in other news, the current alan partridge series might be the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life
while keeping an eye on muted basketball and hockey games, the recent castlevania discussion (sorry I can’t find the actual thread) prompted me to go back to the netflix series, and I must say I really, really liked it. there are a few storyboard-type things that it handles better than I can ever remember having seen before in a comparable production, like melee spellcasting and fighting through huge mobs; doing that kind of D&D ensemble fight staging, especially with a videogame’s scope, is not easy, and they consistently pull it off. I didn’t even know that one of the PS2 games is in the castlevania iii chronology and all of the game of thrones ensemble characters in this one are mostly drawn from there, but considering that warren ellis has the sole writing credit for the whole series, I gotta say he weaves the whole thing together really well.
it reminded me a lot of avatar in terms of the western produced anime vibes (which I mean as relatively high praise), but even more so in terms of knowing exactly what plot beats it wants to hit, and having a good time getting there. I had a pretty hard time imagining that this could actually succeed on its merits, or on the strength of its polish, but it does! the characters are all pretty well-drawn archetypes and the dialogue is cute without ever being too cute. it’s even the right length in the end, it comes full circle without repeating itself, really a nice bit of work.
the one plot arc I felt didn’t really work was the whole ratko-zamfir bit late in season 4, which was transparently clearing the deck for the final confrontation; seemed unearned on all counts. the imagery of the rebis was also a bit too silly in a modern context for the final beats to hang off of, but they got away with raising the stakes a lot right on up to that point.
also very glad that after 20-some odd episodes establishing the complementary strengths of trevor, sypha, and alucard, and showing them all growing stronger and stronger, all while refusing to acknowledge the ostensibly stupidest of the four cviii leads by far, they found a way to use grant danasty in the last season
I’m watching The Sopranos for the first time while my girlfriend is out of town. I’m almost done with season 1 and it’s pretty good so far. Seems its reputation is deserved.
It’s also making me realize that for some reason I know very few deeply Italian people. Thanks for being an Italian friend, Felix!
man it’s gonna take someone with a higher level of immunity to weird vidcon-adjacent grotesquerie than me to watch that new resident evil show… i checked it out and had to give up after five minutes during the scene where a traumatised war orphan hangs out with claire redfield, a wonderfully abstracted character who is as unsettling to encounter in this context as austin powers. i’m sorry you lost your legs to an IED… that sounds very un-groovy.
also just who is it who really enjoys scenes of people going “this is alpha ten niner niner, en route to the target… target sighted! we’re going in! over!”, it’s not even the politics or whatever it’s just bizarre to me that every piece of army guy related media over the last ten years has very proudly done this same non-bit. do people demand this. is there a lobby.
i did sort of like the weirdness of the cg. in the scene where the generic militia guys are standing in place waving their arms and cheering at the dead marines it sorta looked like the placeholder crowd characters in a racing game had been radicalised
if anyone is into true crime where the only victims are rich corporate assholes & wants to just luxuriate in kentucky good ol boy accents, the distillery episodes of that Heist series on netflix are absolutely choice
the vegas episodes are pretty fun too if you don’t mind cheesy re-enactments, haven’t watched the third yet, but i couldn’t resist hearing hours of a bunch of roided out weirdos that remind me of the folks i went to high school with talk about how easy it is to walk out of a distillery with $10k worth of bourbon in your pants
also i appreciate how both ““documentaries”” (god there’s so much re-enactment) portray the cops as creepy overzealous dweebs and crime against big corporations as extremely cool and fun outside of the whole “anxiety around getting caught” thing
he does not! and he doesn’t even have any ammo for it!
I thought you just said he didn’t have it at all. we’re arguing ammo now? this is like talking to hank.
whether he has it or not, he doesn’t have it! it’s nothing you need to worry about! we have David Duchovny on again in 15 minutes! get out there! super shotgun!
had to look at this several times before i realized gary cole wasn’t playing a character named after an actor playing another character in the same show.
cowboy bebop:the flesh version definitely seems like one of those situations where i would be way more excited if it was a random scifi channel original that looked liked this than whatever it is going to be
Wonder if this will be as obivously contemptuous towards its fans as the death note movie. That was kinda hilarious as someone who had nothing to do with death note prior to that.
