Jump to content

bendish

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,430

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by bendish

    What TV series are you watching at moment?

    in General Banter

    Posted

    so yeah, treme isn't good at all, pretty bad acting all around, lester from the wire is pretty much identical to kirk lazarus from tropic thunder, that aforementioned radio guy is just plain vomit inducing. all those "back in the day"-isms and the incessant attempts to go for the "authentic" are very annoying and hipsterish. the constant righteous zeal that was cleverly contained within a flawed but very watchable character like mcnulty in the wire permeates everything here, the whole thing feels like some kind of propaganda effort and a commercial for new orleans rather than drama really.

     

    Wheres your film/tv review blog Eugene?

    What TV series are you watching at moment?

    in General Banter

    Posted

    the first ep of the deuce is out, david simon's new big budget hbo thing. and the first thing that bothers me about it is why even set the whole thing in the 70's. if the driving idea is to explore prostitution as an institution then why go 45 years back? is there really not enough material to work with for a script with today's prostitution business? i doubt it. and although they make conscious effort to de-glamorize the whole setting, the effect is still the same. that 70's brown and gritty criminal seediness, the sleaze of the prostitution business, the music, the sound, the painstaking production design (for which there will probably be a dedicated segment in the upcoming blu-ray with talking heads explaining how much effort was made to recreate the era convincingly and all that blabla) and the showy wide angle shots of 70's cgi new york are pushed to the forefront, it's the main axis of attraction of the show, and i'd say it goes at the expense of the actual exploration of prostitution and is somewhat of a distraction.

     

    with that said, the first ep is quite engrossing overall, it's piloty and full of exposition and jumping from one character to the next a lot, but it does suck you pretty much from the start with the dialogue and the feel of the city of that era. the idea of double james franco is of course pretty stupid, but the whole thing is based on a real events and people (i think) and it's seen as a good attraction so it was inevitable i guess. the two core tension building bits based on his moral ruminations/cowardice ("will he find his courage and do the right thing or not?!?!") were pretty dumb dramatically, i expect something sharper from simon. the gyllenhaal bits were really good. it does seem like a high quality show in general, the writing usually manages to outsmart and not to snap onto a trope, so im in.

     

    Did you like Treme?

    Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

    in General Banter

    Posted

    Afghanistan doesn't produce oil to any significant degree (not even in the top 100 countries in the world, though it does have greater capacity than it's currently set up to exploit, but don't expect that to dramatically increase anytime soon, and even if it did, it wouldn't be anywhere near the top oil producing countries.

     

    Worth noting that the Afghan government doesn't want the US to withdraw its troops and anyone thinking that if they did it would lead to good times for all involved are seriously deluding themselves (would be good for the Taliban of course). Long term the current situation isn't going to accomplish anything (aside from preventing it getting a lot worse maybe), and that's not going to change unless Pakistan sorts it's shit out, they're a bigger problem in all this than the US at the moment. Like most of the world's current thorny issues this one doesn't look like being resolved anytime soon, but it is one where it's possible to make things a lot worse, and the US pulling out now would definitely help in doing that.

     

    It's also worth noting that Trump's policy is basically no different than Obama's policy, thankfully Trump doesn't seem to be having a huge impact on policy here, though he did try to until the generals convinced him otherwise (like they did with Obama)

    Maybe not oil but how about minerals? 

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-mineral-deposits.html?mcubz=1

    Good podcasts?

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I stick to politics so here's a few:

     

    Chapo Trap House 

    Democracy Now

    Intercepted

    The Intercept

    New Statesman Politics

    Huff Po - Commons People

    Pod Save the People

    The Tip Off

    NYT - Daily

    Five Thirty Eight

    NPR Politics

    Talking Politics

    The Guardian Long Read

    The Guardian Politics Show

    The Washington Post - Can he do that?

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.