Veltigar

I watched the final two episodes of Ted Lasso. I think it managed to stick the landing. The third season is not as good as the first (by quite some margin), but in general I'm pleased with the finale. It could have been better, but given the dreck we were served in some of the earlier seasons, it could have been much, much worse as well.

I'm also still slowly progressing through The Great. It's not a show I find easy to binge but I do enjoy it a lot. I'm at episode 4 now and things are beginning to heat up. I'm curious to see what they will do with 

12 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Fast X really leaves me wondering: can two different series of movies (Fast & Furious and Mission: Impossible) cross over despite being produced by two different studios (Universal and Paramount)? 

I don't know the ins and out of IP law for something like this, but more than ever, I am convinced that it would be goddamn awesome. Hell, someone went and imagined a crossover trailer a few years ago that's great fun.

Forget IP law, just ask yourself these two simple questions:

1. Would Vin Diesel's ego allow it?
2. Would Tom Cruise's ego allow it?

Deep in your heart, you know the answer.

8 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

My initial reaction was disappointment, too, for them not winning the title, but later I realized there was a nice parallel to season 1's ending when they got relegated. At the end of season 1, they needed to get 1 point but also hope for a miracle from another match - that miracle occurs but they mess it up at the end drawing because of Jamie wins it for Man City. So they had it in their hands and dropped it. This time, they won the match, they did everything they could, showing they improved probably as much as possible but lost the title because of things out of their control.

But I do wish the show had thought of another team winning the PL, not Cheat City. But I guess you don't get a Guardiola cameo and then not have them win the fictional Pl win.  I just realized they don't need to win the Champions League this Saturday, they already got the treble thanks to Ted Lasso. 

Ah, I didn't consider that. 

Still, when I think about it, I don't think it sways my opinion. I would have wanted an extra slice of wish fulfillment from the show's final season. Also because it would have been a more definitive ending. Now they have scope to launch a Tedless season of Ted Lasso in which they win the league.

I thought it was a very good ending, although I'm sad that Richmond didn't Leicester it. This felt too much like a rethread of Rocky's message. For once I would have liked to see a bit more wish fulfillment, especially since there isn't a real message attached to them being second.

In general though, I have to say they managed to stick the landing. If I ever rewatch Ted Lasso, I'm sure there are episodes in the middle of both season two and three (mostly three though) I will skip, but in general I do think it holds up reasonably well. I do still think they made some very odd choices with all the time they had available (Rebecca's storylines this season, but even more so Keeley's dreadful girl boss storyline).

There is quite a few things I would have done differently (for example, Jamie getting together with the teacher who first hit on Roy would have been a nice ending to his arc or I would have liked to have seen Rupert not push his coach, but remember the boy he once was and end up supporting for AFC Richmond) but in general I think the good outweighs the bad. The central message that niceness, forgiveness and support can make a difference is one I wholeheartedly enjoy.

I watched Rain Man over the weekend. Don't think I ever did before, but a lot of scenes rang a bell since this film has been parodied time and time again. Anyways, I thought it was great. Every performance lands and even by the very high standards of 80s Tom Cruise, this was a fun movie. 

Also finished the last two episodes of Succession and the last two episodes of Barry. My hot take is that Barry is more deserving of accolades than Succession. Both are great in their way, but there is just something about Barry that is very hard to replicate.

Barry was brilliant. Definitely preferred it over Succession, so I will break a lance for its greatness if there ever is a need for partisans of either show to come forward.

I'll second the love for Henry Winkler. The great thing about his character is that I'm always fooled by his earnest wish to change, before the inevitable flip flop. I didn't think he would turn his coat again, and then they threw Daniel Day Lewis at him 

My favourite intellectual presence of the season is The Raven though. I really think his final speech about letting go of the bullshit and embracing your true self encapsulated this show's message perfectly. I'm not sure whether I agree with it, but given the outcome for the characters it was very much gospel truth:

1.  Raven => Let go of the bullshit, reconciled himself with Barry and is now still at large. Presumably enjoying life
2. Cousineau => Not capable of letting go of his bullshit, pretended to be a saint and therefore accidentally ended up looking like a criminal mastermind. Incarcerated for life.
3. NoHo Hank => Couldn't admit to what he had wroth on Cristobal, he died needlessly. I do believe that he could have walked away scot free if he had just admitted to The Raven what he had done to Cristobal.
4.  Barry => Not capable to admit how horrid of a person he was (his religious evocations near the end of the episode were brilliant), when the realization finally downed on him, he was killed.
5. Sally => Admitted to herself she was not happy and that guilt was wrecking her. Now she seems to have a nice, quiet life with her son.

