Watch, Watching, Watch -- Hold 'em, Fold 'em, When to Walk Away

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

 

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm trapped in your fucking box!!!

Anyways:

Spoiler

I have the same takeaway. It makes no sense whatsoever for Dexter to return to his old ways because some Wall St. dickhead with a bad past shot his deer. They're clearly setting up a string of unsolved murders, so why not just get right to that?

 

[RumHam]

Anyone watching the new Dexter series with anything but morbid curiosity only has themselves to blame. 

[DMC]

@Tywin et al. - well that's some weird quoting shit - and confusing.  I'm afraid what will happen if I quote your post, but anyway, agreed.  And please don't ever say you're trapped in my fucking box again.

1 minute ago, RumHam said:

Anyone watching the new Dexter series with anything but morbid curiosity only has themselves to blame. 

There's always hope.

[Nictarion]

19 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Anyone watching the new Dexter series with anything but morbid curiosity only has themselves to blame. 

Pun intended? 

[RumHam]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

There's always hope.

Misguided! 

I dunno I watched maybe four season of the show and my primary issue was always the internal voiceover.  Dr. Melfie was a good outlet. "The Viewer" is not. 

There were elements of it I liked but I could never let it go and gave up after the lithgow season. 

[Fez]

Saw the first episode of Arcane, a new  animated series on Netflix. Apparently it's based off the lore of League of Legends, a game I've never played. But this is far better than the normal quality of video game adaptations so far. It's a solid western animation and if you told me it was an original IP I'd totally believe it. All the elements of it are good, but the thing that really stands out is the animation itself, especially the faces. I've never seen animation that expressive.

There's 3 episodes out so far, with 2 more batches of 3 being released weekly.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Misguided! 

I dunno I watched maybe four season of the show and my primary issue was always the internal voiceover.  Dr. Melfie was a good outlet. "The Viewer" is not. 

There were elements of it I liked but I could never let it go and gave up after the lithgow season. 

Well, sounds like I liked the show a lot more than you did - although of course it still sucked to sucked major ass after the fourth season, no denying that.  I never had a problem with the narration/inner-monologue/whatever you wanna call it being a staple of the show.

[Nictarion]

Catching up with the Yellowstone two episode premiere. So glad it’s back. The extended time off was the worst after that big cliffhanger in the season 3 finale. 

[JGP]

11 hours ago, Fez said:

Saw the first episode of Arcane, a new  animated series on Netflix. Apparently it's based off the lore of League of Legends, a game I've never played. But this is far better than the normal quality of video game adaptations so far. It's a solid western animation and if you told me it was an original IP I'd totally believe it. All the elements of it are good, but the thing that really stands out is the animation itself, especially the faces. I've never seen animation that expressive.

Sure you have.

2D features have always had incredible talent creating and flipping keys, then Pixar came along and more or less pioneered the move toward better expression and 2D techniques for computer animation [ie: squash and stretch for more life like movement, etc]

But the last few years, especially since Into the Spiderverse, it feels like there’s been an innovative jump in 3D, with toon shading on 3D models bounding along right behind.

I was incredibly impressed by the first three episodes, and if Arcane doesn’t drop the ball storywise I see Awards ahead for this show. 

The visuals are incredible, with very little fumbling, although there was an emotive scene in the third Ep with Powder I thought a little over wrought and should’ve been reined in a bit by the character director, but that’s a minor quibble. 
 

—-

My daughters loved it as much as I did, one of them even cleaned the house for vbucks or whatever so she could get the Jinx skin for her Fortnite account, then played Enemy on repeat as a soundtrack to her gaming for the afternoon lol

Really good job by Riot and all the companies involved in bringing this show to life.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Sure you have.

2D features have always had incredible talent creating and flipping keys, then Pixar came along and more or less pioneered the move toward better expression and 2D techniques for computer animation [ie: squash and stretch for more life like movement, etc]

But the last few years, especially since Into the Spiderverse, it feels like there’s been an innovative jump in 3D, with toon shading on 3D models bounding along right behind.

I don't watch too much animation, especially from more recent years, so it's entirely possible I've missed some really high quality stuff that would seem obvious. But, while I agree that I have seen some very good, very expressive animation in what I have seen, there's a few scenes in Arcane that I'd have believed were straight-up rotoscoped.

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Catching up with the Yellowstone two episode premiere. So glad it’s back. The extended time off was the worst after that big cliffhanger in the season 3 finale. 

You are part of the Big Audience, which likes Yellowstone more than Succession -- coz don't viewers have to subscribe to Peacock, like viewers have to subscribe to HBO?

https://www.vox.com/22759551/yellowstone-kevin-costner-paramount-peacock-tv

Quote

.... Succession drew a respectable 564,000 viewers for its season three premiere in October. But Yellowstone drew 4.23 million viewers for its own season three premiere in June 2020. (It returns for season four on November 7.) And while a lot of Succession’s audience comes from streaming — which is impossible to measure as precisely as live TV viewership, and likely makes Succession more popular than its live ratings would suggest — Yellowstone, which also gains some viewership from streaming, is almost certainly still more popular. ....

 

[JGP]

28 minutes ago, Fez said:

I don't watch too much animation, especially from more recent years, so it's entirely possible I've missed some really high quality stuff that would seem obvious. But, while I agree that I have seen some very good, very expressive animation in what I have seen, there's a few scenes in Arcane that I'd have believed were straight-up rotoscoped.

