Television shows...
Sep. 24th, 2022 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThe lovely thing about technology and digital age - is movies come to television a lot faster. I used to have to go to the movie theater to see these things, now, I do not. And I'm very happy about that. Movie theaters have kind of gotten annoying - people do not know how to turn off their cell phones in them.
Do not text in movie theaters folks - it is akin to shining a very bright flashlight in your fellow movie goers faces. There should be instant karma for that? If you text in a movie theater during a movie, automatically someone blinds you with a flashlight.
This is why I prefer to watch at home. Well that - and the fact that I can pause it to go to the bathroom. It does help having a movie theater size screen for the most part.
Have done nothing much today but watch television - although to be honest it wasn't until 8pm that I found anything on television that held my interest. Most of it, my interest wandered during.
1. Reboot - this is the new Hulu situation comedy about a group of people rebooting an old and fairly bad situation comedy (actually 80% of situation comedies are bad, so...). I wish I could say this was an exception, it's not.
I watched three to four episodes before giving up. So I did give it a chance. Same chance I gave Ghosts (it's better, and that's saying something. Or at least less crude at any rate - being a network series.)
For a bit I was trying to figure out if Alyson Hannigan had gained a lot of weight to star in the series. Until I realized no, that's not Alyson Hannigan, it's the far more talented and relatable Rachel Bloom - who is the best thing in it, next to possibly Paul Reiser. But it is crude and kind of offensive with the constant barrage of inappropriate and unfunny sex jokes, many bordering on sexist.
Examples, because you kind of need them to know what I'm talking about, since your idea of crude and borderline offensive may not be the same as mine. I'm fully aware of that. I admittedly have a lower tolerance for this sort of comedy than most.
1. The set up is that they are redoing a family sitcom with the original cast, who have of course aged. The kid is now in his twenties. But he still has his stage mother (or Mom who is his manager) tagging around with him and staying in his trailer. One of his adult male co-stars, Clay, who is now in his late 40s early 50s, finds this problematic and decides to confront her.
His co-star (the Step-Dad, a younger guy - played by Keegan Michael Kay), aka Reed, asks how it went.
Clay: Well, she gave me a blow job, and an orange slice. It was comforting and motherly. Which I know is..
Reed: creepy? Unsettling?
Clay: yup.
Clay tries again.
Reed: Did you talk to her?
Clay: Well we had sex.
Reed: This is awkward, you are having sex with your television kid's Mom.
Me - first, ew. Second, this is not funny, you stupid male writers.
2. Example number two:
Reed: I did go to Yale you know, and starred in Shakespeare there, graduating with honors -
His Partner (who is female but they aren't apparently married): Why do you need to wave the whole Yale bit around? You have a big Penis.
Me: Really? Really Writers?
3. Rachel Bloom's character in the seating area, wearing a gray long sleeved t-shirt, tucked into her pants, looking sloppy and fat bulging. With sweat under her arms. Talks to skinny female actress in nice suit.
Actress: You must be a writer.
Bloom: Why do you say that?
actress: Because you can wear that, and not have to look perfect like I do.
Bloom gets up.
Actress: Uhm...
Bloom has sweat stains under her arms.
Bloom: Can you help me out?
Actress gives bloom her suit jacket, which barely fits but covers the sweat stains.
ME: Really? This is just crude and offensive. Can I hit the writers? Preferably in the groin? Repeatedly?
At least it doesn't have a laugh track making me want to hit the audience.
Crude embarrassment humor doesn't work for me.
Shame, in the previews there appeared to be a funny bit with a tripping Judy Greer leaping on John Knoxville in Central Park thinking he was a dragon. That looked funny. They really should lead with that, instead of these crude sex jokes.
Anyhow the set up of this thing - isn't bad. The daughter of sitcom writer wants to reboot his old series, with the original cast, but a more updated setting, darker jokes, and edgier. It's a family sitcom - instead of the family always doing the right thing, they do the wrong thing. (In other words they've decided to copy about half the current family sitcoms.) It's a satire about making a television series. Except way too much emphasis on crude below the belt sex jokes.
I really should stop trying these things. I never like them. It's just a waste of my time.
2. Drifted over to Rings of Power which I could not focus on to save my life. Also the first episode was kind of slow. A lot of action, but not a lot happened? Also way too many characters. It reminded me of the Wheel of Time Series that Amazon did. It didn't pull me in. That said, it has potential - there's some interesting characters in there. The Harfoot's are interesting. But the elves kind of look alike except for the guy involved with the human.
It could just be me, my focus is off at the moment.
