Bannon
-
Posts
3.0k -
Joined
Content Type
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Discussion
Posts posted by Bannon
-
-
4 hours ago, Cotypubby said:
They way they were romanticizing Navarro’s longing to commit suicide as some kind of celebrated Native ritual to meet with her ancestors was pretty gross, especially with her being so upset when her sister killer herself earlier.
You said it better than I. There was some Magic Mystical Indian stuff in this season that really rubbed me the wrong way, in the way it dealt with suicide.
-
1
-
-
3 hours ago, Lassus said:
You're certainly allowed not to like it, but this criticism is a bit odd to me because the science was supposed to be world-changing enough for scientists to murder over it. The story needs for that science to be beyond real-world sense. You may not like it, but to me it's like discarding Ocean's 11 for the odder, reality-stretching bits in that or any other non-documentary film.
The most nonsensical part was the notion that pollution from mining was needed to thaw the permafrost sufficiently to recover ancient DNA. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
-
7
-
1
-
-
35 minutes ago, violet and green said:
I found the romanticisation of suicide throughout the series - from the opening credits track, Julia's death, Travis's death as told by Rose, and Navarro's ambiguous ending - pretty reprehensible. Didn't get a warning on any episode, or the usual hotline numbers afterwards, either.
Yeah, I don't think Navarro's suicide was especially ambiguous; her ghostly appearance in full winter trooper apparel on the porch, month's later, is pretty blatant, and as you rightly note, highly romanticized. Really, really, dumb, and if the implication is that this is how this particular native culture treats the phenomena of suicide of young, physically healthy, people, I'm pretty skeptical.
-
4
-
1
-
-
4 minutes ago, Affogato said:
Of course the story had flaws, but most of the details you mention were not the main story. Most of the complaints are things that make sense or are justifiable in story. They are set up for the main story. The main story is in the present time.
Also I don’t think there was enough science to pass judgements on, and I’m an old SF buff. i can suspend disbelief.
Julia did despair of peace, Navarro had wheeler and later Clarke’s deaths to reconcile.
We're simply going to.have to agree to disagree that this story makes sense.
-
1
-
-
25 minutes ago, Affogato said:
I think the details of the mytery were covered. Certainly I’ve looked over this forum and most of the problems with the story seem to be based more in a general dissatisfaction with the story that was told, and a wish to justify their dissatisfaction. It is, of course, okay not to like something without it being flawed.
I'll never try to tell someone that they should not like what they like, but.similarly, I also will never try to tell someone that that their dislike of a work is something they are trying to justify, since the work is without flaw. I didn't like this story for varied reasons. One of the more prominent ones was that the science put forth as supplying the central motivation for the 1st murder, and thus subsequent murders, is nonsensical. I didn't like it because we never spend any time with the characters who committed the 1st murder, and thus they are never really shown as real human beings with psychological complexity that results in a rather bizarre murder. They're just plot advancement devices, which is something that fiction needs at times, but hopefully not as central elements of what starts the plot in motion. I dislike the story element of the suicide of a young, physically healthy woman, being portrayed as peaceful, psychologically affirming event, as opposed to what my too-extensive experience with such suicides has been, which is that they are acts of profound despair, despair that is rooted in an inability to broaden one's horizons.
I could go on extensively with other elements in this story that I think were quite flawed, but like I said, I'm not trying to tell someone that they should not like it. There were elements that I liked, which is why I watched to the end. Ultimately, however, I didn't think the writing was good.
-
13
-
1
-
2
-
-
At least the writers for this trainwreck didn't put cobwebs in the ice tunnels, like the writers for the last season did in the tunnels below the spooky mansion in the last season. I swear, if they have another one of these dumpster fires, they gotta add a funky, 70s-style, van for the central characters to tool around in, and a huge Great Dane dog, that can approximate human speech.
-
Good gawd, that was too tedious for words, to the point that if I were to try to specifically explain why in detail, I wouldn't know where to start. You can have tremendous acting, but if the writing is awful, there's nothing to be done. Ugh.
-
12
-
-
I've not found the writing, in terms of dialogue or plotting, to be anywhere close to the acting talent, and that's really unfortunate. As far as direction, when a major character like Navarro has a miraculous recovery from a severe beating, within a few days, well, that's just really lazy. Ugh.
This season rubs me the same way the previous saesons have; great early potential and acting that fizzles out, due to subpar writing.
-
3
-
-
1 hour ago, Crashcourse said:
What was it that Lorraine gave to Roy in prison?
A pack of cigarettes, as a way of taunting him, given cigarettes in prison is currency, and she's just told Roy that she's essentially put a large number of the prisoners on her payroll, for the specific job of tormenting Roy on a daily basis.
-
3
-
-
Witt died because, unlike Dot, he wasn't fully immersed in the nature of Roy Tillman, and thus tried to reason with someone entirely immune to reason. Roy being in law enforcement likely added to Trooper Witt's hesitancy. You'll notice Dot didn't hesitate to try to put a round into Roy, center-mass, as soon Roy rounded the corner of the porch.
