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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by Cotterpin Doozer
At some point last fall, I wrote a long and loving string of praises for Kaguya-hime no Monogatari, but I cannot seem to find it. Maybe I forgot to hit "submit" or something, who knows. 
In any case, it's brilliant and everyone needs to see it. Takahata is in top form with this one, and unlike Miyazaki, who's gonna keep working 'til his dying breath, I think Kaguya-hime really is going to be his last film.
10/10
Cotterpin Doozer wrote:This is an issue with anime, actually, at least when it's licensed in the US, because a lot of shows are intended to be a supplement to or a lure for the source material. I remember being baffled by how many anime seemed to just end mid-story with character and plot threads left hanging. Then someone explained to me that there was probably an unlicensed manga out there with dozens of volumes if I was interested in finding out what happens next. With a lot of anime on television, you get what you get for the money that was available to produce it and if you want any more then go read the manga/book or play the video game. There's much less pressure for an anime to stand alone, because the audience already knows that they're only getting part of the story.
In most of those cases, it's probably the anime being canceled after only getting through a few books of the manga. Just look at all the movies made from the first book in a series which never got sequels. There are anime created as ads for the books, but I think they're mostly from the 90's. Things like Lodoss War or Heroic Legend of Arslan skip huge chunks of story, expecting you to read the books.
Well, I'm basing this on what I was told by a guy who worked for a Japanese publisher, and on what I've seen of how manga and anime are promoted here. Most of the time, it's the publishers who are fronting the costs, and their primary interest is in selling more books. A show has to be insanely popular (Full Metal Alchemist, for example) to buck the trend and get additional seasons. And that still usually only happens if it's significantly driving up sales of the book, or if the production company is making enough off of merchandise to be able to afford to produce more episodes themselves. This is particularly true of manga for the teen and adult female market, where even a very short-lived anime series can do a lot to improve sales and which have limited potential for merchandise.
Lodoss War and Arslan were both OVAs financed directly by the animation studios during the halcyon days of the early 1990s when direct-to-video sales were a viable market. That rarely happens anymore. Nowadays, OVAs are usually extras (non-broadcast episodes) that come with DVD or Blue-Ray releases of an existing show, and have much lower production values than in their heyday.
Also, I want to reemphasize pavilich's point that the movie isn't a video game. The movie is judge based upon its own merits not upon source material. If the movie is bad, then the movie is bad and no amount of outside material will fix that point.
This is an issue with anime, actually, at least when it's licensed in the US, because a lot of shows are intended to be a supplement to or a lure for the source material. I remember being baffled by how many anime seemed to just end mid-story with character and plot threads left hanging. Then someone explained to me that there was probably an unlicensed manga out there with dozens of volumes if I was interested in finding out what happens next. With a lot of anime on television, you get what you get for the money that was available to produce it and if you want any more then go read the manga/book or play the video game. There's much less pressure for an anime to stand alone, because the audience already knows that they're only getting part of the story.
Now if this was the intention for Scott Pilgrim, which I doubt, then the problem is that US audiences aren't accustomed to this model. Instead of being one piece of the whole, Scott Pilgrim ends up feeling like a not so great adaptation.
And I understand the point about Scott not actually being a nerdy character, but if that's the case, Michael Cera was the wrong choice. Fine actor, but everything about him screams nerd.
Potential Season 2 SpoilersIzzard's definitely coming back, but I think it'll probably be a hallucination by Will.
That works for me! 
OK, I'll restate to clarify. The time jumps certainly were not bad, and were great narrative devices. With that said, the time framing device wouldn't be in my top 5 favorite things about it.
Out of curiosity, what were your top five?
Teague wrote:Children of Men is great, and a good episode of the podcast as well.
And it sounds like Food Fight might make for an even better episode.
It certainly could! Apparently whilst in development, the movie was stolen and had to be cobbled together with what's left of the budget. But bare in mind, this was around the time of Monsters Inc! Here's what the trailers showed it as, which manages to hide it's level of awfulness by picking the best animated parts of the movie... Which says something, really.
Oh my God. That was...
No words, I got no words for that. I feel robbed just watching the trailer.
The time jumps did nothing for me, one way or another. Didn't NOT like them but they seemed the least important aspect of the show to me.
The time jumps were how we knew our characters were unreliable narrators and provided us with a lot of characterization as they talked about (and sometimes, lied about) their past selves. I don't think it was perfectly executed, but I do think they were very important.
