Current Watching

[Ginger Yellow]

Current Watching

I hadn't heard anything about it until I saw it on the schedules yesterday, but Charlie Brooker (with Konnie Huq!) has a new drama/satire show on. A series of one-offs shining an unflattering light on modern society and its relationship with media and technology, basically. I really like the first episode, in which a royal is kidnapped and threatened with execution unless the PM, well, fucks a pig. The second episode was a tad laboured, I thought, but still worth watching. Very interested to see what the next and I think final episode is like.

[Squarewheelbike]

Current Watching

I must admit last nights Black Mirror got off to a slow start, but once it hit the ground running it was good stuff.

Much better to the alternaive of course which was Strictly X Box Ice Factor Like Maria, which apparently was won by Minnie The Minx or some such!

[Ginger Yellow]

Current Watching

Actually, I thought it started better than it finished. The ending was very predictable and while the inevitable could have been handled with some panache, in the end it wasn't really.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

I've ploughed - and continue to plough - my way through those episodes of 30 Rock on the On Demand doobrie and I get two to three good laughs per show currently. The cast is wonderful, with the mighty Alec Baldwin just owning every minute he's on, and it looks to me that this is a show that seemingly knows its jumped the shark and turned it to its advantage gleefully.

Quite a treat on those nights where telly entertainment is scarce.

[erwin]

Current Watching

I love 30 Rock with a passion. The writing is so good - there's not a wasted line, and each one raises at the very least a good smile.

Smashing.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Current Watching

Yeah, I've mentioned a few times on here how much I love the show.

There was an episode on the other day where the writers were arguing with each other to see where they'd order their take-out food from. Frank wanted IKEA, but Pete doesn't want it so they arm-wrestle to decide. You then get the obligatory flash-shots of Pete's terrible domestic life which always make me laugh and finally Pete wins the arm-wrestle and in the pandemonium which follows, Frank shouts,

"So what we ordering"
"Hooters!"
"But there's no point."
"YES THERE IS!!! We'll know they've touched the food."

Probably sounds completely crap the way I've told it here, but it was one of the funniest scenes I've seen since the Ghostface Killer "Sippin' on Donaghy" scene.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Current Watching

Actually, the scene is on the net:

http://videos.nymag.com/video/30-Rock-Pete-Hornberger-Arm-Wre

[steveeeeeeeee]

Current Watching

I may as well add The American Office to my add of current favourite programmes.

It takes a while to get the original version out of your conciousness, but once you accept the American version as its own entity, it's wonderful. Steve Carell is magnificent, literally making the lead character his own, but I can't imagine the show without him.

It really takes off once you can't detect any relationship between it and the English original. It's a much lighter comedy and works well because of this. I also love the customer service assistant Kelly, any scene involving her is guaranteed to be funny.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

There was an episode on the other day where the writers were arguing with each other to see where they'd order their take-out food from. Frank wanted IKEA, but Pete doesn't want it so they arm-wrestle to decide.

I'm actually working through season four, which has an exhausting 22 episodes or so - I was getting through season two when it (and season three) was removed from the programme menu (great timing, schmucko), and so got straight into season four when it turned up. Fears of idea burnout and laugh reduction were allayed almost immediately - if anything, it got funnier.

I nominate the scene where Lemon and her chief staff writer discuss that night they went out to see an R-rated hypnotist - "Nutmeg...no, rodeo, rodeo!" - high on the list of laugh-out-loud moments.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Current Watching

steveeeeeeeee wrote:

I may as well add The American Office to my add of current favourite programmes.

It takes a while to get the original version out of your conciousness, but once you accept the American version as its own entity, it's wonderful. Steve Carell is magnificent, literally making the lead character his own, but I can't imagine the show without him.

It really takes off once you can't detect any relationship between it and the English original. It's a much lighter comedy and works well because of this. I also love the customer service assistant Kelly, any scene involving her is guaranteed to be funny.

It's great isn't it.

I like how it feels as though it's getting better with every episode and series, and think it has blossomed beyond the roots from where it first grew.

It also feels as though there is a climate within the show that encourages each actor and actress to develop their characters, something which I always love, beit in a film or TV series.

From starting out in fairly minor roles, the two that have stood out in recent seasons have been Kate Flannery who plays Meredith Palmer and Creed Bratton who plays a fictional version of himself.

Meredith's increasing disregard for office politics and love of drink, in addition to being a failed temptress, what with her porn addiction and bout of genital herpes is always there but is never in your face.

And Creed in particular has developed his character into a wonderfully crafty piece of work whose character is becoming darker with more in the way of hints toward what he likes to do in his spare time.

I think that the characters who make the hub of the show have been allowed to develop enough to be able to sustain it when Carell leaves after this series.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

Green Hornet

I was staggered by this film. Using my Cable On Demand service, I thought I'd give this a go, undeterred by not having heard the radio show, read the comic (I presume there was one) or seen the telly series that set Bruce Lee onto a path of fame.

