Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:30 pm

This might be a bit meta, but...

Writer Director S. Craig Zahler.

I saw his directorial debut a couple months ago as research for my ever-in-progress fantasy western setting. It's very good. It's very problematic. The dialogue is well written, the cinematography is well laid out, the actors all know their job. It's inherently a movie about a bunch of white westerners riding out into "the wilds" to kill a reclusive native tribe for fear of what the tribe is doing to a white woman. The majority of the characters are progressive for the period, and there is only a single out-right racist, who aims to kill ever native he can, because natives killed his family. Given this kind of white hero "savage natives" bullshit is pretty standard for Hollywood even now, and there is a native protagonist who is portrayed positively (albeit because he was ...colonized on an individual level, I guess?), I was willing to set aside what was ultimately period appropriate attitudes in a movie that framed their evil natives in such a way as to not be a sweeping generalization.

I just watched his second movie that he directed, Brawl in Cell Block 99. It's well made, it's viscerally gory, it's no more racist or conservative on its face than Peppermint (which I saw in theatres because it looked like a Action Woman Kicks ASS movie, and turned out to be set in Fox News' wet dreams).

But looking for more info online, I found that his third movie, Dragged Across Concrete, which came out this year, stars Mel Gibson, and in Zahler's mind, Gibson's antisemitism is all in the past and he's good to work with. I found that Zahler seems intent upon keeping his head up his ass where pesky politics can't reach him.

Some people question whether Zahler is a white supremacist, but honestly, I don't think he is. Instead, he's the kind of centrist who sees no problem with putting white supremacists on the same stage as center-left voters and treating both their viewpoints as equally valid, and the two of them as representing the whole spectrum.

He's a skilled director and writer, but he's way too willing to separate art from message, and thinks that that is a separation you can even accomplish. He was a writer for metal fandom publications before he was an accomplished screenwriter, and despite being culturally Jewish, he praised the "art" of nazi metal bands, as if their music wasn't nazi violence in and of itself.

So, yeah. A director is a piece of entertainment that lost me, because he's spineless centrist garbage.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:36 pm

I just watched How It Ends from Netflix. It sucks. Don't bother. None of the actors do a good job. None of the writers did a good job. I was wary of the movie but mrs erik seemed interested and we figured okay, we'll give it a try.

Here I'll save you 2 hours.

Super volcanic eruption off the West Coast, that somehow kills electrical grid and does other things that it shouldn't do, like not kill everyone immediately in the vicinity, but does destroy the power grids 2000+ miles away where otherwise unaffected.

The main character never becomes likeable or useful. He does have the super power to drive a caddy like a sports car, but that's an unearned power. He's supposed to be a lawyer, but has probably the worst negotiation and logic skills in the movie.

Forest Whittaker's badass ex-military dad dies slowly from broken ribs due to a car crash that was so slow that it didn't set off any air bags. My one hope was that he actually would give a death scream when the guy sets him and the car on fire in a pyrrhic waste of his most valuable trade item. At least that would put the exclamation point on how useless the main character was.

P.S. apparently civilization isn't 3 meals away from anarchy, it's like a snack break out from apocalypse. Power out for 3 hours and it's Mad Max time.

We're also watching Designated Survivor. I'm frequently disappointed at how much worse it is at understanding people and politics than a show that is all about rebuilding the government should be. I wish their writers had at least watched a few seasons of West Wing as a primer. I haven't fully given up yet on this show, but I'm on the brink.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:58 pm

Is it mean that I saw the previews and Sutherland and just assumed the show would be intensely dumb?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:18 am

Just watched the Ballad of Buster Scruggs.......

And there was just no point in collecting the various pieces together.

The performances are all good, the cinematography is great, the score is used well, in places the dialog is punchy, but there is just no throughline. It ends up feeeling like a random assortment of tales...maybe they were aiming for nihilism or absurdist futility and missed, but uh there's not actually a movie underneath that script..

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:11 am

I've watched 35 minutes. Definitely going for absurdist and trying to juxtapose certain tropes in an unusual way. The first vignette had a guy dressed in Singing Cowboy garb (1930s and 1940s) with everyone else dressed in the style of a modern western. I'll probably finish it, but just cause I was looking for a small dose of Westerns without tackling a miniseries.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Nov 23, 2018 6:12 am

My recommendations for recent-ish westerns to watch instead would be:

Hell or High Water-- this was amazing. You can import the tropes of the old west into 2016 post-financial crisis Texas and it jolly well works.

Magnificent Seven remake -- this doesn't have the impact of the original (and it's arguable if the original had the impact of its original), but the choice to shift the villain to a robber baron instead of a bandit gang leader is emblematic of how well thought-out all of the updates are.

