OT: TV and Movies

[chonestown]

Norm and Dave - and it's real easy to pick out the people who watched Dave religiously - would give the surface impression of not giving a fk and every once in a while the mask would drop and then you would discover gravitas in a most unlikely figure. It's really something.

[RiotPunch]

Billy Madison: What's today?

Norm: October?

[Wooderson]

I bet the board is spelled b-o-r-e-d. RIP legend.

[GoldenAntlers]

The Green Knight was dope af.

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[BUCKnation]

Been a while since I've sat through a movie as bad as Voyeurs (2021 Prime), but I'm glad I stuck it out. It's terrible, but I admire the filmmakers for absolutely going for it in the film's second half. I was entertained. Five out of five smutty stars.

This one was fun

[jimmybones]

Billy Madison: What's today?

Norm: October?

Me and my friend quote this all the time. Gutted by Norm's passing, one of my all time favorite comics, in my top 3. His "12 minute joke" from one of his stand-up specials is possibly my favorite joke/bit ever. I've watched that clip (you can find it on youtube) no less than 50 times. It's incredible how good he was at telling a joke, the punchline is usually the least important part. However, in that one, the punchline is worth the 12 minutes. Not ashamed to say I watched it and cried when I heard of his passing.

[emunney]

Norm and Dave - and it's real easy to pick out the people who watched Dave religiously - would give the surface impression of not giving a fk and every once in a while the mask would drop and then you would discover gravitas in a most unlikely figure. It's really something.

Dave is incredibly smart, not afraid to show it, but really put a lot of weight on it. Norm was incredibly smart and desperately coy about it, but he wore his influences on his sleeve (Letterman, Kaufman, Tolstoy).

By the way, Norm was rooting for the Bucks.

Read on Twitter

[chonestown]

Norm and Dave - and it's real easy to pick out the people who watched Dave religiously - would give the surface impression of not giving a fk and every once in a while the mask would drop and then you would discover gravitas in a most unlikely figure. It's really something.

Dave is incredibly smart, not afraid to show it, but really put a lot of weight on it. Norm was incredibly smart and desperately coy about it, but he wore his influences on his sleeve (Letterman, Kaufman, Tolstoy).

That's what we [me] in the business [posting] call perception.

Linked below is the far and away best piece I've read since. It hits on what you said above, as well as exploring other avenues I haven't seen discussed. Here's what I found to be the most resonant statement:

But Norm’s caustic and sometimes destructive side always seemed to be in tension with a desire for intimacy and connection he couldn’t quite indulge without irony.

https://slate.com/culture/2021/09/norm-macdonald-death-anti-confessional-comic.html

Anyway, Norm's stories remind me a lot of the short story writer/essayist Lucia Berlin. Many of her pieces drew closely from her frankly amazing life but she wasn't shy in admitting she punched up details as they suited her. She never claimed to be serving as an autobiographer and her embellishments were done in the service of the story. It doesn't matter if something's 100% true, it only matters if it leads to a great story.

[blazza18]

The Nine-Nine went out with their best episode in years.

[buckboy]

Norm and Dave - and it's real easy to pick out the people who watched Dave religiously - would give the surface impression of not giving a fk and every once in a while the mask would drop and then you would discover gravitas in a most unlikely figure. It's really something.

Dave is incredibly smart, not afraid to show it, but really put a lot of weight on it. Norm was incredibly smart and desperately coy about it, but he wore his influences on his sleeve (Letterman, Kaufman, Tolstoy).

By the way, Norm was rooting for the Bucks.

Read on Twitter

Dammit, that bet lost.

[emunney]

Just listened to the most recent Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend pod talking to Andy Richter and Frank Smiley (Conan/Late Night producer) talking through their thoughts and recollections about Norm. Very healing, first of all. But also so much insight.

The Moth Joke bit came about because Smiley made him come out for another segment after commercial and he didn't have anything prepared, but Smiley told him he had 7 minutes. So he retold a 20 second joke he heard from Colin Quinn as a 7 minute joke with just 6:40 of Norm's bare mind as filler. **** marvelous.

[Licensed to Il]

The Nine-Nine went out with their best episode in years.

I agree. They recaptured the tone that typically made it such a fun show.

[Licensed to Il]

Just listened to the most recent Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend pod talking to Andy Richter and Frank Smiley (Conan/Late Night producer) talking through their thoughts and recollections about Norm. Very healing, first of all. But also so much insight.

The Moth Joke bit came about because Smiley made him come out for another segment after commercial and he didn't have anything prepared, but Smiley told him he had 7 minutes. So he retold a 20 second joke he heard from Colin Quinn as a 7 minute joke with just 6:40 of Norm's bare mind as filler. **** marvelous.

That podcast helped eulogize Norm in a way some of the tribute articles overlooked. I thought they nailed it when they said he was a “polite deconstructionist.” Those are the two extreme sides to the guy, warm and thoughtful but also gleeful as he exposes stupidity and hypocrisy.

