We began watching Lillyhammer, but stopped on the third episode.
It seemed like a cute premise, but quickly grew to dislike the main character. It was already tough to like him since he was a former gangster, but his uber-Republican ugly-American schtick was a bit much. This whole thing, like, hey, don't like a person's religion? Well, just call them a towel-head, slap them around a bit, then make them do things that their religion forbids them. Don't like local laws? Ignore them. Don't like someone taking a stand against development? Call 'em a tree hugger, then terrorize them until they leave. And make a buck doing it.
The show had a shot (a slim one, to be sure) of being a Sopranos version of "Local Hero," but quickly became a cross of A Bronx Tale & the Republican National Convention.
Meh, I'll pass.
But I did enjoy the various b-roll shots of the countryside.
I've been reading Storm of Swords and watching Season 3 of Game of Thrones. It's been an odd experience since many events are shuffled around in the show, but of course some characters and events are changed as well. It creates some spoilers of course, too, but especially as I get ahead of the television version surprises still happen. I've also noticed that in the book something dramatic will happen at the end of a chapter, often dramatic in its ambiguity of what happened. One character loses a body part (or body party). In the show it's quite clear, but in the book it's not clear if they are going to be killed or not. Part of the challenging adapting a book to the screen I imagine.
While I read the first three books a few months apart, I think it will be some time before I get to the fourth book.
I also received an email that Amazon has some original tv shows of its own that are free to watch for Prime Members. I'm kind of maxed out on the number of tv shows i'm following right now, but would be curious to see if anyone else has watched any of these?
I would also love my Apple TV to stream Amazon stuff. Probably not going to happen anytime soon. I guess I need to invest in an HDMI adapter to link my iMac to our tv.
But not an excellent scene on TV; couldn't watch it. Too gruesome. It also made me blank that part of the book. I am ALL THAT at work, because I'm apparently the only one around for miles who has actually read the books. I know somebody tortured Greyjoy & turned him into a sniveling Gollum-type thing, but I can't remember who did it.
The scenes climbing the wall were excellent.
Can't wait for the wedding scenes! Rob, Sansa, Joffrey. O my.
edit
My favorite scene of this season, hands down, is when Danyres yelled "Dracyres" and the dragon crisped the guy who didn't bother to check if she spoke the language.
Talk about bringing the book to life!
Replayed that scene about 5 times.
Love, love,love Diana Rigg in her role.
"As an authority on myself, I must disagree."
"What happens when the nonexistent bumps against the decrepit?"
We just watched our first episode of Games of Thrones last night. It was pretty good. I looked great! The acting seemed just fine, the writing hooked me right from go. Very happy. We'll be running through these one episode a night probably. Not sure how many there are right now.
After a long delay, I"ll be starting up Season 2 of Boardwalk Empire. Considering whether I should re-watch Season 1, considering how long it's been since I saw it. If there's one of those 10-minute extended as-last-seen productions available, I figure that will suffice. It's not a show with so much nuance and allusions as to make it an obstacle to getting caught up.
But most of all, I'm very excited that I'll finally be able to start watching Treme.
Great timing for all this. I've watched West Wing, in its entirety, three times in a row, and was starting up a forth. I needed desperately to find something to watch.
Glad you like you first step into GoT. I had to put Boardwalk Empire aside after the first two seasons. It moves so slow then suddenly everyone is shooting at everyone.
I love Boardwalk, but I admit that a lot of that is because the acting, cinematography, and costumes are just so awesome. I will say, though, that Season 3 was the best yet.
The other cool thing about the GoT intro is that it changes, depending on the locations appearing in the episode. At least, that was the case last season - I haven't paid attention this season to see if there've been any changes, but perhaps every location has appeared each episode.
I noticed that change as well for GoT. I'm with you, Katrina, I really enjoy watching its intro. I think a well done introduction for a show can say a lot about a show. I blame the Simpsons for making me pay more attention to Introductions. I like the introduction for Boardwalk Empire and even though I gave up on recent seasons, the introduction for Dexter is quite fun.
Also I got into Fringe recently, having missed it on TV thanks to not having cable. It also will change of the intro depending on what reality or decade an episode takes place in.
- Tyrion is sorely underserved by his current subplot, positively mundane
- (MILD SPOILER) ................... Theon's torture stuff is just bleak, oppressive, and seemingly pointlessly cruel, so much so that I read up on it a bit on the wiki, despite not having read DANCE OF DRAGONS yet, and I find out it just GOES ON INDEFINITELY. So I consider this less a spoiler than a warning (to me too) - who wants to be surprised about a bleak torture subplot that never ends? Wtf GRRM.
