TV news and views

[D3RANG3D]

[Potato]

Shogun is the real deal.

First two episodes were on fire!

[Potato]

Shogun Ep3 was intense.

One thing I noticed (and something I hope some of you film nerds might be able to shed some more light on) is that they are using a very interesting focus technique/style.

In each shot, only the actor or action that should be the centre of attention is in focus, and everything outside of that is out of focus. I don't think it's a depth of field thing because even things on the same plane are out of focus. It's like they've applied a circular filter so that only the important parts are in focus.

Anyone else notice this? Is this just some visual style I'm unfamiliar with?

[Polident]

Been slowly going through Reacher season 2. It’s fun, but missing the charm of the first season or the Cruise movie. It’s more fun when Reacher is an outsider who shows up and wrecks shit. Making it a personal story and giving him familiar friends is less of that.

[Potato]

Before I started Shogun, I got a few episodes into Halo.

Bland is probably the best description after 4 episodes. Seems to be picking up, but I have no great expectations even though the production values are high.

[chronovore]

Been slowly going through Reacher season 2. It’s fun, but missing the charm of the first season or the Cruise movie. It’s more fun when Reacher is an outsider who shows up and wrecks shit. Making it a personal story and giving him familiar friends is less of that.

It has been pointed out that not everything needs the Hero's Journey. A hero can be formed by the journey, where the hero is affected by the story. But there is a large body of work which focuses on a completed hero instead affecting change in an environment or situation. REACHER s1 was the latter. I also preferred it.

[NekoFever]

One thing I noticed (and something I hope some of you film nerds might be able to shed some more light on) is that they are using a very interesting focus technique/style.

In each shot, only the actor or action that should be the centre of attention is in focus, and everything outside of that is out of focus. I don't think it's a depth of field thing because even things on the same plane are out of focus. It's like they've applied a circular filter so that only the important parts are in focus.

Anyone else notice this? Is this just some visual style I'm unfamiliar with?

It's very strange and quite heavy-handed IMO. It's like a fisheye effect with some extreme falloff.

There's a trend in film and TV at the moment for making stuff look like it's shot on crappy old lenses – chromatic aberration, distortion, lens blur, etc – because it's "characterful". I assume it's a reaction to the perfect, clean look of modern digital cameras, but it's likely to horribly date stuff made now in about 10 years.

[Potato]

Yeah, cool, glad I'm not the only one who noticed it.

I'm not against the effect as I think it has some artistic merit, but I can see what you mean by it will soon be dated

[Eric Cartman]

The Jack Reacher Avengers would have been cool after 4 or 5 seasons introducing each of them individually in their own arcs, then the payoff being them all grouping up, but yeah, very different dynamic to S1 or the films.

I also didn't get just how 'extra judicial' he was before this season, because he was straight murdering dudes and not giving a fuck and not even in the 'oops, I tripped, fell, and snapped his fucking neck' kind of hollywood way.
Which is a choice.

[Polident]

It's very strange and quite heavy-handed IMO. It's like a fisheye effect with some extreme falloff.

There's a trend in film and TV at the moment for making stuff look like it's shot on crappy old lenses – chromatic aberration, distortion, lens blur, etc – because it's "characterful". I assume it's a reaction to the perfect, clean look of modern digital cameras, but it's likely to horribly date stuff made now in about 10 years.

imo streaming wrecks this stuff. Watching The Batman in theaters and bluray, it’s a cool aesthetic. Tried watching it on HBO Max once and the compression makes it all muddy. Same with any overly dark moments. Parts of The Killer where it relied on limited lighting got crushed in the low bitrate stream.

[Nintex]

Yeah that's why I'm sticking to physical 4K Blu Rays most of the time with the big movie releases.

I learned at a young age fiddling around with RGB Scart cables just how important image quality is.
Unfortunately most of the planet now prefers to watch content on cum smeared over saturated screens at a choppy low-bitrate.