Well, fuck me. Double fuck, triple fuck, quadruple fuck. So this is how the character dynamic of a film has changed. Yes, you can indeed have a cast of two-dimensional characters in a film and still end up with a movie you can fully enjoy. Why not? Star Wars virtually wrote the rules on it and their surface-thin characterisations endure to this day. You could have a movie full of slam-bang action and yet with no incident and still get away with it. You could have a movie with virtually no plot and yet have the time of your life because the people who made it have second-guessed the screenwriter (who should still be taking orders from Burger King customers) and created something that should still pass your time with pleasing adequacy.

So what the testicle-crushing fuck is The Green Hornet?

Summarised, it's the tale of a spoilt rich kid who uses his wealth (inherited from his murdered dad) to fashion himself as a crime-fighter, aided and abetted by his sidekick, Kato. There. Sounds like a fair enough concept. But hang on.

Alright. Get yourself a bottle of good, strong wine. Better still, go the whole hog and make it scotch. Now, get yourself a laptop and a Word programme. Right. Now, drink the scotch, taking good care to drink only that amount that can both cut your emotional moorings and yet still allows you to coherently type out pieces of dialogue.

Pissed? Okay, now type out anything you want. Anything. But keep in mind that at the head of the story you have in mind (because you're doing a screenplay, see) is that the lead character has a sidekick that can karate anyone into the middle of next week. And that he can see, Terminator-like, stuff like weapons and oncoming thugs with the same kind of flicking glow Arnie's robot can see. But is he a robot or a very quick man whose swift abilities can be illustrated by glowing graphics? It doesn't matter because you don't have to explain it, even if the viewer - ie, me - is still waiting for the pay-off that sees him unveiled as a robot/bionic man. Or waiting for the reason or explanation as to why a young Oriental guy can create technology so forward-thinking and revolutionary that such work would have him installed by either NASA or the Pentagon as a chief supervisor and even visionary.

But you can go even better than that. Oh, yes you can. Swig some more scotch. Done? Okay. Now write your lead character in such a way that he's actually the most abrasive turd ever captured on celluloid. No, don't even think of doing that 'he's a pile of shit now but wait until you find out he's a great guy who sees the error of his ways' crap. Make him a complete arsehole all the way through. So when the end credits come up you can still think of him as a total cunt, a character so dislikable that he actually shifts the sympathies you should be feeling for him onto his sidekick, who you wouldn't mind if he took his boss's vertebrae and turned it into a piece of modern sculpture.

Don't forget the rest. You know what I mean. The plot you wrote on the palm of your hand in mid-pissensis and is so undernourished that it needs the crew of a miniaturised sub to find it. The don't-care characters that fill out the rest of the cast and waste the talents of people like Cameron Diaz and Christoph Waltz, whose presences will be so neutered that it'll be like watching Third Rovers Return Customer From The Left on an episode of Corrie. Or coming up with a film so unfeasibly messy, directionless and so dumb that they'll have to set up an investigative science department to find where that new, complex strain of idiot came from.

The line where you think you can do better than Hollywood professionals has just been exceeded and several more crossed. Not only can you do better, so can your cat. Somewhere in that glass bowl, floating about a small plastic castle, is the next Steven Zaillian. Or William Goldfishman. That hairy thing that fetches sticks and pulls your arm out of your sockets when you take it for a walk? It can probably do re-writes.

And all of them could come up with something immeasurably better than The Green Hornet.

[Come along, Min]

Current Watching

Help needed.

I could have sworn there was a Breaking Bad thread, I've had a cursory look but I cant find it.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can point me in the right direction.

[Fussbudget]

Current Watching

Hmm, all I can find are a couple of short threads here and here mostly discussing whether or not there's a thread about it, and this fairly amusing one which is probably not what you were after.

[Come along, Min]

Current Watching

Thanks Fussbudget,

I must have dreamt it, for some reason I believed that I saw a thread on BB being constantly added to, but without ever checking it out.

It seems I was completely wrong.

Anyways, I got the free trial of Netflix on the PS3 last week, watched the 1st and 2nd series on there, then downloaded the 3rd and 4th online, watched them all within the space of a week.

Just finished watching the last episode of season 4.. Punch the air excellence. I would like to say I will write a longer review, but I probably wont.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

There's going to be a season five, beginning this spring, which surprised me a bit. The conclusion of four seemed so organic, if that makes sense. I hope they're not just going to milk the concept till it's dry.

[Come along, Min]

Current Watching

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

There's going to be a season five, beginning this spring, which surprised me a bit. The conclusion of four seemed so organic, if that makes sense. I hope they're not just going to milk the concept till it's dry.

