what are you watching?

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:57 am

I'm a sucker for a Duplass

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Tue Oct 12, 2021 5:14 pm

We completed Lodge 49 last night. Agree that it is special. Sometimes veered zany or poignant in ways that made me tired, but what are you going to do? You gotta get out there and sell that sizzle to make it in America. Ahistorical 'weird folk' themed soundtrack often carried me. Quite an 'auteur'vibe. IMDB lists no other production credits for writer/producer Jim Gavin. Yes it was heart-warming and often laugh out loud funny. Yes it painted a multi-generational portrait of life and loss in this unwinding empire. I cared about what happened to the characters even when the narrative didn't care to explain it to me. It was ok. I was there.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Tue Oct 12, 2021 5:33 pm

I love that you stuck with it, Rich! I know it's clunky at times and some of the performances are a bit wooden, but the ensemble feels sincere in a rare way for prestige TV. I get the sense a bigger world was intended to explain away some of the head-scratchier things but that it all got truncated when the show was cancelled. I connected with the ultimate emphasis on the importance of friendship and community and the way it paints as truly ridiculous the machinations of late capitalism. In the end I fell hard for the Liz Dudley storylines, such charming displays of coworker solidarity!

Jim Gavin is a one-time, first-time showrunner—got the gig, I think, on the strength of a collection of short stories (??). Bless his heart, but oh, to be a white dude in showbiz. Not that I think he'll get much of another shot.

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:51 pm

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Tue Oct 12, 2021 5:33 pm Bless his heart, but oh, to be a white dude in showbiz.

Aye.

BTW, more about Jim Gavin (and the music) from America Magazine, The Jesuit Review: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-cu ... t-lodge-49

JG - "The best word I know to describe the show comes from Schopenhauer, who coined the term, “Bummerfarce.” We are a bummerfarce for sure."

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:19 am

Bummerfarce <3

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:04 am

well...

alexshred420 · Post by **alexshred420** » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:17 am

Just watched a few episodes of "I think you should leave" and it's annoyingly yelly at times (just yelling all the time doesn't make you funny) but there are also some really funny parts.

alex · Post by **alex** » Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:24 pm

oh my god he admit it

I just watched "The Billion Dollar Code"..its a pretty fun german miniseries based on some hackers and artists who originally invented "Terravision", which was then copied to become Google Earth. Kind of felt like halt and catch fire, without any strong female characters, mixed with a courtroom drama?

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Mon Oct 25, 2021 1:42 pm

anyone else watching succession? any con heads in the chat?

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:34 am

@meadows Meeeeeee! I can't believe this old blue marble has spun around enough times that it's now Succession season again. Grateful for appointment television; I like to watch it sitting on the ground, nose to the TV like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons. The first couple eps of this new season aren't BLOWING my mind but I feel like they're carefully laying the groundwork for something big. It's going to be back-and-forth allegiances and skulduggery for sure. Do you read Hunter Harris' newsletter? She does a really good "Sucession Power Rankings" weekly:

https://hunterharris.substack.com/p/suc ... pontaneous

I also just found out I went to college with Cousin Greg!!! I mean he attended my college. He was a freshman when I was a senior.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:04 am

Greg the egg! One of the tallest men on television?!

I'm also so happy it's back and that we only get an episode a week. Sometimes before the new one drops we will re-watch the previous ep, to get real juiced up. I'm happy to be back in the world of their specific language. Telling someone "You're mashed potatoes" as an insult= beautiful. Is there anything scarier than an angry man saying to you "I'm going to grind your bones to make my bread"?
I worry about Gerri and I would like her to survive unscathed. I worry about Greg's ability to navigate any of what's happening. Everyone else can fry, and I'm happy to watch it. The cringe levels are set to 11!

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:03 pm

On the Succession wave. Loved the new Greg predicament, strapped to a marxist missile aimed at the heart of capitalism! Poor Greg!

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Oct 28, 2021 8:57 am

Yes, I think Greg might accidentally save the world!