So as not to leave you two lonely, I managed to catch up on all of season 1 and the first two episodes of season 2 over the weekend. 
I don't have any kind of history with the source material for this series. Of the movies, I've only seen Silence of the Lambs once when I was in middle school. So, I can't compare Mads Mikkelsen's Hannibal to Hopkins or anyone else, but it's a fantastic performance. Part of me wishes I hadn't known anything about the character at all, because the first season does such an excellent job of introducing you to what an evil man he is.
And this show has to be just about one of the cruelest things you could show to a foodie.
I also think that Hannibal is clearly so menacing, it seems a little silly for everyone to talk about him as if he's benign. At the very least, I wish they'd acknowledge that he's a strong presence and forceful personality. But that's really a very minor quibble.
Overall, season 1 was very good, and I'm glad I'm watching the show. 
I like how we're seeing little glimpses of how Hannibal will ultimately meet his downfall. Clearly, leaving Will alive was a mistake. Making it look like Will had killed himself after realizing what he'd done to Abigail would have been so easy and believable. Instead Hannibal frames Will and now has a resentful enemy. It's such a lovely parallel to Abel Gideon, who so resented being manipulated by Chilton. For the whole first season, Will feared turning into Garrett Jacob Hobbs/Hannibal, but instead he's become Gideon. Ugh, such a shame they killed him off. I love me some Eddie Izzard.
So, yeah, anyway. Now there are three.
Eddie wrote:I dunno...The procedural stuff in episodes 1-5 always were ways to draw definition AROUND these two characters, just like the paper thin other characters were there to add texture and dimension to the world they inhabited. The procedure was always there to service the characters, not the other way around. So it seemed to me at least.
Yeah, but the character stuff is what I'm talking about, and it gets dropped in favor of the procedure in the last 3 episodes. That's what bothered me. The last 3 episodes are like a completely different show.
Agreed. Part of the fun of this series was how the three timelines fit together and served the characters' arcs, but once it was all 2012, it seemed to lose some of it's spark. I don't have a problem with the direction the story took, but I think the action in 2012 could have been better incorporated with the rest.
True Detective ended pretty much exactly how I thought it was going to end. Except for that optimistic bent. That was probably the show's only real surprise. Nic Pizzolatto said in an interview that he had no desire to pull a fast one over on his audience and that the show wasn't "trying to outsmart you." I wonder to what degree director Cari Joji Fukunaga agreed with that sentiment, since most of the "clues" fans were so focused on were visual, all of the little details that were meant to catch your eye and make you think. But the story, as written, never promised us any more than what we got. Personally, it felt like too much of the punch of this story landed in episode six. It was never really interested in the mystery, so the last two episodes feel like a couple of guys cleaning up after the party was over.
You're all a bunch of suckers. This whole show is just a commercial.
Yellow King
I was thinking more of the Spaghetti Monster, but Olive Garden doesn't have a mascot.
I don't know what score to give this movie. It deserves a solid 8.5/10 for the first two hours, or maybe even a 9. But the last 20 minutes are just bizarre, and the ending feels like some kind of joke. First, there's a time jump, after which we learn that all of the character stuff the movie just spent the last two hours building up has been completely undone, and we're never told why. This is followed by an improbable revenge fantasy that makes no sense. All of the rest of it was just so good, though. I think I'm just gonna pretend that ending never happened and give it a 9.
Proof then that irony doesn't work well on the internet, either.
I apologized for the sarcasm in a clear declarative sentence that was free of any equivocation or weasel words whatsoever. "I apologize for my sarcasm. It was flippant and childish. It's a bad habit." Is there anyone else here who reads that as a backhanded apology? If so, please tell me how that apology could be made more explicit so I can revise it. And I meant it, too. That's the thing. I wasn't just apologizing to apologize -- I felt bad for having spoken to you that way, and a little embarrassed too. Forgive me, but I literally don't know how to apologize in a more direct way, so I'm finding myself in a no-win situation it seems.
I'm not trying to be a bitch or anything. That's kind of the problem with sarcasm and the internet. It gets really hard to tell when people are being genuine. Apology totally accepted. And my apologies if you felt I was making a dig at you for being a fan. That was not my intent at all.
And now that that's all cleared up, in about 24 hours we can start the whole thing all over again.
