Movie/TV recommendations

[Merus]

Yeah, I think it's supposed to be self-evident how fucked up the culture inside Stratton Oakmond was.

[Nachimir]

whereas right now we're all unsure how much of a moral statement it makes.

 

I'm not so unsure. I think it clearly says he is a terrible human being and no matter how much wealth and power accrue, it's a bad thing to walk down his route.

 

That's probably informed by my slight fascination with cults also spreading into a slight fascination with sales-based organisations, because they're super fucking culty too. I perceive it as a story told relating to a very specific framework of cultural and business related things in my head. The entire libertarian/sales rhetoric of "you can succeed too!" is fed by stories exactly like Belforts, just stated in a very selective and different light and with a pitch at the end.

[TheLastBaron]

Wow I'm in love with Columbo, but the more I watch it the more I fell like I need to start smoking cigars.

[syntheticgerbil]

I kind of wish Parks and Rec would end because starting season 5 there have been a lot of bad storylines that don't belong. The Chris and Ann pregnancy was terribly uninteresting and awkward. The whole Jam guy is just stupidly cartoony. A lot of people on the show really seem to be suffering from Homer Simpson syndrome as well, which I always hate. I don't want to see the show end up just as unbearably terrible as The U.S. Office did in the last 2-3 seasons.

It still blows my mind that one of the funniest jokes in the series is a Chris Pratt ad-lib.

What is the adlib?

 

Wow I'm in love with Columbo, but the more I watch it the more I fell like I need to start smoking cigars.

I kind of want to go through the whole series of this. I keep forgetting to leave it on at home. I have always really loved the character and how goofy and bumbling he comes off, but I haven't really given the series enough attention.

Also I guess since we are on the TV front, did anyone else feel like House of Cards Season 2 was mostly garbage? The storylines seemed very dull and Frank and Claire Underwood are not very interesting on their own. A lot of what kept me interested in the first season was the ensemble cast and how much you felt for them even though you sort of wanted to see Frank's schemes play out against them. There's no one resembling the heart and interest of Peter Russo in Season 2 and his ex-girlfriend Christina just sort of disappears despite her being just as interesting as Peter.

Also, the fact that they instantly killed of Zoey Barnes and then the whole reporter thread altogether 3-4 episodes later was an awful mistake. They were the only driving characters that weren't insane and without them there was not any kind of formidable foe to Frank. I get the feeling the writers didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing so just kind of killed it.

 

I was just completely bored by the end of the series. All of Frank's strategies he had in the first season suddenly became a stupidly simple staple of him just denying what he is doing even though everyone at some point suspects him for exactly who he is. I guess everyone in Congress really is that stupid because Frank sure as hell stopped being cunning. "I didn't do it, no no, I'm your friend." ad nauseum is poor writing.

[Max Ernst]

Parks and Recreation struggled when they introduced Adam Scott and Rob Lowe. Lowe was never a good fit for the show (he had one joke, essentially), and Scott's character is wildly inconsistent. They are throwing plots all over the shop and seeing what sticks. It is a show spinning its wheels.

 

It still has the ability to be very funny, so if you can ignore the plot, it is still a show worth watching.

[Merus]

What is the adlib?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXREEVpjloo

[brkl]

Oh, that. I haven't seen a lot of Parks and Rec, but I've seen that and it's beautiful.

[ariskany_evan]

Parks and Recreation struggled when they introduced Adam Scott and Rob Lowe. Lowe was never a good fit for the show (he had one joke, essentially), and Scott's character is wildly inconsistent. They are throwing plots all over the shop and seeing what sticks. It is a show spinning its wheels.

 

It still has the ability to be very funny, so if you can ignore the plot, it is still a show worth watching.

 

Yes, I was glad to see that both Lowe and Jones were leaving this year.  They had the worst chemistry on screen imaginable.  Just like the Office, this show struggles with intimacy.  Pratt's marriage works because it's bizarre, which gives the writers plenty to play with.

 

I appreciate Adam Scott's character, if only because he's WAY better than the everyman that was Brandanawicz...

 

Definitely agree that the over-arching plot stuff is getting tiresome, but I've always been a proponent of comedy shows wiping the narrative board after every episode.  Community does a great job with this.  There's a continuity between episodes, but each episode follows its own special journey.

 

Parks does this thing now where they set up the episode too clearly from the get-go:  OK, so, these four characters are paired up together and they're dealing with this side story that you can 100% guess how it will wrap up, these two are continuing to plod along on their journey to having a baby that no one cares about, and Leslie and a few others are dealing with a singular event on the long chain of events to her main plot arc for the season.  

 

Whereas I start up an episode of Workaholics, and it can take a while before it's even clear what those bone-heads are getting up to.

 

Not that the element of surprise is the one thing that makes a comedy show work.  I also think P&R just hasn't been as funny moment-to-moment as it used to be.

 

Also, what is the deal with the Billy Eichner character?  I love him, but his character is so BIG and I don't think they've sufficiently filled us in on what his role exactly is in the world.

[syntheticgerbil]

Also, what is the deal with the Billy Eichner character?  I love him, but his character is so BIG and I don't think they've sufficiently filled us in on what his role exactly is in the world.

I can really only deal with him speaking only about once an episode. He is way too over the top.

[TheLastBaron]

Just saw The Grand Budapest Hotel. It has Jeff Goldblum and funiculars.