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:35 pm

PISS MADNESS

alexshred420 · Post by **alexshred420** » Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:29 pm

Just been watching Mark Suciu put out 3 amazing parts in the last month but this is honestly one of the best street skateboarding video parts ever (sorry I know y'all aren't skateboarders but this is mostly the media I consume)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDdX34pRf5c

kmikeym · Post by **kmikeym** » Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:33 am

How To With John Wilson is back.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:48 am

So is KMikeyM, apparently!

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Wed Dec 15, 2021 9:34 am

How about that Succession season finale? I’m in awe of Jesse Armstrong, those last two episodes were so masterful…that Tom reveal was so subtle and so shocking and yet so obviously there all along, if you looked for it. Not a twist, just an unfolding. I immediately started rewatching this season from the top just to watch it happen again

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:36 am

I thought the finale was really excellent, and I'm not sure I'm going to rewatch any of this season right away. The darkness of Kendall's black hole felt like too much for me- I don't generally want to consume entertainment where someone might seriously harm themself. It was incredibly compelling and well-acted, and incredibly stressful to watch. Is he perhaps the saddest man alive???

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:36 am

oh yeah TOM, TOM'S not going to be a punching bag anymore! Tom wants some agency and respect and a frickin baby!

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Dec 27, 2021 8:16 pm

How about STATION ELEVEN, friends? I'm loving this new kind of post-apocalyptic vision—the world ends and twenty years later the remaining weirds are roaming the grass-filled parking lots and performing Shakespeare from memory!

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Mon Dec 27, 2021 9:26 pm

don't look.. made me want to see a satire with bravado... I saw this when I was ten. Pretty amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcUv4dAiCkA

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:37 am

I loved the book it's based on but I've only seen one episode of Station Eleven. Sometimes hard to let go of the book/personal vision, but it's compelling thus far.

Anyone else wanna talk about Yellowjackets? I am obsessed, on the edge of my seat.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:20 pm

I feel that! I'd really like to read the book. The show is great and since I always assume book > adaptation, the book must be fantastic. I've heard good things about Yellowjackets too! On the docket

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:12 pm

If you read it, let me know... I have thoughts and questions :p

Yellowjackets has Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci, is partially set in 1996 and paid the $$ for a soundtrack that reflects it, and is honestly scary as hell!

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Wed Jan 05, 2022 4:14 pm

we copy you. now we are in the 1990s in our evenings watching girls do gruesome things on our screen. I will be so pleased if I hear Team Dresch or The Vaselines in this context. By the way, did anyone else catch the Beat Happening cue in Reservation Dogs?

That show's Music Supervisor happened to release some records on Up back in the day. Things you see when you live long enough..

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 1:52 pm

@meadows I ripped through Station Eleven, the book, on my famous e-reader, want to talk!

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 10:23 am

ok one text message coming your way!!! don't wanna do spoilers for board people who might read or watch.
if i had to pick one of the two I still pick the book over the show, but the show has some MOMENTS that made me cry hard.

yessss yellowjackets, rich! it would be so cool if the music cuts got a little weirder, i would appreciate. the gruesome things.... i can't look away...

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:35 pm

@w0lf made a movie!

https://youtu.be/SiSrXORdi34

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Jan 21, 2022 2:15 pm

yeah she did!!!

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Sun Jan 30, 2022 3:58 pm

revisited Southland Tales this weekend with the teen. viewing number 3 or 4.. first time in probably 10 years. one of the great sprawling wrecks of a bro trope. the last section, 'wave of mutilation' stands on its own. exhausted by the masculine gaze on a rainy sunday afternoon in america, 2022. back to the action of non-action.

take it higher, sister!

