rolling tv thread

[IdleRich]

Been watching Peripheral lately. It's about virtual reality which turns out to be real which sounds kinda tired but I gave it a go cos it's William Gibson and I'm enjoying it.

 

[william_kent]

My Saturday night curry club companion announced that she wanted to watch "The Rig", so I went through the hassle of logging into my Amazon Prime account on her TV, and from the first few seconds I knew it was going to be bad. I suspect that they couldn't get Danny Dyer so they just hired someone who had gone to the same drama school. He falls on his head from a great height and starts talking about a 'big wave" yet somehow other workers on the rig take him seriously. We watched the first two episodes and then were all rigged out, but my friend must have watched the next two a couple of days later because when I next visited she filled me in on the obvious plot developments. Then we watched the penultimate episode and attempted the finale, but twenty minutes in she snapped and said "I can't take anymore of this shit" and turned it off. All the way through she was saying "this is like a school kid wrote it" and I wasn't about to argue. Terrible.

edit: this reminds me that I still haven't watched the last episode of "rings of power", that Tolkien rip-off that is also on amazon prime, but I just can't be arsed to be honest, I realise I have no interest in what happens, no empathy for the characterisations whatsoever

 

[IdleRich]

It's a bold step to fuck something off when you've invested a certain amount of time but sometimes it's the right thing to do and I admire those who can do it. The other day I was slagging a film off on here and it suddenly hit me that if I hated it so much there was no point in continuing, can hardly say I regretted it.

 

[william_kent]

It's a bold step to fuck something off when you've invested a certain amount of time but sometimes it's the right thing to do and I admire those who can do it. The other day I was slagging a film off on here and it suddenly hit me that if I hated it so much there was no point in continuing, can hardly say I regretted it.

I learnt a lesson when I was about 11 or 12 that sometimes you just have to throw the book you're struggling to finish in the bin, and it is no fault of your own, it's the creator who fucked up if they can't hold your attention... same goes for any media to be honest

 

[IdleRich]

Started I Hate Suzie the other day after reading some breathless reviews but... it seemed ok but compared to what was described it was hugely disappointing. I was in a very bad mood, maybe that affected it.

 

[william_kent]

Started I Hate Suzie the other day after reading some breathless reviews but... it seemed ok but compared to what was described it was hugely disappointing. I was in a very bad mood, maybe that affected it.

nah, it's not your fault

if the work can't engage and transcend your mood then... maybe it's just not that good?

I had a real struggle recently with that Le Carre book, The Little Drummer Girl, a real slog but I finally got to the end, and well, it was a bit shit really wasn't it?

 

[IdleRich]

Strangely enough I lost interest about halfway through, it's sitting reproachfully on the side. I liked the stuff about Israeli intelligence, I just really struggle to accept they would recruit a random English actor to their cause. My own fault really cos in the precis it says that's what it is about, but when you're confronted with it after the realism of what went before it strains credulity.

 

[IdleRich]

Been watching Peripheral lately. It's about virtual reality which turns out to be real which sounds kinda tired but I gave it a go cos it's William Gibson and I'm enjoying it.

Well I watched all of The Peripheral and, on the whole, I really enjoyed it. I think the pragmatic way that they dealt with time travel and its consequences was one of the most satisfying I've seen.

What happens in the series is that when someone goes back in time they change the past and so a fork occurs with a new, changed timeline diverging from the one in which the person went back. Which I guess is one of the standard approaches.

But what I found believable here is that the people in the first timeline believe theirs is the sort of naturally superior one, and the others which diverge from it they denote as 'stubs' which they feel free to fuck with as they like by testing new technology, untried drugs and so on - basically anything that might bring them money. At one point they spell it out quite literally, it's a kind of colonisation of parallel dimensions rather than space with stub-inhabitants being denied any rights whatsoever cos they're not us.

There were a few plotholes, or maybe it's better to say that a lot of the time the limits of the technology of the future are left vague and so you're never sure if the characters are in danger or if they are gonna be able to teleport (or something) the problem away. And when they were/weren't able to do this felt inconsistently applied and arbitrary.

My main gripe though was the fighting scenes. Every now and again there would be these totally extraneous bits where there would suddenly be a long and pointless overly choreographed fight. Most didn't seem part of the plot, it was though they had been told that they must put one such scene in every episode. It especially grated with Flynn's 'peripheral' having the unexplained and unearned ability do all this Bruce Lee stuff out of nowhere - I just found it really uninvolving to see the hero magically gaining these powers and then fighting loads of background characters for the most tenuous of reasons at great length. I dunno if I'm explaining it properly but the fight scenes felt so wrong that I got kinda embarrassed and uncomfortable watching them and they ultimately dragged the show down a notch in my estimation.

