rolling tv thread
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IdleRich
IdleRich
All of those Potter ones are at least interesting, but TSD had a special magic for me (possibly cos i saw it first) in that it has this sort of experimental (post-modern if you like) format that still manages to genuinely engage the emotions. So much stuff like that falls into the trap of abstract intellectual games.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I honestly thought it was OK, but I haven't found myself thinking about it much since watching it. By all accounts it was mostly technically accurate, apart from a rather glaring error about people who've been exposed to radiation becoming a radiohazard to others (they don't). A bigger problem is the political and ideological stuff Rich touched on - a Russian reviewer said that the deputy PM threatening to have a senior scientist thrown out of a helicopter is the sort of thing that happened in the USSR of 1936, not 1986.
Having said that, the makeup effects for the radiation victims were impressively gross and I loved the naked miners who DGAF.
Overall,
sufi
lala
anyone been watching Michaela the Destroyer?
www.vulture.com
Michaela the Destroyer
How a young talent from East London went from open-mic nights to making the year’s most sublimely unsettling show.
www.vulture.com
Pandiculate
Well-known member
anyone been watching Michaela the Destroyer?
Michaela the Destroyer
How a young talent from East London went from open-mic nights to making the year’s most sublimely unsettling show.
I want to like I May Destroy You but it's just a bit shit. It's like a collection of PSAs, it has some powerful scenes but I really can't be bothered to keep watching.
Might just be annoyed that they called MDMA Molly.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It always makes me smirk to hear Americans talking about "molly". It makes it sound like they've just discovered this hip new designer drug.
sufi
lala
Yeah, lots of good bits but hard work and sometimes feels like they're piling on issues gratuitously
i liked how mobiles are integral to the story in a realistic way that's not usually reflected on telly or film
also the blackness, of course, which isnt played gratuitously imho
i didnt realise there are 12 episodes, i made it thru about 4
IdleRich
IdleRich
I started watching this thing called Dark that everyone has been banging on about (or a few months back they were).
Last year there was a little-known (I think) tv show which was a kind of UK-Australian joint production called The Kettering Incident - the similarities are really striking.
KA - set in nowheresville Australia the town has never recovered from an incident 20 years (or so) ago when a child disappeared amid strange phenomena (lights in the sky, strange sounds etc). Now another child disappears in similar circumstances and the phenomena are back. This all unfolds against the backdrop of a hopeless town which resists investigation as things such as drug dealing and affairs quickly come to light. Could it be something to do with the mysterious roped off land which saw weird experiments and the police are not allowed to investigate?
The Dark - set in nowheresville Germany the town has never recovered from an incident 33 years ago when children disappeared amid strange phenomena (birds falling from sky, strange sounds etc). Now more children are disappearing in similar circumstances and the phenomena are back. This all unfolds against the backdrop of a hopeless town which resists investigation as things such as drug dealing and affairs quickly come to light. Could it be something to do with the mysterious nuclear site which is blocked off and for which the police cannot get a search warrant?
Fortunately KA was cancelled after one season so i don't know how it's gonna end....
Last year there was a little-known (I think) tv show which was a kind of UK-Australian joint production called The Kettering Incident - the similarities are really striking.
KA - set in nowheresville Australia the town has never recovered from an incident 20 years (or so) ago when a child disappeared amid strange phenomena (lights in the sky, strange sounds etc). Now another child disappears in similar circumstances and the phenomena are back. This all unfolds against the backdrop of a hopeless town which resists investigation as things such as drug dealing and affairs quickly come to light. Could it be something to do with the mysterious roped off land which saw weird experiments and the police are not allowed to investigate?
The Dark - set in nowheresville Germany the town has never recovered from an incident 33 years ago when children disappeared amid strange phenomena (birds falling from sky, strange sounds etc). Now more children are disappearing in similar circumstances and the phenomena are back. This all unfolds against the backdrop of a hopeless town which resists investigation as things such as drug dealing and affairs quickly come to light. Could it be something to do with the mysterious nuclear site which is blocked off and for which the police cannot get a search warrant?
Fortunately KA was cancelled after one season so i don't know how it's gonna end....
