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I don't think rewatchability is an indicator of something being good. There's plenty of movies I found to be fantastic but have no interest in visiting again.
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Dec 5, 2016 05:30
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Mu Zeta posted:Nosedive is stretched out so long. It's a great ~15 minute short film on Youtube but not a full hour. Who is ever going to watch that episode again? I rewatched it and San Junipero...
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Dec 5, 2016 05:31
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I think San Junipero is a much better episode. Nosedive borders on terrible if you ever sit down to watch it again.
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Dec 5, 2016 05:45
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San Junipero is better sure, it's amazing. But no I don't agree about Nosedive at all.
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Dec 5, 2016 05:49
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I have a pretty important job interview and am incapable of relaxing. Which episode from the Netflix series should I watch (I already watched the entire old series during the Trump election).
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Dec 7, 2016 04:02
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Bicyclops posted:I have a pretty important job interview and am incapable of relaxing. Which episode from the Netflix series should I watch (I already watched the entire old series during the Trump election).
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Dec 7, 2016 04:21
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Gobbeldygook posted:There's only one answer: San Juniper Hmm... might make me feel too good about myself for the interview. Okay, we'll try it...
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Dec 7, 2016 04:26
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Bicyclops posted:I have a pretty important job interview and am incapable of relaxing. Which episode from the Netflix series should I watch (I already watched the entire old series during the Trump election). Playtest involves a job interview, in a sense. Maybe that would help you relax.
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Dec 7, 2016 05:10
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I watched San Junipero and the people objecting that Kelly discards her reservations are thinking of this a little too "hard science fiction," in my opinion. I'm a "every time you get into the Star Trek transporter, you die," kind of person, but the way this story is framed, the mind-to-computer aspect is immortality. Both of the characters in this story have major issues. Yorkie has not experienced most of her life, and has only recently been given the chance to exist outside of her mind and her hospital bed. Kelly is experiencing grief in, the way its framed in the story, the last way that a certain kind of grief has to be experienced. Her husband made a decision, out of guilt, that was wrong. Having been his loving companion for most of her life, she is ready to follow him in that decision. Witnessing a very different perspective, one in which someone who has never even been given the opportunity to experience the basic, major highlights of life, is given a second opportunity to do because of technology, Kelly (who is, to say the least, a bit of a hedonist), reassesses how she feels about San Junipero, lets go of some of her grieving when it comes to her family, and embraces a new life. It's almost better to think of this episode in magical terms. There was no Heaven, but people lamented, learned magic, and through sorcery, created a heaven. A woman is hesitant to join, for guilt of being the last in a family that missed out on the afterlife, but a person who can only experience life through this new Heaven has convinced her that it isn't worth giving up purely because of loss. They live happily ever after, and if you want to make stuff up about losing interest over time and going to the weird sex dungeon, or humanely committing suicide by way of disconnecting, or what the Afterlife Servers mean for the rest of peasant humanity who do not have access, or whatever, then go ahead, but for once in Black Mirror, that is not in the text. Even if you do believe they're both really dead and those are copies of them living in EA's The Sims: Afterlife, there's something sweet and wonderful about it.
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Dec 7, 2016 06:34
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Bicyclops posted:I watched San Junipero and the people objecting that Kelly discards her reservations are thinking of this a little too "hard science fiction," in my opinion. I'm a "every time you get into the Star Trek transporter, you die," kind of person, but the way this story is framed, the mind-to-computer aspect is immortality. Both of the characters in this story have major issues. Yorkie has not experienced most of her life, and has only recently been given the chance to exist outside of her mind and her hospital bed. Kelly is experiencing grief in, the way its framed in the story, the last way that a certain kind of grief has to be experienced. Her husband made a decision, out of guilt, that was wrong. Having been his loving companion for most of her life, she is ready to follow him in that decision. YEESSSS I LOVE THIS
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Dec 7, 2016 08:23
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Bicyclops posted:I have a pretty important job interview and am incapable of relaxing. Which episode from the Netflix series should I watch Someone's gotta say the obvious, it might as well be me: The Entire History of You
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Dec 7, 2016 08:46