I agree Kargatron that Theon's torture so far is annoying. It's only alluded to in the book, so it seems especially odd that the show keeps going back to it.
Yeah, I'm way over the Theon stuff. In the books (mild spoiler) IIRC the actual endless torture is largely skipped and you go back to Theon after the psychological and physical destruction is complete - which is the *interesting* part, an actual arc for him. I understand the logistical reasons they need to have the actor there as cafreema mentions but ... yeah. Don't need to see any more, thanks.
There was a large departure from the books in the most recent episode which I have a major question mark over until I see where they are going with it. I have doubts. I have no problem with them changing from the books at all, but this change seems to upset some significant plots going forward.
Ick, I don't watch the Theon torture scenes on replay - just too gory - and I think they've established he was tortured by now. karg, I'm with you, hoping this subplot is ended.
Nanker, I noticed that departure from the book, too.
choiceweb, Dexter? That's another one I had to skip through the intros. Some of it's cool but that mosquito bugs me ; )
Yep Dexter. The intro makes me think about implied violence as he makes his Breakfest/gets ready for work. How tightly he pulls taunt his show laces and his enjoyment of eating ham, juicing a blood orange, etc.
Speaking of food and Theon, here's a GoT Revie by George Takei.
We just finished watching season 2, now headed into season 3 this evening. Totally bored with the storyline of the blonde w/the dragons. I like the dragons, and didn't mind the storyline back when she was with the barbarians, but it's become mindnumbingly boring. Everything that happened in that port town (Quarth?) was dull dull dull. Earlier, when she was still with her barbarian husband and tribe, that the "witch" caused the barbarian leader to die from his infection, while also killing the blonde's unborn baby and breaking up the band. That witch was right, the barbarians (whatever their name was) were a roving band of flaming assholes, and they all had it coming to them. Good for her. The blonde, on the other hand, is just totally bratty...
"I DEMAND my birthright!"
"If you don't give me the throne, I'll totally burn you to death when my dragons get big!"
etc etc etc
And, actually, that's one of the things that I really respect of the show... all the leaders are bratty, loony, and despicable (in varying degrees). That little kid who took over the throne is, obviously, a little shit and coward, Jon Stark is some brooding kid who lets armies of men die just because he wants revenge for his father, the insane queen who breastfeeds her ten year old kid, the temper tantrum throwing it's not my fault dude who has the castle on the islands and his whiny son who took over Winterfell... and many others, too, who I'm not remembering. None of them earned it, none of them were voted in, and they all abuse it.
I like that dwarf dude. Tyriol? Something like that. Easily the best character on the show. His dark humor is great, and he can definitely act. I love his battle speech when the Barathian dude was outside the gates, especially how he ended it with "There are brave men outside those gates... let's go kill them!" That whole Langshire family, other than the little shithead kid, are pretty fun to watch. The queen is way totally creepy, but charismatic in her way, and her brother, the Dennis Leary look-alike (Jamie?) is a fun character. The two main councilors... the bald eunich and the dude who played the mayor of Baltimore on The Wire... I like both of those characters.
In fact, I really like most all of the characters. Even the ones I don't like are a result of the goals of the writing and not the actual acting (ie, the shithead boy king). I thought the king's brother, the one who was killed by the Borathian's black magic monster, was really great when they bought him back as this lord of his own castle (can't remember what it was called, but he was wearing a crown of antlers), his character was particularly witty when interacting with both the living Barathian and Ned Stark's widow.
By the way, what kind of name is Ned Stark for a lord of Winterfell? Ned Stark should be the guy who sells plumbing supplies to Winterfell, not the guy who rules over it.
John Snow is pretty annoying as an actor, even more than his step-brother, whatshisname, the one leading the northern army. I think the youngest daughter of Ned (Aria?) is a great character.
My favorite stuff is when they're at the Wall, and now, in the northern territories. I'm hoping that when Game of Thrones is finally over with, that they have a spin-off, some sort of prequel, that tells stories of early guards of the Wall. Those scenes are just too cool.
Okay, can someone here help me with some of the lineage of this show? We're still struggling with it. Here's how I understand it.
There was a "mad king." He may have been the father or grandfather of the blonde w/the dragons. Is this true? And then he was assassinated, by Jamie Langshire, yes? And that's when the Borathian took over (John? Rob? the one who recruited Ned Stark to be his right hand man), is this true? And why did he get to take over? How come he got to be king next? And what happened with his first wife/Ned Stark's sister? How did she die and why and when? And then the king married the loony chick (Xerces?) who's currently queen. And when the king died, that's why the little shit is now on the throne, right? However, that king seems to have had two brothers... the one who just attacked the castle in season 2 (Stanislaw?) and another younger brother (the one who Stanislaw killed with black magic)... and these guys didn't get to be king, but it doesn't go from brother to brother, but father to son, yes?
