What tv show are you watching and what do you have to say about it ..pt 2

[suitor]

I like Hotel Impossible. 

[ripiancurtis]

I saw today that David Simon (The Wire) has a new show coming on HBO centered around Times Square in the Seventies. I got really excited about it and then I saw it's starring James Franco. While, the last miniseries, I couldn't really get into, The Wire, Treme, Generation Kill and Homicide is some of the best television dram ever. Hopefully this will truly out Vinyl to shame

Some more info I found:

"The Deuce tells the story of the legalization and ensuing rise of the porn industry in New York beginning in the 1970s and its ongoing rise through the mid-1980s. Themes explored include the rise of HIV, the violence of the drug epidemic and the resulting real estate booms and busts that coincided with the change."

Bummer about Franco.  I liked him in Freaks and Geeks but that role made sense for him.  Most of the stuff he's in is pretty crappy.

Could work if he is playing Bill Landis.

The pilot is on demand. Enjoyed it quite a bit. Hell, it's the writers of The Wire and Richard Price is tackes on as a producer.

Far more centered and focused than other period dramas as of late. Franco isn't terrible...I guess.

I'm sure someone on here is pissed off cuz filming has upended their neighborhood but this seems done with far more vision and love than say...Vintyl or any other frivolous show set in the past cuz the present is so sterilized, homogeneous and boring.

I’ve only seen the pilot and I liked it. I heard they were having issues with sound and they’re scrambling now trying to fix on the backend. Like The Wire, they wanted an “authentic” sound of street noise but it’s interferring with the dialogue. I didn’t notice it in the first episode - is it bad in other episodes?
Anytime they try and have 1 actor play 2 roles it takes a while to get past (unless it’s Double Impact of course).

[P-TNT]

Watching American Vandal and the new Mitchell & Webb show Back right now, both are great

[jeff g]

First episode is online. Nothing can touch the greatness of the first movie, but this episode was pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KYCCDAI43U

[kevin]

Wormwood by Errol Morris on Netflix

Wormwood is made by the father of the host of my favorite television show of all time Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. Not only is it my favorite show of all time, but I've actually been contacted by the host while researching one of his episodes and we communicated on another occasion about the minutia of an unpopular naturally occurring deliriant which I was fortunate to experiment with while I was on tour in Chile. When I saw that there was a Netflix documentary television show about the story of Dr. Frank Olson, I was immediately turned on, as I knew this story - or at least I thought I did. It's a story I came across while reading Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD years ago. Olson was a CIA connected scientist who was part of the MK-Ultra program and is publicly known for jumping or falling out of a window after being surreptitiously fed LSD during a government experiment. I also thought at first "I wonder if his son helped push him to make this documentary" as I know for a fact that his son would be familiar with this story because of his area of expertise. The show was not disappointing and we watched the whole thing in one sitting, apart from the first episode which we watched before bed the night it came out.

This is only a miniseries, so I wouldn't put it against the best shows that have ever aired on television: Hamilton's Pharmacopeia and The Wire, but it's at least as good as either of those shows and the power of the information presented is great and vast and were I in charge, I would make this required watching for High School civics students.

You'd be stupid not to watch this.

[velcro]

Wormwood by Errol Morris on Netflix

Wormwood is made by the father of the host of my favorite television show of all time Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. Not only is it my favorite show of all time, but I've actually been contacted by the host while researching one of his episodes and we communicated about the minutia of an unpopular naturally occurring deliriant which I was fortunate to experiment with while I was on tour in Chile. When I saw that there was a Netflix documentary television show about the story of Dr. Frank Olson, I was immediately turned on, as I knew this story - or at least I thought I did. It's a story I came across while reading Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD years ago. Olson was a CIA connected scientist who was part of the MK-Ultra program and is publicly known for jumping or falling out of a window after being surreptitiously fed LSD during a government experiment. I also thought at first "I wonder if his son helped push him to make this documentary" as I know for a fact that his son would be familiar with this story because of his area of expertise. The show was not disappointing and we watched the whole thing in one sitting, apart from the first episode which we watched before bed the night it came out.

This is only a miniseries, so I wouldn't put it against the best shows that have ever aired on television: Hamilton's Pharmacopeia and The Wire, but it's at least as good as either of those shows and the power of the information presented is great and vast and were I in charge, I would make this required watching for High School civics students.

