Daily Archives: November 16, 2015

I’ve watched some shows

TV

Zoo– Never knew that this aired on CBS over the summer and I’m not even sure why I decided to watch it. It’s based on a James Patterson, Zoo is about the animal kingdom raising up and taking the world back. A small, international team (the father of one of them saw this coming, but everyone thought he was a nutter of course) travels the globe to try and stop it. It’s a very pulpy idea, you can totally see someone reading this story in paperback while on vacation sitting on a beach chair. There’s some terrible dialog in the first few episodes, but it did manage to win me over in the end. Season 2 is coming next year and I’m going to keep an eye out for that.

Master of None– The Big Thing on Netflix since it came out about 2 weeks ago. Aziz Ansari’s own show (also co-written and co-produced by Alan Yang from Parks and Recreation) is all the buzz. If you’ve seen him on Parks and Rec, the tone of the show is similar and Aziz plays Dev pretty closely to how he did Tom Haverford. Dev is a working 30-year-old actor in NYC so the show is all about that transformative age. Careers (should be) are taking off, everyone you know is getting married and/or having kids. The pressure of the ticking biological clock becomes apparent to yourself and all of your friends. It’s the age when Stuff Should Be Going Down and if it’s not, You Are Behind, So You Should Be Worried.

Aziz’s life makes up most of the plot lines (you’ll recognize some of his material from his stand up if you’ve seen them). What the dating scene is like, how tech has changed us, social pressures, overt and casual sexism and racism, being the first generation American to immigrant parents and the obsession with food.

A creative show and one that’s perfect for the times, my only knock against it is the terrible acting. A lot of amateurs just waiting for their lines to come up so they can say them on cue. It’s pretty painful at the start, but everyone gets more comfortable with each episode. The plots for each episode are great and the occasional real actor steps in to really lay it down (H. Jon Benjamin, Claire Danes, Lynn Cohen, Noah Emmerich). Aziz owes a lot of the success to Noel Wells as Rachel. Without her acting ability and on-screen charm, he would have had nothing to work with for more than half of the season. A mediocre actor in her place would have crashed and burned that entire season arc. Wells crushed it though and helped make a series that will be talked about and watched for years. Great set up for season 2, looking forward to it!

Fargo: Everyone should be watching this. There’s too much good to even explain.

Grimm: Season started in late October and it’s shaping up well. There’s a big cult(?) movement brewing that’s about to raise up and our Grimm is just finding out about it. Last season had a great finale and the fallout from that is still being sorted. It looks like they’re going to reintroduce a character whose been worked on soon so the threats coming at Nick and Co. are going to come from all angles. I hope they get Trouble back into the fold soon, I miss her.

Into the Badlands: AMC brings up some wire-fu! I liked the premiere, it had a good balance of lore and character building and a breed of action that really isn’t on US television. Impressive fight scenes, it looks really good (great costumes) and I dig the world they’ve shown us so far. Could turn rather comic booky, which could go either way. I’d like them learn more on the kung fu foot. The last action scene in the rain was really impressive.

The Rover

Movies

Therover

This was an interesting little movie. I saw the trailer some time ago and it did its job, it got me to add it to my list to watch. Apocalypse/social collapse movies are a dime a dozen these days and are tough to do right. It’s easy to use every cliche in the book. The Rover keeps it simple. It’s set in Australia, 10 years after a massive global economic collapse. After a botched encounter, a group of men steal Eric’s car. It’s the only thing he owns aside from the clothes on his back. He follows the men to get it back and runs into Rey, the younger brother of one of the thieves. Rey got shot in the botched encounter and was left for dead.

When you have little of your own, you cherish what you do have. Eric’s car is a part of him and holds signficants that’s revealed at the end. The Rover is very much a man on a mission movie and it’s done very well.

At just over an hour and a half, the movie sets up it’s pieces and moves along with very little waiting. Each stop on the road is interesting and well thought out. The bits of this world and how it works are revealed slowly, but wisely. Guy Pierce as Eric holds it down, but the real star and the most impressive work is done by Robert Pattinson as Rey. A real tranformative role, he manages to visually and tonaly get into another persons skin. It’s not Pattinson up there, it’s Rey.

A surpsing movie as I’ve never heard of it until recently, I liked The Rover quite a bit. I enjoy “what if…” scenarios alot and when they are done right, they are a joy to watch. A man’s (or woman’s) purpose in life is always ripe for exploration and discussion.