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The TV thread

Started by rollntider, May 28, 2014, 01:06:50 AM

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Crewe

lol no, no, I get it, I may not be the most perceptive person, but yea, I picked up on that many moons ago.
I am up to date and in agreement with BCS. I plan to investigate your suggestions, sans Riverdale, although if Im I a funky mood, who knows

BojackHorsefella

FTR: Riverdale is an adaptation of Archie comics. So it's Archie, Jughead, Veronica, Betty, and their parents and classmates.

Again, it gets ridiculous, campy, soap opera-y, melodramatic and absurd, but we find it entertaining basically for those reasons. It is not because of good writing.

Crewe

I was an avid Archie comics reader in my youth, so I guess thats the only sort of link to my interest.
Curiosity might get me to take a look....

Rigg44

#228
Buc is 10,000 times correct when it comes to Barry.  Go watch it now!  Ozark was great! My wife loves Riverdale, me not so much. If you can do subtitles a show called how to sell drugs online fast just came out on Netflix and its a light-hearted of beat comedy about a nerd that is trying to get his girl back by becoming a drug dealer.   

BojackHorsefella

Quote from: Rigg44 on June 21, 2019, 10:54:22 AM
If you can do subtitles a show called how to drugs online fast just came out on Netflix and its a light-hearted of beat comedy about a nerd that is trying to get his girl back by becoming a drug dealer.   

It's so upsetting to me that my fiancee does not do subtitles. I've never minded them, but can't watch anything with her that's subtitled.

I'll have to check this one out on my own time.

Rigg44

Quote from: Bucfever on June 21, 2019, 11:25:31 AM
Quote from: Rigg44 on June 21, 2019, 10:54:22 AM
If you can do subtitles a show called how to drugs online fast just came out on Netflix and its a light-hearted of beat comedy about a nerd that is trying to get his girl back by becoming a drug dealer.   

It's so upsetting to me that my fiancee does not do subtitles. I've never minded them, but can't watch anything with her that's subtitled.

I'll have to check this one out on my own time.

The strange thing is that even though it's subtitled it did not need to be.  I could understand them as it was. 

Crewe

Ive had Boardwalk Empire on my list since its creation. I like to let programs run for several seasons, many times to completion, before I engage simply because I don't like to wait for production to catch up with my schedule.
So here we are, 5 years after its final season and I've completed my indulgence.

Creator Terence Winter (Sopranos) said he loved Deadwood, rightfully so, but when he watched it, he kept waiting for the fate of Wild Bill to occur, and also googled other characters based on real folk to see their fate. He wanted to avoid that with Boardwalk. My wonderment was, how did he ever expect to do that with people like Lucky Luciano, Al Capone and the like? I thought that was interesting, but nonetheless, Boardwalk Empire is historical fiction that centers around the life of Nucky Thompson (based on Nucky Johnson) played by Steve Buscemi.

Thompson is the Treasurer for Atlantic City during the Prohibition Era and is a corrupt politician and bootlegger.
His brother Eli (Shea Wigham) is sheriff who struggles throughout to feed his family of eight in the shadow of Nucky who more or less raised his younger sibling. Based on Nucky Johnson's real brother, sans the marriage and family and...well, you'll see.
Margaret Scroeder, beautifully played by Kelly Macdonald, is a local resident, abused wife and mother and member of the Temperance movement spearheading prohibition. Also based on a real person, Schroeder plays the demure, proper role of the Victorian age woman, although the age of a young flapper, who befriends Thompson when pleading for help with her situation. Macdonald is a continued strength in this series with her arc being one of the more interesting ones of all the characters an as I say, she knocked it out of the park.
As Prohibition begins, we find Atlantic City to be a preferred port of entry for illegal booze which brings other, real gangsters in to the picture. The liaison for that bridge? Michal Pitts who portrays the fictional Jimmy Darmody. I think actually he might have been real but really fictionalized as the real person was nowhere near the character we see, but nonetheless. He is the son of Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol) who comes back from the war looking to earn.
having been a protege of Nucky, he feels he's passed over for promotions and while running pesky errands for Thompson, he meets a young upstart named Al Capone (Stephen Graham).
Before I get to him, lets jump back to Gillian for a moment. Her ties to Nucky are explored and parsed out in a story viable and worthy of being told as it is a primary thread in Nucky's arc that is being told to the viewer. Her love for Jimmy pushes his characters demons to the forefront as he struggles with other devils from his past, namely the war. Enter Richard Harrow (Jack Huston) a war veteran who meets James in the vet hospital. I can't describe how interesting this character was, not to mention the physical acting Huston pulled off, donning a reconstructed facial mask to hide the horror of his wounds in the war. Darmody connects with his brethren and brings him in to his world as Jimmy's only real friend.
Back to Capone. We are introduced to him as a young 21 year old assistant to Johnny Torrio, a Chicago mobster heading up the South side.
At the same time, we meet Luciano, Arnold Rothstien, Meyer Lansky and a bit later, Bugsy Siegel. All true gangsters of course.
Winter takes liberties here, admittedly so, in order to tell a story. Did they know Thompson? Probably. Did they have such deep networking interactions with him? Probably not. At least not firsthand. He tries to stay true to the essence of each character defined by what we know, although rarely do we see them at such a young age on screen so its easier to buy in to what the creators are telling us. However, as a voracious mob story reader, I was tuned in to every detail of these portrayals because it fascinates me.
I won't go in to every character here but it would be a disservice to omit Michael K. Williams who plays Chalky White.
You will immediately recognize Williams as Omar from The Wire and if not, get to it!
He brings that same magnified presence to the small screen here as Mr. White, who, like many others, is a real person, but much younger and a pro boxer, not a representative, mover and shaker of the black community. White is behind the scenes power in AC, working with Thompson to keep the workers happy in order to avoid a strike or other uprisings.
For a season maybe, I felt like maybe Buscemi wasn't the best actor for this role but if you give it a bit, he seems to find the Thompson character and the writers work his arc towards his talents. He's not an Al Capone, heavy-handed enforcer type, that much is apparent. Buscemi fits the more level headed glad handing politician who's rugged capabilities are tucked underneath that glossy veneer.
I feel like the story really hits its stride in movie story telling fashion, peaking around the mid to late season 3-4 with a terrific buildup and payoff.
At only five seasons, it's a relatively comfortable watch and is quite entertaining throughout.
Winter captured the essence of the real life gangsters, Luciano, et al, all the while stretching their stories in to fiction to fit his narrative. Certainly, liberties were taken, and I feel like some of the characteristics, cetainly of Luciano and Siegel, were off the mark early on, they did fit the story.
Oh one more thing, Michael Shannon, lord how could I forget this guy. You can't tell a prohibition story without having a Prohibition Agent.
Nelson Van Alder is his name, and man, talk about a slow burn. He is the silent generation all rolled in to one character and his arc may be one of the most wide reaching in the series.  The droll, monotone Van Alden, so well acted, just perfect.

Other things the casual viewer may not pick up on is we see J. Edgar Hoover having a passing interest in this network of bootleggers, not yet called the mafia. This was true, up until his death, the FBI really never focused on the mob as he didn't believe it existed, hence their strong presence and golden age.

There was a female assistant US attorney who did prosecute bootleggers and gangsters.

It's subtle, but during this story, you see the growth of Lansky and Luciano under the tutelage of Arnold Rothstein and over the years, they see the Mustache Pete's (the old guard, Torrio, Maranzano et al) as short sighted. Not willing to worth with Jews or the Irish, but the younger guys see opportunity. This was how the modern mafia came to be and its interesting to see Winter's take on this story.

I also find it interesting that you can tell a story of these guys with no Vito Genovese making an appearance but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.

Boardwalk Empire did one other thing and that is, crowded my top 5 al time list something fierce. Id really have to sit down and see where it fits for me.
What does all of that mean? Watch there series, you'll enjoy it.

Spoiler

Season 5 had an amazing ending with a beautiful arc to Nucky Thompson but otherwise I felt it fell short of the other seasons. I do absolutely love how they jump forward about is years to get to the eventful 1931 as it relates to mobsters. Winter littered season 5 with need to know references about the St. Valentines Day Massacre, death of Arnold Rothstein and the like. Those were vital components of any mob related story but would have taken up way too much on screen time to tell. That was a great bit of storytelling right there.
The kidnapping of Bugsy Siegel and an assistant US attorney? Get the fuck outta here with that nonsense. This is taking a leap with fiction IMO. But, by now, I was so wildly invested I let it go, I mean its television and it never presented itself as a documentary, so...

Loved the arc of Gillian. I thought it was so suitable for her to die in her own house of a heroin OD. I was really irked when she lived through that an appeared the next season. However, I was pleasantly surprised about her arc. Ron Livingston as a Pinkerton? Insane asylum? Old school hysterectomy to remove the insanity? Holy shit.

Can Michael K. Williams not get killed in a series?