You'd be stupid not to watch this.

if this is your first exposure to errol morris i would recommend everything else he's ever done. Unknown Known is my personal favorite.

errol morris factoid/tidbit, from what i understand this is the first errol morris doc where you see can see errol interviewing the subject. i guess he took a break from his camera/interview box thing that he uses on every film.

[kevin]

if this is your first exposure to errol morris i would recommend everything else he's ever done. Unknown Known is my personal favorite.

errol morris factoid/tidbit, from what i understand this is the first errol morris doc where you see can see errol interviewing the subject. i guess he took a break from his camera/interview box thing that he uses on every film.

I've seen Thin Blue Line, but after doing some research on him last night, I've committed myself to watching all his documentary work, ideally in order of it's release. After reading some older in depth article/interviews with him, he seems as cool as his son, whose work/path/whatever I greatly admire.

[kevin]

If you like Wormwood, you ought to read this 17 page Harper's article by Morris's son Hamilton which has some similarities to the story that Wormwood explores.

https://harpers.org/archive/2013/07/blood-spore

[velcro]

if this is your first exposure to errol morris i would recommend everything else he's ever done. Unknown Known is my personal favorite.

errol morris factoid/tidbit, from what i understand this is the first errol morris doc where you see can see errol interviewing the subject. i guess he took a break from his camera/interview box thing that he uses on every film.

I've seen Thin Blue Line, but after doing some research on him last night, I've committed myself to watching all his documentary work, ideally in order of it's release. After reading some older in depth article/interviews with him, he seems as cool as his son, whose work/path/whatever I greatly admire.

I first became aware of him with 2003's The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara  where, famously, McNamara breaks down in tears over his regrets regarding the Vietnam war. A beautiful film. And McNamara's recounting of a meeting with Fidel Castro, in which Castro divulges to McNamara that he advised the USSR to use their WMD arsenal in a pre emptive strive against the u.s. during the cuban missile crises, is hair raising to say the least.

A companion piece of sorts would be his interview with Donald Rumsfeld The Unknown Known (2013). Rumsfeld is the opposite of McNamara and seems incapable of self reflection. Rumsfeld blames many of his failures, and the administration's, on a failure of imagination. For some reason the film, for me, echoes Hannah Arendt's infamous work "Eichmann in Jerusalem", Rumsfeld's culpability in the war almost gets lost as a single cog can get lost in a huge machine. Rumsfeld's failure of imagination almost typifies him as an uber zealous bureaucrat with all the failings and trappings that one might attach to such a label.

never seen the thin blue line, embarassed about that. Many of these are/were streaming on Filmstruck recently and may still be available.

please forgive some of this pretentious word salad, typing this during a mental break at my work.

[nuggetsvolume1]

I'm finding myself digging that show "Mom". Mostly just because I like to look at Anna Ferris. Very trashy TV show about a mom, her daughter, who is also a mom, and their struggles to stay sober in A.A. and raise the younger mom's kids. One of the kids is hippie girl who always gets in trouble; the other kid experiments with drugs. This is from the same guy who did "Three and a Half Men". Loaded with low brow humor. Very, very stupid TV show but it's the only show I am aware of where the main characters are in a 12-step program (outside of "Intervention").

I like/hate it?

[blahblahblegh]

There's a new comedy show called Loudermilk based around 12 step stuff I think, stars the main guy from office space. Haven't been able to stream it so no comment on it's quality.

[nuggetsvolume1]

There's a new comedy show called Loudermilk based around 12 step stuff I think, stars the main guy from office space. Haven't been able to stream it so no comment on it's quality.

Thanks, I will check that out.

[velcro]

I'm finding myself digging that show "Mom". Mostly just because I like to look at Anna Ferris. Very trashy TV show about a mom, her daughter, who is also a mom, and their struggles to stay sober in A.A. and raise the younger mom's kids. One of the kids is hippie girl who always gets in trouble; the other kid experiments with drugs. This is from the same guy who did "Three and a Half Men". Loaded with low brow humor. Very, very stupid TV show but it's the only show I am aware of where the main characters are in a 12-step program (outside of "Intervention").

I like/hate it?

i can see why you like it (recovering addict and all) but man a Chuck Lorre show, really? i give the guy credit for sticking by the traditional multi cam sitcom in an era of single cam (30 rock, arrested dev) in the 00s but his shows are pretty awful.

[velcro]

I could see how Anna Ferris would ALMOST make it more watchable in the same way 2 Broke Girls is almost watchable because of Kat Denning.

[nuggetsvolume1]

I almost always watch 2 Broke Girls for the same reason: Kat Denning.