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MrMojok posted:Thread has gotten really loving gross with the nonstop suggestions of what Jerusalem should do next. jerusalem has plenty to go on, but i think it's a p chill discussion mrmojok
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May 9, 2020 13:35
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MrMojok posted:Thread has gotten really loving gross with the nonstop suggestions of what Jerusalem should do next. What in tarnation
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May 9, 2020 14:36
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BiggerBoat posted:Boardwalk Empire was one of those things where I feel like I'm supposed to like it more than I do.
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May 9, 2020 14:40
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MrMojok posted:Thread has gotten really loving gross with the nonstop suggestions of what Jerusalem should do next. counterpoint: jump directly up your own rear end
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May 9, 2020 15:17
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Ishamael posted:counterpoint: jump directly up your own rear end I’m not sure someone who interprets ‘universal praise and compliments and people begging him to write books so we can pay for his writing but if you don’t please make another thread so we can keep reading your stuff’ as ingratitude is intelligent enough to find his own rear end. Still, he stole the ‘oval office mouths’ thing from Deadwood, he has that going for him.
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May 9, 2020 15:44
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Eau de MacGowan posted:i'm going to ask the crucial question about the finale: MrMojok posted:Am I the only one who laughs out loud at that scene every time? There is something just so over-the-top there, and it has to be intentional Chris Elliot does a really funny recreation of this scene on his Adult Swim show Eagleheart and I cannot for the life of me find it to share with you. It's a perfect shot for shot gag.
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May 9, 2020 16:19
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Another Bill posted:Chris Elliot does a really funny recreation of this scene on his Adult Swim show Eagleheart and I cannot for the life of me find it to share with you. It's a perfect shot for shot gag.
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May 9, 2020 18:28
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MrMojok posted:Thread has gotten really loving gross with the nonstop suggestions of what Jerusalem should do next. "I agree in spirit, but I gotta counsel"  Mr Mojok: "Make it happen!" escape artist fucked around with this message at 19:09 on May 9, 2020 |
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May 9, 2020 19:07
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Between getting the structural integrity of his skull wrecked by a bullet, and brittle old man bones, I think a skull pop is reasonable.
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May 9, 2020 19:13
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Are there any interviews about the scene in question because it's wildly slapstick but also a great catharsis for the series.
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May 9, 2020 19:24
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Torquemada posted:Still, he stole the ‘oval office mouths’ thing from Deadwood, he has that going for him. So another vote for Deadwood.
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May 9, 2020 20:10
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Solice Kirsk posted:So another vote for Deadwood. I had been planning to do Deadwood, actually. I mentioned it a few months ago in the Deadwood thread but it got away from me. (I'm not as good as Jerusalem, obviously, but I DID start the Wire thread  )
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May 9, 2020 21:39
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Deadwood owns so hard.
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May 9, 2020 22:28
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Deadwood feels like it would be perfect for these write-ups. Milch stuck so much philosophy into that show. And I loved watching the behind the scenes stuff, seeing how Milch constructs scenes and dialogue. The dude is an enigma. Season 3's dialogue is among my favorite dialogue of any piece of art, ever. I would be willing to do the write-ups under a few circumstances. I have severe chronic pain that sometimes makes it hard to sit and write. So if you guys were wiling to be patient with me, and if anyone wanted to sub in and do an episode write-up from time to time, I would be willing to tackle this beast. There is so much to mine, I think we could have amazing discussions. Hell, maybe Jerusalem could do a few too. Let him pick his favorite episodes of the series and he can do those. Whaddya guys think? Deadwood was so good that John From Cincinatti was really entertaining because of the Milchy trappings. Like an Ed O'Neil, Swearengen-esque monologue. PS. Can someone find my old Mouzone avatar for me? I feel naked without it. escape artist fucked around with this message at 23:48 on May 9, 2020 |
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May 9, 2020 23:28
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escape artist posted:There is so much to mine, I think we could have amazing discussions. Hell, maybe Jerusalem could do a few too. Let him pick his favorite episodes of the series and he can do those. Whaddya guys think? I mean this in all seriousness, if you do that thread then I absolutely DEMAND you let me write up A Two-Headed Beast from season 3. I would also love to do the 2-parter opener to season 2: A Lie Agreed Upon.
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May 10, 2020 00:41
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I think Mad Men also is a helpful show in that it helps explain why boomers are the way they are. Seeing them as kids I won't say absolves them of crappy things they have done. However I think the show helped me contextualize how and why their generation/our parents turned out the way they did given the world they grew up in.
