shadowkat: (Calm)
Momster: Have you seen Justified yet?
ME: not yet, but on DVR. Is it good?
Momster: Oh so good. The lines, the dialogue, the acting. Brilliant. Also your father and I have been listening to interviews with Timothy Olyphant (the Momster's new TV boyfriend). In the NPR interview he was talking about his kids wanting a cat. So he bought some cat food, put it out in the yard and slowly brought it to the door, luring the neighbor's kitty. Now, he tells the interviewer, the kids get to play with a kitty, but I don't have to buy a cat, I can just borrow the neighbor's kitty. In another interview - on the radio that your father listened to..he said that originally Raylan Gibbons Boyd Crowder was supposed to be really racist, but Olyphant Wayne Goggins refused to play it that way and changed the character. He didn't want the character to be racist. (Not at all surprised, FX is obsessed with dark nasty anti-heroes, and thinks it's more realistic. Seriously, it's frigging television, it's not REALISTIC. NO TV SHOW IS! NOT EVEN THE REALITY ONES. It's just offensive and makes the writers look like asswipes or barking dogs. So - Kudos to Tim Olyphant Wayne Goggins, the Momster has great taste in tv boyfriends. Even when she steals mine. ;-) ETA: Apparently my father listened to two interviews back to back while driving and confused Goggins interview with Olyphant's - see comments in lj for clarification - sorry for confusion.)

Just saw the newest episode of Justified and it definitely has the best dialogue of any show I've seen on tv or netflix in the last six months. Will give it that. I kept rewinding. Very well written. Also the most violent television show I've seen next to possibly The Walking Dead.

Violence Meter? Hmmm. Well let's see three possibly four gunfights. Six people dead. Two people beaten up. But hey, equal opportunity, one is hit in the head with a skillet by a woman. Also a woman is shot in the head - sort of cold-blooded. So, I'd say about a 10 on the rictor scale.
Yet, oddly, still less violent than the Sopranoes, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Wire. Which hold the record.

If you ignore the violence, which I do, because it's not that bad - relatively little gore or blood, and mostly noise, also no one you remotely care about. The hero does get wounded from time to time, but not dead. Because, hello, the hero. You don't kill the leads in these shows - they aren't soap operas, if they die they are sort of gone and then the show is well over. Which is why non-soap serial dramas are comforting, you know the lead characters will survive and beat the bad guys for at least the length of the series. It's when the series is about to end that you should start worrying. Then anything is possible.

Justified spoilers )
shadowkat: (Default)
Watching the new version of Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS, not so bad. I find the old lady sort of intriguing. Reminds me a bit of Godsford Park. But not nearly as good as Downton Abbey. And yes, I apparently have a weakness for parlour dramas or costume dramas, not to be confused with historical dramas...historicals have famous people in them and seem to have little to do with actual history so much as what we sort of wish it was. Not a fan of historicals. Prefer actual history. Possibly a side-effect of having a father who was a historian, albeit a frustrated one.

After checking out the cost of subscribing to HBO and HBO on Demand, they don't have an HBO on Demand or HBO only option, damn them, I chose to pass and wait for all of this to come out on DVD.


Difficult day. Did not enjoy church, felt oddly disconnected. The attempt to connect to other people often feels thwart with the obstacles of my own and their baggage. If we could just dispense with the baggage or throw it to a valet or bellboy to carry somewhere else...life would be so much simpler, I think.

Otherwise, lovely outside - if a bit windy.

Yesterday - watched both The Good Wife and Justified . Enjoyed both, but The Good Wife was more fun and had better details. Justified felt a bit off in places...not quite sure it hangs together as well. vague spoilers )

The Good Wife had a rather clever political joke inside it - that I realized, after reading my livejournal correspondence list (flist), really did not translate across the pond. The actor, lobbyist, former Senator, and Republican Presidential Candidate - Fred Thompson (who played the District Attorney in Law & Order for about 15 years), basically played himself on The Good Wife.
I howled with laughter when I figured it out.

This is one of the few shows that having a legal background and a knowledge of local midwestern politics makes the show actually more interesting and not cringe-worthy. I can't watch 85% of the criminal procedurals and legal procedurals on tv because I know too much about the process not to roll my eyes heavenward at the idiocy. Here, I grin at the accuracy. And the critique. This show is so detailed. You have to rewind to catch certain bits.

Also it's detailed analysis of how power works in the US, and how women struggle for it - is dead on. The acting is pitch-perfect. America Ferrara demonstrates her versatility - she's unrecognizable from Ugly Betty. And Julianne Marguiles' understated performance continues to resonate long after she's left the screen. So, she didn't get an Emmy, she got a Peabody.

And I hate the fact that I have to wait three weeks before the next episode.

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