3. Seregeti II didn't even hold my focus, I got bored and jumped away from it too.
4. Tried the flick The Romantics which was on cable - commercial cable, and got bored of it. It's based on the novel by Galt Neffenbarger (sp?) entitled The Romantics. About a guy (Josh Dushumal) who gets involved with two college roommates, and apparently can't make up his mind between them - one is Jewish (Katie Holmes) and one is Wasp (Anna Pacquin) - but weirdly this isn't emphasized in the film. I had no idea - discovered it when I looked up the book description.
Apparently Laura (Katie Holms character) broke up with Tom (the wandering dick) and he decided to hook up with her college roommate, Lila and propose to her...in retailation? I don't know. Candace Bergen plays Lila's mother. Also all the women look alike. Anna Pacquin, the gal who plays her sister (who I'm pretty sure is the same actress who played Quinn in Glee), and her friend Mila - look the same. I kept getting confused. (Casting agents? Please learn to cast people who do not look alike in roles.) Then there's the short haired brunette and Katie Holmes. And Adrian Brody and another guy, and Elijah Wood, who kind of resemble each other. Only Brody stands out. Actually only Josh Dushamel, who looks kind of bewildered and confused stands out in this, and over everyone else - he's six foot, everyone else is about 5'5 or 5'6.
I kept muting it - because I was surfing the net or doing other things at the same time. It was boring me. Also the characters aren't likable.
Laura: Here's to Lila - and her great accomplished, love. She obtained love.
Me: Uhm, romantic love is not an accomplishment. It's not something you win or obtain. It's something you give and is given in return. Love can't be won or earned or awarded. That's not love. It's not a frigging trophy, you idiotic writer.
Tom to Lila: Why do you love me?
Lila as if reciting something from memory: Because you are kind to me, you understand me, you make me feel safe, you are good looking, you make me feel good about myself, and you are a good kisser.
Tom: That's good I guess.
Lila: Why do you love me?
Tom: That's the thing, I honestly don't know.
ME: Why the hell did you propose? And why are you getting married? To just have a party? To show off? Why exactly? To wear a pretty wedding dress? (BTW - you can do better.)
Tom: You aren't passionate about anything. You don't show emotion.
Me: Lila don't walk, run away from this asshole. Now. I don't care if he's pretty. Go marry Laura instead - the two of you should go to Hawaii together.
Lila: You think I don't show enough emotion? I have to hold it together. No one else is. I can't afford to fall apart! (She's angry.)
Sigh. I turned it off and flipped to something else.
5. Monarch
It's fun. Kind of a soapy musical. Much like Nashville, I prefer the music to the story. I also preferred Nashville - which had more relatable and diverse characters. This feels a bit like Dynasty or Dallas with country music. Or a country music version of Empire, which again, Dynasty or Dallas but with hip hop music.
6. New Amsterdam
Kind of picks up where the season finale/cliffhanger left us. With everyone's broken relationships. The only one's I felt sorry for were Bloom and Max. Iggy is a self-involved narcissist, but then so was Max's finance, so Max is better off without her. I think he may end up with the deaf oncologist who took her place as oncologist - they have more in common and fit better. I loved the actress who played the previous oncologist, Dr. Helen, but the character was annoyingly self-involved.
7. Arcane - on Netflix
This is really good. It won the Emmy for best animated program. It's an adult animated series on Netflix, adapted from a video game and is surprisingly brilliant. It deserved the Emmy. I think it only has 9-10 episodes (like everything on Netflix - Netlix has short seasons). It allegedly has a second season, even though Netflix shuttered it's animation studios and the group separated from Netflix and did the second season with another studio. But I think it kept Netflix as distributor.
Anyhow, it's detailed in a good way. The animation, the world building, the characterization, and the plot. It's also diverse. And melds fantasy and sci-fi well.
For a computerized cell animation - it's rather good, amazing really. Kind of falls along the lines of Anime.
The plot? Two sisters survive an apocalyptic war. They are taken in by a friend of their parents. Who raises them and a bunch of other kids. Time passes, they go on runs. Then, well an enemy, their parent's friend's brother, takes their mentor/father figure hostage. They try to save him - things go awry, when the little sister uses some tech she found as a bomb - which blows everything up and kills everyone but the bad guys, and her sister. The sister is understandably upset, and hits her, angry that she didn't stay out of it. Then that sister is nabbed by another guy wanting power and the little one feels abandoned - and ends up hooking up with the villains or so-called villains. Meanwhile various levels above in the city high above their heads, where the wealthy live and thrive - Jace and a colleague have discovered a scientific method of harnassing magic or the Arcane. They are doing it above and below, but should they?
That's the first three episodes briefly summarized, it's a lot better than that.
And by far the best thing I watched today. I will most likely binge it tomorrow.
So, skip everything but that - is my recommendation at the moment.