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May 10, 2020 04:37
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Jerusalem posted:I mean this in all seriousness, if you do that thread then I absolutely DEMAND you let me write up A Two-Headed Beast from season 3. I would also love to do the 2-parter opener to season 2: A Lie Agreed Upon. That is a favorite episode of mine too, A Two Headed Beast, but you got it. Love that fight.
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May 10, 2020 04:38
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Xander77 posted:Boardwalk Empire could have been a really good story about the establishment of Murder Inc., but for some reason this side character with no relevance to the narrative got an inordinate amount of focus. Whenever the story moved away from New York and Chicago to focus on characters and places no one cares about, it was basically deliberate ratings suicide. Hadn't thought of it this way, but that's true. Boardwalk Empire started out as a really promising period piece and even the goofs were things you could kinda gloss over because they had a lot of talented actors/crew/etc. (Although they still did a lot of that stuff where they'd drum it out how VERY in the 20's you are, like in Gangs of NY where it had these bloody gutterdwellers saying corny poo poo like "aw, she's a prim-lookin' stargazer!"  ) The big trouble with the show is that it just turns into a mess after the second season - and really an episode or two before, as another poster mentioned. It just had no sense of direction anymore.There was also something curiously out of place with the main protags, the mob leaders. They were all shown in a black-and-white "here's how they look in society and here's their true nature" view, which made their tenderness seem less convincing and their ruthlessness seem random and poorly thought out.
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May 10, 2020 18:45
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I still enjoyed Boardwalk Empire's third season immensely (Bobby Cannavale is amazing) but I agree that it did feel very aimless overall. Season 5 skipping ahead years, and missing a lot of good stuff while doing so, was an enormous mistake and pretty much killed any enjoyment I still had with it.
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May 10, 2020 19:15
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Vichan posted:I still enjoyed Boardwalk Empire's third season immensely (Bobby Cannavale is amazing) but I agree that it did feel very aimless overall. I can't help wondering what the show would have been like if someone like Cannavale had been the lead instead of Buscemi. Very, very different energy. But yeah, Season 5 is pretty much inexplicable to me other than 'okay, people don't love this absurdly expensive show, so I guess we'll just rush to the end.' I think it probably dipped below mediocre at some point there especially since it's one of my least favorite finales ever.
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May 10, 2020 19:31
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I didn't have any problems with Buscemi as the lead - or any of the performances. Buscemi was good. All the actors were good. I think it was more having to do with the script and the story telling. It just sort of wandered from side plot to side plot with no real stakes or any real dramatic tension in a way that robbed me of a rooting interest. For a show about prohibition era corruption, murder, extortion, crooked cops, bribery, adultery, gambling, smuggling, syphilis, rigged elections and overall Shady poo poo...none of it really went anywhere in a way that was exciting or made me give much of a drat for some reason. The acting, cinematography and direction were all top tier. The show LOOKED and FELT like it was Prestige Television and made me want to care about it but, despite myself, I just rarely gave a poo poo what happened to any of the characters or able to engage myself in the story the way I was The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad or Six Feet Under. Not even sure why really but the fact that I tuned out somewhere during the second season and can't remember hardly anything about it is telling. It wasn't even a conscious decision to stop watching. I just...stopped...and never felt compelled, addicted to it or locked in enough to go back and see what I missed.
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May 10, 2020 20:33
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I just finished watching the series for the first time. It’s probably now in my top three, along with Breaking Bad and The Wire.
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May 11, 2020 00:22
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Jack2142 posted:I think Mad Men also is a helpful show in that it helps explain why boomers are the way they are. Seeing them as kids I won't say absolves them of crappy things they have done. However I think the show helped me contextualize how and why their generation/our parents turned out the way they did given the world they grew up in. Mad Men does nothing to explain why boomers lack any sense of empathy for others. Growing up in the great post-war heyday might make you expect a certain standard of life but it doesn't create the need to look down at people struggling to get by and spit on them for not working hard enough.
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May 11, 2020 01:52
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Yeah, Boardwalk Empire was fantastic for four straight seasons. But then they did a shortened fifth season that jumped ahead to 1931 and by doing so skipped a bunch of important poo poo that happened in 1927, like Rothstein's death, Frankie Yale's death, the meeting in Atlantic City that was an early attempt at what eventually became the Five Families, etc. They should have gone with a full season and split it between 1927 and 1931, and rejected the ridiculous loving "I'm Tommy Darmody and I'm going to shoot you in the face" ending. Switching gears, I tend to stay away from the final scene debates because there are far too many people that are absolutely convinced that they're correct and they approach any discussion with "Hey, you're a loving idiot if you don't see that Tony is dead/alive!" and I don't care for that at all. Is there a way we can agree that, when Jerusalem posts the episode, we don't devolve into that?
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May 11, 2020 15:39
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No. 
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May 11, 2020 17:34
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But we went to different schools together!