I think those are my lineage questions. Thanks in advance for help on those.
We're still really loving this show. We spent the weekend having a GoT marathon, and now we're almost caught up.
We begin season 3 tonight. We'll probably watch the first two episodes of the season. And I'll look great!
Jonah: The Mad King Aerys was killed by Jaime who was one of his guards at the time (hence his nickname "the Kingslayer". There is more detail about this given in a season 3 episode). He was Daenerys's father. Robert got to be king because he was leading the rebellion which toppled Aerys, joined by the Starks and others. Robert was in love with Ned's sister but they weren't married, she is believed to have been killed by the Targaryeans before the rebellion. I think the circumstances are murky. So Robert's heirs have claim to the throne but basically the power is all with the mother's side, the Lannisters and also they believe Joffrey and the other kiddos are not Robert's children (which is true). There's this whole thing about this guy Jon Arryn discovering the secret of Cersei and Jaime's incest (and therefore the children are Jamie's not Robert's) - Jon Arryn was the Hand of the King but died mysteriously after discovering this secret and telling Stannis who immediately decamped to gather an army and that was when Robert needed a new Hand of the King which he offered to Ned which is where the story starts ....
Comments
Craig
It seemed like a cute premise, but quickly grew to dislike the main character. It was already tough to like him since he was a former gangster, but his uber-Republican ugly-American schtick was a bit much. This whole thing, like, hey, don't like a person's religion? Well, just call them a towel-head, slap them around a bit, then make them do things that their religion forbids them. Don't like local laws? Ignore them. Don't like someone taking a stand against development? Call 'em a tree hugger, then terrorize them until they leave. And make a buck doing it.
The show had a shot (a slim one, to be sure) of being a Sopranos version of "Local Hero," but quickly became a cross of A Bronx Tale & the Republican National Convention.
Meh, I'll pass.
But I did enjoy the various b-roll shots of the countryside.
Cheers.
We enjoyed Episode 1 of Lillyhammer well enough. It went downhill fast after that.
While I read the first three books a few months apart, I think it will be some time before I get to the fourth book.
I would also love my Apple TV to stream Amazon stuff. Probably not going to happen anytime soon. I guess I need to invest in an HDMI adapter to link my iMac to our tv.
Yeah, George RR Martin loves his "OMG is he/she dead??" moments. You can go entire books not knowing the answer.
But not an excellent scene on TV; couldn't watch it. Too gruesome. It also made me blank that part of the book. I am ALL THAT at work, because I'm apparently the only one around for miles who has actually read the books. I know somebody tortured Greyjoy & turned him into a sniveling Gollum-type thing, but I can't remember who did it.
The scenes climbing the wall were excellent.
Can't wait for the wedding scenes! Rob, Sansa, Joffrey. O my.
edit
My favorite scene of this season, hands down, is when Danyres yelled "Dracyres" and the dragon crisped the guy who didn't bother to check if she spoke the language.
Talk about bringing the book to life!
Replayed that scene about 5 times.
Love, love,love Diana Rigg in her role.
"As an authority on myself, I must disagree."
"What happens when the nonexistent bumps against the decrepit?"
MORE DIREWOLVES. MORE DRAGONS.
After a long delay, I"ll be starting up Season 2 of Boardwalk Empire. Considering whether I should re-watch Season 1, considering how long it's been since I saw it. If there's one of those 10-minute extended as-last-seen productions available, I figure that will suffice. It's not a show with so much nuance and allusions as to make it an obstacle to getting caught up.
But most of all, I'm very excited that I'll finally be able to start watching Treme.
Great timing for all this. I've watched West Wing, in its entirety, three times in a row, and was starting up a forth. I needed desperately to find something to watch.
Hodor.
Craig
Craig
A lot of series, I've watched them on DVD. So you have to hear the opening credits over & over, which gets old. And the music gets annoying.
One exception is, Game of Thrones. I never tire of the opening credit music of that one. Also, the opening flowers of gears is endlessly fascinating.
Craig
Also I got into Fringe recently, having missed it on TV thanks to not having cable. It also will change of the intro depending on what reality or decade an episode takes place in.
- Tyrion is sorely underserved by his current subplot, positively mundane
- (MILD SPOILER) ................... Theon's torture stuff is just bleak, oppressive, and seemingly pointlessly cruel, so much so that I read up on it a bit on the wiki, despite not having read DANCE OF DRAGONS yet, and I find out it just GOES ON INDEFINITELY. So I consider this less a spoiler than a warning (to me too) - who wants to be surprised about a bleak torture subplot that never ends? Wtf GRRM.
