Argobot

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    1327

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Argobot

  2. Posted

    Hello!!

     

    We have been terrible and not updated anyone on the status of the podcast. But fear not, we've just recorded our episode on NW and it will be released soon in what we've retroactively decided to call "Season 3" of the Idle Book Club.

     

    For those of you who have still stuck around during the long delay (again, sorry) our next episode will be on The Odyssey, specifically the new Emily Wilson translation.

  3. Posted

    On 10/31/2017 at 12:36 PM, YoThatLimp said:

    Alright so

      Hide contents

     

    Did anyone else think Bob was an evil scientist at first? When he weirdly decides to tell Will to confront the evil and that info turns Will into a host. I definitely thought that this was on purpose and the DoE was trying to expand testing of the Upside Down stuff on the public. 

     

    Obviously it turns out to be totally bunk, but that was a weird 2-3 episode 'Evil Bob' arc for my wife and I

     

     

    Yes, I had this exact same thought!! Especially because the music in that scene was super creepy and ominous. I guess it was just a red herring that didn't really go anywhere?

  4. Posted

    I know that some people actively hate episode 7 and while I didn't loathe it, I find it more revealing of the writings flaws. It's like they wanted an Empire Strike Backs Jedi-training sequence, but failed to articulate all the emotion and drama that came from Luke and Yoda's relationship. No one was surprised at the resolution to that episode, which is probably why it feels like a slog for so many people. "We're here to steal from the millionaire war criminals!"

     

    Spoilers for ep 7:

    Spoiler

    They try to tie this back in by having El close the gate by channeling her rage like Kali taught her, which seems like the exact opposite lesson that little girl should learn. Maybe that's set up for future seasons where El's anger becomes too great and needs to be dealt with, but since the show doesn't in any way indicate that El is falling to a dangerous dark side (her bitchin' makeover is not enough to indicate whether what's happening to her is good or bad), I don't have a lot of faith in that direction.

     

    I'm super disappointed in how El in general was handled this season, but the show has never really cared about her as a character really. Same goes for Max when it's revealed that her tragic backstory is

    Spoiler

    divorce! And her step-brother is abusive! But twist, so is the step-dad!!! And this resolves....to nothing? Talk about bloat, that whole subplot was annoying and didn't pay off at all. Glad we wasted a lot of screen time building up that conflict for it to end with yet another display of violence as a form of domination. Good lesson, TV show.

     

  5. Posted

    I also just finished season 2. I was really worried after the first episode, and while the show eventually righted itself and was generally enjoyable, I think the second season is starting to highlight a lot of the limitations of the show's writing. Some of the choices actively ruined what would have otherwise been a fun follow up to a fun first season.

     

    Spoiler

    I know that it's common to knock on this show for its nostalgia, so I'll limit my complaint to the "stay frosty" line at the end of episode six. I can forgive a lot of the references, but to have a character quote a line from a movie that won't even be out for another two years (Aliens was released in 1986) was a bridge too far for me. That's why the references starting pulling you directly out of the show, because you know it's just the writings thinking it'd be cool to quote that line and that's about it.

     

    But really, what killed this season for me was Eleven's animosity towards Max. I was already a little iffy on Max as the new "I'm not like those other girls" girl, but the fact that El had to hate her for intruding on her Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys set up was unforgivable. I could maybe see El's initial anger as more of a general frustration; Max can hang out with friends while El is stuck in her cabin prison. But the show never reconciles the two girls. The only other interaction they have together is another heated one, where El rebuffs Max's offer of friendship. It's such an unbelievable choice and really sad, because you know that El could use some more female bonding.

     

    I found it almost as much unbelievable that Mike hated Max for as long as he did (also never really resolved in the show). As with El, the initial anger at Max makes sense, but after awhile, it just makes Mike come across as a real jerk for no reason to his friends. Especially since Finn Wolfhard spends so much of the season separated from Lucas and Dustin (maybe filming for IT limited his availability?) he comes across as not really caring about them.

     

  6. Posted

    I wanted him to save Laura, so badly. Even if that would upend everything great about Twin Peaks and FWWM, I desperately wanted Cooper to rescue her and fix everything. I was so heartbroken by the end, along with Cooper and Laura. What a horrifying episode of television. We had the good Cooper back, only for him to revert to someone new. I like the interpretation of new Coop being a combination of his good and evil sides, that seems right. Time travel, dreams, the Black Lodge, none of really matters. The past is the past and there's nothing you can do about it.

     

    I want to believe there's still hope though.

  8. Posted

    What an episode!! I cheered when Cooper came back and then teared up at Audrey's Dance. Well worth the wait. A few quick thoughts:

    - The reveal that Audrey was in a fake Roadhouse means that we know have to question the reality of every Roadhouse scene, right? That would explain why the website run by Matthew Lillard's character had an audio track of all the Roadhouse bands up to that point. It's all been in the Black Lodge (?) or some other place.

    - All the extras swaying to Audrey's Dance was great.

    - Will Richard Horne reappear??

  11. Posted

    I also am perplexed by the hangups created by the Richard Horne scene! I don't really understand what Jake or Chris would need for that scene to make more "sense." I agree that it was brutal to watch, and part of the reason why it was so effective is precisely because we understand just enough about what's happening on screen to be upset by it. If people are suggesting it was exploitative, I don't really see. If anything, the honest violence of this scene felt refreshing to a lot of TV/movie violence that I've seen recently, where the violence is pitched as transgressive but really just amounts to the same old tired "are you shocked by how twisted we're being?" trope that is more for enjoyment than unsettling the audience. (I'm looking at you, Game of Thrones.)

