especially compared to the way they were handled in the original.
Oh, I guess I had a draft half-typed in this thread that I never posted:
I'm not a super-huge fan of either House of Cards, but at least Urqhart had convictions and a political stance. Kevin Spacey's character has no rationale for anything except to secure more power. His transcendent nihilism makes me like the American one less than the British one. Seems like we've got a glut shows recently with protagonists whose only goal is to accrue power/survive. Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones (depending on the character, but many of them). These are not really stories I'm interested in.
But even if you're gonna do that, don't have your character going around saying "he said this, so I said this, then I said this, and that's why I'm going to win" the very next cut after the "he said this-so I said this" exchange took place. That sort of "this is exactly how I am feeling in this moment" or "this is the exact details of my plan to this point" expository dialogue really grinds my gears. Also, when they throw the brick through the window and the King chess piece is conspicuously knocked over: lol. When MEGA-UBER SPOILER EVENT happens later on and he's playing chess with himself: MEGA-LOL. Like, come on. Really? We're using -those- metaphors? And we're playing them straight up?
I keep forgetting to try that Prince of Nothing series.. I think?
Is that the "Gardens of the Moon" one? Because I couldn't get through even a single chapter of that shit.
I've just started "Prince of Thorns". Seems OK. I don't think I can really grok fantasy in a post-WoT world. I know lots of people found it tedious, but I LOVE the world building minutiae, it's my favorite thing.
I keep forgetting to try that Prince of Nothing series.. I think?
Is that the "Gardens of the Moon" one? Because I couldn't get through even a single chapter of that shit.
I've just started "Prince of Thorns". Seems OK. I don't think I can really grok fantasy in a post-WoT world. I know lots of people found it tedious, but I LOVE the world building minutiae, it's my favorite thing.
My wife and I have started watching House of Cards and we are loving it. Everything I would say has already said but if I had to be specific I would go with all of what Rym pointed out, especially Kevin Spacey being a great actor. He has always been one of my top actors and this show does a great job of showing why.
Battlestar Galactica (2004) is something I have also been watching and I enjoy it. I am unsure as to why it took me so long to watch this show. I may go back and watch the original series once I finish this one.
Kevin Spacey's performance in "House of Cards" reminds me of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." I haven't seen that movie, however, since I was a teenager...
Kevin Spacey's performance in "House of Cards" reminds me of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." I haven't seen that movie, however, since I was a teenager...
I keep feeling the same thing. I think he's using the same accent for House of Cards as he did in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Not that I'm complaining, I loved him in that film.
AV Club wrote up the entire series with a generally positive review and a B- rating. I agree with pretty almost all of their points (the biggest exception being that I felt the episode 8 side-plot twist was a complete misstep, not a missed opportunity to go further down that road). They otherwise do a good job pointing out the small handful of flaws the show has. I would have given it a B+ overall.
In other news I went back to Walking Dead and I think I am done with that show. After House of Cards, it just stands out how bad the Walking Dead writing and acting is. I just don't give a shit what happens on that show. Starting to feel the same way about Community. I don't know how much of it is in my head or if the show really is different post-Harmon, but after all of the back and forth on whether it would come back, I was ready to move on from the show unless it came back and was absolutely stellar. So far it's been sub-par.
I thought this was going to be the season I watched a ton of TV but it looks like it will just be Game of Thrones and Mad Men when they come back.
Decided to rewatch the second season of archer because every time I watch it I don't pay attention. After the first few episodes I remember how much I fucking hate some of those ongoing jokes. Especially the "yuuuup" and "noooope" joke that is not funny and sounds terribly out of place. Some of the pauses are poorly timed too.
The pauses are supposed to be jokes, also I'm using the term joke loosely in the sense that most of our current memes carry some humor with them (or intend to). Some of the annoying ongoing jokes are indeed jokes. Either way they're way out of place and really annoying. The sad part is the rest of the show is good, its just those moments of badness that kinda turns me off from it.
It seems silly to say that they're "out of place." If anything, those beats are what I like most about the show. It puts a nice contrast between the crazy spy bullshit and the mundane, real way people actually communicate.
For the FRC, replace "noooope" with "that's all you" and you have the exact same dialog.
I don't find fault with the use of memes in the show, just that they're annoying. Personally the emphasis they put on those memes I find really jarring, they sound really forced and not natural. It's a bad reminder that the voice acting sometimes falters. I think they could just make them not stand out as much it would be much better.
Been watching a very good anthology series which is on channel 4 recently. "Black Mirror" is a Science fiction series really about our changing climate of technology and media. There are currently 5 Episodes out - each of them a short film on different aspects of life from "Reality Television", a one about technology which allows you to replay memories, a recent one about recreating a dead loved one from their online imprint.
Here is the trailer for last episode of the season; (only 3 episodes each season) about a cartoon character running for political office:
Most of the episodes are written by Charlie Brooker who is a Satirist and did one of the best pieces on how the media portrays mass-shootings I have seen:
They did a lot of similar dialogue in Frisky Dingo and I never had issue with it on that show. I can't tell if its just different writing or different directing.
