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I'm going through the first season of Borgia: Faith and Fear. I haven't seen Borgias, but from what I've heard this show is less sensational and more historical. Looking up the background, they've very much tried to reconcile storytelling and history... then in Episode 7 they introduce this Assassin's Creed motherfucker. Kind of weird. The show is still probably the best historical stuff I've ever seen, and certainly better than pseudo-history like GoT. It's never sensation for sensation's sake, and the power politics serves a larger story about religion and ideals. When it has something really shocking like death by sawing (  ), it feels earned.
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Nov 18, 2015 21:48
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I've been watching Borgen after Borgia: Faith and Fear, and I've been struck by both having the same problem with writing. The plots introduce complex dilemmas, but the solutions often seem too simplistic or easy for their context. Especially when characters need to persuade each other. Like Rodrigo Borgia blackmailing Ascanio Sforza to vote for him, and Nyborg making a budget deal with the New Right. I suppose the settings are already so complicated (Renaissance Papacy, Danish coalition government) that more plausible resolutions would make them unwatchable for general audiences. e: oh and the Social Democrat dude is a more cartoonish villain than the feudal assholes of Borgia, haha BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 11:11
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I just watched s1e1 of Sherlock and thought it was pretty mediocre. Does it get better because I planned on binging it but I'm not sure. Sherlock has nothing here but bitter ex-fans. You already think it's mediocre, you are free.
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Jan 16, 2016 08:35
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MEMES?! e: Seriously that sounds dumb. Dumb and awesome. The Gotham experience.
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Jan 17, 2016 12:54
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nerdman42 posted:Marathoned "I, Claudius" on hulu... Highly recommend it. Please remember to keep something like this handy: 
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Jan 23, 2016 12:23
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I, Claudius is a pretty interesting in how it's the perfect low-budget historical story: here's a decades-long chronicle of intrigue in Ancient Rome, without a a single battle or action scene.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:35
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Shadow posted:So it's mainly fictional and a soap opera? Yeah it's almost exactly a soap opera, but it's the absence of action improves it: the exclusion battles and outdoors scenes ends up communicating what an incestuous den of vipers the Julio-Claudian Dynasty was.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:44
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Doctor Spaceman posted:It's broadly accurate, in that it takes the most salacious version of recorded history and fills in the gaps accordingly. Yup. If you're going in looking for an accurate depiction of legionary armour and Senate protocol during the early Imperial era, you're gong to be disappointed. If you want an amazing generation of actors sparring verbally while acting out one of the most lurid historical chronicle ever, you're in luck. It gets too hagiographic with Claudius, but I suppose he deserved some hagiography after 1900 years.
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Jan 24, 2016 01:05
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I rushed through the first season Borgia: Faith and Fear after forgetting about it for a long while, because it turned out kind of dull and I kept putting it aside. It feels like it keeps hitting the same notes with its character, and plotlines feel stretched out and unsatisfactory. There's rarely a striking scene or character moment, and the conflicts are rarely engaging. There's complexity and intelligence, but the delivery falters. Maybe Season 2 picks up again. I'll probably watch on Borgias and gripe about its historicity, but from what little I've seen it's much more engaging.
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 20:37 on May 19, 2016 |
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May 19, 2016 19:58
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I'm also working through another history show I've neglected, Three Kingdoms (2010). It's oddly fascinating. The writing is naive in that national epic sort of way, characters are one-dimensional if not caricatures, and Chen Jianbin (Cao Cao) provides the only striking performance. But its naivete makes it charming, and if you're familiar with the setting, it's strength is undeniable. The middling writing is the price to pay for a series of this scope. Also no western show would ever dare to have subtitles to remind viewers of character names, which is immensely helpful. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 21:19 on May 19, 2016 |
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May 19, 2016 21:16
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Elementary is superior because it's creators know that Sherlock Holmes is a series about a detective solving strange crimes in an episodic manner, while Sherlock's showrunners deludely turned Sherlock Holmes into being about slick high-stakes story movie-length events where Holmes need to act Unexpectedly and Outrageously but without anything of substance or real interesting happening.
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May 6, 2017 12:13
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Wheat Loaf posted:Sure, that's a fair point. I'm not sure what it is about Elementary that hasn't quite managed to click yet. I imagine I just need to watch more so all the characters are settled in. Well, I didn't say it was particularly good.
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May 6, 2017 14:36
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I've been watching Prison Playbook on Netfllix, and it's such a breath of fresh air after years of watching sarcastic back-and-forths on American sitcoms. It shows you can have comedy on television that doesn't rely on the most incisive turns-of-phrase or soundbites. The deadpan humour, leisurely pacing, and low-key absurdity are pretty much the antithesis of an average sitcom. The main character of the series shows this pretty well. Sitcom heroes tend to be lovable idiots who are all nevertheless quick-witted, but the protagonist Prison Playbook comes off as genuinely slow-witted (but capable of surprising cunning) simply because he doesn't have to speak that much. There's a scene where his anger slowly, quietly builds up until he assaults his gangster cellmate, and the whole moment is unimaginable on an American sitcom. The hero of an American sitcom would be doing their best to avoid the whole situation all-together, but end up comically getting caught up worse when trying to solve the situation. And since it's from a whole other culture with its own tropes and cliches, there's no familiar beats from any American prison story. The antagonists are good examples. The gangster character is very buffoonish, but he also appears threatening, since no matter how cartoonish he seems he's still able to hurt people in an entirely non-comical way. The corrupt guard is pretty much a masterstroke among TV villains, since he appears very realistic as a venal bureaucrat who can screw over lives despite being just an old, mostly soft-spoken man who wants bribe money so he can speculate on the stock market. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Apr 9, 2018 |
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Apr 9, 2018 06:52
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:17 |
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Jessica Jones is terrible exploitation stuff. It's odd that a season where the main hook is seeing what atrocity a male serial killer has cooked up this time was hailed so much.
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Jun 13, 2018 10:07
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