Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Peaky Blinders

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Peaky Blinders

    Apologies if I have missed a thread (obviously it's old news now but as usual I'm very much behind the times)

    Anyway, we've recently started watching this (currently half way through series 2) and... well... isn't it a bit... well... racist? Urban Britain appears to be in the grip of violent criminal gangs none of whom are Anglo saxon. Birmingham is terrorised by Irish and Gypsies while London is under the sway of Italians and Jews. Has this never been questioned as being a bit fucking dodgy? Even the establishment character, Sam Neill as Ian Paisley, is an Irishman of sorts

    #2
    Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
    Anyway, we've recently started watching this (currently half way through series 2) and... well... isn't it a bit... well... racist? Urban Britain appears to be in the grip of violent criminal gangs none of whom are Anglo saxon.
    Hang on for a bit. Moseley and his blackshirts appear eventually. One of the threads in the series is that the closer you get to real power (ie: The British Government) the more violent and corrupt individuals are.

    Comment


      #3
      Bloody hell, is there any famous "box set" series of the last few years that Aidan Gillan isn't in?

      Comment


        #4
        No.

        Comment


          #5
          Do you think "box set" will survive as a description?

          Comment


            #6
            Probably not.

            Comment


              #7
              The last bastion of box-setism is Walmart, and they basically don't even have DVDs or CDs any more. It's down to one side of an aisle, plus those big cardboard bins of $5 titles.

              Comment


                #8
                It's a pity Gillen is fuckin terrible.

                Comment


                  #9
                  If there was still Rep theatre he'd be doing panto villains on the circuit.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I was amazed when a sopranos box set was still selling for over 60 quid in tesco recently. If it was under thirty I might have bought it.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Got round to series one, episode one the other week, but left it there. It wasn't bad, but you could kind of see where it's going in terms of plot and characterisation. Please tell my why it's more than just The Sopranos set in Brum a century ago.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        As Amor helpfully told me, S1E1 is a dud. You have to push through to E3 before it gets traction. As for plot and characterization, it's about a family...as most things are...that's in the crime business. I definitely think it's worth watching.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I found it pretty enjoyable. But then again I have an hour and a half on the train each evening and my wife typically makes it such that we have watched a huge amount of what is on Netflix that everyone has watched.

                          Now I am on Bojack Horseman. I think pretty soon I will be back on to podcasts (even though I still have never watched The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad etc). Picking TV shows is hard work.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by WOM View Post
                            As Amor helpfully told me, S1E1 is a dud. You have to push through to E3 before it gets traction. As for plot and characterization, it's about a family...as most things are...that's in the crime business. I definitely think it's worth watching.
                            Next season they are going to get in to offering extended Warranties on products. You can bet your life on it.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by imp View Post
                              Got round to series one, episode one the other week, but left it there. It wasn't bad, but you could kind of see where it's going in terms of plot and characterisation. Please tell my why it's more than just The Sopranos set in Brum a century ago.
                              It's not a patch on the Sopranos. It's much more stylised and "designed', so the characters don;t ever really get fleshed out well - the complete opposite of the Sopranos. I'm at the end of series 4 and the only character that really seems to have acquired any level of nuance is Arthur. It's good, I think, but comparing it to the Sopranos is never going to make it look good.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post
                                (even though I still have never watched The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad etc)
                                Is this actually true? If so, what the fuck? Are you trying to be the office "Nah, never seen Star Wars" guy?

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post
                                  Next season they are going to get in to offering extended Warranties on products. You can bet your life on it.
                                  Arthur was selling credit card balance insurance, in case of job loss or other economic hardship, toward the end of S3.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post
                                    I still have never watched The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad etc
                                    Ditto.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by WOM View Post

                                      Is this actually true? If so, what the fuck? Are you trying to be the office "Nah, never seen Star Wars" guy?
                                      It is true. I just really don't care much for sitting and watching TV or movies. I still don't know what particularly drove me to watch Peaky Blinders.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Huh. Well, should you run out of PB eventually, any one of those three shows is excellent. Maybe The Wire first, but doesn't really matter.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post

                                          It is true. I just really don't care much for sitting and watching TV or movies. I still don't know what particularly drove me to watch Peaky Blinders.
                                          I've a friend like that - he's a psychotherapist. Says watching or reading fiction seems pointless, he just can't get into it. Maybe being in daily close contact with real-world psychosis has that effect. (Though I've no idea what caja-dglh does for a living.)

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                            Huh. Well, should you run out of PB eventually, any one of those three shows is excellent. Maybe The Wire first, but doesn't really matter.
                                            I ran out. So now I watch a cartoon about a horse who was once in a famous TV show.

                                            I don't work with psychotics, but a lot of narcissists.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by imp View Post
                                              I've a friend like that - he's a psychotherapist. Says watching or reading fiction seems pointless
                                              Which is interesting as I struggle with reading fiction for that very reason. But watching, for me, engages a whole different set of senses that apparently compensates for it.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                I am the exact opposite of this. Literature, and specifically prose fiction, is definitely the one art form I couldn't live without. I'd struggle without films, theatre and music (live and recorded) but could somehow struggle by without them if truly necessary. But I'm not into watching TV shows - the investment somehow feels that much greater, though it needn't be. I also haven't seen a single episode of any of the three iconic shows mentioned by caja-dglh and G.O.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Comparing Peaky Blinders to The Sopranos or The Wire does it a disservice. It's more of an exercise in style than character development. I think a more accurate comparison is with Baz Luhrman's work. Both play with a particular time and place, they exaggerate and distort sound and image to create a kind of alternate history. This type of production was very popular in the 1960s — Bonnie and Clyde, Elvira Madigan, and A Man and a Woman spring to mind — but it's much less evident nowadays, which makes Peaky Blinders particularly interesting.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X