Aw man, why's it gotta be like that? You're the white knight, just an objective, fair-minded viewer who's calling them like you see them. Whereas I, for having the audacity to disagree about the merits of a particular scene in a particular episode, must be some sort of basement-dwelling fanboy apologist who's just looking to defend the show at every turn no matter what the topic is. It would be just as unfair for me to say "Well you're just someone who clearly hates the show -- a hater! -- and that's why you're saying what you're saying." Same thing. Even if that were true, it wouldn't invalidate your point of view. Read over our dialogue. I stuck to the substance of the points we were making. Mostly I simply asked questions. I may have engaged in sarcasm*, but I didn't characterize you personally or put you in a box labeled "hater" just because you held a different view and were willing to defend it.
* I apologize for the sarcasm. It was flippant and childish. It's a bad habit.
I'm a bit confused by this post. It seems like a rather backhanded apology.
But other than starting an argument, I'm not really sure how I'm supposed respond to a "flippant and childish" comment in a way that's not going to make me seem more objective and fair-minded in comparison. I wasn't trying to invalidate your point of view. I said you were hand-waving because rather than address my post, or even agreeing to disagree, your post was sarcastic and dismissive.
I have no advice for you, but it sounds like a very nice thing that you're doing and I wish you luck and many, many helpful responses.
I'm convinced. I now recognize that the scene in the storage locker is clearly pointless and poorly executed, one of the sloppiest examples of storytelling I've ever seen on TV. And you were right the first time about Cohle. He's never done or said anything crazy during the whole show. He's a perfectly normal, well-adjusted person -- certainly not the type who would draw a weird symbol on a wall (just in notebooks). I'm seeing things more clearly now.
Hyperbole and sarcasm aren't necessary here. I'm not butthurt over the fact that you love the show and think it's perfect; I just happen to think it's decidedly less so. I really do think the show has some brilliant moments. But I've yet to get through an episode without finding something that really bothered me from a storytelling standpoint. And no amount of hand-waving by a die hard fan is going to convince me that I'm just imagining things.
Luckily, mine is by far the minority opinion, so you can enjoy the last episode and eagerly anticipate the next season without any worries.
ETA:
Can I just step in for a second and say I didn't even pay attention to this highly-debated drawing when I watched the episode?
I'm thinking there's some overthinking involved here. Not that it's a bad thing; I love healthy debates, as long as they do stay healthy (and I sense that the current debate might need to stop here in order to be kept that way).
Overthinking? Perhaps. I was just trying to say that this whole episode felt kinda meh, that scene was emblematic of the problems I had with this episode, and that drawing was emblematic of the problems I had with that scene.
What does Rust's opinion of Marty's forensic acumen have to do with Marty's need to know the information? But accepting the premise, if you don't think someone is a good detective, isn't carefully walking your slow-witted buddy through the evidence in chronological order exactly what you would do? Also, Rust did a lot of legwork to get that evidence. It makes sense that he'd want Marty to know how much work he put in. He committed a B&E for goodness sake. (This is all apart from the fact that Rust probably does think Marty is a good detective. They lock horns and have exchanged harsh words in moments of anger, but there's obviously, fundamentally, a mutual respect.)
We're not talking about Marty's need to know. We're talking about Rust's willingness to inform him. And why would Rust feel the need to impress Marty with his diligence? A B&E is probably the least of the crimes we've seen Rust commit so far. In any case, if I was in the same situation, I would definitely show him the tape first.
"Hey, you know that little girl we were never able to find? Well, it turns out this bastard I was suspicious of all along raped and murdered her. I have the evidence right here if you'd like to see it. So, would you mind helping me out with this case?"
Rust came to Marty for help because he needed access to police records and other resources, and because by shooting that guy, Marty fucked up their chances of properly solving this case back in 1995. Mutual respect has nothing to do with it.
But I thought everything besides the tape was pointless and unnecessary. If it's not, then what is the utility of having the same information conveyed in Marty's office? Didn't Rust bring Marty to the shed for the explicit purpose of showing him the evidence? How does running thru the evidence make sense in Marty's office but not make sense in Rust's shed -- where they came specifically to look at the evidence?
The point of that scene was for Marty to see the tape. That's it. The tape is the trigger that convinces Marty to help Rust. Everything else is an exposition dump that bogs us down unnecessarily. Either cut it, or save it for a later scene so that the action can get started already.
What exactly do we learn in this scene aside from the tape?
There was no physical evidence connecting Dora Lange to Ledoux's place (this is an "as you know" and it makes me wonder why it took another seven years for Rust to figure out that the case hadn't really been solved after all)..