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I just watched the last season and came to check out the thread and saw a bunch of hate for playtest, I think the people saying it's "what if video games, but too much" are kinda missing the point. The game technology is called a "mushroom", a pretty obvious metaphor considering what it does. Lots of people take mushrooms/psychedelics to be a little freaked out but in a manageable way. If you look at guides for having a good psychedelic trip one of the things they always say is turn off your phone. If you get a call from a parent/important person when you're tripping you're gonna either decline immediately or have a very strange conversation, both of which might ruin your trip and send you into the kind of terrifying loops the guy was going through in the game. There's even another layer of this as you see the guy constantly documenting his real world trip on his phone and sharing it on social media before his literal trip turns bad when he gets to the UK, where he uses his phone to meet the girl and to get the job. The stewardess at the beginning and the whole double meaning of the phone "interfering" with the airplane systems/game systems and with the dude's real trip and game trip was great. It's about travel, in your head or in real life and how these things should be a break from the "real world" you're tethered to with technology and I thought it was pretty loving awesome. edit: and yeah the dude was obnoxious, that's kind of the point. he's the exact type of guy who always gets demolished by drugs and makes travel lovely. it's not "sympathize with idiot backpacker" it's "idiot backpacker gets what was coming to him" d0s fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Dec 11, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 05:19
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He was actually perfectly pleasant to everyone he met
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Dec 11, 2016 06:46
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d0s posted:edit: and yeah the dude was obnoxious, that's kind of the point. he's the exact type of guy who always gets demolished by drugs and makes travel lovely. it's not "sympathize with idiot backpacker" it's "idiot backpacker gets what was coming to him" It is amusing how much goons utterly despise a person for.... Traveling? Making friendly jokes at people too much? I don't even remember him taking any drugs in the episode? Or do people just hate people who go backpacking around Europe while being friendly to strangers?
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Dec 11, 2016 07:15
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Yeah, Cooper was fine. He didn't deserve the fate that befell him (but that's Black Mirror, I guess).
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Dec 11, 2016 07:38
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cosmically_cosmic posted:I don't even remember him taking any drugs in the episode? replace the mushroom game tech with the dude literally ending his trip around with world with taking a drug at some weird rave in the UK and it could have turned out exactly the same way (although probably not with straight up death). it's such an obvious metaphor   regarding the dude being an rear end in a top hat, watch the episode again. he fails to tie up his personal poo poo with his mom before sneaking out like a dumb kid going out to party. the first time she tries to call he lies and says he's "working". right after this we see a montage of him "experiencing" the world by taking selfies everywhere, which is pretty much a stereotype of the lovely traveller at this point. he's not an rear end in a top hat for travelling, he's an rear end in a top hat because he's going about it in a stupid way. I don't think he deserved to die for it, the show's reality did. e: because it's cut off, the text at the top of the first screenshot is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Brigstocke#Pac-Man_joke d0s fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Dec 11, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 08:08
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d0s posted:replace the mushroom game tech with the dude literally ending his trip around with world with taking a drug at some weird rave in the UK and it could have turned out exactly the same way (although probably not with straight up death). it's such an obvious metaphor Yeah I can see the metaphor, but It's not the central metaphor of his character but more the event he's taking part in, and even then his character isn't coded as a drug user at all as far as I can remember. You're inferring that he's exactly the kind of guy who'd get hosed up on drugs and ruin a trip based on the virtual reality device being called a mushroom. You're kind of making the jump from the imagery around the scenario to a character trait, where there really isn't one, at least in my opinion, which is where I start to disagree. quote:regarding the dude being an rear end in a top hat, watch the episode again. he fails to tie up his personal poo poo with his mom before sneaking out like a dumb kid going out to party. the first time she tries to call he lies and says he's "working". right after this we see a montage of him "experiencing" the world by taking selfies everywhere, which is pretty much a stereotype of the lovely traveller at this point. he's not an rear end in a top hat for travelling, he's an rear end in a top hat because he's going about it in a stupid way. I don't think he deserved to die for it, the show's reality did. The montage of selfies making him an rear end in a top hat is a pretty big stretch to me, considering that it's a very common and cheap way to do a travel montage. The mom stuff I can agree with, but even then it hardly shows him to be an rear end in a top hat more like a flawed young person. 'Failing to tie up personal poo poo with your mom' right after your dad dies isn't exactly the sign that someone is a total rear end in a top hat who ruins vacations. My big problem with the goon hate for generic friendly american traveller is that it takes character moments that are highly situational (The mom thing) and then extrapolates that into a bunch of dispositional judgements that are in no-way supported by the actual events of the episode. I don't think we even see him once be an rear end in a top hat to anyone, his biggest crime is running away to europe to 'find himself' after his Dad dies. Which is super common and average, and probably a healthier response to a parent dying than a lot of people go through. Ignoring calls from your Mom because of a recent emotional trauma is a bad thing, yes, but it's not really a dispositional thing that denotes a bad person. At least in my view. And even then, the Mom thing isn't really what people harp on about him, it's all about how he's an idiot backpacker. I always hear it in my head with the same stank a goon would use when talking about a dumb jock. And not to nitpick what you've said, but the facebook photos thing reminds me of that too, because it seems to assume that anyone who takes selfies while traveling is an rear end in a top hat. Rather than just the majority of young people who go to to foreign places. And I'm not really directing this all at you though it probably seems like it, since I do like the mushroom metaphor theory, but the hate for this character seems to really go above and beyond with a lot of goons. Like they read a lot into the character that I really don't think is supported by the narrative. cosmically_cosmic fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Dec 11, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 08:32
