TV shows

[Vesnic]

I think most people hated him after he did the Star Wars prequels, so by the time he completely sold out, nobody gave a shit anymore and figured Disney couldn't do any worse of a job with the Star Wars stuff. And he was probably sick of the complaints, so he was like "fuck it" too.

Well, I'm sure you've all seen this before, but this was really begging for it. It's just a war of attrition, isn't it? I clearly remember the furor over the prequels and of course I hate them reasonably passionately, but not too passionately so as to suggest that I cared or anything... But just look at what a rotten precedent that set! Bullballs and balderdash to the "alternate universe"! Translated: too greedy to give a flying fuck about staying in any way tonally or even thematically attached to the other elements of the SAME FUCKING STORY. It's just so ungentlemanly. And I know for a fact that a lot of people directly involved in Star Trek really can't stand anything mirror or alternate at all. I know I know, they're not "technically" the same thing but actually they are because they're both equally invalid excuses to just go way the fuck off book. It probably didn't help that all the mirror universe stuff in DS9 was essentially gay torture porn. To be fair, I only saw the first Star Trek prequel and not what everyone agreed was the far better successor with Bandersnatch in it. Am I the only one who thinks he actually would have made a good Spock? I know he's terribly freckly and fair, but he's also got one of those chameleon faces, a good baritone voice match and...and he's Bandersnatch. Nuff said, right?

[Locke]

Somebody sent me an espresso machine. I haven't slept in three days. You never give up drugs, you just spin the lazy susan and the next dish comes right up. Of course caffeine is really just a top note. I'll have to find a darker muskier sort of thing to give it some, shall I say, heft. Yes, heft.

That sounds very... Chubby.

Given my own experience, I'm curious, but I'm not going to press.

I think the "Lucas" Star Wars is done. I doubt the franchise has a future I'll appreciate, but I'll give the next one a go.

The last theater release I really appreciated was "The Matrix," and I was 12-13 at the time. More recently memorable - Samsara (for whatever reason never nominated for cinematography, although it beats "Hugo" and certainly "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" from the same year without question), and Ink. I'm guessing Samsara was excluded because it lacks a plot, or dialogue. I suppose most people wouldn't call that a movie, the same way most don't think of instrumentals as music. Why add something to your awards ceremony that no one's going to watch? Sad.

I don't see many movies, because almost everything I see is the same movie, with different actors and updated effects. Jaded, I guess, but television is still innovating...

[Vesnic]

Given my own experience, I'm curious, but I'm not going to press.

Well basically I've decided to give up being a drugstore cowgirl. It's really quite a depressing story. It just got to the point where the shit treatment I got from every side of the medical "profession" and all the foregone conclusions and nasty remarks finally outweighed the immense relief which these drugs have given me. I've been the poster child for responsible opiate use. I have a damn valid reason to need it, I've resisted every temptation to go insane with my pills, to sell them to friends and enemies alike or to just easily and pleasantly off myself with them. That was one part of the suicide note I had all figured out ahead of time: "As you can see, I did not do this unforgivable deed with my plenteous pills. No, as you can now see in technicolor 3D, I jumped, slashed, huffed, bang-banged and here are my sweet little pills, my army of quiet, lovely friends who were neither the cause nor the means of this horrible little circus act before you." Being one of that silent majority of upstanding junkies is like descending each day into a strange sort of limbo where every sweet temptation is pulling at your shirt sleeves and somehow, God knows how, you just keep walking straight ahead into a blistering desert of who-knows-what and that is better than all the alternatives. It's a special sort of suspended agony, but it works for those who have the stomach for it. I had the stomach for it, but I've got my dignity to think of too. I've been in shit-awful withdrawal for a week now because I keep giving myself little breaks. Going cold turkey would be a shit-awful idea. I feel wretched, but at least I'm not watching reanimated babies crawl across the ceiling and you know what, the thought of never having to see certain faces ever again for as long as I live is sweeter than nectar, better than sex, more entrancing than chasing that velvet-backed dragon all over the planet. I'm sure we'll meet again because I just seem genetically programmed to seek out the blue poppy love. Just not right this moment. Spin the lazy susan. Where will she land? PM me if you want to take this private.

...but to be honest, and no offense, I'm tired of this culture. Give it a year or two, and I'll see what else is out there.

