I know there's a ton of good TV on these days but kinda shocked there wasn't a post. Halfway through the season (is this a one-off?), this is really fucking excellent. Nick Offerman is absolutely knocking it out of the park by playing against type, and great work from the entire cast. Dope score too, apparently Geoff Barrow from Portishead is involved.

------------------------------
For the record, my teams:
MLB: Mets / Soccer: PSG
NCAA BB: Arizona / NCAA FB: Michigan
NBA: Spurs / NFL: Jets

He*'s the Greenwood to Garland's Anderson. I love them together.


*I love his meet cute with Ben Salisbury that led to him following Trent Reznor's footsteps.


https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/annihilation-geoff-barrow-and-ben-salisbury-talk-its-haunting-score-197947/


"How long have you known each other?
Salisbury: Funny enough, it’s through football, which we are about to play. We started playing football 15 years ago. Neither of us knew what each other did. I didn’t know Geoff was Geoff from Portishead.

Barrow: And I didn’t know Ben did TV music. We usually analyzed how bad we were at football in the bar afterwards and never really got onto music. It was the Spanish Inquisition on a weekly basis. It’s a way for everyone to leave their lives, families, work at home. A lot of people play sports to network, but for us it was the opposite.

Salisbury: After about five or six years of playing weekly football, I realized who Geoff was and had a question about clearing samples. And then we were talking about music. I did some string arrangements for bands on Geoff’s label, Invada, and he was doing music for Exit Through the Gift Shop, and we had a vague idea to work together on that, but it didn’t materialize. I was stuck doing music for natural history films and you only get to write one type of music for them. I was being suffocated. And Geoff was looking for a way to write for feature films. We both saw teaming up as a way to break out of our respective slots."


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Couldn't make it past the monologue and that whole fight in the parking garage of ep2, oh lawd

Nick Offerman cool tho

binged 5 eps yesterday....
we're digging it (Offerman is REALLY great)
we're looking forward to the rest too.

semi spoiler below....








(i do have a question about the logistics of how the 'tech' that Devs is making works)

Bandcamp/IG/FB/Twitter: @hecticzeniths

i'm really REALLY into this show. Its hard to describe, but its got 'something special' goin on. its unnerving...in a good way. FX has got a streak going on this kinda 'specialness' in several of their shows. Im guessing it has something to do with letting the creators create? I dont know what it is, but count me in.

And just on a the straight up 'tangible' parts of it....the acting, the characters, the cinematography, the music...all just right on point...

dont sleep on this one...

......maaaaannnnn....that sheet was PERFECTION!!

...im still trying to catch my breath...

Might be too soon or eager to say but after that it feels like this is right up there with my favorite seasons of any show I've ever watched. It really just keeps getting better every episode.

Bandcamp/IG/FB/Twitter: @hecticzeniths

Which is a compliment, I guess. It really does some heavy lifting. There were multiple instances where the sound upset me far more than anything I was looking at on screen. Whew. But it was exhausting at times.

--
the untold want by life and land ne'er granted
now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find

Really sets the mood

------------------------------
For the record, my teams:
MLB: Mets / Soccer: PSG
NCAA BB: Arizona / NCAA FB: Michigan
NBA: Spurs / NFL: Jets

That are pretty easy to mock. I'm a total Garland stan at this point, though, so I'm eager to brush them aside. Anybody that says the acting is too stiff, the pace is too slow, that it might've been better as a movie, or that the ending was way too brief for a show that spent so much time on the uninteresting bits of its premise early on won't get a counterargument from me. But this was still a total joy for me.


"Episode 7" is probably something I'll come back to and rewatch at random the way I do most of his movies. I don't rewatch much but there's something about his storytelling, and now visual language, that makes Garland movies comfort food for me.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

In no way did this show sell me on the "tramlines" well enough to make for a satisfying payoff. Ultimately, perhaps, it's working too hard against its medium - stories are fundamentally *about* characters making choices. So all of the hand-wringing about agency (or lack thereof) didn't come off as credible. Just banal. Regardless of how pretty the machine looks.

Apart from that, Lilly was a putrid lead character. I don't know enough about Sonoya Mizuno's work to assess her as an actress but, oof, nothing worked. Assign that blame to any combination of the acting, writing and/or direction. The story dragged, often badly, when she was involved, and I really struggled to find anything compelling or special about her character in any way. Which became increasingly suspect as the story took more and more time to have its other, better, characters deliberately point out how special she was. Please.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I didn't hate Lily but we mostly just see her mourning Sergei, torturing her ex with appearances in his window, trusting clearly untrustworthy authorities, and talking in riddles with her father. How is this the one endowed with the "power" to make a choice?

The acting for Lily was quite flat, but after the first or second episodes, I guess I got used to her, or Sonoya improved a bit. I can't tell.