Women and children have gone missing in the area surrounding the Tuttle-funded schools (Marty and the audience already knew that Rust suspected the schools were somehow connected to the case).
Rust believed that Tuttle's interest in the case, the formation of the task force, and his behavior in 2002 were suspicious (more information we already knew).
Rust tracked down a former student from one of the Tuttle schools who provides the first direct connection between the scarred man (Kelly Rita's third attacker) and the schools.
The Tuttles come from a part of the state were people practice strange rituals involving santeria and voudon that bear striking resemblance to Dora Lange and the Lake Charles victim.
A photographer spotted many of those little stick things which Rust takes to mean that the killer was very busy during the post-Katrina chaos (again, we already knew that the killer was still active because of the Lake Charles killing - the fact that it may have been easier to kill people after Katrina is irrelevant because he didn't seem to have much trouble killing them before that).
So the only compelling piece of new evidence is Rust's interview with Toby. Considering their conversation at the bar, and the fact that Marty pulls his gun at the thought of meeting Rust in dark room, why go through all this before reluctantly showing Marty the tape? I still don't think most of it was necessary, and this episode needed to accomplish more since we've only got one episode left. But if we were really going to have a moment where Rust walks Marty through everything, having that happen before he shows him the tape is dumb.
It also looked like Rust's house when he was on the job. Same deal. Evidence on the walls, stick sculptures on the dining room table. Maggie walks in, sees it, and says "You can't live like this." She wasn't talking about his loose linoleum tiles.
His house did not look like that storage shed. Yes, there were a few pictures on the walls and the table was messy with one of those sculptures on it. But the rest of it was bare white walls and no furniture (rather like my brother's house). He hadn't painted the place insane symbols and cryptic clues. And to me, Maggie's comment seemed to have very little to do with the state of Rust's house. She wasn't even looking at the mess when she said it. She was just trying to seduce him. He's alone, in an empty house, he's just lost his job, and seemed pathetic enough that he might jump at the chance to bone her.
Come now. He's may not be clinically insane, but in colloquial terms Rust is batshit crazy.
[snip]
Given all this crazy-ass behavior (and more), is it really that far-fetched to think this guy would draw on a storage locker door? Well of course not. (He likes to draw. His "taxman" portfolio is full of drawings of stick sculptures and such.)
Yeah, I'm willing concede that I overstated my case a bit there. Rust clearly has issues. But I still think that spiral was fucking stupid. There is in fact a world of difference between filling a notepad with small, intricately detailed sketches and painting a big ass mural on a door.
The recent fiasco with bitcoin leads me to think I should cash these in quickly...
SPOILERAlso, again, it's a scene in a story -- so capping off the scene with the most shocking bit of evidence is more of a dramatic coup de grace than if they'd have ended the scene with the most trivial piece of evidence.
The problem is that it felt artificial - an unnecessary information dump capped off by a dramatic reveal that really doesn't make any sense for our characters.
And oh my God, that storage shed. What the fuck was that? It looked exactly the way Gilbough and Papania would expect it to look if Rust really was an insane serial killer. But it's also completely out of character for Rust, who hasn't actually said or done anything crazy during the whole show. The fact that other characters keep saying that Rust is crazy is not the same thing as him actually being crazy. Like Marty said, his behavior during the interview was him sizing up the two detectives. He's violent and has anti-social tendencies, but the idea that he would take the time to paint that ridiculous spiral on the shed door was painfully stupid.
After all of the endless talk about what a nutter Rust is and groundless speculation about whether or not he's the killer, how much more interesting it would be if the two walk in and we see that it's just a normal storage shed? There are a few boxes of evidence, a small table with a TV and VCR, and the map of all the disappearances hanging on the wall. Marty is also caught by surprise, having expected it to be crazy town inside. But instead we see that despite his own personal downward spiral, Rust is earnestly pursuing this case. If fits his MO much better, which has been thrill-seeking and violent (borderline suicidal at every chance), but also orderly with a close attention to detail.
Last night's episode killed a lot of my remaining goodwill, to be honest. When did this turn into such a rote detective drama?
HA! Very funny. This show was always a rote detective drama. Now that we know the truth about what happened between the guys in 1995 and 2002, we're stuck with trying to solve the actual case, which has never been very interesting. The character stuff between Rust and Marty continues to be very good, but there was some other shit that was just dumb.
Also, I find it pretty amazing how every scene with Maggie manages to annoy me more than the last. