TV/Movies Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Succession talk: The season finale was fantastic all around but I will say that Cousin Greg continuing to fail upward is a personal favorite thread in the show for me 

I haven't seen the finale but I'm convinced he's going to be like Chris Addison/Ollie in The Thick of It and by the end you can look back at the entire series as the rise of Ollie

[Josephus]

Succession talk: The season finale was fantastic all around but I will say that Cousin Greg continuing to fail upward is a personal favorite thread in the show for me 

Haven't seen finale yet...but yeah, Cousin Greg is the best character on the show.

[Josephus]

Succession....OK, just watched the finale and ....wow.....
I'm going on record and saying Succession is HBO's best offering since The Sopranos, and is currently the best show on TV.

[Gups]

Succession....OK, just watched the finale and ....wow.....
I'm going on record and saying Succession is HBO's best offering since The Sopranos, and is currently the best show on TV.

I dunno. At the end of season 2 I would have agreed with you - right up there with the very best. The last three episodes have been superb but the reason of the season has just been good - the plot has been too meandering and seemed to serve largely as a vehicle for Roman's punchlines. Still gets in my all-time top 10.

[celedhring]

Yeah, I felt this season was kinda meandering, and hasn't really gone nowhere until the very end. The snark is still superb but I felt this was the weakest season of the show so far.

[Malthus]

Rewatching Bojack Horseman. "Time's Arrow" may be the best adult animated TV episode of all time. Followed by "Free Churro" and "The View From Halfway Down".

[Josephus]

Yeah, I felt this season was kinda meandering, and hasn't really gone nowhere until the very end. The snark is still superb but I felt this was the weakest season of the show so far.

I agree mid season it slumped a bit;  got a bit mixed up in corporate mumbo jumbo, but that doesn't take away that the last few episodes propped it right back up to the top.

[Sheilbh]

So there's a new stage show based on Best of Enemies (the Gore-Buckley documentary) and it's one of the colour-neutral casting row. Apparently most of the actors broadly look like their characters, except for David Harewood who is playing Buckley:


It is, from all the reviews, a very good performance and David Harewood is a great actor. I'm going to see it - but made me think of the discussions here.

[Barrister]

So there's a new stage show based on Best of Enemies (the Gore-Buckley documentary) and it's one of the colour-neutral casting row. Apparently most of the actors broadly look like their characters, except for David Harewood who is playing Buckley:

<snip>

It is, from all the reviews, a very good performance and David Harewood is a great actor. I'm going to see it - but made me think of the discussions here.

I was puzzled about the topic until I realized it was Gore Vidal you were referencing, not Al Gore.  I've certainly heard about those debates.

I mean if you're doing a stage production and you just don't care about ethnicities, age, gender, whatever of the characters being played that's one thing.  But to have everyone playing very identifiable characters and being "broadly" similar, but having one of the principal characters colour-switched is weird.  Unless if it's trying to make some kind of meta-point I guess.  Buckley was a prolific writer, and he wrote some things in the 50s and 60s he later regretted and recanted on the topic of race.  But even by the late 1960s he was well ahead of the curve on the right about accepting civil rights and rejecting naked racism.

[Sheilbh]

I was puzzled about the topic until I realized it was Gore Vidal you were referencing, not Al Gore.  I've certainly heard about those debates.

The documentary it's based on is or was on Amazon and well worth a look. The play is by the same guy who wrote the Frost/Nixon play so he has form for tapping verbatim records for drama.

I mean if you're doing a stage production and you just don't care about ethnicities, age, gender, whatever of the characters being played that's one thing.  But to have everyone playing very identifiable characters and being "broadly" similar, but having one of the principal characters colour-switched is weird.

Yeah - I think one other point is David Harewood is probably the biggest name in the play.

I think the NYT review notes that Vidal's the more fun, plum role, but Buckley's the more interesting and challenging for an actor - even if just being able to throw out Gore Vidal bons mots must be great. I think there is probably a purpose in it around Vidal as establishment opinion. A few of the review describe it as cunning casting.

[Tamas]

It is my impression that in these movies/TV shows/plays it is usually one actor with a non-matching skin colour. It's hard not to think they are being included as a token black person to generate some outrage from the usual retards and thus generate some free marketing.

[Josquius]

Black Anne Boleyn was 100% just for the outrage.

The Great seems honest in not giving a shit in its casting.

Interesting this topic just keeps appearing.

[Tamas]

Interesting this topic just keeps appearing.

It's a transitional period (which may take decades) until we stop giving a damn.

[garbon]

Thanks for this, Sheilbh.

[Josephus]

Interesting this topic just keeps appearing.

It's a transitional period (which may take decades) until we stop giving a damn.

I think I just found the hill I'm prepared to die on.