TV/Movies Megathread

[Iormlund]

 
I hated that show. Never understood why so many people watched it.

My fav shows from early 80s TV were Ulysses 31, Pink Panther, Once upon a time in space, El hombre y la Tierra and Cosmos.

[Grey Fox]

No one is talking about the Walking Dead, so I guess, you are all as shocked as I am.

It was always going to happen.


(I haven't watch the show)

[Viking]

Latin America is very impermeable to our exports. Our accent is too silly for them. Likewise, we only buy over-the-top cheap soap operas off them, where the silly accent is expected and part of the production values. 

Actually, we sell more dubbed TV to Eastern European countries than original language programming to South America.

Our problem is that production values are too shit for selling mainstream programming to big, rich countries (UK/US/Germany, etc...). And our programming is too mainstream for the hipster, "let's watch weird foreign TV", crowd.

Fact is that people don't consume much imported non-English language TV.

True, Argentinians do mock the Gallegos for their silly accent. Silly accents never stopped the english.




anyways, production values as a reason for selling to mainstream brodcasters in the US is not a reason, look at the production values at telemundo in the US (I make this argument not having watched it but rather having read that their telenovelas have ridiculously low budgets).

The BBC even has it's own tv station broadcasting in teh us and they even have BBC America specific productions (e.g. Copper and Orphan Black).

There might be good reasons for Spanish cable not being good, but the ones you have given aren't it.

[Eddie Teach]

Many Americans don't mind funny British accents so they've managed to export quite a few lately.

[Tonitrus]

Many Americans don't mind funny British accents so they've managed to export quite a few lately.

Most of the people I know who love British shows are women.  Probably that "omg, the accent is so sexy/cultured/intellectual" thing. 

[garbon]

Way to position liking an accent as being ditzy.

[Syt]

I find it always interesting when British actors play Americans on TV (Band of Brothers, The Wire etc.).

[Ideologue]

The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) was marvelous.  Definitely one I'm glad I saw in theaters, there was a genuine filmic splendor to so many of the shots.

I predict Ide will instinctively want to enjoy the stunning cinematography, but will basically be incapable of engaging with this film, about and set in the milieu of the idle rich as it is.  Even though it's an acid satire of the same, and grapples with heavy questions of existence in suitably portentous/pretentious terms.

I dunno.  I like Whit Stillman movies okay.

[Ideologue]

Boondock Saints (1999).  Well, it certainly makes me appreciate the achievement of The Departed all the more given that Scorsese made a Boston crime story, like, at all palatable.  If Saints is not entirely unentertaining, it's certainly for all the wrong reasons.

D+

The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009).  Initially very funny, its narrative cohesion and drive really peter out toward the end, so that even at barely over 90 minutes, the thing still feels ten to twenty minutes too long; unfortunately, its Andersonism, however rank, isn't enough to entirely salvage it.  On the plus side, the stop motion animals have stopped being creepy by then.

B

[celedhring]

Latin America is very impermeable to our exports. Our accent is too silly for them. Likewise, we only buy over-the-top cheap soap operas off them, where the silly accent is expected and part of the production values. 

Actually, we sell more dubbed TV to Eastern European countries than original language programming to South America.

Our problem is that production values are too shit for selling mainstream programming to big, rich countries (UK/US/Germany, etc...). And our programming is too mainstream for the hipster, "let's watch weird foreign TV", crowd.

Fact is that people don't consume much imported non-English language TV.

True, Argentinians do mock the Gallegos for their silly accent. Silly accents never stopped the english.




anyways, production values as a reason for selling to mainstream brodcasters in the US is not a reason, look at the production values at telemundo in the US (I make this argument not having watched it but rather having read that their telenovelas have ridiculously low budgets).

The BBC even has it's own tv station broadcasting in teh us and they even have BBC America specific productions (e.g. Copper and Orphan Black).

There might be good reasons for Spanish cable not being good, but the ones you have given aren't it.

Well, for starters I've been saying that Spanish cable can't viably do its own programming, so by definition it can't be good.

Only our broadcast networks have the spending power to produce their own shows, and they go for the kind of all-encompassing mainstream shows that can pull the big %s they need. Stuff like sitcoms is extremely culture-bound; we all are familiar with American culture, and those sell very well, but you can't export Spanish comedy with all the domestic references and "inside" jokes. Our procedurals, wich are the other big drivers of broadcast TV, will never have the production values to bridge the culture gap and make them attractive to purchasers. Germans, for example, are very successful in exporting their monumentally stupid cop shows and action/adventure TV-films to other European territories, but those come with plenty of chases and 'splosions. That's something a programmer can use to attract an audience. Really, if you try to watch the run of the mill Spanish show, it really looks cheap. There's a big issue of broadcasters wanting "more for their money" here, so producers usually sacrifice technical quality (photography, camerawork, acting rehearsal) in order to give more or longer episodes for the same amount. Heck, even when a show has a good budget, the network will have it stretched so thin the show will end up look shitty, like "Águila Roja".

Telemundo stuff sells well in the US because there's a huge latino market demanding programming for them. You can be sure it's not WASPs watching Sábado Gigante. BBC is a good comparison (even though it has 3 times the budget of our own public TV network), and the fact that that our public channel has switched to a non-ad supported business model has enabled them to start producing some quite interesting shows, with some others in the pipeline.

[garbon]

Boondock Saints (1999).  Well, it certainly makes me appreciate the achievement of The Departed all the more given that Scorsese made a Boston crime story, like, at all palatable.  If Saints is not entirely unentertaining, it's certainly for all the wrong reasons.

D+

The gay bed scene is fun.

[derspiess]

I find it always interesting when British actors play Americans on TV (Band of Brothers, The Wire etc.).

Some of them get it perfect, while others sound like they're grunting as they speak.

[Ideologue]

Boondock Saints (1999).  Well, it certainly makes me appreciate the achievement of The Departed all the more given that Scorsese made a Boston crime story, like, at all palatable.  If Saints is not entirely unentertaining, it's certainly for all the wrong reasons.

D+

The gay bed scene is fun.

Agreed.  Dafoe is, by a mile, the most enjoyable part of the movie; even he's enjoyable because, while his material is largely awful, he knows it and plays it as broad as the side of a gay barn.  Still, it's something, which is better than the rest of the cast's one-note nothingness (largely revolving around screaming "fuck" and shooting people in sometimes agreeably wacky, almost always terribly edited, and usually poorly staged action sequences).

[Barrister]

I find it always interesting when British actors play Americans on TV (Band of Brothers, The Wire etc.).

They typically do much better than American actors playing Brits.

[Eddie Teach]

Brits have more sensitive ears.