and a friend keeps telling me to watch black mirror
is it something i'm projecting?
probably
Don't. I watched a few and I'm sorry I did. Whereas the old Twilight Zone/Night Gallery/Outer Limits left you with a bit of a horror/irony/comeuppance idea ("it was a female and it laid eggs!") I was never overtly depressed and miserable. Black Mirror, the few I watched, was so overwhelmingly despairing that I couldn't do more than a few of them, and it didn't make my life any better in any way. Note: this isn't the same as "I was bored." This is that it made a negative impact so strong that I bother to warn people about the show - which probably only makes them want to taste the ghost pepper to show how tough they are. Oh well; then it's on you.
my sisters were stranded for a week with crappy cable and two seasons of yellowstone
they're fans and got me to watch a few episodes
it's like an updated version of dallas
i like the beth character
It sure has its moments, I felt reminded of Dallas (only watched very few episodes of it back then) here and there, too. But the plot thickens over time, and some tension is there, most always.
Seems like a Hollywood re-enacted and dramatized version of historic events, yet very entertaining. We've watched the pilot and first episodes and are intrigued... have a good binge y'all!
my sisters were stranded for a week with crappy cable and two seasons of yellowstone
Costner is interesting given his interest in the ethnic cleansing settlement of the American west. I am sure he surrounds himself with producers and writers who share his world view.
The TV series' treatment of white/native relationships is insightful. I can say that about some recent Canadian television dramas but not about American film and TV productions in general.
One big takeaway is that settlers and their descendants who love the land have much more in common with natives/First Nations/aboriginals than many people recognize.
Agreed! If you look at the history of Hollywood film-making from that perspective, them 'Injuns' solely were portrayed as gruesome enemies, or even as laughable, from the earliest Westerns in the 1930's up to the 1960s.
This only started changing in the early 1970s for the first time, or so it seems to me at least. ~ Remember Little Big Man, or A Man Called Horse, both films made in 1970. I guess the era of the so-called hippie revolution and anti-war movement of the late 60s can be credited for this change in 'Zeitgeist', but it never went into mainstream, I think. ~ Dances With Wolves (1990) was another good example, starring 'Sir Kevin' (sic), or The Missing (2003), starring Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett. The latter movie again seems to be portraying and exploring Apache gruesomeness (in this case), but from a 'different' angle.
In this respect, the TV show Yellowstone indeed seems remarkable, like you said. Besides, it seems state-of-the-art film-making to me and great entertainment, only comparable to few other late productions like those of the Coen Brothers, for example.
Costner is interesting given his interest in the ethnic cleansing settlement of the American west. I am sure he surrounds himself with producers and writers who share his world view.
The TV series' treatment of white/native relationships is insightful. I can say that about some recent Canadian television dramas but not about American film and TV productions in general.
One big takeaway is that settlers and their descendants who love the land have much more in common with natives/First Nations/aboriginals than many people recognize.
Seems like a Hollywood re-enacted and dramatized version of historic events, yet very entertaining. We've watched the pilot and first episodes and are intrigued... have a good binge y'all!
Game of Bros out of Maori TV, New Zealand. Really only because it comes on around when I flick on the set in the evening. It tries to balance the competition with teamwork and respect for all, with a bit of history and geography thrown in with the physical stuff.
Not my preferred letching, but man they find some buff Maori and Pacific Islanders.
"City on a Hill" with Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge about crime and justice in early 90s Boston. Bacon is a sleazy FBI agent and townie who wants to ride out his career doing as little as possible. Hodge is a DA from Brooklyn who as black man has to eat a lot of crap from Boston cops. But he wants "to rip out the f$&ked-up machinery in this bull$4it city" and intends to start by prosecuting townies from Charlestown who keep robbing armored trucks.
I grew up in the Boston 'burbsâa completely different worldâand worked for a while in Boston during the early 90s. The first episode feels very, very real and makes me glad I didn't stay in Boston. Back then it was run by men just as corrupt, racist, and run-down as the city. But the show is very good; one reviewer compared it to "The Wire" and that might be spot-on. At times, Bacon is a bit hammy and seems to be channeling James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano in a "hey how you doin" mood, but he's the shifty star. Hodge smiles through the racist crap casually tossed his way but he's quietly determined to shake up the town.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and Barry Levinson are some of the executive producers. Damon AFAICT grew up in Wellesley, a rich Boston western suburb and likely never had a lot of first-hand experience with the city's gritty ugliness. Affleck grew up closer in townâmostly in Cambridge which has a lot of scruffiness beyond MIT and Harvard. You could tell Affleck had experience with the local blue-collar areas from his work as director and co-screenwriter on the great movie "Gone Baby Gone." I mention Levinson because he was executive producer and I think one of the driving forces behind the brilliant series "Homicide: Life on Streets." That series and this one put in a lot of work on developing character and feel.
Flip it. Damon was born and grew up in Cambridge; Affleck was actually born in California, but his family moved to Falmouth (near Cape Cod) before settling in Cambridge, which is where they met.
To me, Affleck is much better at portraying blue-collar characters than Damon. When I watch Damon on a big screen, I see a guy who wants to be an actor. He's just not that convincing. The difference between George Clooney and Brad Pitt on one hand and Damon on the other in "Ocean's Eleven" was like night and day.
I never saw "Goodwill Hunting", so Damon might have been great in that role.
Edit: You were right, Mary, about Damon growing up in Cambridge. I was under the impression that he was a bit of a Ricky Silverspoons which according to Wikipedia ain't the case.
We watched all three seasons of The Fall, which started out good, then faded to "why are we bothering?"
Gillian Anderson eventually just whispers, which is freaking annoying.
But - at one point she needs to get into a chain link fence and says to her help "FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS" - which is where Fiona Apple says she got the name of her latest album, so there's that.
Game of Bros out of Maori TV, New Zealand. Really only because it comes on around when I flick on the set in the evening. It tries to balance the competition with teamwork and respect for all, with a bit of history and geography thrown in with the physical stuff.
Not my preferred letching, but man they find some buff Maori and Pacific Islanders.
Game of Bros out of Maori TV, New Zealand. Really only because it comes on around when I flick on the set in the evening. It tries to balance the competition with teamwork and respect for all, with a bit of history and geography thrown in with the physical stuff.
Not my preferred letching, but man they find some buff Maori and Pacific Islanders.
They only made 4 episodes and I am not sure another will be made. I gots the shakes, I need my product. Mr. Bean my ass. Rowan Atkinson is Maigret.
I saw an episode of Atkinson as Maigret—he was good. If you're into the character, Michael Gambon played Maigret as well for 12 episodes back in the early 90s.