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May 11, 2020 17:36
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Pope Corky the IX posted:Switching gears, I tend to stay away from the final scene debates because there are far too many people that are absolutely convinced that they're correct and they approach any discussion with "Hey, you're a loving idiot if you don't see that Tony is dead/alive!" and I don't care for that at all. Is there a way we can agree that, when Jerusalem posts the episode, we don't devolve into that? Is there anyone who thinks someone's a loving idiot for not thinking Tony's alive? I mean, I've seen people invested enough into their read of the show to insist Tony's DEFINITELY dead, I think one of the goons in this thread wrote a multi-page thesis on all the foreshadowing and theming that went into the last season to prove it. But I've never heard anyone insisting that he's alive because of X, Y, and Z -- I can't even imagine what X, Y, and Z would be, compared to all the gunshot death metaphors and everything.
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May 11, 2020 17:44
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The ending with Tony, whatever happened there.
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May 11, 2020 17:44
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i think the debate has been pretty conclusively settled by now no matter what you used to believe he's obviously alive and well
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May 11, 2020 17:47
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Phenotype posted:Is there anyone who thinks someone's a loving idiot for not thinking Tony's alive? I mean, I've seen people invested enough into their read of the show to insist Tony's DEFINITELY dead, I think one of the goons in this thread wrote a multi-page thesis on all the foreshadowing and theming that went into the last season to prove it. But I've never heard anyone insisting that he's alive because of X, Y, and Z -- I can't even imagine what X, Y, and Z would be, compared to all the gunshot death metaphors and everything. It doesn't matter whether people are arguing whether or not he's dead or alive or what the gently caress ever, I have no issue with that. My problem is the fact that people get so ridiculously passionate about it to the point of being obtuse and myopic and insulting, and that would be a terrible way to end this excellent thread.
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May 11, 2020 18:23
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Pope Corky the IX posted:It doesn't matter whether people are arguing whether or not he's dead or alive or what the gently caress ever, I have no issue with that. My problem is the fact that people get so ridiculously passionate about it to the point of being obtuse and myopic and insulting, and that would be a terrible way to end this excellent thread. Seems like a fitting end tbh, considering that's how the series ended in real life. People were arguing about that poo poo for months. Anyway the people who insisted Tony is still alive were mostly the older crowd who were used to standard network t.v. and so their position was "they didn't show him being killed, so that's the end of the discussion, if I didn't see it, it didn't happen." And that was a much more understandable position back in 2005/2006 before prestige television completely took over and became much more prevalent and accepted. Like, back then the CBS Blue Bloods crowd and the prestige HBO crowd had a lot more overlap than they do today. In 2020 if you're still watching everything through the lens of standard network t.v. then you're basically living on an island, you're in the extreme minority.
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May 11, 2020 18:48
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Boardwalk Empire reminds me a little bit of Westworld (although it's less bad) in that there's no real reason for a lot of the characters to actually be on the show. They started with a setup, with some characters, some ideas, and by the end of season 2 all of that had been blown up, but instead of following through they just kept people around for no real reason. Pope Corky the IX posted:skipped a bunch of important poo poo that happened in 1927, like Rothstein's death, Frankie Yale's death, the meeting in Atlantic City that was an early attempt at what eventually became the Five Families, etc. The actual real-world mafia stuff on the show was never particularly good outside of Rothstein's performance. If anything, part of the problem with S5 is that Nucky's real-life enemies don't come across as formidable in any real way. Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 19:03 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 18:56
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We're all getting ahead of the reviews, but I really think the best argument for Tony being alive is that we never saw him die and many of us wanted him to survive. Of course we didn't see Adriana die either, but still know she's dead from context, so I don't buy it. I really resisted the conclusion that he died for a while, because it didn't feel necessary to me for him to have died (and young me sympathized more with murderous protagonists than today me does), but even David Chase has referred to it as a death scene. I think there's enough room to take it how you want to take it (and to the extent that authorial intent matters, obviously Chase's reluctance to talk about things for a while was meant to give viewers the option to do that, even if he blabbed too much in the years since then), but the signs all point in one direction for me. If someone takes it the other way though, that's fine too--like I said, I wanted to see it that way for a long time too.
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May 11, 2020 19:09
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Sinteres posted:We're all getting ahead of the reviews, but I really think the best argument for Tony being alive is that we never saw him die and many of us wanted him to survive. Of course we didn't see Adriana die either, but still know she's dead from context, so I don't buy it. I really resisted the conclusion that he died for a while, because it didn't feel necessary to me for him to have died (and young me sympathized more with murderous protagonists than today me does), but even David Chase has referred to it as a death scene. I think there's enough room to take it how you want to take it (and to the extent that authorial intent matters, obviously Chase's reluctance to talk about things for a while was meant to give viewers the option to do that, even if he blabbed too much in the years since then), but the signs all point in one direction for me. If someone takes it the other way though, that's fine too--like I said, I wanted to see it that way for a long time too. I was unsure the first time I watched it live but later, when I watched the 6th season again especially, I think Tony's death is foreshadowed without subtlety. e : And then, yeah Chase just blurted it out by accident.