Do not text in movie theaters folks - it is akin to shining a very bright flashlight in your fellow movie goers faces. There should be instant karma for that? If you text in a movie theater during a movie, automatically someone blinds you with a flashlight.
This is why I prefer to watch at home. Well that - and the fact that I can pause it to go to the bathroom. It does help having a movie theater size screen for the most part.
Have done nothing much today but watch television - although to be honest it wasn't until 8pm that I found anything on television that held my interest. Most of it, my interest wandered during.
1. Reboot - this is the new Hulu situation comedy about a group of people rebooting an old and fairly bad situation comedy (actually 80% of situation comedies are bad, so...). I wish I could say this was an exception, it's not.
I watched three to four episodes before giving up. So I did give it a chance. Same chance I gave Ghosts (it's better, and that's saying something. Or at least less crude at any rate - being a network series.)
For a bit I was trying to figure out if Alyson Hannigan had gained a lot of weight to star in the series. Until I realized no, that's not Alyson Hannigan, it's the far more talented and relatable Rachel Bloom - who is the best thing in it, next to possibly Paul Reiser. But it is crude and kind of offensive with the constant barrage of inappropriate and unfunny sex jokes, many bordering on sexist.
Examples, because you kind of need them to know what I'm talking about, since your idea of crude and borderline offensive may not be the same as mine. I'm fully aware of that. I admittedly have a lower tolerance for this sort of comedy than most.
1. The set up is that they are redoing a family sitcom with the original cast, who have of course aged. The kid is now in his twenties. But he still has his stage mother (or Mom who is his manager) tagging around with him and staying in his trailer. One of his adult male co-stars, Clay, who is now in his late 40s early 50s, finds this problematic and decides to confront her.
His co-star (the Step-Dad, a younger guy - played by Keegan Michael Kay), aka Reed, asks how it went.
Clay: Well, she gave me a blow job, and an orange slice. It was comforting and motherly. Which I know is..
Reed: creepy? Unsettling?
Clay: yup.
Clay tries again.
Reed: Did you talk to her?
Clay: Well we had sex.
Reed: This is awkward, you are having sex with your television kid's Mom.
Me - first, ew. Second, this is not funny, you stupid male writers.
2. Example number two:
Reed: I did go to Yale you know, and starred in Shakespeare there, graduating with honors -
His Partner (who is female but they aren't apparently married): Why do you need to wave the whole Yale bit around? You have a big Penis.
Me: Really? Really Writers?
3. Rachel Bloom's character in the seating area, wearing a gray long sleeved t-shirt, tucked into her pants, looking sloppy and fat bulging. With sweat under her arms. Talks to skinny female actress in nice suit.
Actress: You must be a writer.
Bloom: Why do you say that?
actress: Because you can wear that, and not have to look perfect like I do.
Bloom gets up.
Actress: Uhm...
Bloom has sweat stains under her arms.
Bloom: Can you help me out?
Actress gives bloom her suit jacket, which barely fits but covers the sweat stains.
ME: Really? This is just crude and offensive. Can I hit the writers? Preferably in the groin? Repeatedly?
At least it doesn't have a laugh track making me want to hit the audience.
Crude embarrassment humor doesn't work for me.
Shame, in the previews there appeared to be a funny bit with a tripping Judy Greer leaping on John Knoxville in Central Park thinking he was a dragon. That looked funny. They really should lead with that, instead of these crude sex jokes.
Anyhow the set up of this thing - isn't bad. The daughter of sitcom writer wants to reboot his old series, with the original cast, but a more updated setting, darker jokes, and edgier. It's a family sitcom - instead of the family always doing the right thing, they do the wrong thing. (In other words they've decided to copy about half the current family sitcoms.) It's a satire about making a television series. Except way too much emphasis on crude below the belt sex jokes.
I really should stop trying these things. I never like them. It's just a waste of my time.
2. Drifted over to Rings of Power which I could not focus on to save my life. Also the first episode was kind of slow. A lot of action, but not a lot happened? Also way too many characters. It reminded me of the Wheel of Time Series that Amazon did. It didn't pull me in. That said, it has potential - there's some interesting characters in there. The Harfoot's are interesting. But the elves kind of look alike except for the guy involved with the human.
It could just be me, my focus is off at the moment.
3. Seregeti II didn't even hold my focus, I got bored and jumped away from it too.
4. Tried the flick The Romantics which was on cable - commercial cable, and got bored of it. It's based on the novel by Galt Neffenbarger (sp?) entitled The Romantics. About a guy (Josh Dushumal) who gets involved with two college roommates, and apparently can't make up his mind between them - one is Jewish (Katie Holmes) and one is Wasp (Anna Pacquin) - but weirdly this isn't emphasized in the film. I had no idea - discovered it when I looked up the book description.
