TV of 2021

[The Narrator Returns]

Alfonso Cuarón is directing a show for Apple TV that stars Cate Blanchett and Gary Oldman. More details to be revealed by Apple later on.

Indiewire reports that the show is called Disclaimer, stars Blanchett as a "television documentary journalist." Oldman seems to have gotten replaced by Kevin Kline but otherwise all the preexisting info about the show is correct, including that both Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel are shooting it.

[domino harvey]

I love the cast and filmmakers but is there anything we need less these days than another media product about TV news?

[beamish14]

Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop is what you would get if you took a daytime soap opera, put everyone in Halloween costumes from the anime, had Jerry Bruckheimer produce and the dialogue written by the screenwriters of Venom and Thor: Ragnarok. Actually the last part is true. Yeah I wasn’t feeling it.

I've been on the fence about hate watching this alongside Dear Evan Hanson, but I think I might just actively avoid it and stick with the entertaining YouTube videos about what an incredible misfire it is.

I was stunned to learn that Karl Taro Greenfeld wrote an episode of it. I was reading his phenomenal book about mid-90's urban Japan, Speed Tribes, when I first saw the anime in 2001.

[Shanzam]

Taika Waititi's and Sterlin Harjo's series Reservation dogs seems cool.

[therewillbeblus]

I suppose this should go in the "TV of 2022" thread, when it exists:

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, a dark satire starring Kristen Bell that lampoons The Woman in the Window, The Girl on the Train, etc. will drop on Netflix early next year. However, the trailer doesn't really sell a promising tone the way the title does...

Trailer

[therewillbeblus]

Adam McKay's next project at HBO will be based on the Los Angeles Lakers' run in the 1980's, called what else, Showtime.

First Trailer

(also now officially a 2022 program)

[flyonthewall2983]

Looks awesome but I hoped for a look at Michael Chiklis as Red Auerbach

[therewillbeblus]

Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop is what you would get if you took a daytime soap opera, put everyone in Halloween costumes from the anime, had Jerry Bruckheimer produce and the dialogue written by the screenwriters of Venom and Thor: Ragnarok. Actually the last part is true. Yeah I wasn’t feeling it.

Canceled

[domino harvey]

One of the quickest cancellations in the history of the service, actually. The numbers of those who actually kept watching must have been quite low

[therewillbeblus]

Guess we'll never get the opportunity to see more of Ed, in what the final clip promises to be the most cartoonish live-action perf I've ever seen, and not in a good way

[Never Cursed]

Oh my god, that performance has to be seen to be believed (also of note: the total shoddiness of the production design and visual effects - this thing looks like a cheap CW show, not something that had $50 million+ sunk into it)

[therewillbeblus]

I'm sure the numbers were the deciding factor in the cancellation, but I'd like to think somebody making decisions behind the scenes at Netflix saw that final scene and said to themselves, "Do we really want this volatile dynamic of Spike softly telling Ed to shut up and Ed not shutting up to play out for more than a single minute? Because that's what we're being promised"

[domino harvey]

Oh my god, that performance has to be seen to be believed (also of note: the total shoddiness of the production design and visual effects - this thing looks like a cheap CW show, not something that had $50 million+ sunk into it)

I watched that clip on mute and it was still too loud

[therewillbeblus]

The MacGruber series will premiere on Dec 16

Aaaand on the polar opposite end fo the spectrum, this is immature comedy at its finest. I'm only three eps in, and not everything works (Fishburne feels miscast so far, though he takes a lot of risks that are admirable this late in a secure career, even when they don't land) but it's both 'more of the same' and utilizes its spacious time to double down on the absurd possibilities from the premise. The film ascended past the MacGyver riff to become a far more interesting James Bond parody, and if the movie was disemboweling the core mechanics of Bond films back to the Connerys, this series is taking aim at the Craigs, particularly Skyfall, to render any attempts at a 'serious' Bond meaningless (though there are also direct nods to Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation with the central baddie group’s introduction). If you were a fan of the film, don't sleep on this- and if you weren't, well, you already know this isn't seeking to change your mind about its subjective relationship to comedy

[RIP Film]

The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max is disarmingly funny and approachable, and not as crude as the name would suggest. Glad to see it was renewed for a 2nd season. Throwing it in here as an end of the year honorary mention.

[Shanzam]

I'm watching And Just Like That..(Sex and the City sequel). I enjoyed the original series, and I am not too big a fan of sequels and prequels in general, but AJLT seems disconnected from the main idea of the original series. It's still visually stylish and dialogues are fluid and fun and sexy, and I realize the characters can't be exactly where we left them and their biographies seem decently developed, but whatever was the core of SATC seems to be missing here (unless that was the aim, in that case well done I suppose).

[Shanzam]

I tried watching The Sex Lives of College Girls. I think I have issues with comedies in general, it's rarely fun to me for some reason.

[RIP Film]

I tried watching The Sex Lives of College Girls. I think I have issues with comedies in general, it's rarely fun to me for some reason.

I don’t expect the first two episodes to win anyone over, for some reason I stuck around and enjoyed it. There’s definitely some sitcom type trappings it struggles with, but it finds a rhythm later on.

[Shanzam]

I tried watching The Sex Lives of College Girls. I think I have issues with comedies in general, it's rarely fun to me for some reason.

I don’t expect the first two episodes to win anyone over, for some reason I stuck around and enjoyed it. There’s definitely some sitcom type trappings it struggles with, but it finds a rhythm later on.

Well I only have this and the second season of Deadwood on my list, so it's not impossible I'll watch a few more episodes.

[flyonthewall2983]

Watching The 100 Foot Wave on HBO. The effort involved in this is impressive, but the look at the personalities involved give me pause. The minutiae of aspects of technique and security impressed me just not in the physical aspects but just how clearly your mind has to be running in those couple minutes or so you’re behind or ahead of these waves. The big ones especially. I have a fear of water from a young age so my awe is a bit enhanced here but I really appreciate, again, just the effort in even riding something like Nazare.