A Million Ways to Die in the West. This Seth McFarlane farce was unimpressive on first viewing. It improved considerably last night, after comparison to the "Meal Ticket" segment of Buster Scruggs. If you want a western starring Liam Nesson that has themes of the unfairness of life and the inevitability of death go for the one with a couple cheap laughs.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Nov 23, 2018 9:27 am

Just saw Ralph Breaks the Internet. It was fine, but it seems like Ralph was seriously dumbed down for the sequel, and is the weakest part of it. Which is weird, kind of, because he's the entire reason for the plot-

Vanellope is getting bored in her game, and laments this to Ralph. So he makes her a new track in her game. Unfortunately, he's an idiot and does this while someone is playing it, and Vanellope takes full control, causing the player to accidentally break the steering wheel. The arcade owner is shown a replacement one on eBay for $200, but "the game doesn't even make that in a year."

Yeah, I know.

So these two video game character hair off into the internet through the new WiFi router in the arcade, and go looking for eBay. Mind you, these characters have a concept of money, as the Tap Room charges for after hours root beers, but they apparently have no god damned clue how an auction works. So Ralph bids "27,001" thinking it was a game where you just named the biggest number.

They then have to find money, which leads to Vanellope finding a game that's basically a GTA/SR-esque game more focused on racing than gang warfare. Vanellope has found her new thing and wants to stay, while Ralph is horrified. Skip about an hour of movie, and Ralph procures a virus to release in the game, hoping to make it boring enough for Vanellope to want to leave.

Yeah. I know.

The Disney Princesses save the day in a scene that's pretty much the highlight of the movie, and makes me want a Disney Princess supers thing, and all is resolved. The replacement steering wheel is purchased and sent to the arcade, Ralph has come to terms with not having his only friend by his side literally every second he's not working, and Vanellope is a jarringly different styled new character in Slaughter Race.

Now, this is honestly just me. I hate stupid protagonists. I'm not saying the movie is bad. It's a kid's movie, the bar's not that high. But Ralph is the weakest part of the movie, and that's partially because he was so drastically dumbed down.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Nov 29, 2018 6:09 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucg9tajl3AE
Mortal Engines Trailer.
Where the hell did this come from all of a sudden?

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 1:39 am

Travelers (time-travel-based show on Netflix) did well for 5.5 episodes. Good enough characters, the future was shown to be wildly fallible, and an interesting idea. Then they decided the rule to not kill anyone they weren't ordered to kill was not overridden by their goal of preventing the apocalypse, even though the soldiers would die 90 seconds later in an antimatter explosion the time travelers were causing. The writers wrote themselves out of that corner by sending more people back into the bodies of those same soldiers to also be killed, because now it was okay because they would die in an antimatter explosion, but not until they killed an important time traveler. So they wasted the lives of 10-20 time travelers to accomplish a goal without shooting anyone. Which would mean more if they didn't kill them anyway. Also, for some reason, the cloud of poisonous gas that was a major plot point didn't affect the soldiers they were trying to avoid killing?

Supernatural also had their worse episodes so far in seasons 3, 4, and 5 because it was important to make it about saving the world from demons and maybe also angels. They also had some really good episodes during those seasons that were about literally anything else. The running plot was a good idea, 3 seasons of it wasn't, and 3 seasons of the end of the world no matter what it does to previous plot points is terrible. I'd also say the ending was rushed, except they finished with a 22-episode season.

I'll watch more episodes of both, hoping they'll get better, but both were bad signs.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 12:43 pm

I'm given to understand Supernatural turned to shit after the ending of the original 5 season arc, since they just keep upping the stakes instead of simply letting there be villains who are less hardcore than previous villains like Doctor Who.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 5:34 pm

It's amazing how many shows would be improved by realizing they had actually finished and should stop airing. Media definitely has its own version of the Peter Principle - success begets continuation until failure. Financially, there's no reason to cancel a show until it's achieved a sufficient level of mediocrity to drive away viewers, so shows frequently get renewed until they fucking suck.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:17 pm

DSMatticus wrote:It's amazing how many shows would be improved by realizing they had actually finished and should stop airing. Media definitely has its own version of the Peter Principle - success begets continuation until failure. Financially, there's no reason to cancel a show until it's achieved a sufficient level of mediocrity to drive away viewers, so shows frequently get renewed until they fucking suck.

It should be amazing, but it's perfectly understandable. Do you know how much money The Simpsons has brought in since they started half-assing it? The financial incentive to make anything quality is becoming popular, but that popularity doesn't automatically go away just because the quality does. Once something becomes popular enough for the popularity to be self-sustaining, the only reasons to keep putting in the effort of quality are "self respect" and "dedication to your art." And those don't do so well in the boardroom.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:33 am

DSMatticus wrote:It's amazing how many shows would be improved by realizing they had actually finished and should stop airing. Media definitely has its own version of the Peter Principle - success begets continuation until failure. Financially, there's no reason to cancel a show until it's achieved a sufficient level of mediocrity to drive away viewers, so shows frequently get renewed until they fucking suck.