Apparently Laura (Katie Holms character) broke up with Tom (the wandering dick) and he decided to hook up with her college roommate, Lila and propose to her...in retailation? I don't know. Candace Bergen plays Lila's mother. Also all the women look alike. Anna Pacquin, the gal who plays her sister (who I'm pretty sure is the same actress who played Quinn in Glee), and her friend Mila - look the same. I kept getting confused. (Casting agents? Please learn to cast people who do not look alike in roles.) Then there's the short haired brunette and Katie Holmes. And Adrian Brody and another guy, and Elijah Wood, who kind of resemble each other. Only Brody stands out. Actually only Josh Dushamel, who looks kind of bewildered and confused stands out in this, and over everyone else - he's six foot, everyone else is about 5'5 or 5'6.
I kept muting it - because I was surfing the net or doing other things at the same time. It was boring me. Also the characters aren't likable.
Laura: Here's to Lila - and her great accomplished, love. She obtained love.
Me: Uhm, romantic love is not an accomplishment. It's not something you win or obtain. It's something you give and is given in return. Love can't be won or earned or awarded. That's not love. It's not a frigging trophy, you idiotic writer.
Tom to Lila: Why do you love me?
Lila as if reciting something from memory: Because you are kind to me, you understand me, you make me feel safe, you are good looking, you make me feel good about myself, and you are a good kisser.
Tom: That's good I guess.
Lila: Why do you love me?
Tom: That's the thing, I honestly don't know.
ME: Why the hell did you propose? And why are you getting married? To just have a party? To show off? Why exactly? To wear a pretty wedding dress? (BTW - you can do better.)
Tom: You aren't passionate about anything. You don't show emotion.
Me: Lila don't walk, run away from this asshole. Now. I don't care if he's pretty. Go marry Laura instead - the two of you should go to Hawaii together.
Lila: You think I don't show enough emotion? I have to hold it together. No one else is. I can't afford to fall apart! (She's angry.)
Sigh. I turned it off and flipped to something else.
5. Monarch
It's fun. Kind of a soapy musical. Much like Nashville, I prefer the music to the story. I also preferred Nashville - which had more relatable and diverse characters. This feels a bit like Dynasty or Dallas with country music. Or a country music version of Empire, which again, Dynasty or Dallas but with hip hop music.
6. New Amsterdam
Kind of picks up where the season finale/cliffhanger left us. With everyone's broken relationships. The only one's I felt sorry for were Bloom and Max. Iggy is a self-involved narcissist, but then so was Max's finance, so Max is better off without her. I think he may end up with the deaf oncologist who took her place as oncologist - they have more in common and fit better. I loved the actress who played the previous oncologist, Dr. Helen, but the character was annoyingly self-involved.
7. Arcane - on Netflix
This is really good. It won the Emmy for best animated program. It's an adult animated series on Netflix, adapted from a video game and is surprisingly brilliant. It deserved the Emmy. I think it only has 9-10 episodes (like everything on Netflix - Netlix has short seasons). It allegedly has a second season, even though Netflix shuttered it's animation studios and the group separated from Netflix and did the second season with another studio. But I think it kept Netflix as distributor.
Anyhow, it's detailed in a good way. The animation, the world building, the characterization, and the plot. It's also diverse. And melds fantasy and sci-fi well.
For a computerized cell animation - it's rather good, amazing really. Kind of falls along the lines of Anime.
The plot? Two sisters survive an apocalyptic war. They are taken in by a friend of their parents. Who raises them and a bunch of other kids. Time passes, they go on runs. Then, well an enemy, their parent's friend's brother, takes their mentor/father figure hostage. They try to save him - things go awry, when the little sister uses some tech she found as a bomb - which blows everything up and kills everyone but the bad guys, and her sister. The sister is understandably upset, and hits her, angry that she didn't stay out of it. Then that sister is nabbed by another guy wanting power and the little one feels abandoned - and ends up hooking up with the villains or so-called villains. Meanwhile various levels above in the city high above their heads, where the wealthy live and thrive - Jace and a colleague have discovered a scientific method of harnassing magic or the Arcane. They are doing it above and below, but should they?
That's the first three episodes briefly summarized, it's a lot better than that.
And by far the best thing I watched today. I will most likely binge it tomorrow.
So, skip everything but that - is my recommendation at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-25 06:57 pm (UTC)I do like Ghosts but not enough to keep watching it -- we're doing so because Mike really likes it.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-26 12:15 am (UTC)But Reboot - sigh, I agree, the concept is a good one - I stuck with it for three episodes (half watching them) because of that - but poorly executed. I really wish whoever wrote this - watched The TV Set first - it's better done.
Arcane is worth it - not predictable and kind of different. I can see why it won so many Emmys.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-25 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-26 12:16 am (UTC)