[Max Ernst]

Also, Parks and Rec did a good thing by casting John Glazer. Amazing man.

[Frenetic Pony]

Just saw The Grand Budapest Hotel. It has Jeff Goldblum and funiculars.

 

Frak I want to see that movie, but it's not playing anywhere that's actually close. I really don't want to drive half an hour just to see it in a crappy theater : (

[Roderick]

Gonna see The Grand Budapest Hotel tomorrow! Very excited!

 

Last week I saw The Wolf of Wall Street and I've written a piece on it on Filmadeus:

http://www.filmadeus.com/2014/03/the-wolf-of-wall-street-martin-scorsese.html

 

[Merus]

That write-up reminded me: Belfort talks to camera a lot in Wolf of Wall Street, which seems like an odd choice except I realised halfway through that Scorsese is doing his favourite trick: the camera is not a dispassionate observer at all. Belfort is swindling us, and thus so is the movie. He only starts doing it once the movie's made clear what kind of man he's become, so it's fair on the audience, but you've been had if you think that the movie's saying how great widescale financial fraud is.

[Nachimir]

Interesting write up. I don't really get this:

 

Only afterward, upon reflection, do you realize how heinous it was.

 

It seemed heinous from the get go to me. I watched the entire film with mounting horror; and the abstraction of Belforts victims was obviously a way of expressing how he exists this way, not a way of glorifying his work or dismissing their plight.

 

This also reminds me: I went to see it with a friend who works for a fairly large company. She told me that their marketing department doesn't refer to people as people, it refers to them as DMUs: "Decision Making Unit"

[BenLuke]

This also reminds me: I went to see it with a friend who works for a fairly large company. She told me that their marketing department doesn't refer to people as people, it refers to them as DMUs: "Decision Making Unit"

 

Hey, you don't want to offend potential non-people buyers.

 

(That joke sounded better in my head, sorry.)

[Roderick]

Interesting write up. I don't really get this:

 

 

It seemed heinous from the get go to me. I watched the entire film with mounting horror; and the abstraction of Belforts victims was obviously a way of expressing how he exists this way, not a way of glorifying his work or dismissing their plight.

 

This also reminds me: I went to see it with a friend who works for a fairly large company. She told me that their marketing department doesn't refer to people as people, it refers to them as DMUs: "Decision Making Unit"

 

I think I found it easier/less appalling than you to put myself into the mindset, and even the enthusiasm, of these people. I never felt the film was glorifying the proceedings at all; at best it took a neutral stance. What Merus says is spot on: the film is itself a sale to us, the viewer, of this lifestyle. Scorsese rarely deviates from this.

 

Today I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel. Very funny, though I feel

that Wes Anderson has really let loose with the visual flair, so much so that I felt that it overshadowed the emotions and plot. Few characters had any arc; it's more like an intricate diorama or toy box almost, where you discover these colorful figures and the joy is in testing how they work in various situations. But as a result, the film seemed to me more style than substance. I was infinitely entertained by the environments and tracking shots, the compositions and color schemes, but rarely dramatically engaged. In contrast to a Life Aquatic or Fantastic Mr. Fox, that offer more room for development and getting into the characters.

[Nachimir]

I think the three of us agree and this might be an amusing three way misunderstanding

[Roderick]

No, no, you've made your case clearly: you endorse everything the real Jordan Belfort did, and consider this film a truthful biography that does him justice.

[Erkki]

I found most of the first half of The Wolf of Wall Street to be rather boring, but then it could have been because i was a bit tired and fell asleep. Watched the other half the next evening and liked it more. I started really liking it somewhere starting with the scene with the lemmons overdose.

[Frenetic Pony]

I just watched Face/Off again for some reason.

 

It's kind of hilarious to go back too. The beginning is awesome, crazy John Woo gun battle and Nicholas Cage in full on losing his shit mode. Frankly I think Cage at his best could've been as good as Ledger if he ever played the Joker. He's just so damned fun to watch.

 

But then the middle hits, and our hero and villain swap faces in a hilarious bit of sci-fi mumbo jumbo (sidenote, Cage with his face off is pretty much the damned Joker for a scene). And then our bloodthirsty insane villain sets himself upon our hero's innocent family, promising dreadful and dastardly deeds including: Treats the estranged wife to romantic candlelight dinners, actually connects with the troubled teen daughter, defuses terrorist bomb, becomes nationally renowned hero, get's massive promotion, connects with his employees as a personable guy, saves the daughter from rape and then teaches her how to defend herself...

 

In short he's, for the most part, a way better good guy than the "actual" good guy. It's utterly bizarre to watch a supposed character represented as a psychotic child killing lunatic murderer suddenly decide to be a generally better person than the actual "hero" is. Honestly, it's still a fun dumb action movie for the most part. But it's just such an odd, incoherent, and sudden character change that it ends up entertaining in a truly "watch the dumb movie be dumb" way rather than something more sinister and exciting.

[tegan]

The first trailer for the Michale Bay Ninja Turtles movie is up, and it looks exactly like you already expect it does.

[brkl]

Good! It looks good!

[Twig]

It LOOKS good, sure.

 

Fortunately, even though I unapologetically love TMNT, I have no problem with a bad movie being made, if it turns out bad. Who knows. Transformers movies were fun, if stupid, so maybe this will be too!

[melmer]

I read early today that the final season of mad man is 16 episodes long, which will be split between 2014 and 2 0 1 5.... Just call it two seasons grrrr