I love the scenes that take place on the Wall. I'm a sucker for winter scenes in fantasy-type movies/shows.
And thanks for the spoiler alert. It's gonna be a little while before we get caught up.
Cheers.
Craig
There was a large departure from the books in the most recent episode which I have a major question mark over until I see where they are going with it. I have doubts. I have no problem with them changing from the books at all, but this change seems to upset some significant plots going forward.
More Diana Rigg and Charles Dance scenes, please.
Nanker, I noticed that departure from the book, too.
choiceweb, Dexter? That's another one I had to skip through the intros. Some of it's cool but that mosquito bugs me ; )
Speaking of food and Theon, here's a GoT Revie by George Takei.
***Spoilers totally to follow****
We just finished watching season 2, now headed into season 3 this evening. Totally bored with the storyline of the blonde w/the dragons. I like the dragons, and didn't mind the storyline back when she was with the barbarians, but it's become mindnumbingly boring. Everything that happened in that port town (Quarth?) was dull dull dull. Earlier, when she was still with her barbarian husband and tribe, that the "witch" caused the barbarian leader to die from his infection, while also killing the blonde's unborn baby and breaking up the band. That witch was right, the barbarians (whatever their name was) were a roving band of flaming assholes, and they all had it coming to them. Good for her. The blonde, on the other hand, is just totally bratty...
"I DEMAND my birthright!"
"If you don't give me the throne, I'll totally burn you to death when my dragons get big!"
etc etc etc
And, actually, that's one of the things that I really respect of the show... all the leaders are bratty, loony, and despicable (in varying degrees). That little kid who took over the throne is, obviously, a little shit and coward, Jon Stark is some brooding kid who lets armies of men die just because he wants revenge for his father, the insane queen who breastfeeds her ten year old kid, the temper tantrum throwing it's not my fault dude who has the castle on the islands and his whiny son who took over Winterfell... and many others, too, who I'm not remembering. None of them earned it, none of them were voted in, and they all abuse it.
I like that dwarf dude. Tyriol? Something like that. Easily the best character on the show. His dark humor is great, and he can definitely act. I love his battle speech when the Barathian dude was outside the gates, especially how he ended it with "There are brave men outside those gates... let's go kill them!" That whole Langshire family, other than the little shithead kid, are pretty fun to watch. The queen is way totally creepy, but charismatic in her way, and her brother, the Dennis Leary look-alike (Jamie?) is a fun character. The two main councilors... the bald eunich and the dude who played the mayor of Baltimore on The Wire... I like both of those characters.
In fact, I really like most all of the characters. Even the ones I don't like are a result of the goals of the writing and not the actual acting (ie, the shithead boy king). I thought the king's brother, the one who was killed by the Borathian's black magic monster, was really great when they bought him back as this lord of his own castle (can't remember what it was called, but he was wearing a crown of antlers), his character was particularly witty when interacting with both the living Barathian and Ned Stark's widow.
By the way, what kind of name is Ned Stark for a lord of Winterfell? Ned Stark should be the guy who sells plumbing supplies to Winterfell, not the guy who rules over it.
John Snow is pretty annoying as an actor, even more than his step-brother, whatshisname, the one leading the northern army. I think the youngest daughter of Ned (Aria?) is a great character.
My favorite stuff is when they're at the Wall, and now, in the northern territories. I'm hoping that when Game of Thrones is finally over with, that they have a spin-off, some sort of prequel, that tells stories of early guards of the Wall. Those scenes are just too cool.
Okay, can someone here help me with some of the lineage of this show? We're still struggling with it. Here's how I understand it.
There was a "mad king." He may have been the father or grandfather of the blonde w/the dragons. Is this true? And then he was assassinated, by Jamie Langshire, yes? And that's when the Borathian took over (John? Rob? the one who recruited Ned Stark to be his right hand man), is this true? And why did he get to take over? How come he got to be king next? And what happened with his first wife/Ned Stark's sister? How did she die and why and when? And then the king married the loony chick (Xerces?) who's currently queen. And when the king died, that's why the little shit is now on the throne, right? However, that king seems to have had two brothers... the one who just attacked the castle in season 2 (Stanislaw?) and another younger brother (the one who Stanislaw killed with black magic)... and these guys didn't get to be king, but it doesn't go from brother to brother, but father to son, yes?
I think those are my lineage questions. Thanks in advance for help on those.
We're still really loving this show. We spent the weekend having a GoT marathon, and now we're almost caught up.
We begin season 3 tonight. We'll probably watch the first two episodes of the season. And I'll look great!
/furniture
Daenerys's storyline at the end of s2 was indeed almost insufferable, but you'll be relieved to know it's much, much improved in s3.