I've been allergic to Kevin Costner since I saw Waterworld, so I have not seen it.
Sitting last night looking for something worth watching, it strikes me that the whole Netflix/Amazon Prime/Apple TV boom has proved two things to be entirely false:
1) The factor limiting the number of good, watchable TV shows is the amount of funding available to make them;
2) The factor limiting the number of good, watchable TV shows is the amount of time available to show them on broadcast TV.
Now that both these constraints have basically been removed, it really does look like there was no crowding-out in either sense.
You can have enough money to hire John Malkovich and Steve Carell for your sitcom cast, and enough money to blow a million an episode on special effects, and you are still just going to end up with Space Force.
In my head, this was the part 2 of which the "family business" article was part 1. I think the author doesn't like the show and is hate-watching it slack-jawed, but her opinion may be more nuanced. I'm also trolling Charley here.
OH! I'm sorry. I missed that these were part of the same thing.
Lots of people want to play gentry. Some of them like to imagine they still use horses to do so.
Connecting the two, I am reminded of longstanding but inchoate thoughts I have had about rural professionals and how they are dropping away in a changing world creating some of the current mess.
Honestly, since I didn't originally mean to submit two guest posts, I hereby decree that this is an open thread, possibly for talking about the Supreme Court since the actual SCOTUS thread got weird. Or for talking about Russia/Ukraine? Or horses? Or other TV shows? Does anyone want to know if they are the asshole?
My mother in her lifetime made the transition from a rural childhood to an urban adulthood. Her sister, my aunt, worked as a rural nurse, she's retired now. IMO the current divide in the US between city and country mindsets is contingent, not at all a necessary consequence of where people live.
If the review is accurate (I haven't watched the show), then Faulkner (probably somewhere besides The Bear, but that's the one I connected with best-- where else did he touch on this?) and Larry McMurtry (IMO a successful middlebrow writer, I mostly like reading his stuff), who has had a successful film adaptation, considered similar issues. So did the Deadwood. I guess this is deadwood with shorter sentences and made more Republican-friendly?
The ahistoricity of cultural writing is really starting to bother me. That is, the refusal to engage with previous related artistic work, not the apparent need to provide thumbnail snippets of the relevant history (though without mentioning say Richard White or any other historians who provide a necessary tether for the potentially thoughtful fictional work). I guess I basically want NYRB essays rather than clickbait, or thumbnail summaries of a series or film, especially when the essays are about limited or flawed work. Such engagement with previous work would I guess narrow or frighten the audience. So television has expanded and can be ambitious now and still succeed economically, but writing about is has regressed to leave it to beaver.
For good writing about limited work, I loved Pretend it's a City, Scorsese's framing of Fran Lebowitz. She apparently wrote a series of columns reviewing bad films in the seventies. Scorsese made one of the bad films.
Perhaps that wasnt coherent, too many jumps.
The ahistoricity of cultural writing is really starting to bother me. That is, the refusal to engage with previous related artistic work, not the apparent need to provide thumbnail snippets of the relevant history
This is a common refrain I read in some of the IMHO better film critics out there (Matt Zoller Seitz frequently goes on about this though there are others).
Oh to finish the reason for mentioning my family-- since it's contingent and current, projecting the current mindset backwards is basically an error.
People closer to the past who saw the choices as they were clearly are preferable to contemporary thinkers unless the contemporaries can successfully translate or improve on previous work.
Has anyone seen Damnation? Mangold is involved, his Cop Land was fantatstic.
9.last: Thanks. I hadn't heard of that.
Was Damnation the one with George Peppard driving an armored RV across a nuclear wasteland?
Is Fran Lebowitz the first American woman described as a "raconteur"?
rural professionals
My dad thinks this is important, both the lack of people and the lack of settings where people cooperate with others nearby. Choosing your neighbors as we do online and in cities to some extent in geography leads to bubbles.
Another recent work of serialized fiction centered around a family that's the local economic patriarch/gentry around which the Montana town revolves, and which a major corporation is angling to buy out, is season 2 of the podcast Arden. There it's also an explicit take-off of Hamlet (the dispossessed youth is Dana Hamill, the corporation Fortinbras, etc.), but some additional subtext is that both the family business and the corporation are harmful economic actors, just in different ways.
(One of the podcast creators is Emily Vanderwerff, who many may know of from Twitter or Vox, and I believe she grew up in North Dakota.)
9.2: Ozark touches some of those themes, although obliquely. We just watched the first part of Season 4 (the last season) and although we are reasonably entertained. it has become overweight and taxing the limits of our mutual suspension of disbelief*.
*Interestingly--and I guess not surprisingly when you examine it--we do better on that front on our own than watching as a couple. I guess one person unclothing the emperor strongly influences the other.