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I don't think he's a terrible person and yeah I may have worded things a bit too strongly. I think the episode is about being mentally prepared before doing life/consciousness altering things and treating with them respect so you can have a good time and learn some things instead of going insane/dying. I wish this episode was called "set and setting" edit: and I think the selfie montage is definitely significant and not some throwaway, considering what show this is. the guy is selfish, what with the ignoring his mom and the casual industrial espionage and all. d0s fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Dec 11, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 08:42
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I don't think he's a bad person or anything, I just found his mannerisms reallly annoying. He's a very stereotypically obnoxious American traveler. Disclaimer: I've liked a large majority of Americans, travelers, and American travelers that I've met. I'm not trying to poo poo on either group in general.
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Dec 11, 2016 08:46
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A lot of people in here seem to dislike Kurt Russell's kid. I didn't like "Playtest" because of the multiple twist endings on top of each other. But it being needlessly sadistic to a mostly decent guy didn't help. Not calling his mom isn't great, but people behave all kinds of ways when losing a parent...being unable to face his mother because of his grief is pretty understandable. The shittiest thing he did was try to steal secrets from Hideo Kojima. Not cool, bro.
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Dec 11, 2016 10:56
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I finally watched series 3 this weekend and then caught up on this thread. Aside from now needing a therapist, I am doing well. In "What if Paedos, But Too Much?" the actor playing Kenny deserves an award. Had me hook, line, and sinker. "What if Bees, But Too Much?" reminded me of "White Bear" in how it was presented -- the setup was cheesy Wallander-2025 instead of B-movie horror, but it the overarching point is still obvious. Maybe it is just me.
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Dec 12, 2016 04:57
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I loved the detail at the end of San Junipero that Yorkie and Kelly's consciousness plugs (or whatever you'd call them) were plugged in right next to each other in the giant cyber tomb 
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Dec 12, 2016 16:54
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I was frustrated and disappointed with Playtest the first time around, because I was still expecting something with a larger social message, since almost all previous episodes did (maybe with the exceptions of Be Right Back in the second series, and Entire History of You in the first). But Playtest was really just Brooker and company having fun making an episode that was simultaneously scary and making fun of tropes in horror films, with some interesting, albeit previously tread, explorations into how consciousness works and processes concepts, thoughts, memories and emotions. It was a lot more fun the next around because there are a lot of little things that influence Cooper's mindblowing experience.
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Dec 13, 2016 01:41
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Hubbardologist posted:I was frustrated and disappointed with Playtest the first time around, because I was still expecting something with a larger social message, since almost all previous episodes did (maybe with the exceptions of Be Right Back in the second series, and Entire History of You in the first). But Playtest was really just Brooker and company having fun making an episode that was simultaneously scary and making fun of tropes in horror films, with some interesting, albeit previously tread, explorations into how consciousness works and processes concepts, thoughts, memories and emotions. It was a lot more fun the next around because there are a lot of little things that influence Cooper's mindblowing experience. I think the meta commentary in playtest is our foolish acceptance and adoption of technology that could be dangerous to us. This guy did no research and just signed away his life to try out a video game system that had the potential of destroying your brain, and he didn't even worry about how safe it is. Also the end hinted at a society that values product/profit over human life, it looks like they have a process for this, it's just the cost of business for them. I think the storyline itself was pretty good regardless of any additional meaning, it reminded me of an outer limits episode. Black Mirror episodes tend to be a bit more preachy, this one was just putting someone in a sci-fi scenario where things go wrong.
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Dec 13, 2016 19:52
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Dec 14, 2016 03:58
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There was a lot of stuff that worked in Playtest, and it definitely did it's Black Mirror job of making me feel like poo poo afterwards, but it was missing a larger point that most if not all of the other episodes of the series have. Looking back on it, I think it you went in expecting a spooky horror thriller, and not what black mirror normally is, you would probably enjoy the episode a lot more. All of my friends who watched only the most recent season and not the previous one raved about Playtest, I think because they hadn't set the expectations for what the show was about yet.