None taken. Our culture sucks. I declare that as boldly and as broadly as possible. I shout it from my balcony. I make no apologies for it, but I'm still waiting in vain for THEIR apology!

[Locke]

the shit treatment I got from every side of the medical "profession"

I've been there. Granted, most of that was at college, where the average "doctor" was some sort of intern, and drug-seeking and just trying to get out of class weren't exactly unheard of.

I've been the poster child for responsible opiate use. I have a damn valid reason to need it, I've resisted every temptation to go insane with my pills, to sell them to friends and enemies alike or to just easily and pleasantly off myself with them.

I get that completely. I'll be honest; I like opiates. It's been awhile, but I've done my share without really needing the relief. When you do need it, though, it's not that enjoyable - just an hour or two of half-respite, more than earned.

straight ahead into a blistering desert of who-knows-what

...into this dry-sandpaper world. I do know the feeling, and I guess half-assed empathy is more or less what I can offer.

The writing (/perspective) that kind of thing generates is interesting, though. Sublime and genuine or strangely awkward. Probably not the first thing you're thinking about, but all the same, I wish I could get into the mindset of some really interesting lines I wrote in that place, turn them into something.

Our culture sucks.

I'm assuming you mean American/western culture. And if Romania is anything like Iad, you haven't said a lot for that, either. You've traveled, though. Anywhere that's especially worth being?

[Vesnic]

I get that completely. I'll be honest; I like opiates. It's been awhile, but I've done my share without really needing the relief. When you do need it, though, it's not that enjoyable - just an hour or two of half-respite, more than earned.

Yes, the experience is absolutely different, you're right. I haven't been anything like "high" on this stuff for years, excepting perhaps the few occasions when I did fall off the wagon a bit and took a double, triple or even quadruple dose, which is just as likely at those levels to belabor breathing as to offer blissful relief. Not the brightest idea. Far be it from me to nitpick about other people's drug use, but I do really wish that people would distinguish more between medicine and recreational drugs. If you want opium, then buy yourself some heroin or, in rare occasions Stateside, smokable/drinkable/edible opium in its unrefined form. All of the negative press coverage about prescription opiates has made life even more unpleasant for a group of people whose lives were already quite unbearable. The idea of having your kicks at someone else's expense is hardly new and could be applied to lots of different situations, down to the designer shirt on your back made by a three-year-old in China or whatever, but still I would just ask you to keep that in mind the next time you go hunting for some oxy.

I guess half-assed empathy is more or less what I can offer.

Haha, thanks. Seriously though, half-assed empathy is at least twice as much as most people can offer.

The writing (/perspective) that kind of thing generates is interesting, though. Sublime and genuine or strangely awkward.

Well that's interesting. I think I've worked in both those states and I certainly appreciate the creative genesis that can sometimes be made possible by opiate use. Looking back, both Country from Hell and Todestrieb were, to some extent anyway, opium dreams.

I'm assuming you mean American/western culture. And if Romania is anything like Iad, you haven't said a lot for that, either. You've traveled, though. Anywhere that's especially worth being?

I really was referring just to American culture, reflecting what I assumed you were talking about. I'm not one of those who dislikes "Western" culture as a whole. How could I? It's my native culture, so deeply imbued in me as to be expressed in ways I hardly even understand. What I mean is really modern American pop culture and the necrotic sort of capitalism which simply cannot last, even by its own rules.

Here's the thing about traveling: no matter where you go that isn't your home, you will always be a foreigner. This is hardly a disqualifying statement, as many contributing people, in any society, originally came from elsewhere. It is, however, a distinction that you will carry with you always and which will affect your experiences.

What frightens me most about American culture as it is now is the lack of a personality, the lack of a belief system or even a reliable mode of thinking. There's "no there there", nothing with which to identify, nothing to hold on to. Throw in the hopelessly widening gap between the ultra-rich and everybody else, and you have a rather discouraging situation. In this respect at least, things are better in Europe. Income disparity is a problem, but not as much of a problem. Higher taxes mean you won't go bankrupt if you get sick or your house burns down. Vacation is not just allowed, but is in fact mandatory, usually with a 30-day minimum per year. Public education is better in nearly all of these countries, as is public transit and of course, public health. You won't necessarily experience all these things as a visitor, however. You would really have to take the leap and emigrate.