So, the deputy who actually takes part in the killing of Mrs. Schroder's husband being hung out to dry had to be one of the best minor subplots in the series. A faithful servant. Does what he's told, but then gets his ass kicked by his own people then is double crossed in court and is saddled with a lifetime prison sentence. LOL That was pre freakin gold.


BojackHorsefella

Quote from: Crewe on August 04, 2019, 02:56:09 PM
For a season maybe, I felt like maybe Buscemi wasn't the best actor for this role but if you give it a bit, he seems to find the Thompson character and the writers work his arc towards his talents. He's not an Al Capone, heavy-handed enforcer type, that much is apparent. Buscemi fits the more level headed glad handing politician who's rugged capabilities are tucked underneath that glossy veneer.

I'll have more once I'm at a proper PC and not my phone, but I think a lot of this goes into what Jimmy tells him, I believe, at the end of season 2 (but maybe earlier): "You can't be half a gangster."

Nucky wants to have it both ways. All the young mafiosos we know: Luciano, Lansky, etc, they all see a better way but, as we know, the mafia wasn't some charitable organization. It was corruption, and murder, and if you wanted to play the game like Nucky did, you had to play it totally.

Crewe

Quote from: Bucfever on August 04, 2019, 03:43:51 PM
Quote from: Crewe on August 04, 2019, 02:56:09 PM
For a season maybe, I felt like maybe Buscemi wasn't the best actor for this role but if you give it a bit, he seems to find the Thompson character and the writers work his arc towards his talents. He's not an Al Capone, heavy-handed enforcer type, that much is apparent. Buscemi fits the more level headed glad handing politician who's rugged capabilities are tucked underneath that glossy veneer.

I'll have more once I'm at a proper PC and not my phone, but I think a lot of this goes into what Jimmy tells him, I believe, at the end of season 2 (but maybe earlier): "You can't be half a gangster."

Nucky wants to have it both ways. All the young mafiosos we know: Luciano, Lansky, etc, they all see a better way but, as we know, the mafia wasn't some charitable organization. It was corruption, and murder, and if you wanted to play the game like Nucky did, you had to play it totally.

Exactly. And I thought the creators showed him straddling that line throughout the series even while realizing the game was headed down Luciano's path.
Btw, I thought Michael Pitts did a terrific job too, so many well acted roles in this series.

BojackHorsefella

#234
Alright I was trying to quote your post and go through but that was taking me too long because my brain works slowly, so:

Boardwalk Empire

To go off what Crewe said above: yes. But let me highlight a few things, because, quite frankly, I love this show.

#1 - The freaking DETAILS. Crewe got everything right: the actors, the writing, everything about this show is of a high caliber and quality. But, my god, the production design on this show. Every cigarette, car, the boardwalk itself, the musical choices in-episode and for some credits as well. The production crew for this show felt no limitations on, if not being historically accurate, at the very least presenting an alive and believable 1920s down to the very nitty gritty in detail.

#2 - So, about that cast. Crewe covered it about as well as can be covered, but let me add a tiny bit more:

First off, Richard Harrow was, in my opinion, the single greatest part of this show, and Jack Huston's performance is a huge part of it. I'm surprised to see he hasn't done much since the show, because the way he inhabited Harrow who is a deeply, deeply hurt person, was truly remarkable and gave a character that, in lesser hands, could've been perhaps one-note or even cartoonish, but Jack imbued him with the humanity that the writers clearly anticipated.

Also was my introduction to some people who have popped up in a lot of places since. Kelly McDonald was the voice of Merida from Brave, after this. Stephen Graham, who plays Al Capone, has been in a few films since, as well as Paul Sparks as Mickey Doyle, who was another great actor in this who's had some mild roles outside (his role in Thoroughbreds, while small, was fantastic, whereas his role in The Greatest Showman, LIKE EVERY OTHER ROLE IN THAT MOVIE AND REALLY THE ENTIRE MOVIE ITSELF, was a little bizarre). Michael Stuhlbarg as Rothstein, another one who pops up everywhere now since this show and who's acting style I enjoy.

Charlie Cox, many people probably know from Daredevil as, well, Daredevil, but Boardwalk Empire was probably his big national break. It's a little hard to talk about his character, Owen, who was probably my second favorite behind Harrow, as his entire arc really gets into some big spoilers, but again, another character I loved.

