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    Great news on the Detectorists return, though I understand the trepidation about it's legacy being tarnished. I used to worry every time The Trip came back and, while it peaked in the second of its four series, it was always a more than rewarding watch.

    The idea of a 75 minute episode doesn't feel like too much of a stretch, The Office managed a wonderful finale with two 45/50 minute episodes after all. As long as they stick to the same characters in the same context I trust the team behind it.

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      Unlike other folks above, I enjoyed Russian Dolls. There were some parts that were just so obvious that happen in every single movie or TV show that I will refrain from naming to prevent spoiling. The ending wasn't great but also wasn't horrible.

      We started watching Peacekeeper on HBO (spin off of Suicide Squad). It is so stupid and so funny. Basically a dumb action show with very juvenile humor but so many laugh out loud moments. Only a few episodes in on this but it's fun.

      I have no idea what happened with Tokyo Vice. The show begins with a scene that is presented as the present and then signals that we are moving to the past. Then the eighth episode never returns to that opening present scene. Absolutely bizarre. We're left with a cliff hanger, which I hate, and there is no narrative unity, which is strange. I'll watch again if/when it returns but bad faith move by HBO.

      Finally watching Drive My Car. I'm only halfway through. I know other folks posted about it a few months back. I'm digging it so far. The film is slow, but that's ok. The drama is interesting. It's a 180 from Peacekeeper. haha.

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        I’d forgotten about that opening scene in Tokyo Vice.

        I guess it will pay off later.

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          Great news about Detectorists and whilst I've every confidence they can make a special work, It'll be interesting to see how they can work from the ending of Series 3 - as DD alluded to earlier. Meanwhile, Inside No.9 maintains its amazingly high standard into its 7th season. Ok, not every episode is brilliant; I wasn't so much taken with Nine Lives Kat this week; but the first episode - Merrily, Merrily - was amongst the best they've ever done.

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            Highly, highly, highly recommend the Ben Fong-Torres doc on Netflix. It captured all sorts of emotions and left us both with a good feeling.

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              I know Rob Beckett can be annoying in other situations, but Rob & Romesh vs... is one of the funniest shows on TV right now.

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                I watched Vincent Price in Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace on Talking Pictures last night. In my mind, I've always tended to blur Corman and Russ Meyer together, because they were often spoken admiringly of by the same people, but that is unfair on the former, really.

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                  Originally posted by Benjm View Post
                  I watched Vincent Price in Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace on Talking Pictures last night. In my mind, I've always tended to blur Corman and Russ Meyer together, because they were often spoken admiringly of by the same people, but that is unfair on the former, really.
                  That’s a great film. Vincent Price is my number-one favourite actor of all time. That’s when they were doing all those Poe films. All fantastic. I think they pushed The Raven to the limits of an adaption, though. I don’t recall an ace wizard fight in the poem. A super-young, bewildered Jack Nicholson also appears.

                  Corman gave so many directors their first start. Russ Meyer gave so many teenagers their first start. I think Meyer is great. I formed that opinion about 30 years-ago. Tits ‘n’ ass aside, I always loved the pure commitment. All those full-on-breathless, heaving and hammy performances. Not sure what I’d think now, though. I might just leave the memory alone.

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                    Has anyone else watched Cowboy Bebop? I'm a few episodes in. I really like it, but can't put my finger on exactly why.

                    The dog is incredibly cute.

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                      Originally posted by Slightly Brown View Post
                      Corman gave so many directors their first start. Russ Meyer gave so many teenagers their first start. I think Meyer is great. I formed that opinion about 30 years-ago. Tits ‘n’ ass aside, I always loved the pure commitment. All those full-on-breathless, heaving and hammy performances. Not sure what I’d think now, though. I might just leave the memory alone.
                      My implied criticism of Meyer wasn't based on recent acquaintance. Better to stick to the positive and just say that I'm hugely enjoying Talking Pictures' current run of Price/Corman films.

                      This is Spinal Tap is on BBC2 tonight, UK viewers. It isn't shown as often as one might expect so recorders at the ready.

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                        Thanks for the heads-up Ben, I've still never seen it.

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                          Wait. You’ve never seen TIST?

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                            Nope. Strange, isn't it. It's not as if I wasn't recommended it back when it was first released; I was.