Well, I'd argue that lots of things get cancelled for being unpopular, rather than being bad, but yeah. Franchises either get cancelled, or linger long enough that you wish they would be, as a rule.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Fri Dec 28, 2018 8:04 pm

This is usually one of the major points I bring up in favor of anime - usually a series is commissioned for a certain number of episodes and they resolve their plot point within that number of episodes.

Long-running shows in the US (like Friends, or Scrubs) often have a 'will they or won't they' dynamic that interferes with the shows and the characters. When the character has to become UNLIKABLE to maintain the tension in the series is a major problem for me.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:56 pm

deaddmwalking wrote: Long-running shows in the US (like Friends, or Scrubs) often have a 'will they or won't they' dynamic that interferes with the shows and the characters. When the character has to become UNLIKABLE to maintain the tension in the series is a major problem for me.

Yeah, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia picked that as one of the stupid things shows do on their "The Gang Tries to Win an Award" episode. They also implied that if you do a joke about race/gender, it's okay. If you do a joke about race/gender and point out the person who said it is racist/sexist for saying it, you're going to piss people off. But, that ended up being a good episode, so this is the wrong thread for discussing it too heavily.

Now a show that lost me (finally) is Travelers. Their Season 2 finale put in way more effort to make the episode bad than it would have to make it succeed.

The plot points were: bad guy kidnaps someone, good guys find the person who built a device for the bad guy in the previous episode, bad guy demands the good guys admit to everyone they're secret time-travelers or he'll kill his hostage, the good guys get caught trying to save the hostage, so the bad guy captures their loved ones (all good so far), then the bad guy re-captures the person who built the device, makes sure the audience knows it's a consciousness transfer device that the bad guy was going to use to transfer his consciousness, shows the hostage acting different (which would be a clue in a better-written version of the episode), shows the bad guy's body limp in a chair, explains that when your consciousness is transferred your body is just a husk that sits there, the hostages are freed shortly before the good guys arrive, and the bad guy in the hostage body says what he would have done if they arrived, because they ran out of time to show an actual twist. Literally, if they wasted less time giving the twist ending away before showing it, they would have had time to do it correctly, and I am angry at them for it.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:53 am

I read somewhere about The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. being a good "weird west" show. I'd never seen it, so I gave it a shot...

It wasn't great. I stalled out about halfway through the season (they only made 1 season). My main complaints were:
- most episodes are a "monster of the week" kind of thing
- cartoonish characters, like Lord Bowler
- barely any "weird" in this show so far...
- Brisco County Jr. is a bit of a mary-sue (ha!)

There's lots to like about it, like the constant winking to the audience and that it doesn't take itself too seriously. But man, I just lost interest...mostly just not as much "weird" in the show as I had hoped for (apologies to Bruce Campbell)

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:56 pm

phlapjackage wrote:I read somewhere about The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. being a good "weird west" show. I'd never seen it, so I gave it a shot...

It wasn't great. I stalled out about halfway through the season (they only made 1 season). My main complaints were:
- most episodes are a "monster of the week" kind of thing
- cartoonish characters, like Lord Bowler
- barely any "weird" in this show so far...
- Brisco County Jr. is a bit of a mary-sue (ha!)

There's lots to like about it, like the constant winking to the audience and that it doesn't take itself too seriously. But man, I just lost interest...mostly just not as much "weird" in the show as I had hoped for (apologies to Bruce Campbell)

Agreed. There was some magical/alien stuff (the ball the Asian slaves found that gave them powers), but it just wasn't what I was hoping for back when I watched it.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Jan 10, 2019 9:59 pm

I think most shows need a season to truly find their voice, and it's a shame that it wasn't renewed. It had enough going for it that it COULD have been great - as it was. It was best when they were dealing with the larger plot of the death of his father, and the cast was fun. I like that Bruce Campbell wrote the intro to Deadlands, and those rules supported a pretty fun game in the genre of the weird west (though there are a lot of mechanical failures).

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:39 am

DSMatticus wrote:It's amazing how many shows would be improved by realizing they had actually finished and should stop airing. Media definitely has its own version of the Peter Principle - success begets continuation until failure. Financially, there's no reason to cancel a show until it's achieved a sufficient level of mediocrity to drive away viewers, so shows frequently get renewed until they fucking suck.

I put together a pithy little phrase a decade or so ago and have yet to find anything that contradicts it: "There is nothing worse than a story that doesn't end when it's over."

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:15 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:This is usually one of the major points I bring up in favor of anime - usually a series is commissioned for a certain number of episodes and they resolve their plot point within that number of episodes.

It's funny that you mention this because Bleach lost me when it refused to end at the end of the Soul Society arc. It just kept going, recycling the same plot again and again.

