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Started Detectorists a couple days ago. One of the comfiest shows I've seen since Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories.

Watched Rogue One for the second time. I think it might be the best Star Wars film. OK, maybe not "the best film at being a Star Wars" but maybe "the best film that is a Star Wars".

I just finished the first season of Fortitude (on Amazon Prime Video) earlier today and am unsure how. It is like an unbalanced blend of Fargo and The X-files with painfully slow pacing and few likable characters. Season 2 seems to be starting with a bit more of a bang, but could very well fizzle.

I've watched the first couple eps of COMRADE DETECTIVE. It's really good, like Italian Spiderman communist cop show.

Awesome, gotta check that.

DEFENDERS TONIGHT!!!!

jrfox92 wrote:Atypical could be an A+ show if it wasn't for the mother that keeps fucking the bartender.

Seriously, why do TV shows have to have the plot line of the slutty mother that cheats on her husband all the fucking time.
Do people actually like that shit?

It doesn't ruin the show for me, but I have talked to my wife (we both like the show) a lot about how much the character and plot line are confusing to me. I can't figure out what the show wants me to think about her. I feel like the show wants me to hate her, because she is very uptight and controlling, her family all kind of wince and nod to each other about her, like it's an inside joke (when in reality, families like that just hate each other and have major conflicts). At the same time there's a sympathetic aspect to her character, because she's portrayed as someone who seems to have given up a lot of her identity as an individual in order to be a mom and needs to find a way to figure out who she is, now that her kids are around the age and development to not need her as much. Then they show her going out of her way to be high strung, controlling and passive aggressive (or aggressive aggressive) to people on behalf of being a mother, when it's clearly not needed or wanted by her children and comes off as condescending to her kid with autism, which is a behavior she scolds other people about. Rapport's dad character comes off as kind of clueless and misguided, but genuinely good and trying to be a good dad and husband. Maybe too little too late, we don't know, we only know what happens from the point the story starts. So the fact that the mom seems to be a person who COULD illicit sympathy, but makes the worst choice in every situation to indulge her worst impulses. Complicated characters are fine, I'm just not sure what the point of the character is or how I'm supposed to feel about her. Is she supposed to be someone who's repressed themselves and been taken for granted and is trying to get her power back, but will eventually discover the error of her ways...or is she supposed to be a character that shows how some people are more interested in perpetuating their problems than addressing them? Something else? I dunno, Jennifer Jason Leigh is a good actress and plays the character well. I guess I'm wondering if she's really a fleshed out character with a purpose of if a morally complicated character is just mandatory on prestige style TV now. She does come off a lot like a female Don Draper, in a lot of ways. Though severely more (or differently) neurotic.

Yeah, see, I can get over the morally complicated bit in most circumstances, but it really seemed like they're just beating you over the head with "she's a mom and now she don't know what to do cuz her kids don't need her so she's gonna have weird secret sex with a bartender then we're gonna make it seem like it's kinda okay because the dad left for eight months a few years ago but actually it's not okay because he's a good person and wants to be a good dad/husband so really she's kinda shitty if you think about it".
Maybe if it was something that was done in a much more subtle fashion (you knew it was gonna happen eventually the instant she went into the bar ) it would've gone over better in my view, but I still thing it's such an overdone trope that really only serves to be controversial and not much else.

If a Season 2 eventually arrives, it's gonna be that much more annoying because her infidelity is gonna be a force that pushes the entire plot of the show, and, to me, that's just lazy storytelling.

I watched Cloud Atlas last night.

I was sufficiently able to follow the stories/overall story and it is indeed visually spectacular. I have no doubt that there's a litany of reasons to dislike the movie (I'm sure Tom Hanks ruins it for a lot of people LOL), but the only problem I had with it is that, like almost all big budget sci fi movies, it puts humanity on a pedestal and treats love as physical force rather than just oxytocin. It's a minor complaint even from a nihilist like myself and if you're a spiritual person, it probably makes the story better. That is, if you can pay attention for long enough to figure out what the fuck is going on.

The main issue I had with Cloud Atlas was that the storyline was just boring when all was said and done.

Watching Defenders now.
So far (at episode 5) it's pretty solid. I like how all the little connections from the individual shows are coming together.
It's pretty drawn out, almost like a season of 24, but I actually appreciate that.

Watched DONALD CRIED and it was excellent. Not for everyone.

Defenders HYPE

Star Trek: Voyager has some of the most unexpected guest stars. First it was Sarah Silverman, and now Dwayne Johnson and Jeffrey Combs are both in the same episode.

I still need to finish Iron Fist before diving into the Defenders, and the premise of Atypical is intriguing, but probably too much like work to be enjoyable.

Bloodhammer wrote:I watched Cloud Atlas last night.

I was sufficiently able to follow the stories/overall story and it is indeed visually spectacular. I have no doubt that there's a litany of reasons to dislike the movie (I'm sure Tom Hanks ruins it for a lot of people LOL), but the only problem I had with it is that, like almost all big budget sci fi movies, it puts humanity on a pedestal and treats love as physical force rather than just oxytocin. It's a minor complaint even from a nihilist like myself and if you're a spiritual person, it probably makes the story better. That is, if you can pay attention for long enough to figure out what the fuck is going on.

To me, it just did what I expected when I saw who directed it, which was to cheese things up with flashy effects and action sequences and completely miss most of the actual humanity in the book, both the beautiful and the ugly. It plays like a cartoon or comic book version of the novel. I was also disappointed they didn't at least mimic the mirror image structure of the book, instead jumping around between sections whenever they felt like it once the film really gets rolling. Even at nearly 3 hours, the pacing felt unnecessarily rushed in many places, with many stretches coming across almost like montage, just to be wrapped up with a bog-standard sentimental Hollywood ending that manages to nullify the impact of the book's ending (which is actually in the film and is not without potency when it arrives). I can respect the ambition, but I'd like to see someone more contemplative attempt it at some point, or maybe something like Paris, je t'aime, where each story has a different director.

tl;dr: The book was better.

Finished Defender.

It was pretty good but the end confused me.

jrfox92 wrote:Yeah, see, I can get over the morally complicated bit in most circumstances, but it really seemed like they're just beating you over the head with "she's a mom and now she don't know what to do cuz her kids don't need her so she's gonna have weird secret sex with a bartender then we're gonna make it seem like it's kinda okay because the dad left for eight months a few years ago but actually it's not okay because he's a good person and wants to be a good dad/husband so really she's kinda shitty if you think about it".
Maybe if it was something that was done in a much more subtle fashion (you knew it was gonna happen eventually the instant she went into the bar ) it would've gone over better in my view, but I still thing it's such an overdone trope that really only serves to be controversial and not much else.

If a Season 2 eventually arrives, it's gonna be that much more annoying because her infidelity is gonna be a force that pushes the entire plot of the show, and, to me, that's just lazy storytelling.

Yeah, I agree. I don't like that the direction they took it sort of necessitates it take over the entire plot in the future. Unless they just drop it or time jump to them being already divorced, which would be weird. I would be ok with just following the character of Sam and getting the effect of having a special needs kid on the rest of the family be background and b-plot, which some highlight episodes for each supporting character. I just got the feeling that the mom was supposed to be some kind of badass, when she just seemed like a toxic person to me. I'm a biased to noticing characters like that, because there's a lot of experience with toxic, perpetually self martyred parents between me and my wife lol.