ysbreker

Black Mirror

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Just a quick PSA: BLACK MIRROR is now available on netflix. One excuse less to not have seen this series!

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I also watched the first two seasons of Black Mirror on Netflix. (I'd seen the first season already, but wanted to watch it again since it's only three eps.) Still good. Still like it. Thumbs up baboo etc.

 

Have you watched the Christmas special, Black Mirror: White Christmas?  Really good, features Jon Hamm.  It's up on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omq0xSP7tb0&spfreload=10 , but it's got a weird border around the actual show.

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Nah I haven't watched it yet. Will eventually though.

 

I did just watch the first episode of Utopia, though.

 

What.

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I finished binging on the new Black Mirror season on Netfilx. It's excellent. Some jumbled up thoughts:

 

There are some definite video and computer game references. One episode is directly about a possible future for augmented reality, and it features a character that I imagined to be an alternate dimension Kojima. Another episode felt like Metal Gear Solid x Brexit.

 

Another episode is one of the darkest, tensest episodes of Black Mirror so far. So much so that I had to take a break from watching.

 

All of the episodes are about a piece of technology or about how we as a society use that technology (or both), but there are occasionally little incidental pieces of equipment that seem futuristic-but-possible in the here and now. Things like self-driving cars and the wide-spread use of electric cars, and the issues that crop up around them. Or not. Sometimes things just work.

 

The final episode is an hour and a half long and I would be happy enough with a spin off that follows the Techno-Bobbies of London.

 

Lastly, there is a lot of phone-based acting that points towards a weird problem in modern cinema, and that is making moving your thumbs around a dramatic manoeuvre. It never stops seeming silly to me, but I don't know how else to do.

 

Anyway, 5/5 would black mirror again

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Okay, finished Black Mirror season 3. The first three eps were brilliant, 4 was nice, 5 was pretty good. The final, 90 minute one was pretty bad, like a particularly cheesy episode of Castle (and indeed that show did have an episode with a similar premise). A rather bland and cliche procedural thriller with some clunky lines that give away plot points (eg

a tech-savvy detective asks someone who used a hashtag once "who started the hashtag?" as if anyone using a hashtag would know that - instantly gave away the story

) and some action scenes that rival The Happening for silliness. Black Mirror's first real misstep. Apart from that, though, the level of quality and variety they've maintained over the 12 episodes is incredibly impressive.

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Huh. I've watched a couple of episodes (or did I stop watching one?) and I don't see the appeal. Especially if they are all supposed to be good. 

 

Oh yeah, I stopped watching the one with the British prime minister and the pig after about fifteen minutes because the premise was ridiculous and none of the characters reacted in a manner that felt real. 

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I just started watching the show because all my friends are talking about it. First episode (pig one) I didn't like at all (agree totally with what brkl said), but the second episode I liked. Third episode I started but didn't finish, but I was at least interested in the premise. 

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I remember the pig one as being very flat and actually kinda juvenile. I would say it's an atypical episode so do try another. I really liked The Entire History of You (S1E3).

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1 hour ago, brkl said:

Oh yeah, I stopped watching the one with the British prime minister and the pig after about fifteen minutes because the premise was ridiculous and none of the characters reacted in a manner that felt real. 

 

David Cameron put 'private part' in dead pig's mouth, shock biography claims

 

Not making a point here - I also thought the pig episode was crap but I also thought it would be funny to note how this bizarrely similar news story came up a few years after the Black Mirror episode for those of you who may not have heard about it.

 

So far I have only watched the first episode of the new season, but I enjoyed it. Well, actually I found it kind of horrifying, but in a good way.

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I checked, the other one I watched was White Bear. I'm not saying it was outright bad, but I was more bored than awed by it.

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I am liking the third season of Black Mirror but here is my criticism.

 

The original episodes were about the corruption of people by the system. Even the prime minister is essentially a pawn to outside whims and the people that watch him go through his torture are becoming corrupted by media manipulation.

 

This new series focuses on corrupt people being punished for their sins. It still works but I don't 'enjoy; the message as much.

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The fourth episode of season 3 Black Mirror was pretty sweet and one of the best, for me anyway.

Even of you don't like BM's usual thing it's probably worth a watch.

 

 

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I started watching this series, but seems I accidentally started from Season 3 (damn Netflix user interface is so stupid). I think it's not important, though, as there doesn't seem to be any continuity between them?

 

Anyway, I really like it so far. I think the San Junípero episode (4th) really captured well a very creepy feeling that

afterlife in a fake simulated paradise could be quite claustrophobic or limiting.

 

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No, there's no continuity (except perhaps some easter eggs), it's an anthology show. You may feel a bit of a change going back to seasons 1 and 2 as they were made by a different production company and so are pretty much exclusively British, but all the seasons are great.

 

The San Junípero episode is generally seen as the only

happy
episode!

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OMG the last episode of season 3 with the

bees

 was amazing. Going to season 1 now.

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I pretty much liked season 2 better than season 1. The pigfucking episode is just ridiculous... Season 3 is probably my favourite, though.

 

I was checking if any of it is on Letterboxd (which only has movies and some exceptions for mini-series) and found that there's a movie named Black Mirror from 2011 that seems to have no relation to the TV-Series Black Mirror which started in 2011. The synopsis sounds interesting and I actually want to see it:

 

Quote

Black Mirror presents Chloë Sevigny, as a nameless drifter navigating a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.

It also has a very high rating of 4.1 on Letterboxd, but maybe it's again a case of misattributing ratings to a random movie somehow connected to a TV series - this shit seems to be happening there. But also relatively highly rated on IMDb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2492564/

[edit] this is a short and not a full length movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUfn1X2i_cM

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I'm surprised no one likes the pig episode - I think it's fantastic. A simple but intriguing concept and cutting satire.

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26 minutes ago, Ben X said:

I'm surprised no one likes the pig episode - I think it's fantastic. A simple but intriguing concept and cutting satire.

I like to point out that it was released years before the real news of the PM and the piggy, which makes people have an "Oh shii....." moment. 

The subject matter and the realness make it one of the toughest episodes, which is probably what makes it harder to enjoy. It's not just grim, it's also gross! 

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The thing I didn't like about the pig episode was the line at the end

 

where they say something like "They released the hostages hours ago, but everyone was too busy watching the stream to notice."



 

It just seems to be far too blunt and preachy a way to sum up the message of the episode.

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I only watched the beginning of the episode. I found it completely impossible any government would ever consider giving in to the demands, which broke it as a satire for me. So I didn't watch the rest because I wasn't interested in people talking about fucking a pig and where that could lead. 

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I'm pretty sure the current British government contains at least a few politicians who would fuck a pig if it got them a 24 hour news cycle, never mind preserved their entire career...

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2 minutes ago, Ben X said:

I'm pretty sure the current British government contains at least a few politicians who definitely did fuck a pig as part of an archaic and arcane school time hazing ritual.

 

Fixed that for you mate.

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There isn't a scenario where fucking a pig preserves a politicians career. Any government that let's it know it can be that easily manipulated would fall instantly.

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