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Dec 14, 2016 09:25
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The episode about how no amount of playing games, and wanking about the world as a rich westerner can truly distract from the nagging horror of our own, and our loved ones, mortality and the inevitable decline into elderly senility as is our fate... oddly fails to find purchase. However the counter-point, about how we're going to abandon our elderly meat bodies and play computer games forever, is however, widely regarded. There was a bit bit earlier where someone looked at the interaction with the kid at the start of Playtest, where the grown man turns the fear of a plane in turbulence, into a fun game to distract the child, and rather than seeing it as setting up a theme for the episode: wondered whether it meant he was a secret pedo. Black Mirror is pretty upfront about its themes, they tend not to hide them under deep allusion but instead is really in your face about where the episode is going, so part of me wonders how people can watch Playtest and not notice the theme of affluent westerners playing games in life and running from their fears and how your creeping mortality will catch up with you regardless. I wonder at this point, if people reject the theme first because they find it uncomfortable and find the episode wanting afterwards. Like someone watching Men Against Fire and thinking "yeah, that crappy episode about how augmented reality can be dangerous, got some of the military details wrong stupid", then switching channels to watch Fox News dehumanising Syrian refuges without a second thought. Even though a huge chunk of the episode is explicitly an exposition on the comfort of choosing to remain ignorant (and it is hard to get more explicit, the guy literally puts us in a white room and explains it). I'm not saying there aren't quality differences between some episodes, some certainly do a better job than others, nor that you can like or dislike an episode. I just wonder at this point if some people reject Playtest's story and protagonist not because he is too "annoying", but because he is too recognisable, from the mirror... darkly.
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Dec 14, 2016 11:27
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Considering most complaints about Playtest are about execution and a lot of people echoed my thought of "it would be good if it ended with the mom scene", which resonates your theme a LOT stronger than the shaggy dog ending, I can't really agree with you.
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Dec 14, 2016 15:53
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Do you have any hot takes about the Transformer movies?
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Dec 14, 2016 16:24
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Here's a hot take, Playtest was a good television show episode, just not as good as some other television show episodes in this Black Mirror series.
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Dec 14, 2016 16:30
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King Vidiot posted:Here's a hot take, Playtest was a good television show episode, just not as good as some other television show episodes in this Black Mirror series. Nah, I just can't face the fact that without video games to distract me that my life is just emptiness. I can't handle it.
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Dec 14, 2016 16:40
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Black Mirror doesn't strike me as a message show. It's a theme show, where each episode explores a different theme with technology being the overarching catalyst, but without being structured like a fable and having a moral at the end. I think one of the most important themes on the show is the difference between perception (even collective perception) and reality. Black Mirror consistently tells us stories where either the audience or the characters (or both) perceive the world in one way, but reality is something else. I don't mean a  -style twist where long-lingering questions are finally answered and It's Not What You Expected, but one where reality itself turns out to be something other than what it seemed, and everything you thought you knew about it is called into question. Sometimes it's a complete upheaval of the concept of reality (White Bear, White Christmas, San Junipero, Men Against Fire) and sometimes it's subtler, like The National Anthem's plot turning out to be a trick (on everyone) performed as an artistic statement or Shut Up And Dance blindsiding the audience and perhaps making them question every opinion they held over the past hour (I saw the twist coming the first time he said "I, er, just looked at some photos" but I still wasn't sure). Other episodes play with the concept of what "real" really means (Be Right Back, The Waldo Moment, San Junipero again, Playtest). 15 Million Merits and Nosedive are both about societies where fake is real and real is fake.I think the most successful episodes of the show are the ones that tap into the anxiety of not really knowing what is happening or why, no matter how readily apparent it may seem. I dunno about anyone else but of all the movies I've seen in my life, The Truman Show is probably the one I think about the most all these years later, and Black Mirror hits a lot of the same notes. (For some people it's probably The Matrix for similar reasons). I think the idea that reality is not necessarily what it seems is simultaneously one of the scariest and most attractive concepts we can conceive of as humans, which is why it's so thrilling to explore that idea (see: conspiracy theorists and people who earnestly say "red pill"), and also why the quality of Black Mirror episodes seems to correlate with prevalence of that theme pretty closely (in my opinion). The Entire History Of You doesn't really explore that theme, but it wasn't written by Charlie Brooker, so it kind of sits alone in my mind. Hated in the Nation doesn't really either, and that seems to be generally agreed upon as the weak link of season 3. Both are good episodes of TV, but I think people rightly identify them as missing the usual tone of Black Mirror. Those two in particular are about allowing technology to get the better of us, whereas the other ones largely explore what's real and what's not (and how people react to that) and use technology as the framing device. I liked The Waldo Moment well enough. One complaint I hear about it is that Waldo is apparently supposed to be funny (in the reality of the show) and yet he doesn't say anything remotely funny in the episode. Being familiar with Charlie Brooker through his various Wipes over the years, I can't help but feel that's a bit of a commentary on pop culture itself, but I can understand how that point might be lost or deemed irrelevant if you just want to take episode as it is without having to consider who wrote it or why. Charlie Brooker definitely can write funny, so the fact that Waldo is so abrasive and unfunny and yet people eat it up anyway definitely seems intentional to me. It was the weakest episode by a long shot but it wasn't nearly as bad (or as hokey) as I anticipated from peoples' reactions to it.