Iad is indeed Romania, but it is Romania through shit-tinted glasses, from the perspective of someone already economically disadvantaged and with a characteristic sense of fatalism. In Romania, as everywhere, who you are matters just as much if not more than where you are. If you are a gypsy in Romania, you will have a considerably different experience than a decidedly white person from a country perceived by the people there as "rich".

Anti-Americanism is sadly at record levels in many parts of Europe, and more in Western Europe than Eastern. They are quite understandably fed up with us, but less understandably also quite willing to take it out on visitors to their country who have done nothing to support the policies they don't like, who may even have done something to protest certain changes, as I have. I consider myself more a citizen of the world than a citizen of the US, but even so, I have put up with a lot of shit lately for having a US Passport, much much more than in years past. It can be quite discouraging at times. Other times I laugh it off.

As for specific recommendations, I would say: go somewhere where most people can speak English or where you speak the language. Go somewhere with its own very definite history, with a real European identity. Avoid places that are over-exposed to American cultural imports (which is of course getting harder and harder to do). Most importantly: find a place where you really feel you can breathe, where you walk down the street and you're not worried, or afraid or alienated, where you feel a certain unspoken level of ease and openness. For me, this feeling has been strongest on opposite ends of the European continent: in the UK and Ireland and in the East, starting in Vienna and proceeding to Budapest and the Carpathians.

As for the rest of this big old planet, I have been to East Asia and Latin America and Canada, but never really felt the urge to move to any of these places. Culturally and historically I'm a European, so it is to Europe that I look.

[End Master]

Finally finished up the True Blood series.

Wow, they really just decided to run down the clock on that last season, I was sort of hoping a lot more of them would die by the end of it.

Pretty bad when I liked the newly added vampire chick (Violet) a whole lot better than most of the cast.

[Vesnic]

I actually fell asleep watching what I think was the third episode of the last season of True Blood. I haven't even considered going back for the last few bites yet. I think that show peaked by the third season and was definitively done by the end of the fourth. All the rest is just more of Sooki fucking everything up and all the menfolk, especially Pam, putting it right again. I can't fathom anyone's motives anymore, least of all Bill's. I think the show falls into the same pit that all vamp shows do: someone who is two hundred years old, even if residing in a deceptively young body, should be a shitload wiser and less prone to the gaffes of the typical twenty-year-old. Or is this some sort of self-fulfilling identity, like a guy named Jesus being a total asshole? Is a twenty-year-old body, even a vampiric one, just incapable of deliberation? Who the fuck cares?

I'm catching up with the Game of Thrones I've missed and of course the new season. I'm optimistic that the show writers will shore up a lot of the meanderings and shortcomings of the fourth and fifth books. Daenerys, however, is driving me absolutely insane. As Targaryens go, I think she'll turn out to be one of the crazy ones, all arrogance and rigid, bad judgment. She's as nuanced as a toothpick and does nothing but make repetitive, grandiose proclamations, a challenge for any actor and I imagine an especial challenge for one as mediocre as Ms. Clarke. My apologies in advance to any of you who want to fuck her silly, which is really the only point of her character anyway. I guess old Georgie figured he just had to get at least one absolutely trope-tastic fantasy babe into his books. I just wish she'd finally take a back seat and let the more interesting characters do the talking.

[donteatpoop]

Could the dude playing Foggy in Marvel's Daredevil be any worse at delivering lines?

[End Master]

I think the show falls into the same pit that all vamp shows do: someone who is two hundred years old, even if residing in a deceptively young body, should be a shitload wiser and less prone to the gaffes of the typical twenty-year-old. Or is this some sort of self-fulfilling identity, like a guy named Jesus being a total asshole? Is a twenty-year-old body, even a vampiric one, just incapable of deliberation? Who the fuck cares?

I dunno, I'm sure you've seen many examples in real life that some people just never really change much or learn from their actions no matter how old they get. Some people are just slow or not "learning animals."

So I could still see a vamp like Pathetic Bill who was a snot nosed kid in the scheme of things (A mere 179!) still prone to acting like an angsty love sick idiot who couldn't figure out what he wanted.

But to also support your argument somewhat, I did have a hard time believing a vamp like Eric acting like an idiot at times considering he was 1000 years old.