I do wonder what this means for John. The Mask Collector was hilarious, but philosophically speaking, I found it quite threatening. Will John choose the pretence over reality and thus also be consumed?

8 hours ago, kairparavel said:

I'm on the third episode of season 1 and I really want to like it but Ted Lasso himself is just...a lot. It was a fun character when NBC started broadcasting EPL and he was part of the promotion. But I just can't get with the perpetual optimism and hokiness (which is clearly a me problem). 

You know, I get it. I watched it during CoVID's worst excesses, so it was such a relief to see the optimism in this show. I can imagine people being turned off by it in more normal times. I'd still encourage you to try and power through it. It does get more complex as it goes along.

14 hours ago, dbunting said:

I agree but what other reasons can there be for a show called Ted Lasso, to have him involved so little? He was the heart of the show and that's what it's currently missing. 

I imagine we will get good ol Ted in a heavy dose next episode as I am sure it will be the one where Nate comes back home to them. Ted will be the one to welcome him with open arms. 

My take is there are two reasons why this season has been rather poor:

1. Delusions of grandeur: As detailed in the article @Heartofice shared, I think the writers just started to believe their own hype and tried to turn the show in something that it just isn't.
2. Churning out possibilities for ye old spin-off machine:  I think you're quite on the money here. Alas, they suck at it. At this point I'm not even sure whether I'd follow a spin-off about the core football team (which is the only almost consistently part of the season imo)

I watched the latest episode of Ted Lasso, which was fortunately better than the string episode I had to revisit a couple of days ago. They did seem to make a rather drastic jump with the character of 

I wonder how they plan to wrap up everything in the two episodes they have left. So many plots that are still dangling in my opinion.

EDIT: Oh, I also started watching the third season of The Great. So far of to a strong start, curious to see where it goes!

Watching this series is profoundly weird to me. It has some of the best dialogue I have ever seen, but everything else about it (regardless of quality) provokes such deep feelings of disgust. It boils my blood to see these characters go about their idiotic business.

So it's kind of like a hate watch for me, but I understand that the acting, the dialogue, etc. are all top notch. I also have no idea how it is going to end. Part of me wishes them to loose the empire and their money, as that is what justice would demand. The realist in me however, understands that this is not going to happen. I think the most likely outcome for them is to lose their relevance, but remain rich. That would sting for the characters, but it is not the punishments these assholes deserve, so for me it would be unsatisfying as a viewer.

EDIT: A third very unlikely possibility is a scenario where (one of) the Roy siblings somehow end up on top. Or that we jump forward 30 years and that it turns out that Logan Wambsgans is the true successor of the empire.

It's really a testament of their skill that the show's writers can create these mixed emotions and that I feel so compelled to keep on watching despite of it.

If the reviews here are good, I might check it out. Chances are pretty big that I'll skip it though and even if I do feel like I'm missing out, I'll do my best to find a second-hand version of the novella.

The latest episode had me in stitches. Fuches transformation into The Raven is just so hilarious. I also like what they are doing with Sally's character. It's a statement that in a series full of murders, there are few things I found as shocking as her giving her son vodka to knock him out.

Just now, Veltigar said:

I had to backtrack to Ted Lasso when I discovered I had accidentally skipped the episode where they tie pieces of strings to each other's 

  Reveal hidden contents

genitalia

as a way to train themselves in a new football philosophy. 

This was probably the worst episode of the entire series. It's really sad how this show is mismanaged in its final season. The core workplace comedy parts about the football team still work exceedingly well, but all the ancillary stuff is terrible (and there is just so much of it ).

As an addition to my comment in the Watched thread, I would just like to say that worst offender on that front is the Keely storyline. At this point, I would have preferred her to be fridged in season 2 to motivate the male characters. You can imagine how dreadful her parts are if even something as lazy as fridging is preferable to it. 

I fucking hated that Jack defaced a priceless first edition of Sense & Sensibility to give Keely a present. I actually said to myself 'fuck this show' and had to pause the episode.

I had to backtrack to Ted Lasso when I discovered I had accidentally skipped the episode where they tie pieces of strings to each other's 

as a way to train themselves in a new football philosophy. 

This was probably the worst episode of the entire series. It's really sad how this show is mismanaged in its final season. The core workplace comedy parts about the football team still work exceedingly well, but all the ancillary stuff is terrible (and there is just so much of it ).

I also caught up with "The Wizard" the latest episode of Barry (chef's kiss). This is such a brilliant show. Truly an underrated gem! 

I feel like even if it's just for the final two episodes, this series deserves a thread of its own. So I'm going to make one.

Hey everyone

I am correcting one of the most egregious mistakes in the board's history. Barry really deserves a thread of its own. Even if it is just for the two final episodes, we got to do it!

