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01-25-2021, 09:47 AM
There's this show called "Upload"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upload_(TV_series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfZj2bn_xg
The premise is fine I guess, nothing remarkable, but entertaining enough.
What really got me was this scene in the first episode where the chick is walking up into her workplace...
And they play this 2001 Mary J. Blige song like it's her fucking anthem or something.
I mean, it was just a millennial fucking nightmare...
Leagues beyond cringe. Like yeah, that song was cool when I was ELEVEN, and I'm not even saying it sucks, but...
There AREN'T millennials walking around out there with this as their theme song when they're walking into work.
Who wrote that shit? Who sees the world that way? WHO THINKS PEOPLE ARE DOING THAT?!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!
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I'm happily oblivious to all of these media goings-on. 
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Yeah me too I don't generally watch TV but I happened onto this show out of boredom and it was so cringe and horribad I wasn't even gonna mention it...
But this scene stuck in my head and it just had to be addressed.
I tried to find it on YouTube but they don't have that specific clip.
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It was the cringiest thing I've ever seen in any media, ever...
Not YouTube videos, not any other show or movie, nothing.
It wasn't even intended to be that way either...
There's no way to make 2001 music culture look hardcore.
It was a horrible scene and I'd like to know who's responsible but I am not gonna put in that much effort.
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You know what this show seems like to me...
It seems like an episode of Black Mirror that got out of hand.
Like it's not good enough to be an entire show.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Daniels
Supposedly this guy created the show and he was born in '63...
So my guess is that he's making fun of millennials and what they were raised on.
You couldn't pay me to watch Upload, and I agree so completely with your excellent assessment that it feels like an average or even subpar episode of Black Mirror unnecessarily stretched out into a series. I saw the trailer and was like "fuuuck no".
I rather liked the animated "Undone", starring Bob Odenkirk from Better Call Saul (which, by the way, IS fucking amazing) and Alita's star Rosa Salazar. The animation and story are both the good kind of mind fuck. Also THE BOYS isn't complete garbage, but it's definitely not part of the television renaissance, however I really liked Karl Urban as Bones in Star Trek and loved him in Dredd, and his role as the leader of misfits who take on the world's super heroes (who, behind the scenes, are corrupt and sadistic bordering on evil) is his best work to date. A lot of people love Amazon's flagship scifi show "The Expanse", but to me it's like a dull soap opera in space. The only character I can tolerate is the show's bad boy "Amos"; I just basically forward to scenes that feature him, although recently he's getting more and more feminized by the writers, et al.
But yeah, Amazon seems pretty far from the pack in terms of awesome content.
Kind of OT, but have you seen DARK on Netflix? Holy fucking shit. It's the best use of time travel I've ever seen in any sci fi context, including HYPERION (by Dan Simmons), and all of the set pieces are elite, as is the acting, camera work, and the writing is at a super-high level. If you check it out, I would only say avoid the dubbed english version; watch it in the original german with subtitles, it's far superior. The people who did the voiceovers for the english dubbed version should be forced to change their careers, or worse.
(01-25-2021, 09:47 AM)Mister Obvious Wrote: There's this show called "Upload"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upload_(TV_series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfZj2bn_xg
The premise is fine I guess, nothing remarkable, but entertaining enough.
What really got me was this scene in the first episode where the chick is walking up into her workplace...
And they play this 2001 Mary J. Blige song like it's her fucking anthem or something.
I mean, it was just a millennial fucking nightmare...
Leagues beyond cringe. Like yeah, that song was cool when I was ELEVEN, and I'm not even saying it sucks, but...
There AREN'T millennials walking around out there with this as their theme song when they're walking into work.
Who wrote that shit? Who sees the world that way? WHO THINKS PEOPLE ARE DOING THAT?!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!! Next gen humans.
Programmed by agendas and a.i. with handheld computer phones.
A generation is being raised on information given instead of interaction.
Like home schooled kids. Not big on verbalization. Texting is their language.
Normal social situations become awkward as they're unpracticed.
A hybrid man-machine. Part smartphone, part human. Homo computatrum. Made by
social media meme machines. The mind is connected to a web with intentions for their
brain's chemistry, their minds.