     

    That scene told us a lot about Richard Horne, his relationship with his family, and the relationship of the Hornes in general.

  13. Posted

    Honestly, part of me feels like this conversation undermines actual rape. Maybe theoretically you can make an argument for why it's rape, but it wouldn't be that dissimilar from Dworkin's argument that all penis-vagina sex is fundamentally rape; it makes sense in theory but can never be carried out in the real, messy world we live in.

     

    Janey-E and Dougie are heightened, comedic versions of sitcom man and wife. She is the attractive, put upon wife who is constantly crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at her dopey husband who just does not get it. It's so clearly a farce and meant to be funny that serious calls of "she raped him!" seem obtuse to the point of harm. As someone else pointed out, if you follow the scene logically, Janey-E also technically did not consent, since Dougie isn't really Dougie. But again, that's a road that leads no where and is fruitless. What honestly is the point of this conversation? What great injustice is being visited by this scene that we're all arguing against? Why create a culture where we can't given something like this the benefit of the doubt and move on?

  17. Posted

    This episode was so frightening and so funny. I can't believe it all worked so well together, but Lynch and co have someone managed to pull off some of the most incongruous tonal shifts. Richard Horne is a truly great villain, both because how believably monstrous he is but also because of how vulnerable we've seen him. Given how Candy's scene went earlier - where I was excepting the Mitchum brothers to react violently to her remote control incident - I similarly thought that maybe Richard's scene with his grandmother would play out along the same lines. Instead, Lynch goes all in on making you really uncomfortable and sad, focusing so much on Grandma Horne prone on the floor, while her grandson violates her home and her son. It was brutal to watch.

     

    I was initially skeptical about this season being as long as it is, but at this point, my skepticism has completely worn off. The pace is amazing and I want to live in this world for as long as possible.

  18. Posted

    2 hours ago, Jake said:

    I thought Matthew Lilard did a great job in that scene. 

     

    Matthew Lillard is a really good gross crier (see: Scream) and I enjoyed how those two actors played off one another.

     

    It's increasingly feeling like Audrey is the one who will bring back real Coop. His fascination with the women in red pumps and the really, really noticeable absence of Audrey solidified that for me. 

  19. Posted

    I watched Fantastic Beasts twice in a desperate attempt to make sense of it and absolutely could not. Yates did a decent job with the later Harry Potter movies, successfully bringing them over to more "adult" films, but he really failed with Beasts. That movie has a lot of set ups that don't lead to anything. Katherine Waterson's character has such devotion to Credence Barebone, I thought the movie was suggesting that maybe he is her child. Instead, I guess he is just a kid she had previously met (off-screen, of course) for some reason we just accept that she has a strong bond with him, even though we never see them interact. At one point, Waterson and Redmayne are sentenced to death that will be carried out by Waterson's co-workers. They escape, and later Waterson is back working with those same co-workers who nearly executed her. This is not addressed by the movie, which is confusing to watch, since you'd expect any normal person to be a little cross about those events. Believable characterization sacrificed for having a "tense" set piece in the middle of the movie.

     

    But the worst part of the movie is the ending

    Spoiler

    So the set up is Grindelwald is in hiding. The opening of the movie is him murdering wizards and all we see is the back of his head and his very, very distinct haircut. Cut to Colin Farrell's character, who essentially has the same haircut, just in a different character. And it's supposed to be a mystery that they're the same character?? It's like if Hitler were trying to hide in a different body, but insisted on keeping his very recognizable mustache. At the very least, you'd think Farrell would be shunned for having the Wizard equivalent of a Hitler mustache. 

     

  20. Posted

    The second season actually has too few episodes, which leads to a lot of clunkiness in the middle. Right before they started filming on season 2, the episode order was cut, so the show jumps forward with a lot of major plot developments that you can tell they wanted to take more time with. They also didn't know if they were going to get renewed until very late in the season. Overall, it makes for a weaker season arc, but the show's minute-to-minute beats are so amazing. And the songs are really, really good.

     

     

  22. Posted

    The Idle Book Club 27:

    The Idle Book Club 27


    Jesus' Son
    In the wake of Denis Johnson's passing, Chris and Sarah discuss Jesus' Son, the author's bleak yet beautiful collection of stories centered around the desperation of addiction. We also delve into why short stories are frequently so melancholy, and Chris briefly makes an embarrassingly mistaken reference to the Velvet Underground. Join us!

     

  25. Posted

    I guess, except we've never seen Mr. C assault anyone else. He clearly has sexual relationships with women, and his killing of Daria was sexually-charged in part because of how she was dressed, but so far his interactions with women have not screamed 'rapist.'

     

    The way Diane's scenes played out before and after meeting Cooper, it felt more like she went from being angry to being afraid once she spoke with Mr. C and saw how he clearly is missing something essentially human. It's not until after seeing him that she gets really upset, whereas if she'd been assaulted, you'd think she would have displayed more trepidation/fear beforehand. The way that scene played out, it made me feel that she'd never even met Mr. C and was referring to the last time she and the real Cooper met face-to-face, and was frightened when Mr. C couldn't remember that meeting.