News:

And we're back!

Main Menu

TV/Movies Megathread

Started by Eddie Teach, March 06, 2011, 09:29:27 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Malthus

Quote from: Barrister on April 28, 2020, 01:35:27 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 22, 2020, 10:42:30 AM
Quote from: Malthus on April 22, 2020, 09:42:26 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 22, 2020, 07:27:03 AM


Given that you're the one with less exposure to the show, would you mind sharing your impression a bit further?  :)

Be happy to. I have deliberately not looked up reviews etc.

My initial impression was that this was going to be a comedy in which each episode was more or less the same set-up: the protagonist attempts, through some elaborate lying, to convince everyone she deserves to be in the Good Place, and the comedy comes from how she goes about it.

As the season progresses, I am coming to be of the view that the Good Place is, basically, a sort of post-Mortem training exercise, deliberately set up to teach her to be a better person. The "mistake" is not a mistake, in other words, but a deliberate plan.

My concern with the show is that, if I am right, once this revelation drops, there is no-where for the show to go.

Well, if that's your impression and you're liking it so far, I think you're really going to enjoy the show.  :)

There's also plenty of philosophy on it, btw, it's not a gimmick.

I've been watching this show too after reading this exchange.  Binged it almost (though the episodes and seasons aren't that long) - I'm mid-way through season 2.

I think I might have read what the twist at the end of season 1 was, since I have heard of this show in the past.  I could see that coming from a mile away, even though the show was still enjoyable in how it got there.

The show has even given me an interest in philosophy, which is not a topic I've ever been interested in before (outside of political philosophy, that is).

Season 2 though kind of takes the concept and really cranks it up.  No idea where the show is going now.

I didn't foresee the ending when I was halfway through - [spoiler] I initially thought the Good Place was a training exercise, not simply a Bad Place. However, my guess may still have some validity ... [/Spoiler]
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

The Larch

Quote from: Malthus on April 28, 2020, 02:10:51 PM
Quote from: Barrister on April 28, 2020, 01:35:27 PM
Quote from: The Larch on April 22, 2020, 10:42:30 AM
Quote from: Malthus on April 22, 2020, 09:42:26 AM
Quote from: The Larch on April 22, 2020, 07:27:03 AM


Given that you're the one with less exposure to the show, would you mind sharing your impression a bit further?  :)

Be happy to. I have deliberately not looked up reviews etc.

My initial impression was that this was going to be a comedy in which each episode was more or less the same set-up: the protagonist attempts, through some elaborate lying, to convince everyone she deserves to be in the Good Place, and the comedy comes from how she goes about it.

As the season progresses, I am coming to be of the view that the Good Place is, basically, a sort of post-Mortem training exercise, deliberately set up to teach her to be a better person. The "mistake" is not a mistake, in other words, but a deliberate plan.

My concern with the show is that, if I am right, once this revelation drops, there is no-where for the show to go.

Well, if that's your impression and you're liking it so far, I think you're really going to enjoy the show.  :)

There's also plenty of philosophy on it, btw, it's not a gimmick.

I've been watching this show too after reading this exchange.  Binged it almost (though the episodes and seasons aren't that long) - I'm mid-way through season 2.

I think I might have read what the twist at the end of season 1 was, since I have heard of this show in the past.  I could see that coming from a mile away, even though the show was still enjoyable in how it got there.

The show has even given me an interest in philosophy, which is not a topic I've ever been interested in before (outside of political philosophy, that is).

Season 2 though kind of takes the concept and really cranks it up.  No idea where the show is going now.

I didn't foresee the ending when I was halfway through - [spoiler] I initially thought the Good Place was a training exercise, not simply a Bad Place. However, my guess may still have some validity ... [/Spoiler]

The only answer I can give you is that you should keep watching the show.  ;)

You're in season 2 already?

Sophie Scholl

Quote from: Iormlund on April 28, 2020, 12:46:54 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 27, 2020, 09:51:34 AM
Quote from: celedhring on April 27, 2020, 09:33:12 AM
Westworld - it started well but once again they get undone by their obsession with twists and plot pyrotechnics. Stopped caring.

Only the first season exists

The Indian Chief episode from season 2 is one of my favorites. Other than that, agreed.
The whole Native American plotline was great in season 2 if memory serves. Everything else was horrible. Season 3 started out pretty solidly and then devolved into shit. To paraphrase Ian Malcom, "Your writers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should".
"Everything that brought you here -- all the things that made you a prisoner of past sins -- they are gone. Forever and for good. So let the past go... and live."

"Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did."

Razgovory

Finally got around to watching that Witcher show on Netflix.  It's okay, but some of the dialogue annoys me like the Princess character who keeps saying "Gross!"  I also can't escape the feeling I'm watching someone's D&D campaign.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Liep

Middleditch and Schwartz on Netflix. It's improv but it's actually really fun.
"Af alle latterlige Ting forekommer det mig at være det allerlatterligste at have travlt" - Kierkegaard

"JamenajmenømahrmDÆ!DÆ! Æhvnårvaæhvadlelæh! Hvor er det crazy, det her, mand!" - Uffe Elbæk

The Brain

Quote from: Liep on April 29, 2020, 01:31:00 AM
Middleditch and Schwartz on Netflix. It's improv but it's actually really fun.

And.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

MadImmortalMan

Quote from: Razgovory on April 28, 2020, 06:26:45 PM
Finally got around to watching that Witcher show on Netflix.  It's okay, but some of the dialogue annoys me like the Princess character who keeps saying "Gross!"  I also can't escape the feeling I'm watching someone's D&D campaign.

I got the same feeling watching a Chinese TV show about the Qin dynasty and some concubine who acts all modern demands someone do a "pinky swear". 325 BC :P

Also, I've noticed a significant uptick in nationalism in Chinese shows. I'm a bit of a hopeless sinophile, so I watch what I can get easily. There's a few historical dramas on Netflix now. Usually the PRC shows are all WW2 war shows about communist supermen fighting evil Japanese gargoyles. Makes you wonder why the war lasted so long, really. So I mostly watch the ones about ancient history.  Couldn't help but notice in the same Qin show, there was an almost ubiquitous obsession with "loyalty to your state" which seems anachronistic by a couple thousand years at least. And also out of place in the Warring States period, when many of the most high profile figures changed sides many times.

The word "state" may be repeatedly mistranslated by the subtitlers however. I can't discern that.
"Stability is destabilizing." --Hyman Minsky

"Complacency can be a self-denying prophecy."
"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers

celedhring

#44857
Chinese films have been quite nationalistic for a while now. The Chinese government didn't care for tv/movies much until the 2010s, but they have been quite good at exploiting it since then. Besides WWII and period dramas, they are having a fever of 1980s-style jingoistic actioners.

As you say, "loyalty to the ruler" is a theme they introduce quite often in period films, misrepresenting the past to justify the present as "the Chinese way". I love how if there's some corrupt ruler somewhere it's because the benevolent Emperor doesn't know.

The Larch

Quote from: celedhring on April 29, 2020, 03:42:25 AMI love how if there's some corrupt ruler somewhere it's because the benevolent Emperor doesn't know.

Seems like a twist on the ages old "Good king, bad adviser" trope.

crazy canuck

Quote from: Josephus on April 28, 2020, 07:41:07 AM
Quote from: celedhring on April 27, 2020, 09:33:12 AM
Westworld - it started well but once again they get undone by their obsession with twists and plot pyrotechnics. Stopped caring.

yup. It's too hard to follow, not worth the time.

My son and I have really enjoyed season three.  Great theme and story telling.  Then we got around to watching the last episode.  What just happened?  Everything we conjectured this season was about and that made it enjoyable isn't.

Barrister

Quote from: Malthus on April 28, 2020, 02:10:51 PM
I didn't foresee the ending when I was halfway through - [spoiler] I initially thought the Good Place was a training exercise, not simply a Bad Place. However, my guess may still have some validity ... [/Spoiler]

[Spoiler]Yeah, that might wind up being where the show ultimately goes - there's been an awful lot of learning for people stuck in "the Bad Place".  And the way the soul mates, who aren't really soul mates, but have managed to make meaningful connections with their soul mates, suggests there may be something there as well...[/spoiler]
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

KRonn

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 29, 2020, 08:47:12 AM
Quote from: Josephus on April 28, 2020, 07:41:07 AM
Quote from: celedhring on April 27, 2020, 09:33:12 AM
Westworld - it started well but once again they get undone by their obsession with twists and plot pyrotechnics. Stopped caring.

yup. It's too hard to follow, not worth the time.

My son and I have really enjoyed season three.  Great theme and story telling.  Then we got around to watching the last episode.  What just happened?  Everything we conjectured this season was about and that made it enjoyable isn't.

Yeah, that was a surprising episode. I want to see where the story goes in the next episode and what characters are part of it.

Syt

Frasier S11E03 - The Doctor is Out.

Still one of the best episodes, co-starring Patrick Stewart as gay opera director who has a crush on Frasier.  :lol:
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

The Larch

Just watched the 3rd What we do in the shadows episode for the 2nd season. The Superb Owl party.  :lol:

Josephus

Quote from: KRonn on April 29, 2020, 10:08:11 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 29, 2020, 08:47:12 AM
Quote from: Josephus on April 28, 2020, 07:41:07 AM
Quote from: celedhring on April 27, 2020, 09:33:12 AM
Westworld - it started well but once again they get undone by their obsession with twists and plot pyrotechnics. Stopped caring.

yup. It's too hard to follow, not worth the time.

My son and I have really enjoyed season three.  Great theme and story telling.  Then we got around to watching the last episode.  What just happened?  Everything we conjectured this season was about and that made it enjoyable isn't.

Yeah, that was a surprising episode. I want to see where the story goes in the next episode and what characters are part of it.

Now you've intriguied me enough to make me want to get back to it.
Civis Romanus Sum<br /><br />"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Jack Layton 1950-2011