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Jan 31, 2022 10:12 am

Love Southland Tales. Jona and I have a running argument with our film programmer friend Bret about Southland Tales' viability as high art. I've felt from the get that it captures something really special about the early 00s, and that the trash ugliness it radiated at the time of its release would mellow into a desirable, even nostalgic aesthetic. I feel redeemed by recent waves of critical re-appraisal. We went and saw a screening of the Cannes cut at LACMA a few years ago and Richard Kelly was there for a Q&A. He seemed to have little awareness of the weirdness of his own movie. He mostly talked during the Q&A about how much of a nice guy the Rock is, and how fun the movie was to shoot. He was healthy and radiated jock energy. I love this uniquely American kind of savant—clearly there is a vast floating subconscious full of CGI water-slime and surrealistic Zeppelins, but it's not accessible beyond how it manifests in the work itself. Self-awareness is overrated.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:25 pm

We started watching all of The Golden Girls from episode 1 (the one where they inexplicably have a young live-in gay cook who deeply cares about their personal lives).
It stands up! It is a very good show. Korneel had never heard of it or any of the people in it and has no idea what any of the Miami references are or mean and is still like, this is a really good show; let's watch another one.
I never realized as a kid how horney all of them are. Like that is basically the premise of the show: four old, very horney ladies live together in Miami. It is a miracle that that show ever existed. Bless.

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Mon Jan 31, 2022 7:05 pm

was a little behind you on Station Eleven, @yourfriendclaire, but I finally just finished and want to hear your thoughts!

also hiding a spoiler in white text: [did you put together that Alex was Rose's daughter born at the department store? there are a lot of cool easter eggs that indicate it!]

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Feb 03, 2022 9:41 am

I loved it! I read the book halfway through my watch, which actually heightened my appreciation of the show. It's one of the rare bits of televisual media to improve on its source material, I think.

Not perfect-perfect, there were some beats that made me go "huh?"—Tyler's storyline in particular stretched credulity. They didn't quite land the transition from him being some kind of Malevolent Child a la "We Need To Talk About Kevin" to him being somewhat likable and having a comprehensible core wound. But that was eased by Daniel Zovatto being very cute in overalls.

That Jeevan episode was, obviously, incredible. And (no spoilers but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about) I so appreciate that the final episode delivered on its promises. I love a show that doesn't punish you! I read a great interview with Patrick Somerville in Rolling Stone of all places where he talked about how people don't want twists, actually:

"People don’t want twists. What they want is to be told four times that it’s coming, and then for it to come. Because then different kinds of watchers are prepped. Some people can get out ahead of it and know it’s coming. Some are still surprised, but subconsciously, it’s a warmer embrace of a turn. It’s not quite a surprise, but it’s a hope that you are falling towards, just like water over a waterfall."

In that sense that final beat *kind of* reminded me of the finale of Succession this season. The thing that's going to happen is out in the open the whole time, if you want to see it. Station Eleven is definitely kinder though.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Feb 03, 2022 9:41 am

And no I didn't catch that Easter egg but Jona did!

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:31 pm

I didn't read the book but had an eye on its synopsis as I worked through the series. it's hard to imagine the same story without what I would consider the central relationship of the adaptation (Kirsten and Jeevan obviously!), but I've heard that it stays fairly true to the emotional themes of the source material.

there were so much in the show that I didn't care for (everything centered on Tyler, Arthur, and The Art of Theater

). I agree Tyler's plot, especially its ending, made no sense, despite the perfect casting and excellent overalls.

…and yet, I was so moved by it! I was recently introduced to the idea of the transapocalypse as a way to understand what we are living through now. by comparison, the apocalypse in Station Eleven is so defined, i.e. some characters are "pre-pans" while others are "post-pans." I loved the way everything looked—the found anti-fashion, the greasy hair, the horse-drawn cars, the birthing center in the department store, etc. the quote you shared reminds me of what else Somerville said in other interviews about how everything leads to the airport. the whole show feels like a well-crafted wind up toy. how resolute so many of the characters are feels strangely refreshing—maybe even romantic? it's really stayed with me.

