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Post by Jeremy on Sept 14, 2023 20:26:17 GMT -8
Still need to watch the last couple of Bear S2 episodes - it's a great show, but definitely one I need to be in the right mindset to truly absorb - but I definitely agree about "Fishes" and "Forks" making an incredible midseason double-play. Two very different episodes that both succeeded wildly at their goals, each with an emotional knockout. (Ebon Moss-Bachrach is doing excellent work this season, and some awards recognition whenever the Emmys decide to air would be lovely.) The show has also proven surprisingly adept at stunt casting with these episodes, whether in the all-star guest cast for "Fishes" or the celebrity cameo at the end of "Forks." Rather than feeling showy, the show fits these guests quite well into its own little universe.
Speaking of shows that craft their own little universe within a familiar world, How To with John Wilson just wrapped up its third and (sadly) final season. While it doesn't quite build to the same crescendo as S1 (how could it?), it's still a tidy and uniquely entertaining season that wraps up the series with a fitting bow. The show feels in some ways like the next evolutionary step for observational comedy after Review - another series that used mundane topics to explore outlandish and disturbing aspects of the world and the insecurities of the human psyche. HTwJW works in a similar vein, but neatly skirts the line between scripted and reality programming, making for one of the funniest and most memorable docuseries I've ever seen.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 15, 2023 10:35:39 GMT -8
Heh. Without having read your comments, I actually just marathoned the entire second season of The Bear last night. I enjoyed the first half more, as it felt more nuanced and, heck, dramatically elegant. Watching characters design gorgeous-looking food dishes in a quiet, mature, and patient atmosphere is very appealing to me. Borderline hated Fishes, which I felt was way too over-the-top and one-note, though it certainly explains the high-strung, borderline psychotic nature of many of the characters (in extremely heavy-handed fashion). Just endless shouting at -- and antagonizing of -- one another, and I hope to hell that Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't win an Emmy for her guest-starring work (of course, there's a pretty good chance she will, given how showy the performance is). I'm glad that the Richie character turned a corner, and became less insecure and desperate-for-attention after spending a week at "The World's Greatest Restaurant" though, because he was once again becoming totally insufferable as the season wore on. At any rate, only a few of the episodes this season (mostly the Christmas episode and the finale) were actively stressful to watch (on the level of Season 1), so it's certainly a step up in overall quality for me. The cast is strong: I just feel there's too much loudness and verbal/behavioural repetition at times which drowns out any complexity of character.
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Post by otherscott on Sept 18, 2023 8:07:57 GMT -8
To me, the stress of watching The Bear is the feature that sets it apart from the rest of television, not a bug. I don't agree that toned down is automatically more nuanced, because ultimately the high tempo and frustration is how these people communicate with each other. I think that's why I enjoyed the second half of the season more, it felt like there was more interpersonal relationships being developed through that stress whereas the first half it really felt more like everyone was in their own universe.
Jamie Lee Curtis's performance was definitely BIG, but I think there was also a lot of subtlety there as well, in the same way you often see Ebon Moss-Bachrach have a lot of subtlety in his performance despite the amount of time he spends yelling.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 19, 2023 0:04:24 GMT -8
I'm not necessarily of the opinion that the yelling and screaming is a "bug" (it can work well enough within the framework of the restaurant kitchen, to an extent), but about the only thing I found genuinely interesting about Fishes was John Mulaney's character's prayer at the dinner table, in him trying to navigate extremely choppy waters with a very careful choice of words. I just don't feel the episode evolved much over the course of the hour (!), with the template being instantly set by Carm's mom's high-strung, insecure nature, and continuing onto Odenkirk and Bernthal antagonizing one another. Just found it too one-note and predictable, for the most part. Forks was great, though.
Anyways, I sidestepped Andor (for the moment), and have been working my way through Seasons 2 and 3 of Only Murders In The Building. It's mostly a well-performed lark, but an easy watch, and I don't really feel there was much of a dip in quality between Seasons 1 and 2, unless someone is obsessed with the finer details of the convoluted plot, which mostly unfold with the show's tongue firmly in its cheek anyways I'm up to Episode 5 of the third season now, and I'll watch the next two, and then have to wait week-to-week for the remaining three to show up on the Disney Plus app.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 19, 2023 18:53:09 GMT -8
The funny thing is that I absolutely knew that The Bear would be doing an episode like "Fishes" in its second season (flashback episode, longer than average, delving into the backstory of Carmy's brother). It's exactly the kind of episode that many prestige dramedies feel obligated to put in their sophomore seasons (like Atlanta with "FUBU" or Mythic Quest with "Backstory!"). I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
I didn't find the episode too one-note either, which is impressive considering it's about an Italian-American family yelling at each other over a family dinner and there are probably a thousand different ways that could have been made thoroughly obnoxious. In any event, I expect it will get some Emmy attention (these guest star-laden episodes often do), but that would be easier to predict if we could first see how competitive the show's debut season is with Emmy voters. (It will be several more months before we can gauge that.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 19, 2023 19:29:55 GMT -8
As it's a drama series that's been slotted into the Comedy category, it'll probably do pretty well with Emmy voters, at least in the actor fields, as drama is generally more respected than comedy. Being quieter may or may not comes across as more nuanced to some viewers, but dramatic performances are almost always (often wrongly) considered more nuanced and deeeeeep than comedic performance, particularly by awards bodies.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 19, 2023 19:54:09 GMT -8
I could see a more conventional sitcom like Abbott Elementary taking some top awards, but yeah, generally the most acclaimed comedies are quasi-dramas. Which I don’t really mind; the blurring of lines between drama and comedy has yielded some of the most interesting and experimental TV shows of the past couple of decades. Although some shows can blur the lines better than others - why the Ted Lasso writers decided to morph the show from a charming 30-minute sitcom into a sloggy 60-minute drama remains beyond me.