Also hyped here

I do seem to recall that there was another thread, but as long as the author of said thread doesn't go through the topics they created via their profile to retrieve it, I don't think we'll have much chance to revive it.

I don't think it's that big of a deal for this show however. At the moment I think it's yet to become very popular. It's a lot like Derry Girls or Ted Lasso in the sense that the first season started out as a sleeper hit. If it can maintain the quality, this absolutely deserves to blow up to become a big show. 

10 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

New season of The Great is hilarious as the previous ones. Two episodes in and I love every bit of it. We're taking the u out of colour - you wouldn't dare 

A new season of The Great? Damn, that's another thing to add to my watch list. I totally did not expect it to be released already. This show really has issues with promoting itself well.

Slowly catching up on Succession. Currently one episode behind. I'll never love this show, but the dialogue is truly a work of art, that cannot be denied.

Spoilers from season 4, episode 7

On 5/14/2023 at 7:40 PM, Ran said:

Apparently she killed the jury performance, from some reports that were made by people who attended it.

But yes, honestly, no one sounded at the level of their studio performance. Some because, well, they aren't great singers (Käärija), others because sound mixing was a problem (everyone, basically)  which is the fault of the BBC, really.

Loreen's national final performance was definitely better (not just vocally, but visually -- the stage in Liverpool couldn't handle the weight of the full LED screen rig they used in Sweden). 

I agree it was an awfully weak year. Knee jerk reaction to a Sweden win is that of course we're going to look into getting tickets for the final, but then I think about the fact... what if it's as weak a year as this one? That'd kind of suck.

As to the bolded, I assumed the acoustics of the hall were suboptimal, but you think it was the sound mixing? You'd think the BBC with all its experience would be capable of making sure that everything technical is top notch.

On 5/14/2023 at 8:32 PM, Raja said:

Reflected on the show a bit as I was watching it with a friend who is new to it, I think this show is really less than the sum of it's parts, which is unfortunate as I think there's a lot of good in it.

That's a bit harsh, but I get where you come from. I think the final two episodes where significantly weaker than what came before and I am somewhat worried about this show falling into the standard zombie show tropes, but for now I'm still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt

On 5/14/2023 at 8:26 PM, Ran said:

From clips I've seen of the final act of the game, there's nothing like that montage. You fight all the mooks in realtime and the camera never does any dramatic movement like that to show casings falling on the ground or being kicked by Joel. 

Ah, I thought that was a rather nice detail. Good for them for having created that themselves. Thanks for the answer Ran!

One thing I am curious about in the finale is the visual motif of Joel kicking away the casings of his spent bullets when he tears through all the red shirts. I read that the show lifted a lot of scenes straight from the game, so I'm wondering whether any of the gamers here remember whether that was also a detail in those scenes in the game?

This was a tremendously weak year though. I hope we'll soon get another year like 2021. That year was insane. So many good tunes that in a normal year would probably have won.

9 hours ago, Ran said:

I think the live performance from the UK was a part of its downfall. A lot of songs sound great in the recording where you realize the performance was constructed in the studio to an inordinate degree. Cha Cha Cha for example, second half sounds effortless in the studio version, but it really showed his weakness as a vocalist live.

To some degree, I feel like you can say the same about Loreen. I though the live performance of her song was considerably weaker than the version you find on Spotify. She was still a deserved winner though. The rest of the field was really weak and Tattoo in its studio version is glorious.

Double post. Please ignore.

Have spent the weekend catching up on Ted Lasso. The latest episode was somewhat of a return to form, but the one before that was not very compelling. I hope they'll be able to trend upwards as they did near the end of season two, as so far I find it quite a weak season.

All in all, I do have conflicting emotions about the show. For me, the first season was a perfect balancing act and its relentless optimism coming out during CoVID lockdown is one of the best example of serendipitous timing I can think off. It just never reached those highs again, but I hope it can limp over the finish line with a worthy conclusion at the very least.

On 5/13/2023 at 4:21 PM, Heartofice said:

I always found that TWD was a show that deliberately punished you for ever getting it into your head that it was a good show and worth watching. Every single time there were a string of episodes that you enjoyed, where characters acted in natural ways, or there was some sort of compelling plot, someone somewhere decided that was too much good stuff, and threw in hours of tedium and soul grinding despair to balance things out.

There were points in the show where I genuinely liked it. Half of season one is good, the first episode is great. Second season is a total disaster, after some missteps I think the prison stuff and the governor was actually really good. Season 4, or 5. (I forget) I think was maybe actually my favourite as it just made wandering in a zombie wilderness a thing, rather than boringly sitting in a town and waiting for stuff to happen.

Of course after that it just became so unbearably unpleasant to watch that I gave up. There is nothing that would make me want to finish it. 