The whole show was just revolving around Mary Sue Sooki's magical fairy vagina anyway.

[dreamshell]

I always found the opening credits of True Blood far superior to the actual show. I wanted to watch something more like that; the squalid, aimless lives of poor backwoods Southerners and the predatory menace of the blood-sucking monsters hiding in their midst. And I would likewise be much more interested in exploring the longevity of a vampire; how the era in which they're born shapes their perspective of the modern world, the ups and downs they've experienced through the decades and centuries, just what they might want to do with themselves for all eternity aside from fuck and feed and kill for sport (not that those aren't fun)...

I'm catching up with the Game of Thrones I've missed and of course the new season. I'm optimistic that the show writers will shore up a lot of the meanderings and shortcomings of the fourth and fifth books. Daenerys, however, is driving me absolutely insane. As Targaryens go, I think she'll turn out to be one of the crazy ones, all arrogance and rigid, bad judgment. She's as nuanced as a toothpick and does nothing but make repetitive, grandiose proclamations, a challenge for any actor and I imagine an especial challenge for one as mediocre as Ms. Clarke.

Re: Dany's effectiveness as a character, this multi-part fan essay made me see her time in Meereen as much more nuanced than I did on my first read-through. I'm a huge nerd for both the books and the show, so I dig that kind of stuff, but I don't expect anyone to bother with a lengthy read on a fictional character they don't like. Thought I'd link it all the same.

But I think you may be on to something with your thought on what sort of Targaryen she is. After her initial seizure of the city, Dany's reign in Meereen is spent juggling her desire to push radical social reform and the necessity of finding a new niche for the freedmen and pacifying the displaced Masters, along with the threats later posed by the Sons of the Harpy, the Yunkish free companies outside the gates, and the pale mare. More and more chafing compromises are demanded of her, and Dany has to keep fending off the easier path of tyranny and her 'Mother of Dragons' alter ago/inner Aegon the Conqueror, things which confront Dany through her ambivalence over Daario, loss of control over her dragons and the straying of Drogon. But she seems to finally embrace this side by her final chapters in Dance, thus potentially paving the way for her re-emergence as the story's most threatening 'villain.'

As for the meandering nature of, say, Brienne's chapters, I saw them as sort of eyewitness examinations into what a miserable state Westeros is left in whenever the high lords start playing their "game of thrones." War is hell and all. I honestly think some of the passages in those chapters hit at the heart of why GRRM is writing the entire series (Septon Meribald's speech being one example).

On another note, has anyone watched the first season of Better Call Saul? I quite enjoyed it, though, as I am wont to do, I missed the season finale. But I've liked Odenkirk since seeing him in Mr. Show, so it was pretty cool to see him in a recurring role on Breaking Bad, and now a lead in his own right. Odd to see that character turn out to be sort of decent under all the sleaze. Michael McKean's doing a great job supporting and it's compelling to watch his character deteriorate from his 'illness.' It's also neat to learn more about Mike, the unflappably professional ex-cop and underworld heavy. But it just makes you all the angrier with Walt in retrospect.

[End Master]

Finished the last season for Sons of Anarchy.

It was okay I suppose. Probably for the best it ended when it did. I liked the show over all (Didnt care for the Ireland season though) but one thing that always sort of bothered me about the show was how "inclusive" and "progressive minded" the club was.

I mean I get that they had to make the Sons a little more "open minded" to make them "likable" for today's politically correct audiences, but they really went overboard with it as each season went on.

Letting black members into the club, treating women like equals, letting one of the members be in a relationship with a tranny (and it wasn't like a prison situation either where you get a pass on that).

Sometimes I felt like the Sons were one of those multi-racial gangs from 80s movies.

[Vesnic]

Fuck Benioff and Weiss

Seriously. Fuck those guys who are "writing" Game of Thrones on HBO. Last night's show was some seriously shitty storytelling, and it's not the first time these two boors have resorted to shock tactics rather than developing an ongoing human drama whose greatest question isn't simply "Who's buying the farm this week?". This is not a game of Murder, as fun as that might have been for us when we were kids. I used to love "dying" in really elaborate ways, clutching at my throat, making gurgling noises, thrashing around on the floor. It was a great time for a ten-year-old.

