1604

Middleditch and Schwartz was fun! As always with improv, the most fun comes from the knowledge that it’s improv and watching them react to each others’ cues, forget past decisions (like character names), and sometimes purposefully make things hard or embarrassing for each other.

1605

The Midnight Gospel is a project by Pendleton Ward (of Adventure Time fame) and a comedian named Duncan Trussell (whom Wikipedia says has a free-form conversational podcast). The premise is that the main character Clancy travels to different simulated universes and interviews subjects for his “space cast”.

The trailer makes it look like some kind of psychadelic journey, a la Enter the Void. In reality, the weirdness just provides a backdrop for the interviews, which are what the show is really about. In the first episode, Clancy travels to an Earth that is overrun with zombies, and the first person he meets is the American president. Their conversation revolves around drug use and the nature of consciousness while they’re traversing the landscape and killing zombies.

It’s aggressively weird, but I like what I’ve watched so far. If you liked all the weird random shit that happens in Adventure Time, but you wished the characters were having mild-mannered conversations about existentialism, then this is worth a shot!

1606

Jerry Seinfeld’s new comedy special on Netflix:

This is the first stand-up special I’ve ever seen from Seinfeld (except the bits that they show on Seinfeld, cut into his sitcom). So I was not really familiar with him other than his show’s stand up bits.

When he opened with that bit about how going out is a worthless bit of nothing, implying that the audience were just wasting their time and money to come out to see him, I felt like it was a very bold way to start the show, to be so hostile to the audience. I felt it was actively hostile towards me, and I almost turned it off, but I was also intrigued if he could bring the audience back after that. Because they weren’t laughing much.

And then he assures them, no, but thank you so much for making the time to come out, he really appreciates it. I thought it was a bit of a cop out. He did win them back for a bit, and me as well. But then he starts on that 5 minutes on Pop Tarts, and I definitely tuned out, I couldn’t even listen to half that bit. But then he started talking about married life, and how it’s different from being single. And I was in. I thought the whole special was really well constructed. He even ended with a self-deprecating bit about why he was out doing comedy when he didn’t need to be (to get away from his wife), that I felt was a good call-back and a good explanation for why he started out the way he did.

The only inexplicable bit I can’t explain is the 5 minutes on cereal/pop-tarts. That was just a waste of everyone’s time.

My favorite joke in the special, is only for people who already have seen the special, so I’ll spoiler it in a details tab:

Raising a daughter who is 18

“So my daughter is 18. She just finished high school. She’s going off to college…Everybody is asking me: ‘How do you feel Jerry, first kid, leaving the house?’ And you know, what, I’m okay.

The way I look at it is that it’s like if you somehow found a baby alligator. And you put it in your tub…and you feel the little…bitey…teeth.

And then time passes, and you think — You know, I think we have to get this thing the hell out here! This doesn’t feel right anymore. This thing is…it’s scary. This thing needs to be out there, murdering other living things and eating them!”

1607

I believe the pop tart stuff is recycled from years ago, just like the going out thing. I turned it off quickly so no idea if the rest of it was just as stale and recycled. I can’t imagine he’d open with ancient jokes and then proceed into new stuff though so I assume it was just a mailed in effort all the way through.

1608

It was not! He got married and had kids after the show ended, if my math is right (his eldest daughter is 18). So most of the show was about that.

1609

Man, if you think that’s being hostile to your audience, you need to see more standup.

1610

Another wacky Netflix series coming your way.

https://youtu.be/An0bZpuhiBE

1611

As someone who once co-wrote a script for “Martin Luther: Kung Fu Master”, I could be down for that.

1612

That looks like absolute trash, but I have to admit it might be my kind of trash.

Is it trying too hard with the Buffy parallels though?

1613

A retelling of Arthurian legend … (OK, could be interesting, though the track record is spotty.)

… where magic users are persecuted … (Hardly an original trope, but nothing wrong with it)

… and a young woman is the one who wields Excalibur … (Apparently, at least - she’s Nimue, so who knows how old she’s supposed to be. Bit overdone recently, but again, nothing intrinsically wrong with it, given the right creative team…)

… from Frank Miller. (OH DEAR GOD NO.)

1614

I am gonna end up watching that , love me some Excalibur.

1615

looks like we’re going with the timeline from Fate Stay/Night for this movie…

1616

So I just watched this Korean movie on Netflix called The Witch Part 1 The Subversion and I’m not going to give any details other than to say it’s in the “speculative fiction” and “very F-ing dark” categories, and I liked the heck out of it. Outstanding IMO.

Has anyone else checked this out?

1617

Is there a part 2? Or are you left hanging after part 1?

Also, not to be too pedantic or thread cop ish but this is the TV show thread not the movie thread!

1618

I watched the first two episodes last night.

I like the show. I like the observations the show has in nearly every scene that are subtle reminders of how different things were back then.

I only hope they blend in more jokes as the show keeps going. So far the show is good, but it’s very heavy and kind of disturbing at times. I’m going to need them to cut that in with some more humor.

That first episode made me feel really, really bad. Their younger son uses a magnet on their brand new color TV that they just spent all their savings on, and breaks the TV. I did something similar when I was really young back in 1980. I found this out later when I was older, but our family was run as a sort of democracy by my Dad when it came to spending the family savings on big expenses. My two eldest brothers were old enough to vote and they wanted a color TV. My mom was against it, so my Dad’s vote could make it a tie, which wasn’t enough to make the purchase, or he could go for it. But it was outrageously expensive and would require most of the family savings at the time. And they went for it.

When it arrived, I was really young, but I remember being excited and I discovered that there was a dial on the back of the TV which you could turn and the picture on the TV would rotate downward or upward. So when no one else was around, I’d make it rotate up and down, since when people saw me do it, they immediately admonish me. And one day I was doing it, but when I tried to make the picture stop rotating, no matter how much I turned that dial, it wouldn’t stop.

Ugh. Man, such a bad memory, it still makes my stomach churn. Thankfully it turned out much better for this family in the TV show.

I like that the show is centered around the dad, and yet, I find the Dad extremely unlikable, especially in the first episode. I’m a little more open to him after the second episode though.

1619

My recall is that outright jokes are very few. There are some but far fewer than comparable animated series. Humour is offered in the parody and farce and mirror of reality. There are some fairly comic situations and relationships.

Frank . . . kinda grows on you, maybe. His insane rants become comic relief moments and also serve to endear him to you a bit. His character is one under huge pressures, with little joy, and lots of regret. I began to sympathize and empathize with him more and more, transitioning away from initial coldness.

Hope you enjoy . . . . season 4 is incoming and top of my watch list!

1620

Season 4 came out last week. That’s what put this back on my radar again.

1621

There is a new season of Sinner up. It’s an interesting show with Bill Pullman doing his best queasy-discomfort-inducing work, as an aging detective with few or no social skills.

1622

Floor Is Lava is…kind of stupid/awesome. Turns out watching normal people try to not fall into pretend lava is damn entertaining.

1623

James Acaster has a 3 stand-up specials on Netflix (or a 3-part special). Netflix has been pushing them pretty hard on me every single time I subscribe to the service, so I finally succumbed to it being in my face all the time.

And I’m glad I did. The first part is really bonkers funny. It’s a stand-up who is an undercover cop, and his exploits are hilarious.

I also watched the 2nd one from Acaster, and it wasn’t nearly as funny though. So I’m not sure if I should even bother watching the 3rd one. Still, that first one was really funny.