At least it's over now.

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:44 pm

Ugh I hate jumping to this thread after I was so hyped about Limetown Season 2 in the 'rocked you' thread but it was such a massive letdown.

Apparently the original writers are busy trying to break into the TV industry and a new writing staff was brought on to do season 2 and to pump out a very mediocre book that only serves to take a hatchet to season one.

The thing that steams me is they actually went back and edited out bits of the original podcast. Mentions of Lia's father have been removed because I guess they decided they wanted him to be another contrived mystery in a series of contrived mysteries. Likewise removing all mention of Emil being Lia's Uncle on her mother's side so that he can be her now missing father's brother instead. So that he could have a weird crush on her mom in the terrible novel.

Like ok crummy seasons happen but don't retcon the good season you already fucking made you absolute hacks.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Jan 16, 2019 11:48 pm

shinimasu wrote:Ugh I hate jumping to this thread after I was so hyped about Limetown Season 2 in the 'rocked you' thread but it was such a massive letdown.

Apparently the original writers are busy trying to break into the TV industry and a new writing staff was brought on to do season 2 and to pump out a very mediocre book that only serves to take a hatchet to season one.

The thing that steams me is they actually went back and edited out bits of the original podcast. Mentions of Lia's father have been removed because I guess they decided they wanted him to be another contrived mystery in a series of contrived mysteries. Likewise removing all mention of Emil being Lia's Uncle on her mother's side so that he can be her now missing father's brother instead. So that he could have a weird crush on her mom in the terrible novel.

Like ok crummy seasons happen but don't retcon the good season you already fucking made you absolute hacks.

Is there a place to find the originals? I was going to listen to this, but I don't want the edited ones.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Thu Jan 17, 2019 4:06 am

shinimasu wrote:Ugh I hate jumping to this thread after I was so hyped about Limetown Season 2 in the 'rocked you' thread but it was such a massive letdown.

Apparently the original writers are busy trying to break into the TV industry and a new writing staff was brought on to do season 2 and to pump out a very mediocre book that only serves to take a hatchet to season one.

The thing that steams me is they actually went back and edited out bits of the original podcast. Mentions of Lia's father have been removed because I guess they decided they wanted him to be another contrived mystery in a series of contrived mysteries. Likewise removing all mention of Emil being Lia's Uncle on her mother's side so that he can be her now missing father's brother instead. So that he could have a weird crush on her mom in the terrible novel.

Like ok crummy seasons happen but don't retcon the good season you already fucking made you absolute hacks.

Was season 2 not good? I listened to season 1 in November (before the edits, I think) and really liked it, but I was going to wait for season 2 to finish before listening.

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Fri Jan 18, 2019 8:18 pm

Leress wrote: Is there a place to find the originals? I was going to listen to this, but I don't want the edited ones.

To my knowledge no, Limetown wasn't a super huge podcast phenomenon so I don't think anyone's backed up the original episodes anywhere. You could try asking on the Reddit just in case.

I will say the edits to the first season are minor and don't majorly impact the quality or direction of the story, I'm just mad they happened at all. Normally the saving grace of a bad reboot is that it doesn't touch the original work, it's still there to be enjoyed. So I'm bristly that they went and touched the first season even if the changes don't amount to much overall.

As to whether it's "good" or not... well Season two is engaging but it also smacks of "we've very clearly written ourselves into a corner." Instead of resolving the cliff hanger ending of the first season we follow two new characters through a set of recorded interrogations. The framing method is abysmal by the way, since half the "interrogations" consist of listening to other tapes. You're literally listening to a tape recording of people listening to a tape recording.

So you think the interrogation is to figure out what happened at the end of season 1 but then it ends on a contrived plot twist cliff hanger. Nothing is resolved, more questions are raised than answered, and at this rate it doesn't look like season 3 is going to happen.

Then there is the entirely separate drama of the Novel. Which is meant to be a prequel to season one. The novel is what really guts the continuity, since in season one Lia Haddock is implied to know basically nothing about Limetown, what went on there, or that her uncle was involved. In the novel she's apparently in on the ground floor with everything, it's very jarring. I have a bad feeling they're inching towards a "your memories were tampered with" resolution to this too.

What's even better is that fans almost unanimously panned the book on social media too. So since the book has no real bearing yet on either season you'd think they'd just quietly disown the thing and write off the loss right?

Nope, later episodes of season two start with the very firm shilling of READ THE BOOK YOU GUYS, THE BOOK WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER, IT'S A GOOD BOOK READ IT. So doubling down in that direction doesn't make me hopeful.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Jan 20, 2019 12:50 am

So with all the marketing around Glass, I want to remind folks that Unbreakable had a character who didn't know what his weightlifting limits were, despite that character having previously played football competetively at the college level in the US of A.