I know what your saying, I don't think any admirer would like to see it jump the shark, but I reckon at the very least there's still plenty of scope for tying up the Hank/DEA loose end. Hank's such a brilliant character and important force in the plot that it would be unfortunate for the writers not to explore that to some kind of final conclusion. I hope Saul Goodman is in it too.
Of course, another season allows for new japes to begin, and Walter is not a little tapped in the head himself is he? That opens up the plot choices a bit.

My preconceptions of the show were a little different to what it was actually like. I thought that because it had Bryan Cranston starring in it that it was more of a comedy show, and although some of the writing was brilliantly witty and funny, I was surprised and pleased about how dark it was.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

Oh, I agree there are elements to build on but, as you say, they're loose ends. Building an entire series around one or more of them may work dramatically but it wouldn't be Breaking Bad, or at least not the show over its first for seasons.

That essentially span around the relationship between Walter and Jesse with meth manufacture as its ethical fulcrum. That appears to have gone now. Perhaps it can be revived in some cunning and convincing way, I do hope so. But if not then what follows may have the same cast and title, it may even be good television, but it won't be the same Breaking Bad.

[Come along, Min]

Current Watching

Perhaps, I share your mild trepidation about the makers screwing it up, after watching the whole show in one week I feel quite attached to the it.

To address your main point. as an example, the relationship between Jesse & Walter from the beginning of series 1 Breaking Bad is significantly different from the beginning of series 4 Breaking Bad, they are in itself different Breaking Bads as well, they too have adapted. I wouldn't say that little handshake between them at the end (albeit the most upfront affectionate moment between them in the whole show) has changed everything to the point where the show has led itself up some kind of dead-end.

As with the best dramas, BB is multi-faceted with more than one driving force. I would say that Walter's cancer and his need to provide is the real driving force that will determine whether he stops or not, and of course, in terms of money he doesn't have what he did have before Skyler paid for Beneke's IRS bill and the Carwash (which are in itself open to investigation), and of course there's Walters guilt when it comes to Jesse's junkie girlfriend, and his new girfriend's son. They could play Walter as the power mad don who attempt's and perhaps, fails to build an empire.
When it comes to each other, they (J&W) know where the bodies are buried, death might be the only way to disentangle. The show will only be over when one or both of the main protagonists die.

Whatever happens, there's certainly enough scope for a very skilled writer in Gilligan to weave something even better in season 5. I sincerely hope he does anyway, he's/they've done well up until now. I'm glad it's Spring and not Autumn we have to wait until that's for sure.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

To address your main point. as an example, the relationship between Jesse & Walter from the beginning of series 1 Breaking Bad is significantly different from the beginning of series 4 Breaking Bad, they are in itself different Breaking Bads as well, they too have adapted.

No question, their relationship has altered many times during the four seasons. But it has always revolved around the process of making meth together. It was the constant that's now disappeared, or so it seems. Without it it's going to be a different show. Nonetheless I'm eagerly anticipating season five. I wonder if it'll be running in tandem with Mad Men again?

[WOM]

Current Watching

ian.64 wrote:

And all of them could come up with something immeasurably better than The Green Hornet.

If you think you've wasted your time watching GH, go and watch Sucker Punch. It'll have you pining for the sane, sober and lucid storytelling of Green Hornet. Hell, it'll have you praying for a sequel.

[Come along, Min]

Current Watching

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

I wonder if it'll be running in tandem with Mad Men again?

That's another series I've slept on, and fear I will have to spend another solid week catching up on.

life is just so, unfair, man.

[Ray de Galles]

Current Watching

I am really very pleasantly surprised at how much I'm enjoying 'New Girl'.

[Crusoe]

Current Watching

Given that the little one doesn't lend herself to evenings out, we've succumbed and signed up to movie channels.

So far I've suffered through Green Hornet (started in a mediocre fashion, got steadily worse; really just poor); Limitless (despite a scatty, fragmented plot swiss-cheesed with holes not a bad Saturday night effort); Unstoppable (for a dull premise, not too bad); The Crazies (tedious); Legion (utterly loopy, but Paul Bettany is a cut above); The Book Of Eli (a film far less than the sum of its parts, those being The Road, The Postman and Mad Max II); an hour of Hot Tub Time Machine (all I could cope with); Priest (sub-Judge Dredd). I've recorded Senna just for some mental relief.

[G-Man]

Current Watching

I sort of liked New Girl, then missed a few episodes and realised that I was feeling very indifferent about it.

Lately I caught up Hung, a series about a teacher who becomes a male prostitute (for women), with a failed poet for a pimp. It has been cancelled after three seasons, which is a pity.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

Senna

'You don't have to be a racing car freak to enjoy it' they said. They were right. The reveal at the end where Alain Prost is revealed to be a trustee of the childrens' charity created by his bitter rival packs a small punch of its own.

An excellent documentary.