2017 TV/Movie/Book Thread with Spoilers

[ReasonablySober]

I'm a little embarrased about it but I'm kind of enjoying the show Poldark lmao.

Is it good? My mom has been trying to get me to watch it. Funny but not joking.

Heh, literally yesterday my mom texted me that I should be watching it.

[jr lucosa]

Ive been re watching Veep. The rise of Jonah is one of the funnier things in a TV series ive ever seen.

[bizarro]

Started watching 'Atypical' with my lady per her urging. I'm not really that intrigued by Autism plays for entertainment, but, the show is fairly well done and Michael Rappaport is pretty damn good.

Yet, I really have been stuck on one thing, and one thing only, for several episodes: Jennifer Jason Leigh's face job. Frightening is one word I would use. I mean when she was Domergue in 'The Hateful 8' or her nefarious character in 'Twin Peaks: The Return', the face job just blended in and almost augmented those characters' qualities. But, as a mother, the face job just hurts...and it's all i can focus on during the show.

[jakecronus8]

Started watching 'Atypical' with my lady per her urging. I'm not really that intrigued by Autism plays for entertainment, but, the show is fairly well done and Michael Rappaport is pretty damn good.

Yet, I really have been stuck on one thing, and one thing only, for several episodes: Jennifer Jason Leigh's face job. Frightening is one word I would use. I mean when she was Domergue in 'The Hateful 8' or her nefarious character in 'Twin Peaks: The Return', the face job just blended in and almost augmented those characters' qualities. But, as a mother, the face job just hurts...and it's all i can focus on during the show.

Yeah it's rough. As a parent of an autistic child I was intrigued by the premise but something is off.

OT- I am jonesing for more episodes of Documentary Now! Even though it's all parody, occasionally they make better documentaries than their real life counterparts. Gentle and Soft as well as Juan Likes Rice and Chicken are both really heartfelt stories. Love the chemistry of Hader and Armisen.

[Chuck Diesel]

I'm a little embarrased about it but I'm kind of enjoying the show Poldark lmao.

Is it good? My mom has been trying to get me to watch it. Funny but not joking.

Heh, literally yesterday my mom texted me that I should be watching it.

Hahah, yeah it's clearly suited for the "Mom" demographic, maybe even "British Moms" specifically. Lots of knowing glances and beautiful, sweeping shots of the Cornish coast. I'm 7 episodes deep and I think I'm in it for the long haul. Some great accents.

[Wonka]

I love Halt and Catch Fire so much. Best show AMC's ever done (yea).

Absolutely terrific show. Can't get enough of it

[midranger]

I watched okja yesterday. Netflix original movie. Must have had an incredible budget. I thought it was absolutely fantastic but it really tickled me in all the right spots. Corporate greed? Americas disgusting food culture? Animal rights? Monsanto imitation company to hate?

Check. Check. Check. Check.

Definitely worth the watch even if you don't care about the above, as it's also a heartwarming piece about a little girl and her pig Charlottes Web style.

[ReasonablySober]

Holy hell mother! sure sounds like one giant **** of a movie.

[emunney]

Holy hell mother! sure sounds like one giant **** of a movie.

[ReasonablySober]

What?

[midranger]

Holy hell mother! sure sounds like one giant **** of a movie.

If this is the kind of movie Netflix is going to be making moving forward, I'm all in.

[humanrefutation]

Started watching 'Atypical' with my lady per her urging. I'm not really that intrigued by Autism plays for entertainment, but, the show is fairly well done and Michael Rappaport is pretty damn good.

Yeah it's rough. As a parent of an autistic child I was intrigued by the premise but something is off.

There's also that new show on ABC called "The Good Doctor" that's about a young doctor with autism that also apparently has some savant-like qualities (a common, unfortunate trope when it comes to presentations of people with ASD in the media).

It's good to see more depictions of people with disabilities in the media. I'll be curious to see how these shows handle those issues, as it is important to depict ASD with realism, nuance, and honesty.

[humanrefutation]

Holy hell mother! sure sounds like one giant **** of a movie.

Wait, are you talking about the movie about the guy who lived with a buddhist cult for 22 years? Holy Hell?

[ReasonablySober]

Holy hell mother! sure sounds like one giant **** of a movie.