If they utilized any facial capture technologies on their voice actors, it more or less was rotoscoped. Hopefully they didn’t [depending on animator talent it’s bot actually necessary] though I could probably dig in and find out.

[Quijote Light]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You are part of the Big Audience, which likes Yellowstone more than Succession -- coz don't viewers have to subscribe to Peacock, like viewers have to subscribe to HBO?

https://www.vox.com/22759551/yellowstone-kevin-costner-paramount-peacock-tv

 

Nope. Yellowstone airs on the Paramount Network, but they advertised the hell out of a spin-off and another new show that are streaming exclusives during the premiere. 

[BigFatCoward]

What we do in the shadows finally started in the UK last week and I didn't even know. 

[Zorral]

30 minutes ago, Quijote Light said:

Nope. Yellowstone airs on the Paramount Network, but they advertised the hell out of a spin-off and another new show that are streaming exclusives during the premiere. 

Thanks! I thought it was Paramount-Peacock.  As I don't subscribe to either, I have them confused.  There are so many!

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

What we do in the shadows finally started in the UK last week and I didn't even know. 

It looks like all the episodes of the new season are available on the iPlayer, athough I've only watched the first one so far.

[Nictarion]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

You are part of the Big Audience, which likes Yellowstone more than Succession -- coz don't viewers have to subscribe to Peacock, like viewers have to subscribe to HBO?

https://www.vox.com/22759551/yellowstone-kevin-costner-paramount-peacock-tv

 

I love both shows. Between those two, and Curb Your Enthusiasm also being back on, I have plenty to watch on Sunday night’s right now. 

But no, I don’t have have Peacock. Paramount Network is on my satellite package. 

[Ran]

Finished the final season of Narcos Mexico. It felt a bit closer to The Wire, in some ways, compared to pretty much any of the prior seasons or the original show, a little more clinical and less sexy, perhaps as a result of the primary figures of the drama being less wrapped in mythos than Pablo Escobar or Félix Gallardo. Sure, there's El Chapo, and we get the welcome return of Don Neto to the screen, and a lot actually does happen, but it ends at a point that feels a bit... early. Just a bit. But I suppose that's always been the way with the show, you reach the end and you realize the cartels will keep trucking along.

Highlight of the show for me was a new character, a Juarez police officer and sometimes-stick-up artist named Victor Tapía played by Luis Gerardo Méndez. His story turns into something of a noir detective story as he ends up finding himself pulled towards investigating the unexplained murders of young women that began to become common in Juarez around this time, and as far as I know continue to this day. Méndez's presence is magnetic, IMO, his performance as Victor filled with a deep sense of sorrow at the state of the world he lives in and his finding something to hang on to by trying to set at least this one thing right.

Spoiler

The end of his storyline is gut-wrenching but also inevitable.

It's not a perfect season, by any means, but I enjoyed it.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Highlight of the show for me was a new character, a Juarez police officer

I'm in the middle of the season, and this is the best for me too.

The stuff in Havana is cringy though because it is so wrong for the circa 1993 period, in every way. 

Such as, in the minor biz of Marta, the jinetera-performer, who couldn't be wearing that kind of lingerie, even if she had money, because it wasn't there to buy.  Cooking oil wasn't there to be bought. And w/o doing some jinetera work, Marta the singer wouldn't have any money, because she was paid by the state to perform.

Amando, who falls so hard for her -- now he could have brought such items with him -- as did so many sex tourists who floated Cuba's boat throughout the Special Period, but as he'd not yet found world-changing sex with her, unlikely (or so it seems from what the viewer is given). But this biz of Marta and Amando meeting up is pretty foggy, and I haven't seen the end.

However I do know from being there often during that era, that even the most high level spots in Havana, from clubs to hotels were damned dingy and dilapidated, after so many years of no repairs and replacement, doing w/o much trade and the US embargo, thus already little money, and now, none -- the glitz didn't begin to return to Havana until the end of the 1990's.  (And by 2016 it was really glitzy!)

I do resent how often such shows get such all important facts concerning women out of period and wrong.  Just as Treme, even, did, putting the women on those over-high stilettos before they were The Thing.  I guess it is merely minor stuff, but it bothers me a lot, particularly since most watchers won't know the difference and thus think this is how it was.

More though, is that the Cuban government wouldn't have allowed the Colombianos in.  The government always refused the drug trade for it recognized it would end up taking them out. Once cartels are in, they end up controlling the government and the country -- as Narcos Mexico show us -- as the headlines of Mexico right now show us.

Alas that w/o Fidel, nobody can lead Cuba, and what a wreck it became within months of pandemic and Bolton. So one quite expects Cuba to become Haiti -- which Fidel and Co. always saw as the great object lesson for keeping the cartels out.  But the millionaires of Haiti made even more millions by allowing Haiti to be a primary trans-shipment site for drugs -- and arms too.  Which is where the Haitian gangs are getting theirs.

 

[Corvinus85]

Squid Game is one of the best shows I've seen this year. I didn't think I would like it so much when I started. The plot faltered a bit near the end, though I don't mind the big twist. I think there are some solid messages there. Great acting (except for the VIP characters, who were cringy), excellent directing, art direction and visuals. 

I've watched the first episode of Arcane: League of Legends. I'm not familiar with the game. I like the animation and the story seems interesting.