I'm probably the only person here who has seen this show, but my wife's Tuesday TV routine includes The Mindy Project, so I've seen a few episodes by way of being in the same room.
The show is about people working in a gynecologist's office, and there is a fantastic line of running jokes about the competing holistic medicine office a few floors below them. Plenty of jokes about how it's bullshit, how dumb people go there, and how they sell themselves with flashy commercials and celebrity endorsements instead of actual medicine.
I'm probably the only person here who has seen this show, but my wife's Tuesday TV routine includes The Mindy Project, so I've seen a few episodes by way of being in the same room.
The show is about people working in a gynecologist's office, and there is a fantastic line of running jokes about the competing holistic medicine office a few floors below them. Plenty of jokes about how it's bullshit, how dumb people go there, and how they sell themselves with flashy commercials and celebrity endorsements instead of actual medicine.
The second half of the second season of archer I think they get their writing down. It gets a lot better. The first season is actually really good but the first half of the second season is not the best.
After this I'm gonna download the third season of eastbound and down.
The Yard (uncensored) on Hulu is a brilliantly hilarious parody on shows like The Wire and Sopranos, but with school kids. The first episode with the economy of Pokemon type cards vs the intro of Yugioh type cards is great.
So I ended up watching 3 episodes of The Yard. It's only 6 half hour episodes. Episode 3 had me in tears. The story line of the North African boys trying to play soccer vs the school bullies has so many parallels to terrorism, property rights, and religion.
The tactics the North African boys use were such genius that I almost peed my pants.
Seriously, it's only 3 hours of your time. You will not regret it.
Man, I might have to go back and finish that show at some point now. I got through about 8 episodes or so of season 1, probably about 2 years ago. I just sort of faded out on it and never went back to finish the show. It's definitely good but felt like it was missing something to make it "must watch."
Officially ditched Walking Dead and Community, started following along with this whole "let's watch Utena" think instead. I had just set up my HTPC to stream to the iPad, so having a few seasons of short episodic TV will be good for viewing while working out. We have a sweet wall-mounted iPad dock by the elliptical machine in our house.
Comments
Oh, I guess I had a draft half-typed in this thread that I never posted:
I'm not a super-huge fan of either House of Cards, but at least Urqhart had convictions and a political stance. Kevin Spacey's character has no rationale for anything except to secure more power. His transcendent nihilism makes me like the American one less than the British one. Seems like we've got a glut shows recently with protagonists whose only goal is to accrue power/survive. Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones (depending on the character, but many of them). These are not really stories I'm interested in.
But even if you're gonna do that, don't have your character going around saying "he said this, so I said this, then I said this, and that's why I'm going to win" the very next cut after the "he said this-so I said this" exchange took place. That sort of "this is exactly how I am feeling in this moment" or "this is the exact details of my plan to this point" expository dialogue really grinds my gears. Also, when they throw the brick through the window and the King chess piece is conspicuously knocked over: lol. When MEGA-UBER SPOILER EVENT happens later on and he's playing chess with himself: MEGA-LOL. Like, come on. Really? We're using -those- metaphors? And we're playing them straight up?
Is that the "Gardens of the Moon" one? Because I couldn't get through even a single chapter of that shit.
I've just started "Prince of Thorns". Seems OK. I don't think I can really grok fantasy in a post-WoT world. I know lots of people found it tedious, but I LOVE the world building minutiae, it's my favorite thing.
Battlestar Galactica (2004) is something I have also been watching and I enjoy it. I am unsure as to why it took me so long to watch this show. I may go back and watch the original series once I finish this one.
AV Club review
In other news I went back to Walking Dead and I think I am done with that show. After House of Cards, it just stands out how bad the Walking Dead writing and acting is. I just don't give a shit what happens on that show. Starting to feel the same way about Community. I don't know how much of it is in my head or if the show really is different post-Harmon, but after all of the back and forth on whether it would come back, I was ready to move on from the show unless it came back and was absolutely stellar. So far it's been sub-par.
I thought this was going to be the season I watched a ton of TV but it looks like it will just be Game of Thrones and Mad Men when they come back.
For the FRC, replace "noooope" with "that's all you" and you have the exact same dialog.
Here is the trailer for last episode of the season; (only 3 episodes each season) about a cartoon character running for political office:
Most of the episodes are written by Charlie Brooker who is a Satirist and did one of the best pieces on how the media portrays mass-shootings I have seen:
The show is about people working in a gynecologist's office, and there is a fantastic line of running jokes about the competing holistic medicine office a few floors below them. Plenty of jokes about how it's bullshit, how dumb people go there, and how they sell themselves with flashy commercials and celebrity endorsements instead of actual medicine.
After this I'm gonna download the third season of eastbound and down.
The tactics the North African boys use were such genius that I almost peed my pants.
Seriously, it's only 3 hours of your time. You will not regret it.