A shame cos there was loads of good stuff with interesting plotting and ideas. Ending was a bit rushed though and seemed entirely designed to set up series 2. As usual.

 

[entertainment]

The Last of Us started well I thought but turned out pretty dull and lifeless.

 

[you]

Did anyone watch the second series of White Lotus? Arguably it sort of meandered along with nothing happening and then packed it all into the final episode, but I really enjoyed it despite or because of that. It had a kind of dark undercurrent that was always hinted at and - without spoiling it too much cos I think it's fairly obvious - that is made manifest but just a little bit nastier than I thought. I enjoyed all the horrible characters and their awful interactions in every episode. Recommended.

Eli Zaretsky | ‘The White Lotus’ · LRB 28 December 2022

By foregrounding the sexual relations and fantasies among and between the staff and the guests, The White Lotus analyses...

www.lrb.co.uk

"A lot of my intuition is based on her physicality."

If you enjoyed White Lotus you'll love this blog.

 

[IdleRich]

In Portugal there is this (American) true crime channel that has hundreds of horrible shows that gleefully go into forensic detail over the most horrible crimes. They all have titles like The Dallas Demon or The Vampire Beside Me and they are relentlessly, intensely grim. And fascinating, sadly. For a long time I tried to pretend I'm not interested in this stuff. I don't want to be one of those people who knows about serial killers... but I guess I do have a slight tendency in that direction that I can't deny.

Liza is much worse than me, there was this one we watched about that poisoner guy and it talked about how he bonded with Ian Brady in jail - and she said "of course, they were both massively into Nazi stuff" - and... that was a little concerning when she turned out to be totally right.

 

[luka]

version belongs to a jeremy bamber forum

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah I interacted with him on there, it was so obviously the same guy. They call him the archivist, he knows all the details of the shots, the phonecalls, where the silencer was etc

 

[IdleRich]

Just watched a documentary about the world famous disgraced former porn star and now senile sex offender Ron Jeremy, who appears to have been something of a strange figure - someone who found himself inexplicably on top of the world but whose deep and fundamental character flaws inevitably brought him low

It seems that every now and then, as with reality tv, an adult actor (love this name for the most childish film genre in existence - except Marvel superhero films obviously) transcends the genre and becomes known by name outside of the small group of dedicated onanists who actually care about that sort of thing. With reality TV there has been Harry Styles and that guy from The Apprentice (Alan Sugar), whereas with porn there is Linda Lovelace who starred in the most profitable film of all time Deep Throat, John Holmes whose habit of carrying around at all times his kit for making crack led him down some dark paths to almost certain involvement in the famously grisly "four on the floor" murders on Wonderland Avenue and whose life inspired Boogie Nights, and, more recently of course the genius polymath writer, musician and cocksucker Sasha Grey...

But from the early 80s until almost now it seems Jeremy achieved a level of fame that was unprecedented. I think I'm just a little too young to have experienced the phenomenon - I honestly don't think I've seen him in anything - but apparently the fact of his having nailed literally thousands of women on camera despite being short, fat and ugly, made him something of an everyman hero to a generation of American males who put him in films, on chat shows, music videos, video games, reality shows and so on... fame he capitalised on wth merchandise and so on, making him wealthy.

He loved to party and used his fame, wealth and popularity to gain entry to exclusive and glamorous parties where, insulated by his power, he would behave boorishly with any women he met, signing tits, groping anyone in range, knobbing the surprising number of women who were up for it and - according to the rumours of sexual assault that were beginning to circulate - quite a few who weren't, he was crass enough to brag about how when you are a star you can act as you wish.

And as he grew older and fatter, stopped
cutting his nails, taking showers or even wiping his arse, his appeal seemed to diminish somewhat, even his trademark red baseball cap failed to draw in the women.

His sexual assaults changed from grabbing women by the pussy, fingering them at parties and laughing off complaints, to an even more sinister pattern of getting women alone and overpowering them.

It's not clear when his mental illness kicked in, and I'm not a medical expert, but to my untrained eye his total abandoning of bodily hygiene plus the fact he hoarded so much shite there was no room to live in his house and he had to move into a hotel across the road looked a little like warning signs.