I've watched Yellowstone for professional reasons. There were several pivot points when the showrunners could have gone in interesting directions--around depictions of Native identity, and especially the relationship between Native and non-Native people in the rural West; and around the relative decency of major characters, including the scion of the ranching family--and instead leaned hard into the crudest possible choices. There's ever more violence, ever more depictions of passing wisdom across generations (that are always marked by trauma, but without much effort to interrogate what that means), and ever more images of big trucks or big horses (including a lot of very well-hung horses) with ever louder country music playing in the background. I never thought it would be a great show, but I now think it's a cruel and very bad show. That said, the scenery is evocative and gorgeous.
Thanks for the horse penis review.
21, 22: I deduce that von wafer is a horse breeder.
Are horse penises prehensile like elephant penises? I'm too disconnected from rural life to remember.
We watch this show. After watching the first season incredible hatred for John Dutton. I thought Kevin Costner had made a very brave choice. Now I think writing is very uneven and maybe nobody thought through the fact that they were portraying him as a serial murderer of cowboys maybe a couple of year for decades.
It seems weird how they try to make John seem righteous in later seasons. That makes all the stuff about the sanctity of the land in the series seem like attempted justifications for murder. I don't know maybe that makes it the most American show of all time. The scenery is gorgeous.
Hey. Been a while. How's Manchinistan?
Yellowstone has caused an outburst of neuroticism among culture writers, probably because it became the biggest show on television before any of them even noticed it. They are actively anxious to find out that they were out of the loop.
Second 26! I was just wondering about you and hoping the rona had spared your household.
Regarding western scenery, I realize I haven't rewatched Dead Man in a long, long time. I was always a little ambivalent about it, but I alone among mortals found the endless Neil Young guitar loop soothing. Plus, I got such a kick out of Gary Farmer's turn on Reservation Dogs; I'm probably less alone in that.
but I alone among mortals found the endless Neil Young guitar loop soothing
I think there may be another mortal in this club. I remember the music as being what made the movie just barely bearable.
So no one else is too paralyzed to watch TV? I try and then just give up and go back to internet-surfing.
31: I used to be, but Iberian Fury decided we were watching Superstore, and then every once in awhile I just binge on something.
Based on recommendation of a friend I watched some Longmire which is also there with the gorgeous western scenery, but I ultimately found it kind of boring. Probably too lightweight for in-depth von wafer horse penis gazing, but there was a fair bit of Native/non-Native interactions in the area of law enforcement.
31: I just got back to TV-watching. In a once-per-decade technological triumph, I figured out how to watch Netflix shows on my tv. My wife and I have slow-binged a couple of series -- that is we watch two episodes for the same show every night that we watch TV, instead of one episode a week as God intended. So far we have watched all of Glow and After Life. There are all kinds of things I could critique about them, but overall I enjoyed them both.
I had TV paralysis for awhile, but several shows that came out in '20-'21* broke it. Plus Iris has lots of recommendations, some of which we take up (Community, Umbrella Academy). There's still the baseline difficulty that we have little appetite/patience for serious dramas right before bed.
I'm actually currently watching The Sopranos, which I tapped out on back during the DVD era of Netflix--as far as I can tell, I got 2-3 episodes into the Buscemi era before quitting. Knowing roughly where things are headed I think has made it less stressful, and I think I'm enjoying the humor a bit more than I did. Anyway, I just saw (spoiler alert) Tony get shot, so I'm on the home stretch. I'll probably restart Deadwood next--I was watching it via my dad's login, and for whatever reason it kept booting me out between episodes and I just gave up. The login is now stickier.
*Lasso, For All Mankind, Mandalorian
Yellowstone looked extremely dubious to me when it came out, very much for 21 reasons.
We watched "Station 11" this week and were glued to it. I've heard some people won't or can't watch it because its background or motive force is a pandemic (worse than our current one).
Before that, "The White Lotus," which also was excellent (in a totally different way). No pandemics.
We just started watching Station 11 and are pausing to think about whether we want to continue because my wife is a huge fan of the book and it seems to diverge substantially. Or it takes elements from the book and throw them in a plot-blender. So she's not sure if she wants to see the bits of the book rendered that way.
Being caught up enough to watch last season of The Expanse as it arrived was a lot of fun. Conversely, I've started reading those books, and they're much closer.
Just finished a rewatch of The Leftovers, which was just as good the second time, so decided to try Station 11 since everyone is saying it's the new Leftovers. We're two episodes in, and I'm not really hooked yet.
I really really liked Only Murders in the Building. Also Yellowjackets was great. It's like The 100 and Big Little Lies had a beautiful baby.
Oh, I'm also just starting in on the third season of Dickinson, which I would not say is actually good, but I did watch two whole seasons of Reign and it's similar to that but better.
I'm waiting for the new season of Only Murders in the Building. I think Mabel is guilty and then they decide to pin it on Sting regardless.
41: Well, you know the real criminal is always The Police.
Thanks Moby Hick thanks lurid keyaki-
We actually both got covid around the new year. But it was pretty mild. We were quite sick but sub flu for about 3 days, and at a mild cold level for less than a week.
We moved out of almost heaven 3 years ago. Some people think the whole country is Manchinastan though.
