rolling tv thread

[Pandiculate]

Chernobyl 86 (2022) - IMDb

Chernobyl 86: Directed by James Jones. Newly-discovered archive footage and witness accounts to lay bare the tragedy and heroic efforts made to prevent another explosion.

www.imdb.com

archive footage from the mouth of hell, never mind the HBO series, watch this instead

definitely will be loading this when I want some bleakness

 

[DLaurent]

I've just bought the Dekalog on DVD to watch with my sister. Brother in law doesn't think it's a good idea as he's seen it before like me. Going to give at least a couple of episodes a go again though as it's been years since I've watched it. I think it will be as I remember it; gorgeous actresses and cinematography but all in all, a bit dreary. I've sold it as being like classic Russian literature on film but I don't think that really sold it to her either.

 

[IdleRich]

Dekalog is great. I love the way the bits start all low-key and vague with you wondering who the main character will be and which direction it will go, but soon it focuses and draws you in to a story that's unusual and intriguing... some are dark, some funny and so on. Of course some episodes are better than others, but on the whole the quality is high.

Dunno about Russian literature cos it's Polish and inspired by the bible, maybe there are some similarities but they didn't particularly jump out at me. Did whoever told you that say what they were getting at at all?

 

[DLaurent]

That was my interpretation just going on how heavy I remember it being, kind of a Crime and Punishment or War and Peace style dealing with big 'existential' questions. Not that I've ever read those books in full.

 

[Clinamenic]

Also Severance is interesting so far. The characters work for this corporation that uses a technique called "severance" on some of its employees, which essentially splits their identity into a work self and a personal self. The toggle between these selves is activated by a pulse emitted in the elevator these employees take to their office. So the work self only has awareness and memory of being in the office, and the personal self has no idea what their work self does at the office.

 

[Clinamenic]

Conceptually its one of my favorite shows ever, and as a show its pretty good.

 

[IdleRich]

That was my interpretation just going on how heavy I remember it being, kind of a Crime and Punishment or War and Peace style dealing with big 'existential' questions. Not that I've ever read those books in full.

Some are quite heavy... maybe they start off with a dark one. But some are much lighter and at least one is downright silly.

 

[IdleRich]

Also Severance is interesting so far. The characters work for this corporation that uses a technique called "severance" on some of its employees, which essentially splits their identity into a work self and a personal self. The toggle between these selves is activated by a pulse emitted in the elevator these employees take to their office. So the work self only has awareness and memory of being in the office, and the personal self has no idea what their work self does at the office.

View attachment 10929

Sounds interesting. Similar idea to the effect of Substance D in A Scanner Darkly.

 

[Clinamenic]

Sounds interesting. Similar idea to the effect of Substance D in A Scanner Darkly.

I've only seen the film of that, but yeah a sort of artificially induced dissociation. Only in Severance it's a surgical operation rather than a drug.

 

[craner]

One of the greatest TV shows I've ever seen is when Jo Guest was on Through the Keyhole

 

[version]

@IdleRich

 

[version]

Anyone watch Tokyo Vice? Michael Mann directed the first episode.

 

[DLaurent]

Gave up on the Dekalog with my sister after 2 episodes. It's just as high brow, in a trying way, as I remember but I had more tolerance for slow stuff like that when I was younger. Not to say they aren't cleverly structured.

 

[Leo]

just started watching the danish "the killing". figured we should watch the original nordic noir, since we've seen so many great ones that followed.

 

[you]

Also Severance is interesting so far. The characters work for this corporation that uses a technique called "severance" on some of its employees, which essentially splits their identity into a work self and a personal self. The toggle between these selves is activated by a pulse emitted in the elevator these employees take to their office. So the work self only has awareness and memory of being in the office, and the personal self has no idea what their work self does at the office.

View attachment 10929

I'll attempt to seek this out. Thanks @Clinamenic

The premise is a good question - are these people severed, cleaved, in two? Or are they emancipated from work. It's curious that this ultra-level of compartmentalisation is the focus of a post-Thatcher vocation-qua-identity, post pandemic - porous borders/WFHHFW...

 

[Clinamenic]

I'll attempt to seek this out. Thanks @Clinamenic

The premise is a good question - are these people severed, cleaved, in two? Or are they emancipated from work. It's curious that this ultra-level of compartmentalisation is the focus of a post-Thatcher vocation-qua-identity, post pandemic - porous borders/WFHHFW...

Yeah its a super interesting show. I don't remember the last time a show had me this eager for the next episode.

Pretty much all of the characters are damaged by their own neurotic solipsism and loneliness, and their outside selves have a relationship with work that is similar to an addiction.

And the work that the main characters' work selves are doing, in the department called Macrodata Refinement, is a purely gamified work experience. They basically just sit at their computers and play a puzzle for hours each day, and their memory is confined to the time they spend down there, so effectively their whole lives have been spent playing this work game.

 

[Clinamenic]

I can't recommend this show enough. John Turturro and Chris Walken are delightful in it, and its totally changed the esteem in which I hold Ben Stiller, who directed some of the episodes, and Adam Scott, who stars in it.

edit: and its also raised my opinion of Patricia Arquette, and has put Britt Lower on the map in terms of talent, in my mind.

 

[Clinamenic]

And it's also just a solid commentary on how we compartmentalize our lives, but this show takes it to hyperbolic levels of schizophrenia. Adam Scott is effectively playing two characters, two different versions of himself with different demeanors and different memories.

 

[Clinamenic]

Conceptually its one of my favorite shows ever, and as a show its pretty good.

And even as a show, in the last few episodes it's gotten very good.

 

[Clinamenic]

I think part of the reason I like this show so much, is because I had started writing a story a few years ago that was strikingly similar in certain ways, about a worker-like human cog in a machine that gains self-awareness and taps into higher-order levels of consciousness. Somewhat in the spirit of Charlie Kaufman and, to less of an extent, David Foster Wallace. Depressive, hyperintellectual neurosis.