There are also some excruciating videos of him compering events where he would totally lose the thread of what he'd been saying and deliver attempted jokes with a bizarre lack of timing. He definitely wasn't advising anyone to drink bleach though and I've been unable to ascertain whether or not he thought windmills caused cancer. Let's be honest though you'd have to be pretty far gone to think that so safest to assume not at this stage.

Finally it seemed his crimes caught up with him and he faced several trials for rape with a number of credible witnesses coming forward, however he was ruled unfit to stand trial, with the result that as far as I can work out he's presently in some kind of indefinite enforced stay in a hospital for the mentally ill.

The weird thing is the continuing popularity with a certain kind of person of this overweight, lying sex pest in serious and obvious mental decline - his supporters simply refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence against him and at times it feels that there is nothing he could do which would turn the worst kind of American against him.

I find this quite worrying. It seems that there is a certain kind and level of popularity that it is possible for a fat, lying, rapist, drug addict who shits his pants to attain that is simply indestructible - it sounds ridiculous, but what if such a person was to move into a sphere where he could cause real harm? Suppose such a beast was to stop concentrating on women with names such as Christy Canyon or Stormy Daniels and stand for president? You probably think I'm talking nonsense but I seriously think it could happen... and if it did the potential damage to tye US and the world would be limitless...

 

[william_kent]

Just watched a documentary about the world famous disgraced former porn star and now senile sex offender Ron Jeremy, who appears to have been something of a strange figure.

It seems that every now and then an adult actor (love this name for the most childish film genre in existence - except Marvel superhero films obviously) transcends the genre and becomes known by name outside of the small group of dedicated onanists who actually care about that sort of thing; there is Linda Lovelace who starred in the most profitable film of all time Deep Throat, John Holmes whose habit of carrying around at all times his kit for making crack led him down some dark paths to almost certain involvement in the famously grisly "four on the floor" murders on Wonderland Avenue and whose life inspired Boogie Nights, and, more recently of course the genius polymath writer, musician and cocksucker Sasha Grey...

But from the early 80s until almost now it seems Jeremy achieved a level of fame that was unprecedented. I think I'm just a little too young to have experienced the phenomenon - I honestly don't think I've seen him in anything - but apparently the fact of his having nailed literally thousands of women on camera despite being short, fat and ugly, made him something of an everyman hero to a generation of American males who put him in films, on chat shows, music videos, video games, reality shows and so on... fame he capitalised on wth merchandise abd so on, making him wealthy.

He loved to party and used his popularity to behave boorishly with any women he met, signing tits all over the shop, groping anyone in range, knobbing the surprising number of women who were up for it and - according to the rumours of sexual assault that were beginning to circulate - quite a few who weren't, he was crass enough to brag about how when you are a star you can just grab women by the pussy.

And as he grew older and fatter, stopped
cutting his nails, taking showers or even wiping his arse, his appeal seemed to diminish somewhat, even his trademark red baseball failed to draw in the women. His sexual assaults changed from fingering women at parties and laughing off complaints to an even more sinister pattern of getting women alone and overpowering them.

It's not clear when his mental illness kicked in, and I'm not a medical expert, but to my untrained eye his total abandoning of bodily hygiene plus the fact he hoarded so much shite there was no room to live in his house and he had to move into a hotel across the road looked a little like warning signs.

There are also some excruciating videos of him compering events where he would totally lose the thread of what he'd been saying and deliver attempted jokes with a bizarre lack of timing. He definitely wasn't advising anyone to drink bleach though.

Finally it seemed his crimes caught up with him and he faced several trials for rape with a number of credible witnesses coming forward, however he was ruled unfit to stand trial, with the result that as far as I can work out he's presently in some kind of indefinite enforced stay in a hospital for the mentally ill.

The weird thing is the continuing popularity with a certain kind of person of this overweight, lying sex pest in serious and obvious mental decline - his supporters simply refuse to the overwhelming evidence against him and at times it feels that there is nothing he could do which would turn the worst kind of American against him.