IdleRich
IdleRich
Also I should say that both are shot in this very gloomy, heavy portentous style with dramatic music and absolutely no humour at any point whatsoever. Never really understand that, people who deny that jokes and laughter exist outside of comedies and think that if they are making a drama the realism will somehow be undercut if one person tells another a joke or smiles wryly at the foibles of an old acquaintance, or even pisses themselves cos they see someone they don't like falling over on their face.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I'm making it sound like I don't like the programme at all which is not true. I'm enjoying it, I'm intrigued by the mystery and so on. However I do like it less because it adheres so rigorously to all the rules of its genre. The rules it's following are the rules of big, clever, spooky, cool, even good tv - and yet rules clearly followed are never a good thing. If you can see how something is made (and why) poking through the surface it spoils it.
And another rule too... some of the episodes nothing really happens, it's slow as fuck for ages with montages and tragic music playing as people cry alone in their rooms or stare wistfully and depressed into the dark wet forest... until the last five minutes when suddenly the story picks up and there are four or five different strands which all suddenly start moving and tantalise you with a revelation and normally a cliff-hanger. And that is very frustrating cos the story surely only unfolds so unevenly purely because of its medium, that of ten part tv series, and each one has to grab you for the next. So the episodes are kinda back-loaded to make you remember them as good and to need to quickly know (oops split infinitive) what happens next. No-one would deliberately tell the story in that way if they had total freedom to tell it.
Hmmm... do I like it after all? I'm beginning to wonder now.
And another rule too... some of the episodes nothing really happens, it's slow as fuck for ages with montages and tragic music playing as people cry alone in their rooms or stare wistfully and depressed into the dark wet forest... until the last five minutes when suddenly the story picks up and there are four or five different strands which all suddenly start moving and tantalise you with a revelation and normally a cliff-hanger. And that is very frustrating cos the story surely only unfolds so unevenly purely because of its medium, that of ten part tv series, and each one has to grab you for the next. So the episodes are kinda back-loaded to make you remember them as good and to need to quickly know (oops split infinitive) what happens next. No-one would deliberately tell the story in that way if they had total freedom to tell it.
Hmmm... do I like it after all? I'm beginning to wonder now.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Dark gets really complicated... but it's complicated in a German/Primer type way in which everything sort of makes sense if you're paying enough attention... superficially it could be compared to Lynch (by which I mean Twin Peaks of course) but in a sense it's totally the opposite - complexity rather than strangeness.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Dark is really pissing me off now in fact. It gets more and more nerdy at the expense of any kind of feeling. At any point you have to work out who is where in which timeline and what they do and don't know. Like something happens to someone and it's supposed to be a big deal but because you need a diagram to work out what they know and when they learned it and thus why the thing that happened is supposed to be shocking it has no visceral effect. And they keep chucking more and more stuff in and more characters travelling through time and so on and it really undercuts what started off as a promising and powerful series... such a shame. We've made it almost to the end of the second series but I dunno if I can be arsed with the rest of it. Especially cos my eyes are being irresistibly drawn to the the temptations of Lovecraft Country and I May Destroy You. But hate being properly invested in several series... what to do? Just fuck Dark off? Or maybe at least watch to the end of series 2 and then swerve series 3? Feels like that might be a semi-decent place to stop but what's the point if I'm not gonna finish it?
Anyone watching Lovecraft Country? I've seen what look like the start of rave reviews online (both from critics and friends) but I've managed to hold off from reading them.
IdleRich
IdleRich
We're watching the Russian 2005 tv adaptation of The Master and Margarita - it's done by a guy called Bortko who did the excellent film of Bulgakov's A Dog's Heart and at its best this is of similar quality - but it's uneven over the ten episodes with some bits a lot better than others. I guess that the book itself is kinda like that too in fairness with different tones in different parts and you can see that made it hard to render faithfully on to the screen and get every bit right. But Bortko is definitely happiest with the funny bits with Woland causing trouble or with Moscow society - and of course those are the most immediately enjoyable scenes.
Anyway, worth checking I'd say - although there are frustrating bits where girlfriend is laughing out loud at the language and so on which can't really be translated, so I get the meaning but something is always lost.
Anyway, worth checking I'd say - although there are frustrating bits where girlfriend is laughing out loud at the language and so on which can't really be translated, so I get the meaning but something is always lost.