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Dec 14, 2016 20:51
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Dec 15, 2016 09:13
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San Junipero is LA Weekly's best episode of the year of any show, and they make a compelling case. http://www.laweekly.com/arts/why-an-episode-of-black-mirror-was-the-single-best-thing-on-tv-in-2016-7685879 Spoilers at the link.
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Dec 15, 2016 20:47
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theblackw0lf posted:San Junipero is LA Weekly's best episode of the year of any show, and they make a compelling case. Yeah I stopped reading right around the time they started making GBS threads on both Westworld and Stranger Things. San Junipero is still an excellent episode, or maybe even Media Thing of the Year, but gently caress whoever wrote that article I mean goddamn.
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Dec 16, 2016 01:51
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theblackw0lf posted:San Junipero is LA Weekly's best episode of the year of any show, and they make a compelling case. I was with them until they claimed Stranger Things was cynical. That show's a lot of things, but cynical isn't one of them. Maybe the nostalgia doesn't connect with you, but I totally believe the earnestness of that project. (They're right about Westworld, though. I like it, but it's a sterile and alienating show, and not necessarily in good ways.)
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Dec 16, 2016 02:18
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Xealot posted:I was with them until they claimed Stranger Things was cynical. That show's a lot of things, but cynical isn't one of them. Maybe the nostalgia doesn't connect with you, but I totally believe the earnestness of that project.
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Dec 16, 2016 02:27
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Volte posted:I liked The Waldo Moment well enough. One complaint I hear about it is that Waldo is apparently supposed to be funny (in the reality of the show) and yet he doesn't say anything remotely funny in the episode. Being familiar with Charlie Brooker through his various Wipes over the years, I can't help but feel that's a bit of a commentary on pop culture itself, but I can understand how that point might be lost or deemed irrelevant if you just want to take episode as it is without having to consider who wrote it or why. King Vidiot posted:Yeah I stopped reading right around the time they started making GBS threads on both Westworld and Stranger Things. San Junipero is still an excellent episode, or maybe even Media Thing of the Year, but gently caress whoever wrote that article I mean goddamn. (I think part of the praise goes to the fact it dropped out of nowhere, was well constructed, and basically operated like a sleeper hit for summer despite it being available in its entirety and not following the Standard TV Way. LA Weekly thinks this doesn't deserve some recognition, apparently). FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 02:33
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I can't tell if I've just always lived in a world in which every piece of media I enjoy had at least three angry thinkpieces talking about how it's actually quite bad, one in an embarrassing attempt to be clever-angry with all caps and swear words, with a clickbait article with "poo poo" in the headline, one posited as an intellectual critique with a bunch of ten dollar words assigning themes and motivations that weren't present in the work, and one that's incoherent and seems unable to express what the author disliked, but I hate it.
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Dec 16, 2016 03:11
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As someone rather comfortable with my own mortality, I'll have to say that's not it about Playtest. It's banal to think that realizing you're going to die is an important thing to comprehend and confront. There's not much you can do about it. Playtest was a decent idea, but the nonsense technology, the pacing and the nonsense* ending just ruined it. * It was nonsense because it didn't take the idea of waking from a nightmare to another nightmare far enough. A realistic view of that poo poo could easily have half a dozen "twist" endings but key to doing that ending in a realistic way would have to make actual reality incomprehensible once it's actually woken up to.
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Dec 16, 2016 08:30
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