For me, the biggest thing was the setting itself. I know that we tend to romanticize our own history, and with the 20s you have, obviously, Prohibition, the Great Depression, obviously all leading into WWII. But, man, watching this show, there's still a certain...calm, to all of the chaos. There are no nukes. There is no internet. The world is large, but it's small, and every character on this show still thinks they have a chance to run it all.


Also, while every season truly is a triumph, two big things: #1 - the first half of every season is always tediously slow in setting up its pieces, and the back half is always a freaking avalanche. It's fantastic.

#2 - Season 3 best season, easily. Two words: Bobby Cannavale.


I still work "When I was handed my first nickel, I thought, 'a nickle is fine, but a dime would be better.'" into everyday conversations.

I know this was mostly rambling, but, whatever. Go watch the show.

Crewe

I was so tied up in writing about the mob and acting stuff I completely ignored the art direction and cinematography and didn't even realize it until you brought it up.
Perfect description and I agree.
Huston was amazing. To become Harrow and find his embarrassment and shame while wearing his war wounds, mentally and physically was just amazing. When introduced, I thought he might be a passing character.
Also found it interesting how the mobsters were really indifferent to the war and the veterans.
Owen Sleater, man, just another well written and acted character.
I thought that Mickey Doyle
Spoiler
meeting his end when and how he did was rather unnecessary, but didn't really affect anything. I guess it was easier than having him cause a rift about still running the nightclub under a new owner

For me, the biggest thing was the setting itself. I know that we tend to romanticize our own history, and with the 20s you have, obviously, Prohibition, the Great Depression, obviously all leading into WWII. But, man, watching this show, there's still a certain...calm, to all of the chaos. There are no nukes. There is no internet. The world is large, but it's small, and every character on this show still thinks they have a chance to run it all.

This is a really poignant thought because so many times while watching this I kept thinking, they really captured the essence of the "roaring 20's" without  bludgeoning you with overstated direction.

#2 - Season 3 best season, easily. Two words: Bobby Cannavale.

I liked S3
Spoiler
but I also thought they overplayed the Rosetti character a bit. Still an amazing season though

I still work "When I was handed my first nickel, I thought, 'a nickle is fine, but a dime would be better.'" into everyday conversations.

This provided as much context around Nucky as one sentence could.

Like I said, this is causing me to revamp my top 5....

Crewe

Worthy read about the Dick Van Dyke Show and the barriers it shattered, social color barriers, how families were portrayed at the time etc...
I absolutely love this show, and I know many others do too, but I think you'd appreciate it even more after reading this brief article.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/dick-van-dyke-coast-to-coast-big-mouth-carl-reiner

Crewe

#237
When They See Us

Netflix dramatization of the Central Park 5.
This will be brief: it was good, but for a four ep series, it was pretty drawn out.
the filmmakers fast tracked the trial, once again, overlooking and or ignoring procedures, you'd think they would at least hint at what the fuck stage of the process they are in so it can help propel the story.
No matter though, its a good watch and it will fill you with rage, as it should and if you take nothing else from this story, know that Linda Fairstein is an unethical criminal twat of epic proportions and she deserves ten fold the backlash she's getting right now. And of course, no consequences for the cops, ever.

All that said, if you want a better dramatization, see the OJ series by Netflix.

Edit to add; I know this shouldn't be here, but, if we started paying victims out of the police pension fund instead of via taxpayers, I bet you'd start to see a lot less of this bullshit.

Crewe

This is pretty much my thread as of late lol

Fleabag

Written and created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag is a welcome marvel of television.
I dove in to this series based on a recommendation, but otherwise knowing nothing of it's substance. After the first episode, Im thinking its a dramedy esque sitcom.
Waller-Bridge plays Fleabag, an early thirties single Londoner with a tawdry sex drive, quick wit, full of snark and master of the side eye.
Her charisma is off the freaking charts and no-one is really even close to her in that regard. However, thats not to downplay the rest of the cast, beginning with her haughty, uptight sister Claire, played by Sian Clifford.
She is what an American would consider a textbook Brit, complete opposite of her younger sibling. The two of them together are quite an entertaining pair and we, or at least I, was sure the affection was one sided, as most things were with our star.
Fleabag breaks the fourth in such clever fashion, and thats not to say its original, but I dare say its the best use so far. I just can't get in to any of it without divulging spoilers.
Suffice it to say, this series is hardly a sitcom. It has substance, style, grace and serious unforeseen depth.
Do yourself a favor and check this out. Its only a 2 season run with 6 episodes a season so its easy to plow through and you will love it.


rollntider

Watched flea bag it was pretty good. Also watch the boys on amazon.