The thing is, it felt pretty accurate to the comics in some ways, which also feel like mostly filler and tedium. 

The first episode is rather good because it is pretty much a straight rip-off of the opening of 28 Days Later.

In general, I would say that The Walking Dead has been one of the most instrumental shows in my development as a TV-junkie. Back in the day, I had a lot more time, so I had a habit of finishing pretty much every show I started and especially the so-called watercooler conversation shows. Even if I didn't like it, the reasoning was that I could at least follow in on the conversation.

The Walking Dead is the show that broke that habit for me. The first season was mediocre, the second season on the farm was hellish and then I made it through the Governor and prison seasons which felt marginally better mostly due to the fact that they were positively Shakespearean in comparison to the farm season.

I quit that show knowing it would probably go on for another couple of seasons (definitely did not expect them to last to 11 and have spin-off shows though) and it was one of the best decisions I ever made in terms of entertainment. After that I walked away from GoT, The Shanara Chronicles, Vikings and countless other pieces of trash that just weren't worth my time (or were not worth my time anymore. A small number of these series like Vikings started out great and lost their purpose along the way). 

So yeah, totally agree that - barring perhaps an apocalypse - nothing would ever really compel me to go back again and watch the remaining seasons of TWD.

On 5/13/2023 at 4:03 PM, Isis said:

As I said, I think it is quite a difficult thing to compare a show that's only had one season with a show that had 10 (?11 -I still haven't finished watching it but I am going to do it) seasons. I'm not going to argue that TWD was full of incredible acting performances, but I disagree that they were uniformly terrible. Some of the cast did phone it in but I think you'll find that in most apocalyptic horror shows. The villians were some of the better actors, in fact. I would argue that Negan was a well-rounded character, probably as much as any of the main cast. The Govenor and whatshername (from the Whisperers) were both played by great actors that most TV shows would be happy to have in their cast. Those three were interesting villians and were enjoyable to watch.  

For me, the best thing TWD did was to do a solid job with the main theme of the books - it showed us over and over again that people are fucking awful and no matter how bad things are, there will ALWAYS be some awful people who are ready to take advantage of the suffering of other people. Deep down it was a show that made you hate humanity most of the time.

I have always enjoyed slow zombies. I don't object to fast zombies if done well (28 Days Later) or other variants, like in The Last of Us. The horror is less about the 'monsters' than it is about the people (the real monsters) anyway.

Overall TWD had more filler and weak/annoying storylines than good ones and it went on for way too long. You won't find me arguing about that. But it wasn't all bad. 

Notwithstanding the crappy execution (TWD cratered in quality as soon as they got rid of Frank Darabont), the misanthropic nature of The Walking Dead is probably  the lamest things about the IP (and that's saying something, since there is so much competition). The grimdark/goth kid approach to storytelling is such a lazy approach to take.

I hope The Last of Us doesn't slip into that type of storytelling.

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Isn't that half the fun? He's just doing whatever he wants.

I've never seen The Great, but Hoult had to be casted for this from some combination of Fury Road, Warm Bodies and The Menu. He's perfect. This dude will win an Oscar at some point. And Awkafina, who I was kind of meh on the first few times I saw her, is really finding her lane as an actress. Honestly all the main actors did a good job and the writing, while weird at points, was great. It's a B horror/black comedy, but if you go into it with that expectation you'll have a blast. 

You will cave in and watch The Great 

No really, the show is bonkers and should be seen by more people. Treat yourself!

I am all caught up with Barry's fourth season. Ready for episode 6 to come out. This show is a true delight in my opinion. It's just incredibly impressive to see the cast switch seamlessly from farcical comedy into profound tragedy in the blink of an eye. The fact that both extremes can be present in the same characters and still make sense is a testament to just how good the acting and the writing are on this show.

I also think it's a visually appealing show. The colour palette might be quite drab, but they have such interesting cinematography that helps to ground the out-there-nature of the characters. I'm sad it's the last season, but if they manage to stick the landing on this one it's one for the history books.

As much as I like Pedro Pascal, chances are pretty good for Barry to be my favourite season of HBO television to air in 2023.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

I think most would say the first season is the best season, and it sort of progressively got worse. I felt like season 4 and 5 was definitely a rough patch for the show, but this past season has been more interesting as it builds up towards the Revolutionary War. The Boston Tea Party happens (off-screen) by the mid point of this season, and Jaime was (nearly) selected as a representative to the First Continental Congress.

I vaguely recall the cattle thing, and it just felt like a standard historical adventure trope and didn't really bother me.

That first line tells me everything I need to know. For a minute I was thinking it might have Breaking Bad style improved over the seasons, turning it into something I should give another chance. If that's not the case, I'll steer clear.

Not sure what triggered me about the