Saturday, July 20, 2013

Watch: Orange is the New Black




I can't stop watching Netflix's new show Orange is the New Black.  I had read and heard a lot about the show -- my good friend had recommend the Moth podcast that Piper Kerman was featured on -- so I was eager to check it out.  I had also read that this might be the most diverse show that you've seen in awhile and one that features so many women.  And it is.  It's actually so refreshing to see so many different types of people and so many strong female actors.  But what I think really gets me is just seeing prison life in a day-to-day way.  Much like how I was fascinated by the West Wing because of the setting, I'm fascinated by Orange because I want to know how it all works.  The show also has a bit of the Weeds vibe (it's creator is the same), in that it leaves you with a cliffhanger type ending at the end of every episode, leaving you wanting more.
So, I'm going to go ahead and blog about a few episodes at a time (the beauty of Netflix -- you can watch the whole series at once!!).  So here's episodes 1-3.  Stop here if you want to catch up!  If you’ve watched the whole thing, please don’t comment spoilers!!  

Monday, July 15, 2013

Full House


There's nothing I love more then watching an episode of Full House.  For me, it's like comfort food.  I grew up on the show and I've seen every episode more then once.  I know it's terrible, but I can't help it.  When I was a kid, my older brother was so annoyed with my constant Full House watching that he would ask me trivia questions about the show.  I could never remember the details (I was also 7) and then he'd be upset that I couldn't even remember what I was watching.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Wire & The Bridge

Looks like I’ll be starting up the Wire, which is sort of the way I was leaning anyways. Plus my wife is interested and Yolkie might watch along, which makes it way more fun. It seems like it could be difficult to schedule a time to get together for all 60 episodes, so do any of you who have seen it have any suggestions of key episodes to watch with a group? Episodes that have good “holy shit!” moments? Maybe the season premieres and finales?

Also, I’ll be checking out The Bridge tomorrow (10pm on FX). It’s an American remake of a Scandinavian show (like the Killing) that puts two mismatched cops together (like the Killing) to solve a murder (like the Killing.) All jokes aside, I’ve never seen the original but have heard fantastic things about it, and moving the setting from the border of two Scandinavian countries to the US/Mexico border seems intriguing. It’s produced and written by Meredith Stiehm, who worked on Homeland (which I also haven’t seen but I’m sure is great) and the pilot is directed by Gerardo Naranjo, who I believe is a pretty well regarded Mexican director. I’m sure some of the plot points will have to do with the Mexican drug cartel, which sort of terrifies me in real life but is also what made Breaking Bad so great, so it has that going for it too. If anyone else watches let me know what you think.

Monday, July 8, 2013

This Is England


Last day to vote to help me decide what to watch next! So far it's looking like the Wire is gonna take it. Which is fine by me!

Do you ever look at your Netflix queue and start to feel burdened by the movies at the top, as if they are holding you back? You put them on there for some reason or another, but just never felt like watching them? For a long time, This Is England sat at the top of my queue. Finally one day when I couldn’t decide on what to watch I put it on. It was great! After I finished the movie I sought out the two follow up TV series, This Is England ‘86 and This Is England ‘88.


I’m sure I added it when I browsed past it’s cover; a bunch of early 80s punks standing in an alley. It reminded me of Suburbia, a terrible movie that I loved so much as teen just because it had all kinds of punks and rad bands in it. This Is England focuses on Shaun, a friendless 12 year old boy who lost his father in the Falklands War. After getting picked on by some older mod kids at school, he runs into a group of older deadbeat skinhead* and punker types led by Woody, who takes him under his wing.


And it’s great because they aren’t portrayed as these super cool kings of the subculture types. They’re that small group of kids in a small-ish city that look to the cool kids from the bigger cities. While in the bigger cities there were probably huge sub-groups with the punks separate from the skinheads which were separate from the mods who were separate from the rudeboys or whatever. In this group there’s a couple skinheads, but there’s also the punk guys and the goth girl and rudeboy guy and the rockabilly guy. At this point in my life I’m aware that trying to belong to any one of these subcultures is pretty silly, but This Is England reminds me so much of being a stupid kid trying to belong to some specific group while hanging out with the other kids that want to belong to another specific group.

Thomas Turgoose, who plays Shaun, gives probably the best performance by a child I've ever seen. Every reaction, every word that comes out of his mouth, seems absolutely genuine, as if he's experiencing everything that's happening as himself for the first time. The way he wines to his mother, how he adopts the older boys' slang ("Classic! That's Classic!") the way his brow furls when he is upset (and there's a lot for him to be upset about) seems so sweet and real that I couldn't help but identify with the kid and the guys who decide to take him in. It's painful to witness when he goes astray, because it's easy to project your little brother or some other family member into those little boots.


The film takes place in 1983, and the subsequent series take part in 1986 and 1988 (with This Is England 90 in the works). This span of time allows Shaun to grow up and the focus to shift to Woody (who is a mod now, of course) and his one true love, Lol. But everyone is back, including Stephen Graham (Al Capone from Boardwalk Empire) as Combo, the guy who really fucks things up for the group in the movie. The series can be hilarious a lot of the time, but it’s also so heartbreaking. A few moments are downright devastating. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but if there’s something you know you can’t stomach talk to me and I’ll fill you in on what to expect. So upsetting, but ultimately worth it, in my opinion.

This Is England (the original movie) is available to stream on Netflix. This Is England ‘86 and ‘88 are currently hard to come by. They’re unavailable on DVD in the US, and I’ve yet to find a legit source to stream them online. I believe I watched them split into multiple parts with Spanish subtitles on YouTube. Kind of a pain but worth seeking out, I promise.

*Not to go too far down the rabbit hole, but I wanted to take a second and acknowledge the whole skinhead thing. I feel like everybody I know is aware that all skinheads aren't racist and began as a subculture of working class kids (many of them black) in the late 60's. However, it was always my impression that even though skinheads weren't (or aren't) always racist, they’re still mostly assholes. Which is one of the reasons this movie/show is great. It manages to zoom in on almost the exact point in time where these dudes became assholes. Or at least some of them, thanks to Combo.








Wednesday, July 3, 2013

The Sopranos vs The Wire

There's a major lull in new TV right now. Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Veep and most network fare is on hiatus, and Breaking Bad doesn’t come back for another month. So now is as good a time as any to catch up on one of the many shows I haven’t seen but probably should have, especially considering I have a TV blog. So, give me your opinion using the poll to the right, and if you’d like to make your argument (or suggest something else) in the comments, even better.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

"Everybody got guns!"

I finally finished Boardwalk Empire season 3 last night. Now that all is said and done, I’d definitely put that on my list of top 10 currently running shows. I can’t get over how many great performances by actors in super intense roles there are. It’s like watching a show with 10 or so Walter Whites.

I was especially into Bobby Cannavale’s Gyp Rosetti in the third season. For those of you who haven’t gotten to the third season yet, fear not, this is no spoiler. It is apparent from the first scene what Rosetti is all about. He reminds me of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet; a laughable creep who absolutely explodes with fits of violence. Pure sociopath. Nearly every time he appears on screen I’m filled with dread and prone to that sort of nervous laughter you hear from theaters filled with annoying teenagers during scenes building up to a scare.

And he’s just one! Michael Shannon as Van Alden! Every smile is a wince from that guy. (I feel like he’s been great in everything he’s been in, though I haven’t seen Man of Steel yet.) Stephen Graham’s Capone! Richard Harrow! Chalky White! Nucky! Even Lucky Luciano, who felt like a caricature of a spoof of a cartoon of a 1920’s Italian gangster at first, grew on me.

Can’t wait for season 4 to start up in September.