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Wed Feb 16, 2022 10:04 am

my family is all up in Station Eleven rn thanks to dismantle.w. so much it looks like I will have to stay away from the chatter here while we keep on our watch. rn I'm thinking it is one of the best shows I've ever seen. way more complex and emotionally risky that it needs to be - or should be - to thrive in the american imperium. things just happen, without a lot of stress or explanation. it's lovely and brutal like life. great photography, design and direction. many good lines. 'the poolhouse is on fire'

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:35 am

@infopetal I'm really interested to learn more about the "transapocalypse"! Can you share? I've been thinking a lot recently about how we move forward and part of it seems very much about frankly assessing and preserving what we have rather than holding on to some already-destroyed ideal.

alexshred420 · Post by **alexshred420** » Tue Mar 01, 2022 3:32 pm

I need to watch Station 11. I loved the book, and sounds like the show does a good job of not fucking it up!

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:11 pm

@yourfriendclaire, I first heard the term listening to a recording of the unfortunately-titled NYT article This Isn’t the California I Married, where it is attributed to Alex Steffen. here's some snippets from Steffen's essay The Transapocalyptic Now:

A transapocalypse is a spectrum. Some parts of the world will experience death and suffering and tragic upheavals as horrible as any humanity ever seen, even while others experience unprecedented prosperity.

We live, today, in a world where some people worry about their family surviving the trip to the next source of water, and others fret over having to buy their second-favorite brand of coffee. We will live in a world with equal (or even greater) chasms of fortune in 20 or 30 or 40 years.

Even in the wealthiest countries, more and more people see that even if the future of their community is not apocalyptic, it is visibly degrading as changes erode away the material basis of its comfort and security. More of us are in this situation than any of us like to think. We are each of us on the transapocalyptic spectrum, even if we are still a long way from the bottom.

to bring it back to the thread, I do think it relates to the romanticism of Station Eleven and many other media depictions of apocalypses and their aftermath as cataclysmic, while ours is more temporally murky. I continue to struggle with the cognitive dissonance of this moment, particularly how many people—including friends and family—are striving for "normalcy," while also holding in my head that we are experiencing a mass death and disabling event, environmental collapse, and now the added threat of nuclear war.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Mar 10, 2022 5:04 pm

Thank you petal, this is such a useful concept. I feel you. It's a lot to hold in your mind at once. The Transapocalypse reminds me also of the William Gibson concept of the "Jackpot," which is a kind of protracted apocalypse that lasts a century and has probably already started.

The jackpot is “multicausal, with no particular beginning and no end. More a climate than an event...nothing you could really call a nuclear war. Just everything else, tangled in the changing climate: droughts, water shortages, crop failures, honeybees gone like they almost were now, collapse of other keystone species, every last alpha predator gone, antibiotics doing even less than they already did, diseases that were never quite the one big pandemic but big enough to be historic events in themselves."

Which: ding ding.

alex · Post by **alex** » Fri Mar 11, 2022 7:36 pm

https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/stickworld

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Fri Mar 11, 2022 7:56 pm

yes, @yourfriendclaire, definitely see the overlap of Gibson's "Jackpot" with the transapocalypse!

a recent fave:
https://youtu.be/qVcn6cQ6VeM

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:46 am

I started watching Ozark and now I cannot stop watching Ozark

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Mar 16, 2022 10:57 am

alex wrote: ↑Fri Mar 11, 2022 7:36 pm https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/stickworld

The New Yorker!?
Reminds me of this delightful series https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8fg1s
I know, daily motion? *shrug*

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Wed Mar 23, 2022 11:24 am

SEVERANCE is extremely good

It takes a premise that's kind of silly on its face—what if there was a brain surgery that could separate your work life from the rest of your life?—and games out the scenario completely. Like, okay, so your work memories are blanked out the minute you leave the office. That means that your work self (your "innie" in the parlance of the show) was basically born in the office and has no awareness of who they are—doesn't even know if they have a family. Your work self has never read a book, so your work self worships the employee manual. Stars believing in an office god. A cargo cult work culture develops that is completely isolated from reality. Etc. It's really smart and weird.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Mar 24, 2022 8:53 am

Someone please tell me they’ve watched DEEP WATER so we can talk about it

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:01 pm

My family has been enjoying the sentimental amusement of Call My Agent. Sometimes sharp and poignant, sometimes banal and corny, always français af. 4 of ****, fun.

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 8:43 pm

... and then severance happened.