So are we all adolescents still? I accept embracing the realism that there are no guaranteed happy endings. But how is it realistic that half the people you know bite it in the most grotesque way possible, regardless of who they are or what they've done? That's no more like reality than the Care Bears. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, what we have here is fiction. I know the masturbatory urge has been strong in recent years to just reflect our own ugliness back on ourselves a million-fold, but the challenge is always beckoning to use that selfsame creative vehicle to hint at the possibility of other ways of being. This show is full of a strange arrogance that it's got human nature and all of its endless iterations all neatly tied up, perfectly understood, and that it really never gets any more complicated than tit-for-tat. It's like that time on the playground when I was beaten up for humiliating the goalie of the opposing gym team by scoring a goal on him from my position at defense. An embarrassment for any seven-year-old boy, to be sure. And so my glasses were punched into my face and I bled.

I've heard an actor say in an interview that there's nothing more interesting than a character acting out of character. I can appreciate that on some level. Stannis' actions in this last episode, however, were far beyond out of character. They were out of the realm of possibility for his character, beyond the pale, across the line, never never never. You get the idea. A reviewer of this episode pointed out that book-Stannis might end up resorting to the same measures, and that it was even G.R.R.M.'s idea. Book-Stannis, however, is a completely different creature, far colder and more calculating, not at all the loving father who was suddenly revealed to us this season, only to be utterly undone by this inconceivable move on the part of the writers.

Needless to say, loving fathers do not tend to sacrifice their own children to one of the most painful ways of dying, especially in the service of a god they barely even seem to believe in. Unless I'm far off the mark, every facial expression by Dillane when hearing the Red Woman talk about her demon god has been a mixture of boredom, cynicism, impatience and a bit of frustrated horniness. Certainly nothing worth burning your only child for. Further comparisons have been made to Iphigenia, but I find that ridiculous because this is not great literature that functions on any other level except the absolutely literal and secondly, because Westeros is essentially Europe of the late Middle Ages, with most of the same social structures and prejudices. It is not Ancient Greece. The Seven may technically be polytheism, but the function of the Faith in GoT resembles the Catholic Church in substance and structure far more than any older faiths. In short, it does not look kindly upon filicide. Stannis in the books is an opportunist struggling to be an idealist. He takes on the Lord of Light for strictly practical reasons. On HBO, it seems he's become a True Believer overnight. Or else he took a double dose of his psychopath pills that morning. Or else the writing sucks. Take your pick.

Have I been shocked? Yes, rather. With every new shock, however, I lose a little more interest in this show. I'm not dialing up Save the Children because I'm not a headless chicken and I realize that yes, this is still a work of fiction. As someone who appreciates good character building, narrative and the subtler folds of the human mind and where it can go, however, this smashing ax of a script is getting just a tad too blunt to bear.

[End Master]

I've only seen up to episode 5 and then free HBO ran out. I'm just going to watch the rest later. (Probably a year later on DVD like I always do)

The only thing I heard people complaining a lot about was Ramsay raping Sansa. I didn't see that one either, but I thought they were finally supposed to be setting her up as something more than a victim this season. Guess not.

I'm going to guess that's going to play out with Greyjoy turning on Ramsay "Darth Vader" style and helping Sansa escape or something.

[dreamshell]

Based on what you may or may not have heard, End, the issue of Ramsay and Sansa might sound worse than it came off, at least IMO. What it amounted to was her reluctantly submitting to him on their wedding night, with some implication at the end and in the following episode that the Bastard of Bolton was pretty rough in his use of her. Effectively, it had more to do with a loss of morale than anything really grisly happening. As you say, it certainly did feel like a disappointing (if fairly unavoidable, given the circumstances) dip back into victimhood. But the episodes since have rededicated her to plotting the Boltons' downfall.

As for the latest episode, well... yeah, it was pretty demoralizing, but what struck me more was the sub-par quality of that turn of events (which is a similar argument I could make for the entirety of this show's take on Dorne, sans Oberyn). I can't help but imagine GRRM will handle the issue with more finesse. Frankly, I'm also a bit underwhelmed at how straightforward it all was, when I know from the books that what you think is coming is very seldom what you get.

