to watch a girl play chess??" was the response of many Hollywood execs.)
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Post by Jay on Jan 29, 2021 22:36:12 GMT -8
Pardon me while I imagine a Wes Anderson version of The Queen's Gambit and stare off into space.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 1, 2021 14:48:16 GMT -8
Stuff I've been watching on Showtime, which we get for some reason. (Suggested slogan - "it's not HBO, it's TV!")
Your Honor
Bryan Cranston's return to prestige drama has landed with a thud, and it's not hard to see why. This show would have slotted quite nicely into the grizzled world of white male antihero dramas circa 2015, by which I mean the show is an uninspired mashup of Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and The Wire. The three big problems - first, all three of those shows were funny from time to time, to offset the grimness, but this show is just unrelenting bleakness; second, there is absolutely no one on this show to root for, not even the Walt Jr. style moppet; and third, this show really wants to say something about race and class in the context of its Nola setting, which makes it all the more gross that it doesn't really know what the hell to do with its African-American characters other than sideline them, torture them, sell them off to roving gangs of Urban Youths, or kill them offscreen. I can't help but feel that Isiah Whitlock's character, a politician juggling his criminal ties with a dream to make his 'hood not "look like Eritrea," would be a far more compelling lead than Cranston, who is playing Walter White on autopilot; unfortunately, that would require the show's writers to really know what the hell they were doing with this show other than trying to cash in on the success of Breaking Bad. Which is unfortunate, because this show wouldn't have scratched that itch in the age of Sneaky Pete; post-George Floyd it's an abject embarrassment.
Kidding
This is a show without an obvious point of comparison in the Platinum Age of TV, but I think there's a serious case to be made that the prestige drama this most closely resembles is... The West Wing! Yes, that West Wing. Yes, I am comparing it to Kidding, the show where Jim Carrey plays a mentally-fraying ersatz Fred Rogers. Okay, this might need some explaining. So The West Wing is about a quirky but superhumanly decent man with unimaginable power and influence over America, and the behind-the-scenes drama between him and the crew/family reining in his public persona. At least, Jeremy has put the show in these terms - our dearly departed Alex C. liked to describe Bartlet as a mediocre Carteresque president, and there are plenty of people who have far more scathing critiques of the show who would object to Jer's description of Bartlet as "purely good." Anyway, point is, that's an extremely apt description of Kidding, which is a show that ultimately works because of how totally earnest Jim Carrey is, and how totally devoted his character is to doing the right thing, even at great pain to himself and the people around him. Despite this description it is simultaneously a very dark show at times but also a very fun show - lots of fun puppetry and quirky directoral touches courtesy of director Michel Gondry, doing his Gondry shtick. Undeservedly underrated.
Episodes
Oldie but goodie from 2010 about a married couple who are convinced to adapt their popular "Britcom" in the States... only to have a comically miscast and cartoonishly assholeish Matt Leblanc foisted on them as the show's lead. Quite funny, even the Hollywood satire parts, which you'd think would be hackneyed.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 1, 2021 15:43:47 GMT -8
Ah, yes, the John Wayne bit, that makes more sense than me projecting The Matrix or Indiana Jones on it. There are a lot of other things I could probably comment on, like I think that the set designs and musical choices and cinematography all kept chess from being boring, but the main beat I noticed was the similarity in structure to shonen / shojo anime in its structure and devices and I'd argue that those two are also a kind of comfort food. I'm kind of curious though as to why you thought it was better off as a two-hour movie, not that I think it couldn't be done, but I was considering the pressures of adaptation from a book and how a longer-running limited series might be preferable to either bowdlerizing it into nothing or trying to kick start an ultimately meandering franchise.
Quarantine dinnertime watching has led me to finally pick up The Good Place. We'll see how that goes.
First two seasons good. Final two seasons meh. That was my experience with The Good Place. Don't expect anything too interesting philosophically--the show kinda gives up on that after the end of Season 1.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 1, 2021 18:08:24 GMT -8
Stuff I've been watching on Showtime, which we get for some reason. (Suggested slogan - "it's not HBO, it's TV!") KiddingThis is a show without an obvious point of comparison in the Platinum Age of TV, but I think there's a serious case to be made that the prestige drama this most closely resembles is... The West Wing! Yes, that West Wing. Yes, I am comparing it to Kidding, the show where Jim Carrey plays a mentally-fraying ersatz Fred Rogers. Okay, this might need some explaining. So The West Wing is about a quirky but superhumanly decent man with unimaginable power and influence over America, and the behind-the-scenes drama between him and the crew/family reining in his public persona. At least, Jeremy has put the show in these terms - our dearly departed Alex C. liked to describe Bartlet as a mediocre Carteresque president, and there are plenty of people who have far more scathing critiques of the show who would object to Jer's description of Bartlet as "purely good." I had to dig through the review archives to learn when I had described Bartlet as "purely good" - it was way back in June 2014. Boy, some of those reviews are really dated in retrospect. Anyhow, I didn't stick with Kidding for very long, but the character you're describing sounds closer to Ted Lasso than Jed Bartlet. Although Kidding did not strike me at all as a feel-good series. (Also, I get Showtime as well and have yet to figure out why.)
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