The synthetic cyber-transhuman effect has made hordes of normies into ravenous beasts attacking all
those with a brain. Like a Zombie.
Be aware of you surroundings. There may be A Signal one day, but that's probably just three horror movies I watched.
ELFUNGUSBINGEWATCH
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02-02-2021, 09:29 AM
American Gods its pretty whack, I binge watched season 1 and 2.
Then getting season 3 every week, episode 1-3 looked like it was gonna be another shit machine.
But episode 4 now its starting to get whack again.
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(02-02-2021, 09:29 AM)ELFUNGUSBINGEWATCH Wrote: American Gods its pretty whack, I binge watched season 1 and 2.
Then getting season 3 every week, episode 1-3 looked like it was gonna be another shit machine.
But episode 4 now its starting to get whack again.
I don't really get the Neil Gaiman obsession that many people have. I understand that he's absurdly gifted and very well educated, but the way he puts it together -- weaving existing myths into contemporary fiction, etc., -- strikes me as very clever, but at the expense of going deeper into the human condition. I thought his graphic novel work was superior to his novel writing on pretty much every level, but even there I was nonplussed. I have the same problem with Alan Moore's novels (though not with his graphic novels, some of which are staggering achievements in literature), where the prose is weighted by an effort to express ideas, and it's at the expense of anything poetic. I will say that I think Alan Moore, who is deeply versed and invested in the path of the Magician, utterly dwarfs Gaiman on multiple fronts. As far as this show goes, I tried watching the first few episodes of season 1, because I'm a fan of Ian McShane (who played Swearnegen masterfully on DEADWOOD), but ... it's just fucking empty, man. The show has no balls or gamble (imo); it's like watching an aquarium for an hour.
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(02-02-2021, 03:38 PM)user Wrote: I'm a fan of Ian McShane (who played Swearnegen masterfully on DEADWOOD)
I heard that was a really good character and show.
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(02-02-2021, 03:58 PM)Mister Obvious Wrote: I heard that was a really good character and show.
It's generally in the argument for "best written and performed show of all time". And he steals that show hard, which is saying a lot, because many of the actors on the show reached DEEP. The backdrop is about a small settlement in the "Old West" that grows into a true town, and seeing that play out, as a thing unto itself, is truly memorable. The way the layers are placed reminds me a lot of the writings of the great Knut Hamsun, who was the master at unfurling the growth of towns, allowing for the creeping/subtle but necessary introduction of corruption, which is like some kind of sustenance for growth on this level.
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Speaking of westerns and Amazon...
There's a new show called "Outer Range" which has a touch of western, but it's modern times, so really the setting is "rural", but it definitely aspires to be a "modern western" under the umbrella of sci fi. And good lord does it ever suckle along the underbelly of oblong, heavily pocked and soft-yet-flaky balls.
The show is almost-but-not-quite saved by a consistently decent performance from Josh Brolin, and, at points, inspired cinematography.
Many of the supporting performances induce the sensation of cringe. Like the literal "oh god this is very clearly not working" level of bad. The first episode manages to create some intrigue, but all of that momentum is gone by the third. Some of it is bad writing. It can be hard for an actor to get behind it if they don't understand who the character is, and if the direction is lacking, which it very clearly is, then it becomes a shit show. And Outer Range is a shit SHOW.
... but it's the number ONE show on Amazon; a glaring indication of how low the bar is.
REACHER, another Amazon Original, is the far superior series. The actor is apparently much more similar to the novel's depiction than Tom Cruise (very tall, rugged, Arian). I didn't read the books; this is just based on fan comments. But the guy IS absurdly gifted in the physical dept. And he can act. Unfortunately, the story and characters are not sustainable for the amount of episodes in the series, but the first four episodes are strong.
The only "exciting" prospect coming down the pike for Amazon, as far as I can tell, is Lord of the Rings. If the teaser trailer is any indication, it's on the level of the Sci-Fi network. :(
The only place where Amazon shines is in being a catch-all platform that allows you to watch all forms of content for a price. So, if you want to watch the new episodes of Better Call Saul (totally amazing), then it's about 2 dollars an episode; that kind of thing.
And yes, DEADWOOD is a masterpiece.
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