That said, holy shit, that last scene. Even putting spectacle aside, the interplay of dialogue between Dany, Daario, Hizdahr and Tyrion immediately hooked me, and delved into a lot of the larger philosophical questions I think the setting exists to explore. Didn't anticipate how things went down in Daznak's Pit, nor that Jorah would still be alive (blah, blah, spoilers). Maybe he'll take Barristan's place in the (hopefully) upcoming Battle of Meereen? And is the show even going to touch on the pale mare? Maybe they'll replace it with an outbreak of greyscale?

Also...

An embarrassment for any seven-year-old boy, to be sure.

...did I miss something?

[Vesnic]

...did I miss something?

Um yeah, you missed quite a bit, namely my whole post. I don't really feel like being on spoiler alert for a year until End gets around to watching the rest of this season; but since I'm barely maintaining interest in the show today, then I'm sure the point will be completely moot in a year's time.

I explained that I had once scored a goal in gym class, made extra impressive by the fact that I was playing defense during that particular soccer game and the goalie of the opposing team was the school bully. He said "I'm gonna get you for that", and just to save his manly reputation from being defeated by an undersized girl in glasses (the ones he later punched into my face), he rounded up a gang of kids who beat the shit out of me the next day at recess. His humiliation turned into my assault. The same principle has dictated the entirety of that absolute shitfest those two pansy show runners have made of ASoIaF. It's just kiddie stuff, with all the attendant sophistication and depth, which it supplants with abuse and violence and then tries to sell itself as a proper show for grown-ups.

I don't know where the scintillating philosophy is supposed to be. As I said in my last post, this show has done nothing but tout one very simplistic worldview: eye for an eye, beat up the girl who made you look stupid on the playground, etc., etc., all with the aggressive self-assurance that is the hallmark of every idiot. What philosophy? There's just one that I've seen in this rapidly declining show, and that's that there is nothing else to govern human behavior but naked self-interest paraded in the most naked way. All the other philosophies of the world be damned. They insult us by assuming we haven't noticed that they've turned one theory among many into an unassailable postulate. The worst bit isn't the gory details, it's the murder of dissenting opinion or even possibility. It comes top-down in the form of a fiat, just the way you would indoctrinate a child you think should be seen but never heard.

What troubles me too is that there are so many stupid people out there and that this is the closest thing they're ever going to get to philosophy, mythology, history or even halfway decent storytelling (at least in the earlier episodes that were still heavily reliant on the source material). A more skillful show would whet people's appetites for the real thing. I wouldn't be surprised if there are plenty of people out there right now who think the Wars of the Roses is a reference to the Tyrells.

And before you call me a snob, I hope you'll take a moment to wonder why I don't want my children becoming desensitized to the announcement that someone is a pedophile or a rapist or a murderer or even just an emotionally abusive piece of shit. These things should and must maintain their power to shock and sicken or we are all royally fucked, and not in a good way.

Harry Potter is Mythology Lite. The author may have been a classics major, but her creation is a work of fiction and one meant for children. The author of these books is a history buff, and his work of fiction is also geared towards children, except these children have drivers' licenses and jobs and children of their own. Fantasy was long considered a lesser genre because it has always had the habit of stumbling over itself, of sacrificing good storytelling to all the hocus-pocus trappings and easily manipulable plot points. GRRM avoided a lot of those pitfalls, but this show is fast digressing into every one of those vacuous cliches, made extra violent for a generation of bloodthirsty baboons.

Only people with nothing to say have to rely on so much shock value to hold an audience. I was actually feeling encouraged when they were still more or less on book and had the richness of the characters' backgrounds and interwoven stories to delve into. People responded to that. People, in general, require cultural myths and legends, commonly known and widely spread stories that carry philosophical questions or deeper truths about ourselves and our civilization. Such potential seemed just barely possible in the hands of the author, despite his laziness and shortcomings as a writer. In the hands of these two little wilting daisies who look like they sit around a dinner table discussing the best way to make strawberry shortcake just before titillating themselves at the introduction of one more twelve-year-old about to be fucked senseless in their sordid little story, in these hands you will just have a whole new generation of fucktards who have lost the greater part of themselves. Maybe they won't miss what they've never known, but what they've never known is colossal and dare I say integral to maintaining the fabric of what we call communal existence.

And before anyone crawls up my ass about overreacting to a single show, it's obviously not just about this stupid one-hour HBO gorefest, but concerns a much bigger trend and all the too-malleable minds out there who stop the gap with crap because the real shit was flushed down the toilet long ago.