>Apart from that, Lilly was a putrid lead character. I don't
>know enough about Sonoya Mizuno's work to assess her as an
>actress but, oof, nothing worked. Assign that blame to any
>combination of the acting, writing and/or direction. The story
>dragged, often badly, when she was involved, and I really
>struggled to find anything compelling or special about her
>character in any way. Which became increasingly suspect as the
>story took more and more time to have its other, better,
>characters deliberately point out how special she was. Please.
>

--
the untold want by life and land ne'er granted
now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find

Like I said above, I'm aware I'm a mark for Garland's work at this point because I was a little caught off guard once the series was over by how many people didn't like the dialogue in this show. I was put off by the stiffness of the delivery from time to time, but it felt deliberately so in a way the ending satisfied, if only slightly.


But they (the Binge Mode pod) did a good job of pointing out how a sizable amount of people who watch this show are just not going to get past the basic problem that humanity has with determinism, which is that we have no choice at all. The original sin, fate, etc. are all things that we've internalized through various cultural and scientific means but when we really think about the idea of something as simple as, like, knowing I will follow this guy out of this room holding him at gunpoint...we instinctually think "if I also know the outcome of that is BAD, I will resist that choice for a better outcome."


The thing they said that stuck with me most (and made me want to go back to listen to their Annihilation pod, since they apparently had similar problems with that and Ex Machina to varying levels) was that through all his work it's become clear Garland is much more interested in The Question than The Answer. I think that's what draws me to his stuff also; I'm less interested in sci-fi that asks and answers than sci-fi that asks and ponders.


It's a narratively impossible tightrope to walk and I wouldn't begrudge anybody that didn't just sit back and let it be.



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

I loved the way Lily was portrayed, I wouldn't have wanted it to be acted any differently

Bandcamp/IG/FB/Twitter: @hecticzeniths

after an incredible opening episode, with a ton packed in, there are pacing issues that stretched the series about one episode too long.

however. it's worth it in the end.

I love the way Garland tackles sci-fi. I've read the complaints he doesn't go hard enough, or relies on exposition, but for me he knows how to take big concepts and make them *just* obtuse and *just* explainable enough that a lot of people can come along for the ride.

--------

But I'm also the sort of dweeb that watched Devs twice, so whatever.


I can't remember if the show is 8 hours or 12 hours but in either case, you're right, it could've been shorter. Unfortunately, whether by choice or direction, Sonoya Mizuno's performance drops the hammer on that issue. That character needed to get more engaging, be more of an audience surrogate, as the stakes escalated.


BUT, until the threads start getting pulled from the sweater, it does really work. And when you realize why most of the other major players are matching her indifference, if you're a Garland Head it's easy to give the performance a pass because...the hell are you supposed to act like when you realize your project has solved every big question philosophical technologists have tasked themselves with solving?


In any case, yeah, there's a reason I bumped the Annihilation thread off a small slice of a bar chat the other week. I bet there are plenty of modern sci-fi authors performing this sort of trick, but I really love how Garland manages to distill pretty high concepts into relatable, grounded scenarios. It makes when he goes fully off the rails (like Sunshine, or for the absolute nerds in the audience the 2013 Devil May Cry video game reboot, or for the total losers when Annihilation transitions from psych-thriller to arthouse installation) even more fascinating because the dude knows how to capture audiences yet has no fear of losing them just as efficiently.


With Devs being the hallmark of that level of self-defeating cleverness because it's pretty easy to argue/accept that Devs is an incredibly boring, smarmy, party foul type of show. Even when it's not actually boring it's admittedly pretty boring, and outside a few set pieces most of its excitement is derived from boring people making screenwriter choices. It's clearly a defiantly unwatchable show after the 3rd or 4th episode, and doubles down on that fact when its most interesting scene takes place at the top of a dam and result of it happening there is framed as far less interesting than the dialogue.


And I haven't even said anything about Men here, but what I love about Garland is that he's clearly so uncomfortable with his ability to create dramatic/thematic setpieces that even more than Kaufman he's mastered establishing cinematic moments only to wrinkle them up, rim them off the corner trash can then nod toward the trope that might've been afterward. It's offensive and pretentious, but I think he always earns it, probably because I want him to have. (Edit: Because I mentioned Sunshine earlier, I'll say here I think that third act is bonkers and I absolutely hated it until just a couple years ago, whereas now I'm allowing the absurdity of real life to influence how I see movies or hear music, in which case: Grade A stupid as it is, the tonal and visual surprise of Sunshine's finale has loads of dumb charm.)


Unless you're a party foul type of gal/guy, in which case you think about watching this ridiculously boring show a 3rd time because a thread about it got bumped on OKP rather than the usual "dude you know what holds up? 28 Days Later!" or "I found myself watching Ex Machina again and I'd fuck that robot too!" barstool chats of persistence.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

>defiantly unwatchable show after the 3rd or 4th episode

honestly I put it on hiatus for that reason -- totally invested after the opener, but around episode three that pace grinds down to the slow drip of Lily being a bad ex-girlfriend and standardized conspiracy notes.

to your point about Mizuno's performance, I agree that a lot of people disliked Devs because she failed that "audience surrogate" role (probably due to the Jamie character). for me she was more of a vessel to take us through this world and see everyone else -- that's why that final moment doesn't land -- but she got us to the end just fine.