I find this quite worrying. It seems that there is a certain kind and level of popularity that it is possible for a fat, lying, rapist, drug addict who shits his pants to attain that is simply indestructible - it sounds ridiculous, but what if such a person was to move into a sphere where he could cause real harm? Suppose such a beast was to stop concentrating on women with names such as Christy Canyon or Stormy Daniels and stand for president? You probably think I'm talking nonsense but I seriously think it could happen... and if it did the potential damage to tye US and the world would be limitless...

i'm a little bit fucked at this point in time

but I possess 2 dvds


one, John Holmes and the Wonderland murders ( 5 star recommendation!!!! )


and two, fatty boy "life of Ron"


an ex-boss once told me how Ron was really fucking hot, but she was wrong, the DVD containing his biography was boring as hell, but the Holmes vid was just up my street,.. furious coke free base habit, exceeds expectations, ouch!,, needs some cash to support his hobby, prepared to grass out anyone and everyone, to the extent he'd unlock the front door to the biggest smack dealer in LA and then he'd let the psycho dopefiends pour in and LET the slaughter commence

I live for this shit

no apology ( except when i wake up tomorrow evening and try and delete this post and it's not possible because of some arbitrary @sufi click on default decision )

but, anyway, I've seen Ron in action ( on video, obviously,, not in IRL, you think I'm sort of sick pervert? ) , and,,, there's a cliche about how you can't "unsee"..100% applicable

* flabby stomach barely hiding the dormant semi, no amount of lube is going to excite


oops

 

[IdleRich]

The John Holmes murder thing is fascinating, the film with Val Kilmer is surprisingly good... but WK, I'm sorry to say the above post wasn't really about a y porn star. As you will probably notice when sober...

 

[william_kent]

ah..

ah...

are you really taking about the DON?

currently hammered

but I might just about be just about following your drift?

damn,that's my PhD in pr0n studies swept under the carpet because of 5 drinks too many...

hashtag: #bad life decisions, aka poor choices, story of my life

edit: I've only seen documentaries about John Holmes, is there really a fictional film starring wacko Val about Wonderland? point me in the right direction.. ( edit: surprisingly I can use still use google, is it "wonderland"?, is it worth a watch?)

edit: can hardly stand, let alone type...forgive me, was just passed out, and almost collapsed when having a cig before...

edit: sunday morning regrets

 

[IdleRich]

Yes I kinda cunningly drew the following parallels between The Donald and The Hedgehog;

Porn star made good v reality star made good

One used to come up behind women at parties and stick his fingers right up them vs one bragged about grabbing women by the pussy

Both increasingly overweight

Both showed severe mental decline giving meandering nonsensical speeches

Both had hardcore fans from a certain demographic who insisted he was a hero and who refused to accept any evidence of his wrongdoing

But were ultimately brought down by their own actions

Both finally faced trials in their 70s after a lifetime of thinking they were untouchable.

 

[william_kent]

i own two dvds* of documentaries about porn stars

one about John Holmes - evil, twisted, a snitch.... mesmerising story, highly recommended

and one about a fat slob called Ron

so boring,

yet... he did have a rum named after him, still curious

I mean whoever took that photo obviously polished off the bottle

but if you've ever seen any of his "work".... not good, sort of like when I used to work in an office opposite where the pigeons got it on, and someone would comment, "oh look, the pigeons are fucking" and everyone would sort of glance over, chuckle, and then immediately get back to whatever they were doing on their computer...


* might be a lie, I may own more documentaries than 2

 

[IdleRich]

The film is this... surprisingly good, Liza Kudrow plays his wife who - after he was dead - revealed the somewhat damning fact that Holmes turned up at her flat shaking and covered in blood the day after the murders.

I dunno if you recall this blog we mentioned that focused on murders in Laurel Canyon (though this one was actually just outside)? It was kinda like a conspiracy theory thing which went into incredible detail about the number of unexplained deaths, often of very high profile people, in the canyon over the years, and tied many of them together in ways that would have sounded far-fetched if he hadn't gone into such meticulous and corroborated detail.

Anyway this guy mentioned the Wonderland film in passing, and it sort of caught my eye when he said that it was one of the few films about Hollywood that actually got the facts right and told the real story.

When it came out it it received almost universally negative reviews, the film was slated for being unrelentingly grim, seemingly wallowing in the filth and nastiness of the events and the milieu in which they occurred, and failing to offer any kind of redemptive arc or morality

Which to me seems to rather miss the point of true story type films (or does it? See my biopic rant). It just wouldn't have worked to say "The Armenian gangland boss forced the crack addicted porn star at gunpoint to savagely hibeat to death his drug dealer* friends with an iron bar and they all lived happily ever after"

.

Wasn't Nash also implicated in the brutal suicide of Bobby "I fought the law" Filler who had shown a life- threatening interest in this girlfriend?

*A charming bunch who smuggled heroin from Vietnam in the coffins of dead soldiers