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May 11, 2020 19:16
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Vichan posted:The ending with Tony, whatever happened there. "WHATEVER HAPPENED THERE?!" I'm in the Tony died camp 100% but I don't ever recall ever thinking anyone was stupid for thinking otherwise. Also, LOL, I remember a small percentage of fans thinking Ade could still be alive since her murder happened off screen
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May 11, 2020 19:36
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I used to be in the 'Tony was alive' camp until, well, for one thing Chase outright said it but I'm still of the opinion it doesn't exactly matter what happens to Tony at that point that he's turned away from every possible chance to change. As he says there's two endings for a guy like him, dead or in the can. I'm not particularly fussed as to the particulars of said end, just that Tony chose it.
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May 11, 2020 19:42
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Sinteres posted:I think there's enough room to take it how you want to take it (and to the extent that authorial intent matters, obviously Chase's reluctance to talk about things for a while was meant to give viewers the option to do that, even if he blabbed too much in the years since then), but the signs all point in one direction for me. That's what I mean -- there are a ton of signs that Tony was headed for his death, but there aren't any clues, as far as I know, pointing toward him getting a happy ending. Obviously the final scene left it ambiguous in that you don't actually see him get shot, but all the clues point towards the cut to black being the moment Tony dies. They make a point of having a conversation where they talk about how you probably don't even know it when you get whacked, but there's no alternative conversation where they talk about all the mob guys who kill their rival and then live long and happy lives. There's no answer to what the black screen means or why they did it if you're assuming Tony lives. Should we spoiler this? Or possibly save this conversation for the final review? IDK.
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May 11, 2020 19:48
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I read it as "Tony lives" for like a decade, because that just felt more true to the tone of the show; Tony has "won" but at great cost to his organization. One of his capos has flipped, and Tony's attorney has told him that he will be indicted sooner rather than later. In his personal life, he's tried to keep his kids away from his business for their entire lives, and now Meadow's marrying the son of one of his soldiers (a man who hates him, knowing that Tony had his twin brother killed,) and he's looping AJ into working with a "retired" (but still very much connected) boss. The stressors just keep multiplying. This is the Hell he has chosen to live in, for the rest of his life, however long that may be. It goes on, and on, and on, and on. Then, however, posts earlier in this thread flipped me, such as pointing out things like the repetition of certain shots/framing across episodes in the final season, and how idiosyncratic the set decoration is for the final scene (the high school mural with the tiger and the football players wearing 22 and 38 jerseys really sticks out - just a number of oddly specific changes to make for something that's seen once or twice, for a second, in the background.) Add that to the "bell ringing/Tony looking up/POV shot" construction that ends on a shot of nothing...it gets harder and harder to read it any other way. (That said, I always thought and still do think that the importance of the "You probably don't hear it coming" conversation was inflated, since both Bobby's first hit and his own death demonstrated that isn't the case at all; sometimes you see it coming, you hear it, and it's not neat or clean in any way.) And yeah, Chase himself calling it "the death scene" in that interview last year and then having to walk it back, that's definitely a key clue. That said: You can definitely interpret it both ways and make a good case for either. It's drat masterful. JethroMcB fucked around with this message at 20:47 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 20:28
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Jesus it has started already. Let's at least finish the finale before the thread comes unglued over the last scene.
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May 11, 2020 20:41
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JethroMcB posted:Then, however, posts earlier in this thread flipped me, such as pointing out things like the repetition of certain shots/framing across episodes in the final season, and how idiosyncratic the set decoration is for the final scene (the high school mural with the tiger and the football players wearing 22 and 38 jerseys really sticks out - just a number of oddly specific changes to make for something that's seen once or twice, for a second, in the background.) In a long interview for the Archive of American Television, David Chase said: Q: You think you will reveal your though process? A: I don't know. Probably not. It's no big mystery. There's not a lot of mystery to it. Y'know... it was also fun, to a certain extent, all these crazy explanations, and the guy who wrote 230 pages about onion rings and communion wafers... it was fun. It reminded me of the whole walrus thing, the walrus is Paul and all... (laughs) just insane. I don't get the sense that Chase is the type of showrunner that'd pay attention to this kind of idiosyncratic set decoration or whatever.
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May 11, 2020 20:56
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