-
4
-
-
1 hour ago, Dev F said:
That scene in No Country for Old Men was the first thing I thought of, too—but for me it just reinforced my growing realization this season that I much prefer the Coen brothers' take on this sort of material to Noah Hawley's take in the last three seasons or so.
In No Country, Carla Jean stands up to the spooky murderer come to collect her debt the same way Dot does. But, crucially, part of the way she does that is by puncturing his air of possibly supernatural malevolence. He tries to get her to go along with the self-important coin-flip ritual he's used throughout the film to guide his killings, but she dismisses the whole idea: "The coin don't have no say. It's just you." Possibly at the cost of her life, she refuses to validate the idea that he's some agent of divine destiny. And her skepticism is quickly validated: as he leaves her house, he's wounded in a car accident that under any normal understanding is completely random, but by the murderer's own standards is an indictment of him: "If the road you followed brought you to this, of what use was the road?"
The first couple seasons of Fargo were in keeping with that more existential perspective. Season 1 ended with Malvo, the self-appointed devil figure, being gunned down like a normal man. Season 2 had Hanzee, this unflappable specter of vengeance, turning himself into just another crime boss whose empire eventually gets washed into the sea. But in more recent years we've gotten these figures like Ole Munch or V. M. Varga whose supernatural mien is never deflated. Indeed, Munch gets a redemption arc based around the firsthand confirmation that he actually is some sort of immortal sin eater. His mien is not just unpunctured in the end, it's inflated!
Now, this kind of heavy-handed magical realism is a valid form of storytelling, of course, but as I mentioned in the discussion for the episode "Linda," I'm starting to realize how far it takes the series from what I love about the Coen brothers' source material. As I said there, the Coens have a neo-noir sensibility in which the punishment for bad behavior is the inescapable logic of unintended consequences: The road you followed brought you to this. But Hawley's perspective seems to rely too obviously on external intervention—either supernatural influence or just the heavy hand of the writer—to mete out punishment and convey meaning. And that changes the mode of the storytelling from neo-noir to morality play: Be good or the boogey man will eat you. And that's really not what I'm looking for in a Coen pastiche series.
1 hour ago, Dev F said:I also prefer the Coen brothers take on such themes, but I still liked this quite a bit, no doubt in good measure due to the acting being so uniformly great. As I stated in another thread, I've met self-made midwestern tycoon women like Lorraine, and am astounded that JJL just nailed that real-life character, right down to the self-designed accent! Really astonishing stuff, and Temple, Hamm, and the others were on the same level. Bravo! I'll also say that even if I find some fault in the storytelling, it's wonderful to have a show like this with real ambition.
Finally, how often do you get a finale that takes the time to accurately observe that competently crafted bankruptcy law is critical to a well-functioning society!
-
12
-
-
I really want to like this show, and this season in particular, and there is so much to like; actors, setting, cinematography.
In the end, there is just too much supernatural stuff for me. I can take it in a show like "Fargo", because it isn't featured in every 3rd scene. Here, it predominates, and it just isn't my genre.
-
7
-
1
-
-
8 hours ago, Bannon said:
No, it's not the most tightly plotted story,.and its horizons aren't as broad as some other seasons, but the acting is really, really, good. I'd order the seasons right now at 2 in the top spot, 1 and this season tied for 2nd, then 4 and 3 roughly tied, well behind the other three.
-
1
-
-
I think there's a chance that Roy is going to use the tunnel leading from the bunker to make his cowardly escape, or attempt to do so, after leading his dumbass followers into a pointless slaughter. It was so consistent that Roy, upon discovering Karen on the floor, doesn't even bother to check if she's still breathing. I generally dislike how 99% of movies and t.v. treat being "knocked out", but in this case it might further illuminate Roy's depravity.
-
10
-
-
1 hour ago, Tatum said:
OT, but thank you!! You are the only person (that I know of) that agrees with me that S2 was superior to S1. And those that like S2 credit it to Ted Danson mostly, but I will die on the hill that Kirsten Dunst was the MVP of that season, with Nick Offerman, Zahn McClarnon, Jean Smart, and Jeffrey Donovan providing a whole lot of support. Just an all around stellar cast and chemistry. I mean, it's hard to even single out the ones I did above- everyone was on point. I actually also really liked S3. Took awhile to hit it's stride, but once it did, it really did, at least for me.
The depth of acting talent in S2 was incredible, and was needed to match the breadth of the story; don't forget Cristin Miliotti! My favorite element of that season was the quiet toughness and dignity of a woman facing an early and painful death; that's the real life every day drama that great fiction can illuminate so well.
One element I find this in this season that is distinctly better than season 3 is in the critique of capitalism. I thought season 3 to be cartoonish and silly, whereas this season offers something much more refined. It helps to have a great cast working at a very, very, high level.
-
3
-
-
No, it's not the most tightly plotted story,.and it's horizon's aren't as broad as some other seasons, but the acting is really, really, good. I'd order the seasons right now at 2 in the top spot, 1 and this season tied for 2nd, then 4 and 3 roughly tied, well behind the other three.
