Saturday, September 04, 2010

An Update!

Sorry for the slacking on blogging. I've been busy wrapping up editing on the Grant film, which you can pre-order from Amazon now. Here's a couple of very quick rundowns of some stuff I've been reading/watching lately...

- Mad Men's current season is the best to date, and has me really excited to see where the show goes in the late 60s, when the culture becomes even more tumultuous. The series' look at identity and existential issues is like nothing else ever attempted on television.

- I've read the first couple of issues of Blackest Night and its Green Lantern tie-in after getting the two hardcovers. I'm really liking it so far, Johns has a lot of flaws, but reminds me of Tarantino to some extent in that he's clearly a huge fan of whatever he's writing about, but also brings some real emotion and life experience to it. I don't care much for the back from the dead gimmick, but it's used in interesting ways, and the story feels huge and epic and tied into the overall universe in a way that Final Crisis never quite did. I'd argue it's because of the close ties with Green Lantern, I always love seeing different pieces of a story wind their way between titles. It's making me wish I had gotten the Green Lantern Corps HC too. That said, the event itself is nowhere near as good as Final Crisis.

- I'm loving the new Arcade Fire album. It took a listen or two to really get into it, but it's definitely the year's best album to date.

- I'm almost through Breaking Bad season two. It took me a really long time to get totally into the show, but the appearance of Saul Goodman brought it all together for me, and I'm going to wrap the season tonight. I still think that it was a mistake to stack up so much misfortune on Walt from the start (i.e. not only does he have cancer, his wife is pregnant, etc.), but the show is definitely coming together and has me hooked in a way it never quite pulled off before. I've got season 3 still on the DVR from when it aired, so I'll be able to watch that straight through as well.

- I'm excited about a bunch of fall season shows, but not sure what's going to jump out. Boardwalk Empire is a definite must watch, I also might check out Nikita, Lone Star and a few others. I'll see what the critical consensus is, then decide which shows to watch.

10 comments:

Bob Temuka said...

Mad Men is meaty as fuck - each episode has so much going on that it takes days to digest. It would be nice if Boardwalk Empire has a similar amount of depth. You can never have enough good teevee.

How is Talking With Gods going? Still on target for a late October release?

Craig said...

Mad Men S4 and Breaking Bad S3 are definitely the two best things that have been on TV so far this year. Let's see if Boardwalk Empire is just as good.

Trey said...

Since you are a great fan of Comic books, I would like to know if you've ever read Craig Thompson "Blankets" ?

suncore598 said...

I'm glad you're enjoying Breaking Bad. One of the best shows on television in my opinion. I'm also loving this season of Mad Men and am wondering how far Don is going to fall this season and if he has a chance of rising up before the season ends.

Patrick said...

Talking With Gods is pretty much done. I'm just waiting on the final sign off from Kristan/Grant and then I'll ship it off to get turned into DVDs, so it'll be out October 26th as planned. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and hopefully the audience will be as well.

I just wrapped Breaking Bad S2 yesterday, and it was pretty brutal. I love the idea that Walt has inadvertently destroyed his family in his attempt to save them, and there's something really interesting in him becoming as addicted to the thrill and profit of dealing meth as the addicts are to the drug itself.

And, I have read Blankets a while back. I really enjoyed it, though it did fall prey to some of the cliches that a lot of autobiographical 'comix' do. Still, a great read.

suncore598 said...

You think that's brutal? Watch BB Season 3 and look out for the season ending among the other great, dramatic moments of that season.

Anonymous said...

Since you like Pop Avant-garde, I think you will like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fxa5NuVrqU

Luca said...

Did you watch the last episodes of Doctor Who's fifth season? I'm really looking forward for your commentary! :)

Patrick said...

I did watch the last episodes of the fifth season. Like most of the season, I enjoyed them, but felt emotionally distant. Moffat's work is much more cerebral than Davies' approach, and it works sometimes, but I felt like the finale in particular was excessively clever, looping back on itself too many times. It felt like it was showing off to the audience, not engaging with the audience.

Davies' work reminds me a lot of Grant Morrison in that you're not always totally sure what's going on on a narrative level, but the emotion is very clear and direct and engaging. I never felt that with Moffat, but I admit part of the problem may simply be that I'm not ready to engage with what's essentially a series restart so soon after Davies' saga.

For older fans, it might seem normal to switch up the Doctor and storytelling approach, but I saw it as a very auteurist series, and as a result, it was hard to segue out of Davies' series and into Moffat's.

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