What shows are you watching?

Started by Jeremy Blackman, May 06, 2017, 04:03:18 PM

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wilberfan

I wasn't familiar with Craig's work at all, so this is a very pleasant surprise.   It was mentioned at the end of the Chernobyl Podcast (which I still highly recommend) that Craig has his own podcast: Scriptnotes.

wilberfan

Quote from: polkablues on June 04, 2019, 01:03:25 PM
The incredible thing is to look at Craig Mazin's prior filmography, and then see what he accomplished with this series. You never in a million years would have guessed he was capable of this.

No one is more surprised by 'Chernobyl's' success than creator Craig Mazin

wilberfan



A 10-episode series, which follows James (Jimmi Simpson), a young grifter, as he attempts to prey upon Pastor Byron Brown (Sir Ben Kingsley), who turns out to be far more dangerous than he suspects. The pastor and his wife Lillian (Jacki Weaver)—known to their parishioners as Pa and Ma—have used religion to bilk hundreds of innocent people out of their life savings.

Sort of a Coen Brothers meet David Lynch thing going on here, with an amazing cast.  (Ben Kingsley, Luis Guzman...)

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: polkablues on May 20, 2019, 07:25:02 PM
A couple Netflix originals that just came out that are worth everybody's time:

BLACK SUMMER


There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this one. It's yet another zombie thing. It's a ostensible prequel to Z Nation, the show that was seemingly based on the pitch, "The Walking Dead, but intentionally bad." It's produced by The Asylum, the company behind such masterpieces as the Sharknado hexalogy and the Pacific Rim ripoff titled... *deep sigh*... "Atlantic Rim." There's no reason to expect this to be good.

EXCEPT IT IS. It eschews the bloat and soap opera melodrama of The Walking Dead in favor of a sparse, starkly minimalist, intensely focused narrative. There's a single story being told here: people are trying to get to a place and there are obstacles making it hard for them to do so. Characters drop in and out of the story organically, characters die abruptly and typically with little fanfare, and notably -- unlike The Walking Dead, where the human characters almost always seem to outmatch the zombies and are only in danger when they really fuck up somehow -- the stakes feel truly life and death at almost any given moment. Dialogue is scarce, and there are long sections where we're just following a character or characters, the tension building the whole time, and when that tension breaks it goes off like a pipe bomb. There are only a few points across eight episodes where it feels like it goes too over the top and you're reminded of the show's provenance, but it does so much right that it was easy for me to forgive those moments.


Wow, so, Black Summer is actually VERY GOOD. One of the best zombie things I've seen. And probably one of the most underrated Netflix originals.

Polka's review is spot-on. People don't really know how to survive yet, and these are fast zombies, so there's just no time for soap opera or thematic bloat. It's all business. The stakes are real — any character could die at any time. (And you do really care about some of them.) My favorite scenes involve zombies wreaking havoc among survivors, and it's hard to differentiate them, because everyone is running. Terrifying and surprisingly realistic.

There are a couple sketchy performances and line deliveries, but those moments are brief and forgivable.

The best sequences play out like Gus Van Sant directing a zombie chase. Some of the set pieces are truly breathtaking, seriously. Did not expect that level of craftsmanship from this thing! Definitely feels like someone's passion project.

polkablues

Low-key relieved I wasn't just deluding myself.
My house, my rules, my coffee

wilberfan

Just started watching episode 1.  Fun that the very first talking head is Studio City's Favorite Son. 



jenkins

tonight i'm starting The Righteous Gemstones with my roommate. we're hanging out again because of tv again. it premiered today, i hear it's an hour, Danny McBride writer/director, next week David Gordon Green takes over director

polkablues



This is really good, for what it's worth. Created by the guy who made Assassination Nation, and in many ways it feels like an evolution of that movie (a handful of scenes feel almost like direct remakes of scenes from the film). If you liked Assassination Nation, you should love this show, and if you didn't like Assassination Nation, you're wrong, but also you should give the show a shot anyway.

Zendaya, it should be stated, is amazing in this. She's by far the best actor to ever come out of the Disney Channel factory.
My house, my rules, my coffee

WorldForgot

^Beautiful show. The De Palma nodz are plentiful, including an episode that ends its Blow-Out inspired celebration-cum-mayhem with Pino Donaggio's score from Roeg's DONT LOOK NOW. Also, the way it handles transworld contradictions iz more than necessary, a humanist genre-approach that you can only do when stylized as this show iz

jenkins

i barely watch tv and i know it's the second best series this year, after Fleabag. it's created by the writer/director of Assassination Nation yeah, Sam Levinson, who is the son of Barry. he's just got the good fight in him from what i can tell

im going to keep watching  The Righteous Gemstones in order to hang out with my roommate, but it's not a best series this year. it's just so familiar you know. oh Southern shit sucks but no wait look at this. you know

jenkins

i didn't know what he'd do at 3min. if you guessed it you have impressive foresight. this feels very videogame to me and im positively fascinated. its believability comes from its verisimilitude. feeling real. not a lot of feelings, except about what's real. and there's a lot that's real in life if you look around. i like it


jenkins

The Righteous Gemstones is up to antics. this first episode by Halloween director DGG had a knockdown hotel fight following a dreadful interpretation of events precipitated by throwing a woman down a hill for dead. there was a nailbiting surprise twist at the end of the episode

WorldForgot


polkablues

My house, my rules, my coffee

Drenk

Ascension.