-
3
-
-
40 minutes ago, rur said:
Thanks. That really matches my perception, and is doubly interesting, in that I've read in the past that Buckley adopted his manner of speaking in good measure to obscure his Southern heritage. People really are endlessly fascinating.
-
3
-
-
On 1/8/2024 at 12:47 PM, peeayebee said:
Good question about Lorraine's husband. At this point, I don't think any of us can see why she married him. So it could have been for his money. Or, of course, he may have changed. He seems mentally affected, like early onsite dementia. Who knows, maybe HE was electrocuted. Like father, like son.
Not that the history of their marriage is important. Lorraine has full control of their marriage, of their life. That's all that matters story-wise.
FWIW, I've met women from this region who came from very modest backgrounds who became serial entrepreneurs, and made themselves quite wealthy. Some of them adopted Lorraine's somewhat odd accent, perhaps as a way to distance themselves from their common background. Some of them also had husbands of a similar background, that they entirely outgrew, even if those husbands also tried to adopt the affectation of not being new money.
I'd love to read a JJL interview, and hear how she researched the part.
-
1
-
-
30 minutes ago, Tatum said:
And honestly, it was a stupid thing for Roy to do, one that will surely have consequences.
Oh, Roy's doomed himself with his pathetic, egotistic, lack of self control, while ironically being obsessed with controlling every last detail of the lives of everyone around him . It's just a matter of how many more lives, some wholly innocent, get destroyed on the way to that inevitability.
-
7
-
-
10 hours ago, rur said:
IMO, I don't think Danish originally had any intention of confronting Roy after the debate -- he was at the gas station, getting ready to leave town. Then the state trooper told him that A) Dot was at the compound, and B) Something needed to be done . . . quickly. He did get his phone out, them he made kind of a face, and I interpreted that as deciding, if things were as dire as the state trooper said, that he should forget his original plan to leave and go out to the ranch instead.
However, I don't know what he could have done that would have prevented his being killed. Any mention of Dot/Nadine would have signed his death warrant.
Lorraine's a billionaire is an adjoining state, who has influence stretching to Washington D.C. If Danish had fully comprehended what he was dealing with in Roy, a billionaire's daughter-in-law, kidnapped and in mortal danger by a whack job county sheriff, Danish could have had serious state and even federal level tactical muscle at the Tillman ranch within hours. He wanted to be faster than that, and more importantly, he thought Tillman was just another bug he could squash with the usual tactics. He didn't really understand Tillman's nature on a basic level.
-
6
-
2
-
-
I don't think it's any more complicated that Danish now knew where Dot was, knew that Lorraine wanted her recovered from Tillman's kidnapping, and thinks he can walk into Tillman's office, insult and threaten him, then offer to let him win the election without further interference, as long as Danish walks out with Dot. Danish simply hadn't grasped that the stuff Danish does, to force others to submit to Lorraine"s will, was not going to provoke the submission from Tillman that Lotraine/Danish get from other targets of their legal bullying.
-
7
-
-
Really disagree that the tracking shot of Hamm walking to the shed was a writer/director indulgence without utility, or that Hamm's character is tedious due to being repulsive all the time. Yes, know Dot can't die in the third to last episode, but we also know she might take a horrible beating. Yes, Tillman is consistently repulsive, but as an illustration of the totalitarian personality, the writing and Hamm's performance is wonderful. People like this exist; it's not enough to prevail, they must control every uttered thought they hear from other human beings. I think this is the best work Hamm has ever done.
Danish was so used to money and the law working in his favor that he didn't pick up on the fact that Roy's playing in another league, even if it is a very small league in a lightly populated rural North Dakota county. He really thought he could steamroll Tillman like a lightweight banker scared of regulators from the Federal Reserve.
Thoroughly enjoyed the episode, if "enjoyed" is the right word for such disturbing stuff. I've met some Tillmans and the episode conjured some bad memories.
-
16
-
1
-
1
-
-
The puppet show and Roy's arrival in the hospital room were as disturbing as anything I've seen in episodic television. I can see why some found it gratuitous and not providing new information, but I think it really illuminated the depth of Dot's grim desperation, which I think is the central element of this story.
-
13
-
-
Not a big fan of zombie fiction, but I may stick with this, since the dialogue is better than the norm for the genre, and the acting first-rate. The scene between the brothers, with Joel frankly copping to his terror of getting old, in a world that has become completely unforgiving of any weakness, rang very true.
I think I'm going to like the episodes without, or with minimal, zombie content best. In an otherwise good episode, I really disliked last episode's deus ex zombina, for purposes of allowing an escape from the baddies of the week.
-
10
-
S01.E08: VIII NARCISSUS
in Ripley
There was a lot to like in this, but it ultimately required way, way, too much suspension of disbelief. I gave up when it tried to get me to buy that the inspector could be looking at Ripley, made up like Lon Chaney, Jr., in a Wolfman movie, and not see immediately that it was the same guy he saw in the Rome apartment. Good grief. I don't remember the movie being that ridiculous. Is that scene in the book?