>doubles down on that fact when its most interesting scene
>takes place at the top of a dam and result of it happening
>there is framed as far less interesting than the dialogue.

but that scene! what an amazing distillation of the show.

--------

Other than her Garland roles I've only seen her in that Maniac series on Netflix a few years ago, but I remember her playing off Justin Theroux fine. So it's hard to have any thoughts about her acting other than she can play the hell out of an emotionless simulation of human behavior.


And when you really start tracing the points Devs is trying to make about increasingly relying on institutions and technology to guide us through temporary consciousness, her performance seems very intentional.


It's just that the character is put through so many dramatic beats of TV storytelling you've gotta be a total mark for Garland or the broader concepts of the show to buy it at all because she's hardly a believable person.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

>probably because I want him to have. (Edit: Because I
>mentioned Sunshine earlier, I'll say here I think that third
>act is bonkers and I absolutely hated it until just a couple
>years ago, whereas now I'm allowing the absurdity of real life
>to influence how I see movies or hear music, in which case:
>Grade A stupid as it is, the tonal and visual surprise of
>Sunshine's finale has loads of dumb charm.)

embarrassed how much I slept on it. grade A cast (I was surprised at all the names) and yeah, while I wasn't too crazy about the third act upon initial viewing, the second time through I was able to go with it. because it was one of those rare movies that made me want to watch it a second time in two days.

Sunshine has some clear influences, but I didn't realize how much Ridley Scott went back and aped Sunshine for the first half of Alien: Covenant.

--------

Or maybe it just feels that way looking back, with Iron Man on the horizon.

Some people thought Dane Cook could lead a movie.

Norbit came out and nobody tried to pretend otherwise.

They tried to insert Vincent Hanna into an open world Phone Booth (88 Minutes), convince audiences Kevin Costner (Mr. Brooks) was some kind of inverted Mr. Ripley, create a pre-cog's vision of a Reddit thread with Ocean's Thirteen, turn Shia LaBeouf into Brian DePalma's vision of John Travolta (Disturbia).

Even more, they applied an ultimately fruitless EKG to the "urban musical" (Stomp the Yard), continued to reckon with (yet ultimately learn nothing from) how effortlessly (both in budget and amount of written script that made it to final edit) Knocked Up, Walk Hard AND Superbad proved it wasn't comedy that was dead so much as financiers' rapidly developing, unexplainable fear to back other movies like them.

They had to imagine a world in which Jim Carrey and Joel Schumacher freestyling over beats from A Beautiful Mind and...not even beats from, but Shutter Island-type beats (© Youtubers) could work when even his comedic turns were flailing (and unlike either the prior or following movie, they had no source material to take notes from).

Meanwhile, Gosling is believably in love with a sex doll he doesn't fuck. Elliott Page is believably playing a young woman stuck in a snark-laden game of political theater regarding her accidental child.

The Coens and PTA are battling in the Texas desert for the movie of the year, both of which resemble dozens of character dramas and epics The Town loves to valorize but from here on out quickly seemed to fear, I guess because in just a few short years DVD sales were dryer than Lake Meade? No wonder the powers that be, despite said powers being Brad Pitt and Warner Bros., had no language to help cineastes and weekenders alike that The Coward Robert Ford was ACTUALLY 2007's best cowboy epic, let alone feel the need to mount a fight against Zodiac, the most disrespected best picture nominee that wasn't of my lifetime (please don't fetishize Michael Clayton around me!).

All while Spider-Man 3 is raking in all the money almost as an inside joke amongst movie goers who expected anything other than a movie almost entirely built on how baffled (in as many good ways as bad) Sam Raimi was by the success of his Spider-tales and Sony's attempts to tamp down his self-deprecation with, like, every single significant Spider-story they imagined they couldn't tell without Raimi and Maguire on the marquee?

Insert thoughts about Haneke inexplicably getting Hollywood money to remake Funny Games, the composite majesties of Atonement and Darjeeling Unlimited, and I suppose Sweeney Todd and it's clear this ramble has gone on far longer than necessary, with the point being...

This year looks like an absolute scramble to course correct hits that were flops, flops that were hits, completely miss that at least two, in my opinion three and I still think pretty irrefutably the strongest FOUR movies in a single calendar year EVER were getting screened (but I'm a Nebraskan and thus soft on cowboy tales).

In the midst of all that, somewhere, some small crew of people had to figure out whether this movie would better serve audiences as an adventure, a thriller, a creature feature, a morality play, a workplace drama but in space? Can't envy that. Totally makes sense it came and went.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz