TV/Movies Megathread

[The Larch]

And this also reminds me I really should watch Parks and Rec, which Schur also wrote for.

As you're a conservative public servant, I want you to watch it and then tell me if you prefer Leslie or Ron.

A conservative public servant in the Frozen North - he'll prefer Ron

So I did start watching the first few episodes of P&R (found em on Amazon Prime).  At least to start Ron is a very minor character - I suspect that as he became popular his role probably increased on the show.

I knew Chris Pratt was in the show, but it's still funny to see him play such a lower of a character.

And to answer the question, while I'll probably identify more with Ron, I do relate to Leslie's eagerness to do the right thing. 

As was previously said, the first season is a bit of a strange dry run, and the show really picks up after the second and only becomes stellar after the third season.

[viper37]

Series finale of Supernatural.

It was a great series all throughout, and since they dealt with the big baddie (God is a dick ) the episode before, the finale was actually slower pace, no action, just looking to end things in a good way.  I liked it a lot

[Eddie Teach]

I'm a couple episodes into Raised By Wolves. It's different.

Mother is OP af.

Pretty good show.  Totally weird, but totally good

Space dragon! 

[Habbaku]

Finished the latest (last?) season of Fargo last night. Overall a B-, some good scenes, but the story is pretty rickety throughout. The weird element of this season was nice, though perhaps explained a bit too late (though I was glad that it was, at least, explained).

I do have a minor, pedantic gripe, though. Much like Game of Thrones did with one of its worst episodes, episode 11 has a "Godfather oranges" scene which made me roll my eyes so hard. Do writers/directors consider themselves particularly clever when they shoehorn that in? Is it all just a film-nerd homage thing? I can't help but notice it every time a show crams it in and it makes me annoyed every single time.

[celedhring]

Finished the latest (last?) season of Fargo last night. Overall a B-, some good scenes, but the story is pretty rickety throughout. The weird element of this season was nice, though perhaps explained a bit too late (though I was glad that it was, at least, explained).

I do have a minor, pedantic gripe, though. Much like Game of Thrones did with one of its worst episodes, episode 11 has a "Godfather oranges" scene which made me roll my eyes so hard. Do writers/directors consider themselves particularly clever when they shoehorn that in? Is it all just a film-nerd homage thing? I can't help but notice it every time a show crams it in and it makes me annoyed every single time.

What do you mean? Using an object to foreshadow the death of a character? And yes, the usage of oranges in Godfather is film school 101, so a lot of people reuse that device.

[The Brain]

State of Play. Congressman taking on powerful military-industrial players gets help from his reporter friend. I liked it a lot. Nice character relationship constellations that give some fresh angles to the genre. I also liked [spoiler]that there's no romance stuff between the older veteran reporter and the young woman reporter[/spoiler].

[Habbaku]

Finished the latest (last?) season of Fargo last night. Overall a B-, some good scenes, but the story is pretty rickety throughout. The weird element of this season was nice, though perhaps explained a bit too late (though I was glad that it was, at least, explained).

I do have a minor, pedantic gripe, though. Much like Game of Thrones did with one of its worst episodes, episode 11 has a "Godfather oranges" scene which made me roll my eyes so hard. Do writers/directors consider themselves particularly clever when they shoehorn that in? Is it all just a film-nerd homage thing? I can't help but notice it every time a show crams it in and it makes me annoyed every single time.

What do you mean? Using an object to foreshadow the death of a character? And yes, the usage of oranges in Godfather is film school 101, so a lot of people reuse that device.

No, I was referring to [spoiler]the ghost, which I noticed standing in the middle of the street in episode 1 and a few other times, but that wasn't explained until much later.[/spoiler]

I'm so over the oranges bit.

[viper37]

Westworld, season 3.

I'm not as hooked into the show as I was before, but I remember understanding the timelines of previous seasons only much later in the show.

[Josephus]

Finished the latest (last?) season of Fargo last night. Overall a B-, some good scenes, but the story is pretty rickety throughout. The weird element of this season was nice, though perhaps explained a bit too late (though I was glad that it was, at least, explained).

I do have a minor, pedantic gripe, though. Much like Game of Thrones did with one of its worst episodes, episode 11 has a "Godfather oranges" scene which made me roll my eyes so hard. Do writers/directors consider themselves particularly clever when they shoehorn that in? Is it all just a film-nerd homage thing? I can't help but notice it every time a show crams it in and it makes me annoyed every single time.

I actually thought it was a D-, and certainly the worst Fargo series. In fact, I was watching the last episode last night, and stopped with about 20 minutes to go. I just had enough. What was the "weird element?" Can you put spoiler tags and tell me...I'm wondering if I fell asleep during that reveal.

EDIT

Ah OK. [spoiler]the ghost thing.[/spoiler]

The AV Club said this, which in a nutshell describes the season for me

It's tempting to look back and say "Oh, clearly they were playing the long game here," but I don't think that's true. There's just too much chaff, too much meandering, and too little time spent on actually building up the most interesting aspects of the season, for it to get a pass.

[Habbaku]

Yeah, I read the full Onion AV review after finishing and I definitely agree with the assessment, especially the pointlessness of some of the characters.

[Josephus]

My thing is that the classic Fargo set up is you have a character who through greed or stupidity, and sometimes both, gets caught up in something way over his head. Normally it's an innocent type of person, and normally a humorous (dark humor) situation. There was none of that really this season.

[Habbaku]

Agreed. It was definitely missing that key Fargo element, which all the other seasons had plenty of. The catharsis of seeing the person who's greedy getting their comeuppance wasn't really there, either, except in the Fadda brothers, and that wasn't nearly as much a payoff as it usually seems to be in those situations.

[Syt]

RIP Toecutter/Immortan Joe.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hugh-keays-byrne-dastardly-villains-in-mad-max-films-dies-at-73?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

He played Toecutter in the 1979 original, then returned for director George Miller as Immortan Joe in 2015's 'Fury Road.'
Hugh Keays-Byrne, who portrayed Toecutter in Mad Max before returning 36 years later to play another villain for Australian director George Miller, Immortan Joe, in Mad Max: Fury Road, has died. He was 73.

Brian Trenchard-Smith, who directed Keays-Byrne in the 1975 film The Man From Hong Kong (also known as The Dragon Flies), reported that the actor died Tuesday in hospital. No other details were immediately available.

Keays-Byrne also was known for his turn as the back-stabbing Grunchlk on the Australian-American series Farscape and a 2004 miniseries.

Born in Kashmir, India, Keays-Byrne was a theater-trained actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company when he remained in Australia when a tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Brook, ended there in 1973.

Miller cast Keays-Byrne as the ruthless biker/gang leader Toecutter in the low-budget Mad Max (1979), then asked the actor to return to the franchise as Immorten Joe, the oxygen-mask-wearing leader of a post-apocalyptic village who uses women to birth his followers, in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

In an interview with USA Today, the filmmaker said he wanted to bring back Keays-Byrne because an early print of the original Mad Max was released with a poor American dub of his voice. "I always felt so guilty about that. I thought I had to make up for it in some way," he said.

[The Larch]

He's in Valhalla now, all shiny and crome.

[Syt]

Season 3 of Brooklyn 99.