[Snoopy]

Started new True Detective. Lasted about 30 minutes and gave up. You cannot have ugly old women as the main characters if they're not doing anything interesting. It doesn't work. Nobody wants to watch Jodie Foster scowling at windows for 40 minutes.

[Nintex]

I think they should've just kept it at 1 season. They were just never going to get that Woody Harrelson / Matthew McConaughey energy back it's like they deliberately nailed every scene no matter how good or bad it was written just to show that they could.

Season 3 was second best after the disaster that was season 2 but it was carried entirely by Mahershala Ali.

[Potato]

Early 3 Body Problem reviews are middling to lame.

Seems in line with my feelings about the book.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

The Netflix adaption? I read and thought the first book was alright, not like impressive or anything.

[Potato]

Yeah Netflix adaptation by Game of Thrones Muppets.

Book was ok. I got the feeling that it was super hyped because it was from a non-western author.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

They really need to stop giving D&D more chances. I'll probably watch the first and second episode but I have no hopes for it.

[D3RANG3D]

[Potato]

Onto the last episode of Halo s1. I'd rate this a solid video game 7/10 (bang average).

On a side note, Paramount+ has to be the most incompetent streaming service in the world. Can't even get subtitles to work properly for alien and foreign languages. Whole plot points in having to look up on online recaps just so I know what's going on.

[Tucker's Law]

The Gentlemen is great, a real diamond in the rough with how much dogshit Netflix likes to make.

[D3RANG3D]

[Eric Cartman]

Watched Silo, and enjoyed it.

It reminded me a lot of Ascension in terms of the setup, but it at least has a second season confirmed so isn't going to resolve fucking nothing like Ascension did. Its a good mystery box plus murder setup that lets you the viewer work out whats going on concurrently with the main characters (the first season of Expanse did this too) while also picking up the back story and world building via osmosis, although the mystery they're trying to figure out isn't actually that mysterious and what apparently seemed to be intended as a character twist near the end was more "no fucking duh".

Good production values, lot of good character actors (like, 95% of the fucking cast are british and the accents start slipping when they're all in a scene together ) and decent pacing, and a solid enough ending to stand on its own in case season 2 is disappointing (West World style).

Always nice to see a bit of decent SciFi on the telly, and this is a decent bit of SciFi.

[Potato]

Just watching some US hospital drama schlock and realised that 90% of the storylines on these shows wouldn't be realistic anywhere else in the civilised world because most of these storylines revolve around shitty health insurance.

[Eric Cartman]

Just watching some US hospital drama schlock and realised that 90% of the storylines on these shows wouldn't be realistic anywhere else in the civilised world because most of these storylines revolve around shitty health insurance.

Breaking Bad doesn't get past episode one, where Walter White gets referred to an Oncologist and gets paid time off on sick leave.

[chronovore]

It was eye-opening to me when I heard most of the industrialized world doesn't even really understand the idea that people can lose everything, go entirely bankrupt, from medical expenses. Shit, they can be hit-and-run by a car, and still have to pay for their own bills and recovery. Like the reverse lottery.

[Besticus Maximus]

Finished up Tokyo Vice. Right up there in the 'should objectively be total shit, but it's actually class' stakes.

Main character who is completely tedious and unlikeable and constantly makes terrible decisions, supporting characters who have nothing else to do but turn to the main character because he's so cool and awesome, a double tedious family non-drama in the background. But the yakuza shit rules and none of it making a lick of sense actually helps. Jake Adelstein is the PlanetSmasher of the 90s.

[PhoenixDark]

This is really good so far, and seems to be veering into some genre directions I wouldn't have expected.

[Potato]

Holy shit! Episode 8 of Shogun was so fucking tense.

Some really good TV. Damn.

Fucking hell, now episode 9 comes along and tops everything. Such a good show.

[D3RANG3D]

[Potato]

Fallout is so good. 

Episode 3 is such an evisceration of extremist politics. I love it.