We moved out of almost heaven 3 years ago. Some people think the whole country is Manchinastan though.
We moved out of almost heaven 3 years ago. Some people think the whole country is Manchinastan though.
We moved out of almost heaven 3 years ago. Some people think the whole country is Manchinastan though.
I'm glad you recovered. Didn't know you left West Virginia. It's got very nice views when they didn't destroy them for coal.
So, Fetterman did show-up to meet Biden. The benefits of collapsing infrastructure. He wore shorts and a hoodie, because the occasion was more "disaster aftermath" than "politicians getting together."
Is he going to wear shorts on the Senate floor if he wins?
He wears suits when he's lieutenant governoring. I assume the same would happen in the Senate. It's just that there's really not much work to lieutenant governoring.
31: I watched a couple of episodes of Picard and one of Lovecraft Country (which was great!) but paralysis and light Luddism and the rest of the internet, especially blogs, and 50 or so books each year keep me out of the many TV loops.
For general TV recommendations we just finished last season of "High Maintenance" (started as a web series now on HBO). Found it quite enjoyable if a a bit uneven at times. Really liked how inventive it was both in terms of the structure of the episodes (and overall show) as well as the content. A lot of nice turns from the various actors in both one-time and semi-recurring roles.
53: We watched "Lovecraft Country" and it was great. (Also "The Underground Railroad"* and "The Good Lord Bird"; both excellent.) Somehow over the years I have acquired a Star Trek allergy, so I have not watched "Picard."
* Re: 38. "The Underground Railroad" as a TV series and as a book are quite different, but I liked both. I have managed to like screen versions and book versions of various works ("The Shining" comes to mind here) even though they wildly differ.
Just watch Succession. It is inevitable and right.
So no one else is too paralyzed to watch TV?
Too paralyzed to read books but tv is so easy. If nothing else, you can just watch things you know are going to be terrible and they do not disappoint. The SATC reboot is a home run on that count, and The Gilded Age is pretty goddamn terrible after one episode.
Nobody will buy my Green Acres reboot, Sex or the City.
Part of the problem is that when you make a list of men who can convincingly portray someone of such raw sexual energy than it is convincing when a rich, sophisticated, attractive woman gives up her whole previously life to move to Hooterville with them, you have Eddie Albert and no one.
I've been out and about and missed this thread! As I mentioned at the time, I went to the premier of Yellowstone in our big local theater. There was a misstatement of Montana water law so egregious in that first episode, that I've refused to watch any more. (OK, I didn't have the right streaming app most of that time either). I thought it was evident from the start that it would be more cartoon than real; maybe the same can be said of Deadwood, but the thing about that was the dialogue.
Of course the scenery in Yellowstone is great -- it's hard to beat the Bitterroot. Unless, of course, you don't like the idea of living with a bunch of right-wing nutball transplants refugees from diversity from the South. They film downtown sometimes, and some folks I know have worked on the thing. I'm happy for their opportunities, but we're all full up with people coming to Montana all drunk on Yellowstone looking to start their own dynasty.
We have been watching 1883 -- the prequel to Yellowstone -- because I like the cast. So far, it's just in Texas, so the scenery isn't grand in the same way. But world-weary Sam Elliott is the best Sam Elliott. The (flash-forward) portrayal of Indigenous people at the opening of episode 1 was pretty egregious, and it'll be interesting to see how the season gets from where I left off to that point.
Now, though, I have to go get a pcr test to see if my cold is really just a cold. Rapid home antigen test I took yesterday said yes, but it's good to be sure. I have no idea what happens if I test positive: can't fly home, have to figure out where to sleep and how to eat.
38: So I read the book version of "Station Eleven." It is (no spoiler) wildly different from the TV series in any number of ways. I'd love to know how much of it is Emily St. John Mandel (who only has a 'based on" IMDB credit). I think the series is better than the book. Which is not to say the book is bad! It's literally a different story with most of the same characters. Maybe whichever version you experience first is the better one.
The show runner was one of the main writers on The Leftovers. The standard critical opinion on The Leftovers is that Season 1 (which roughly follows the book, with some major changes) is good, but that Seasons 2&3 which are set in the world of the book but otherwise entirely new are all-time greats. It seems that many of the people involved learned the lesson to just take the world of the source and not try to follow the book otherwise, see also The Watchmen.
"Lovecraft Country" took that advice. The book was really a collection of short stories masquerading as a novel (not that there's anything wrong with that: it's the way F/SF was done for decades). The TV version added/subtracted their own bits and it was good. Not A Spoiler: there's almost nothing actually Lovecraftian in either version.
Alf is probably as close as TV can get to Lovecraftian.
62.last: I sure did like Watchmen. Strictly faithful to the source material in a blatantly fan-service* way while extending the narrative in amazing directions.
*As a fan of things, I never understood "fan-service" as a criticism.
Yeah. That Star Wars thing where the door opens and it's elderly Han Solo and Chewbacca was a cheap ploy to appeal to people my age and I loved it.