Wait, are you talking about the movie about the guy who lived with a buddhist cult for 22 years? Holy Hell?

The movie "mother!" I wasn't planning on seeing it because I'm not much of an Aranovsky fan so I read the spoilers and articles dissecting it. It sounds absolutely bonkers.

[ReasonablySober]

Watch on YouTube

Part one of seven on HBO.

[bizarro]

Just saw 'Come Hell or High Water" for the first time. God damn that's a damn good Hollywood film. Just extremely well done. Jeff bridges is just a phenomenal crumudgeony Southern accented character - was fabulous in 'True Grit' and was fabulous in this.

Edit: If I'm being honest, he'll always be 'The Dude' to me...but damn he's just a great actor that ages like a fine wine.

[tydett]

It's good to see more depictions of people with disabilities in the media. I'll be curious to see how these shows handle those issues, as it is important to depict ASD with realism, nuance, and honesty.

The obvious answer is to hire people who have those disabilities to portray they characters - but studios just want to pretend they care about these people enough to market a show with a representation of them rather than actually demonstrate that care.

[humanrefutation]

It's good to see more depictions of people with disabilities in the media. I'll be curious to see how these shows handle those issues, as it is important to depict ASD with realism, nuance, and honesty.

The obvious answer is to hire people who have those disabilities to portray they characters - but studios just want to pretend they care about these people enough to market a show with a representation of them rather than actually demonstrate that care.

Oh, absolutely. And this is not unique to depictions of people with disabilities. It happens to people of various ethnic groups as well. They have to do better.

[HurricaneKid]

Wind River is a fantastic, if overly dark movie. Highly recommended if you can get past the darkness of watching parents lose a child.

[ampd]

It's good to see more depictions of people with disabilities in the media. I'll be curious to see how these shows handle those issues, as it is important to depict ASD with realism, nuance, and honesty.

The obvious answer is to hire people who have those disabilities to portray they characters - but studios just want to pretend they care about these people enough to market a show with a representation of them rather than actually demonstrate that care.

Oh, absolutely. And this is not unique to depictions of people with disabilities. It happens to people of various ethnic groups as well. They have to do better.

I think this is a more complicated subject than it gets credit for most of the time.

A show could easily be patronizing, stereotypical, and poorly written even if its actors with disabilities all actually have those disabilities when they aren't acting. There are many examples that already exist in cinema of characters that were well written and portrayed excellently by actors that didn't share their characters disabilities off screen. We're talking about art, and it's easy to conceive of a hypothetical where an actor without a particular disability might do a better job portraying a character with one than an actor with that same disability, because it's acting and they're playing characters, often fictional ones, not (usually) themselves, and simply sharing some characteristics with a fictional character doesn't necessarily make you a better choice to act as that character in a movie. This is why we (usually) don't see NASCAR drivers playing the lead in movies about racing, because acting in a movie and racing a car are different skills.

For the past 50+ years Hollywood has basically drawn the line at blackface, and in recent times people have rightfully pointed out that this prohibition doesn't seem to extend to other racial and ethnic groups, the controversy over Scarlett Johansson playing the lead in Ghost in the Shell, a pretty explicitly Japanese character being an example.

The reason for this is pretty obvious, which is to say that casting actors for parts in movies has been pretty much done on the basis of whether casting that actor for a particular part will upend the audience's ability to stay immersed in the movie. White actors in blackface ruins the suspension of disbelief, but often different ethnic groups playing characters of different races doesn't. Or to use an uncontroversial example, we don't mind when a blonde dies her hair brunette to play a dark haired character.

In general I think the actor who will play a character best aught to get the part. If having similar real life characteristics to the character they intend to play allows them to bring some insight or other qualities to their performance that renders them better at the job than their potential competitors without that real life experience, they should get the part. If not, then they shouldn't, and for the same reason we wouldn't necessarily say that a real life police officer would have been better in "Die Hard" than Bruce Willis.

I don't pretend to have an easy answer as to where the boundary between fairness and exploitation is, and I do think there have been plenty of examples in the past of Hollywood absolutely disrespecting people in many ways, but I don't think simply requiring actors to match their characters ostensible phenotypic characteristics 1:1 will necessarily produce the outcome you seem to want.