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                              Originally posted by Cal Alamein View Post
                              Highly, highly, highly recommend the Ben Fong-Torres doc on Netflix. It captured all sorts of emotions and left us both with a good feeling.
                              Yeah, I really liked that.

                              Rolling Stone just doesn’t matter like it did in his day, does it?

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                                Not even close.

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                                  GO, clear the entire evening.

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                                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                    Not even close.
                                    Yeah, I realized that was a vast understatement as soon as I posted it, but couldn’t think of a better way to write it.

                                    Maybe Wenner shouldn’t have handed it all over to his son.

                                    He’s done a lot to increase their online traffic and so forth, but I’m starting to think there’s just so much stuff online - most of it awful - and so much social media and hot take nonsense, that writing just doesn’t matter much any more. I don’t know what does, but it’s not that.

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                                      Its position of cultural dominance was no more defensible than that of the CBS Evening News

                                      It is a very different world, and even more different media environment.

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                                        Yeah.

                                        I get the impression that a lot of people are still looking for the next “big thing.” They think TikTok matters or Netflix matters or CardiB matters and slot them into the positions once held by TV, film and pop stars of the past.

                                        But none of it matters in the way broadcast channels or magazines or film or pop music, etc, mattered before. Nothing has replaced them in the center of the culture because the culture doesn’t have a center any more.

                                        I don’t know what to make of that.

                                        I guess it makes it possible for somebody like Trump, who should just be a fringe figure at most, to capture the minds of a quarter of the population, but it also makes it hard for somebody like that to ever be much more popular than that.

                                        Unfortunately, that’s also true for ideas that we ought to be united on, like fighting climate change.


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                                          A significant part of that is the pervasiveness of a hyper-capitalist that you were talking about on the Bitcoin thread.

                                          "We" are supposed to "care" about what it is "big" because "bigness" attracts money and returns "value to shareholders".

                                          Rolling Stone was massively important culturally than Time or Life, but Time and Life were always significantly more profitable because their audience had a large majority of the money.

                                          But the idea that people who didn't actually own shares (in anything, let alone in TimeLife) should care about relative corporate profitability just wasn't a thing (and in part became a thing as a result of the fracturing of the media landscape and the advent of 24 hour "business" channels).

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                                            Absolutely agree with both the previous posts. (ua's & HP's.) It's inconceivable a music publication of any kind would publish regular contributions from Jan Morris and Hunter Thompson in the same issue today. Nor break the inside story of Patty Hearst's kidnapping.

                                            I think Wenner, and the magazine's, move to NY signaled the beginning of its decline. Which was a long time ago now.

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                                              1977, I think.

                                              I guess he wanted to be closer to the center of the advertising and book-publishing worlds. I don’t really understand how the ad business works, though.

                                              If they’d made that decision a few years later, I suspect they might have picked LA instead. My recollection was that the music industry became much more tied up with the rest of the entertainment industry than it has been before, and Rolling Stone covered TV and film a lot. Or at least, put those people on it’s cover.

                                              Then again, MTV was a big driver of that shift and they made a point out of showing that they were in New York. Hollywood was the hub of the entertainment business, of course. It still is, but it wasn’t cool. Johnny Carson was in LA but Letterman and SNL were in New York. That seemed to matter back then.




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                                                Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                                I guess he wanted to be closer to the center of the advertising and book-publishing worlds.
                                                Based on Robert Draper's history of the magazine, Jann was more interested in hanging out with NY's culturati than anything else. He and, the then Mrs Wenner, kinda saw themselves hosting Long Island weekends like Scott and Zelda. The magazine, and it's emphasis, changed in accordance with that.

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                                                  That makes sense.
                                                  Wenner doesn’t mention that in the Ben Fong-Torres doc.

                                                  BFT didn’t move to New York. He’s one of real San Francisco people who have, I assume, mostly been priced out.

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                                                    I guess, I haven't seen the doc, though I probably will. Wenner had an eye for talent, no question. But he was also a serious starfucker, he liked to be around talented and beautiful people. And, in fairness, he must be very likeable himself. Much of Rolling Stone's early success was down to the support of established figures, Ralph Gleason in particular, providing him with support credibility.

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