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I would murder someone for a back yard
getting that email was actually too upsetting
leverage of all things coming back. i mean we do live in times when rich people need to have their lives destroyed more than ever but wow thatâs a wild one
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Thereâs a netflix limited series based on the Taiwanese game Detention out now w two episodes a week for the rest of the month
Can someone watch the first two for me and tell me if itâs too⌠spookyâŚ
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Hmm apparently there was a movie last year as well
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That movie won a lot at the Golden Horse Film Festival, too. Iâve forgotten to see if I can stream it now.
Also reminds me to look at the latest Golden Horse Awards.
i finished âHow to With John Wilsonâ last night and wow. i have so many thoughts about this show.
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First, John Wilson apparently lives in my neighborhood and maybe even apparently likeâŚaround the block from me, because any time he is talking to/about local people, i know who they are and itâs weird. we use the same laundromat; we pass by the same guys playing backgammon every day and night; the guy who teaches him how to make risotto lives down the block from me and once gave me a bag full of free bread (this same guy also owns a construction company that has a full metal sculpture of that famous photo of men eating on top of a construction site in NYC that sits atop the back of one of their pick-up trucks). the guy who makes a neon sign for him is the same guy who made a neon sign for Babycastles. anyway, i could keep going on (the man âattackingâ the scaffolding in episode 2 is my friend lol), but i wonât. my point is, watching this show felt more surreal than anything because of how intimately familiar i am with so much of his daily life experience. i donât like to say that any one piece of media captures âthe New York experience,â but this show does a pretty good job of capturing mine.
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that aside, the show starts in a place where i thought it was just going to be about this super-awkward guy trying to make conversation with people. and it is that, but once you get used to his cadence and can really focus on how the unrelated-but-relevant-visuals syncs up to his prose, the episodes begin to feel more like a visual essay. and you also start to realize that all these episodes are part of a larger whole, as well.
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itâs just such a beautiful mix of so many elements. i came in expecting something like a comedy show, but itâs something much deeper.
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The show is pretty good and it does a nice job of melding narration and visuals. Reminds me of Watchmen (the comic)
However, Iâm very conflicted about the footage. He captures people at fairly compromising moments (e.g. couples having arguments in public) that crosses a line which shows like Nathan for You didnât. Even if he was able to get permission from people afterward, I personally donât think that fully justifies broadcasting them. This is not just an awkward interview played for amusement, itâs putting in the spotlight some very personal events (with the narration creating a humorous dichotomy) which people had no idea was being filmed.
And if he didnât get permission, itâs unequivocally inappropriate to broadcast the footage on HBO in my mind.
i donât feel like i have a good counter to this, other than it doesnât bother me, too much. i definitely understand the position, though. i think the combination of 1. you can film people in public and 2. he is very-obviously holding a camera is enough to sort of assuage my feelings about it, because it really does capture a sense of what a day in the city is like.
i also donât know what his interactions with the people he filmed/documented in that way were like. for example, the friend i mentioned above (the one banging a shoe on the scaffolding) is likeâŚhis friend, too.
my assumption is that he is just always filming wherever he goes and then either composes the words and finds footage to match or vice versa or some combination of the two.
to be clear, i am definitely also on the fence about this kind of thing and the ethics behind filming random people, even if itâs legal to do so, but again, i feel like most of what you see in the show is what you would see if you just spent a day walking around New York, so it feels less intrusive, somehow.
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This gives some great insight into the show through a behind-the-scenes look at the production
watch to the end to realize that this whole thing is a set up for an extremely tasteless nathan fielder bit
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I absolutely agree that it captures the voyeurism of wandering around NYC.
But the experience of walking and observing as a passerby is not remotely the same as filming and then nationally broadcasting the footage. That people may see him video taping is not an excuse because A) lots of his footage is from a distance so they may have no idea, and B) even if they saw him they donât know the footage will be shown on HBO. I wouldnât mind walking around NYC with John Wilson, but I would mind discovering he filmed me for HBO in a compromising moment.
The series is getting a lot of praise but no one seems to be reckoning with the massive ethical gap inherent to itâs production.
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i didnât actually watch murphy brown or mad about you or will and grace or any other sitcom revival except saved by the bell (which is weird because i didnât really watch the original) but it feels sadder to do this one because so much of the important cast has passed away
shit i thought john larroquette was dead too
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just been mainlining detroiters and letterkenney and im in sitcom heaven
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does the new stand adaptation present flaggâs las vegas as an anarchist autonomous zone
Episode 1 of Sailor Moon.
The Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Supernatural Aid
Crossing of the First Threshold
Belly of the Whale, Road of Trials
Meeting with the Goddess
Woman as the Temptress
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watched some billy the exterminator, it is probably my favourite of the low stakes reality shows like my cat from hell or dog the bounty hunter or whatever, reasons:
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every single episode iâve seen has him fucking up and getting attacked by some variety of animal, sometimes by more than one animal per episode.
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he mostly doesnât exterminate anything, most of the episodes are just about like trying to pick up a squirrel living in someoneâs shed and then getting bitten by the squirrel while he says stuff like âthis is a squirrel with a SERIOUS attitude problem!â. but then the climax will be a scene of the squirrel being released into an animal shelter while uplifting music plays.
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there was an episode about having to clear out some roaches and the camera kept zooming in on a bunch of roaches crawling around on top of the crucifix on the wall like it was a richard kern movie while billy says in a depressed sounding voice âthatâs⌠ah⌠not what you wanna seeâ
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most of these guys have a funny or distinctive look but billyâs evolves and mutates rapidly between seasons, perhaps between episodes. sometimes he just looks like a depeche mode guy having a dress down day and other times he is in full goth couture or possibly attempting some kind of weird mohawk/bangs combination. Trying to use his outfits to guess at timeline from the scattering of episodes uploaded online gives the weird sense of a deeper ongoing continuity that is only ever hinted at.
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this sense of continuity is aided by the occasional appearance or disappearance of various family members, for example his brother who is allergic to bees but then shows up shirtless when they have to smoke out some bees, or billyâs wife who suddenly stops appearing in the intro
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i canât remember the one with his brother is the same episode where he carefully outlines his plan to the camera to sneak up and not disturb the bees and then steps towards the house and immediately starts yelling âoh god, the bees!â
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it occurred to me today that Worf is basically Frasier
this ridiculously long-running character who takes himself so seriously despite compromising himself in every scenario we see him in that his whole appeal is him wildly overestimating himself and delivering the most implausible lines over and over again
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