Speaking of which, I recently got another 3-month free subscription to Apple TV+, so I can catch up on some of their shows before the year is up. (Curious when they plan to release the new Scorsese film - I’m not exactly hyped to sit through a four-hour movie in the theater, but could be interesting to stream in chunks, a la The Irishman.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 19, 2023 20:30:31 GMT -8
I'll probably go to the theater to see the Scorsese film, as outside of that, the only movie notably on my radar for the rest of the year (right now) is Poor Things, with Emma Stone (which looks pretty wild, and is getting spectacular reviews).
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 20, 2023 10:22:55 GMT -8
I'm almost tempted to watch Poor Things in the theater, except I know there will be at least one scene that will make me hate being in a theater, so I probably won't.
Haven't been to a theater at all in the last few weeks (as some may notice from my lack of Letterboxd updates), but my overbearing schedule should calm down soon, and 'll be able to catch up on... what looks like a pretty dry fall, honestly.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Sept 25, 2023 9:20:05 GMT -8
But seriously, it's interesting to me to see David E. Kelley in particular getting such an overt shaft - tough times to be a television auteur, it would seem, unless you're a superhero franchise's doula.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 25, 2023 18:11:07 GMT -8
It's a little disturbing that Disney is pulling the streams for old Fox shows that it owns the rights for - Dollhouse, Hill Street Blues, Ally McBeal, etc. Clearly a cost-cutting measure, but a bummer nonetheless. (Yet another reason to hold onto those DVDs!)
As for David E. Kelley, he had an exclusive deal with 20th Century Fox to generate TV shows during the late '90s and early 2000s. Little did he know that someday Fox would be bought by Disney, and Disney would eventually decide they didn't need so many Fox shows on something which would eventually be called a "streaming service"! Live and learn, David.
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Post by otherscott on Oct 5, 2023 7:43:29 GMT -8
I'm finally catching up on the last season of Undone (about 3/4 of the way through), and I have to ask, how was everyone able to put up with Alma in season 2? She is actively and singlehandedly destroying my enjoyment of this show with her insistence on prying into people's personal lives and trying to reset history (and erasing history in the process). The short periods of time where the show focuses on anyone else I really like.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Oct 9, 2023 16:46:47 GMT -8
The removal of Hill Street Blues from streaming is what makes me actually sad - I feel like there's been a steady erosion of any acknowledgment of television made before 2000, even among people who write about TV for a living. (see this list, which skips basically the entire 1980s and, e.g., picks a Columbo episode basically on the grounds that, hey, Spielberg directed this one!, and mentions "The Box" without any hint it might be a deliberate homage to another, superior bottle episode from a '90s series.) Hill Street Blues is a very relevant predecessor to the modern prestige show and I would love for it to have a renaissance in the same way The Sopranos has. I'm finally catching up on the last season of Undone (about 3/4 of the way through) , and I have to ask, how was everyone able to put up with Alma in season 2? She is actively and singlehandedly destroying my enjoyment of this show with her insistence on prying into people's personal lives and trying to reset history (and erasing history in the process). The short periods of time where the show focuses on anyone else I really like. I think we just take for granted the awfulness of Alma's actions because there isn't much of a show otherwise! (FWIW I do think the first season is markedly better than the second - not the first streaming series where this happened...)
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 9, 2023 18:16:52 GMT -8
Hill Street Blues is a very good and obviously very important show; unfortunately, I don't see it as the kind of series that will have a renaissance with a new generation (a la Friends or Seinfeld). The main problem is that HSB is quite dated on multiple levels - production values, music, "edginess" that no longer feels edgy in the wake of NYPD Blue, The Shield, e al. It's also a victim of its own success, in that while it basically set the template for the modern serialized drama, its best qualities have been imitated so many times by so many different shows that it looks downright clichéd despite having invented many clichés in the first place. (Call this "the Casablanca problem.") Still, at least HSB has achieved some level of immortality on DVD. A bigger concern may be newer shows (and movies) that are created as streaming originals and then just... vanish into the ether. The more instantly popular shows on streaming are spared, but a lot of smaller shows aren't given a chance to grow an audience. This practice does not bode well for shows trying to build a long-term audience without the recognition of a Marvel or Star Wars brand.
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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 15, 2023 7:06:56 GMT -8
Netflix's Lupin remains very contrived -- Assane's on the cover of every newspaper in Paris, but somehow most civilians don't notice him walking around in public, even without a disguise -- but quite enjoyable in its third season. The cast is simply likeable, and the show is stylish and fun, as heist-related fiction generally tends to be. That is all.
And I'm finally going to get around to watching Kieslowski's Dekalog in the next few weeks. Its purported heaviness has kept me at bay for a number of years: hopefully it doesn't feel too much like homework. (I love the director's Double Life of Veronique and Rouge, for the record).
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