I still don’t know why Norm’s passing hit me so hard. Im not sure that he is quite the comedy genius some are claiming. But I loved the guy, and was moved by his passing, so obviously he was an original and his death creates a void. Perhaps some of us saw a more quick witted version of our selves as his midwest/Canadian sensibilities collided with hollywood. I suspect a huge part of this was that he was just so charming. So likable while staying funny.

RIP to a great.

[emunney]

I like Y: The Last Man a lot. First episode was so steeped in cruel irony I almost had a panic attack. Third episode really hitting its stride with the scenes and awesome chemistry between Yorick and Agent 355. The comic is my favorite, and all the changes I've seen so far have really worked (mainly the fleshing out and addition of non-Yorick characters' stories) save one scene in the pilot that didn't scan for me:

Spoiler:

I don't mind Hero killing her boyfriend, but the fight scene was **** weird

[MickeyDavis]

I enjoyed The Sopranos although I thought it was overrated. Certainly not in my top 10-20 list of favorite shows but enjoyable nevertheless. The movie "prequel" comes out next month. Pretty good cast and I'm looking forward to watching it. In theaters and HBO Max (for a month). David Chase is not happy about that.

“I don’t think, frankly that I would’ve taken the job if I knew it was going to be a day-and-date release. I think it’s awful,” Chase said, saying that he was “extremely angry” when he found out about “Many Saints” moving to HBO max. “I still am [extremely angry].”

“I mean, I don’t know how much you go into this, you know, like…okay. If I was…one of those guys, if one of those executives was sitting here and I was to start pissing and moaning about it, they’d say, you know, there’s 17 other movies that have the same problem,” Chase said. “What could we do? Covid! Well, I know, but those 16 other movies didn’t start out as a television show. They don’t have to shed that television image before you get people to the theater. But we do. And that’s where we’re at. People should go see it in a theater. It was designed to be a movie. It was…it’s beautiful as a movie. I never thought that it would be back on HBO. Never.”

[buckboy]

I enjoyed The Sopranos although I thought it was overrated. Certainly not in my top 10-20 list of favorite shows but enjoyable nevertheless. The movie "prequel" comes out next month. Pretty good cast and I'm looking forward to watching it. In theaters and HBO Max (for a month). David Chase is not happy about that.

“I don’t think, frankly that I would’ve taken the job if I knew it was going to be a day-and-date release. I think it’s awful,” Chase said, saying that he was “extremely angry” when he found out about “Many Saints” moving to HBO max. “I still am [extremely angry].”

“I mean, I don’t know how much you go into this, you know, like…okay. If I was…one of those guys, if one of those executives was sitting here and I was to start pissing and moaning about it, they’d say, you know, there’s 17 other movies that have the same problem,” Chase said. “What could we do? Covid! Well, I know, but those 16 other movies didn’t start out as a television show. They don’t have to shed that television image before you get people to the theater. But we do. And that’s where we’re at. People should go see it in a theater. It was designed to be a movie. It was…it’s beautiful as a movie. I never thought that it would be back on HBO. Never.”

I hope this doesn't mean there won't be more movies (I honestly don't know if that was the plan or not, but I hope it was).

The Sopranos is top 5 all-time for me and I will gladly fork over money for any prequel Chase wants to make. And I'll go see it in the theater. I trust him.

[Finn]

The Ken Burns documentary on Muhammad Ali is good.

[DingleJerry]

I actually hadn't looked much into the Sopranos thing other than seeing that headline. I actually thought this prequel was going to be a show rather than a movie. I'd still guess they could've told a better story by doing at least a mini season, but we'll see. I'm guessing it'll feel forced a bit whereas the show would allow time to build characters up a bit. I'll watch it because why not, but yea I'm probably more on Mickey's view, I liked it and all but wasn't blown away by it and could nitpick a lot of things about it.

Also, I saw Walking Dead is finally finishing soon. I'd gotten so bored with I quit several years back. Not out of deciding to do it, but just that I never got around to watching because I didn't care. But with it ending I spent the time to catch up. For those that watch I have a couple small things. It's been fast-forwarded to several years in the future, I don't recall the number but let's say about 10, so let's say the zombie world is about 15-20 total years old at this point. How is there still tons and tons of zombies? Most people to die in this span will have known to take care of the brain so they can't zombie so a limited amount of new dead prospects have been happening. Combine that with the remaining humans have been killing piles of zombies for this whole time and you'd think you'd have numbers pretty low at this point. The other one for me is how zombies are randomly quiet in order to surprise people, that's been a thing the whole show though. I know, it's a zombie show so can't take it too serious or anything so I can just let it all go. But the first thing I mention gets stuck in my head now.

[Iheartfootball]

I think Evil is the perfect show for the season and an incredible social commentary for our times. I just finished the first season, can't wait to start the second.

Anyone else watching it?

[MickeyDavis]

Walking Dead is insufferable. It moves soooooooo slow. I watch because I've watched from the beginning but I do other things when I'm watching.

And although they say it's ending there will be a spin-off with 2 main characters so it's not really ending.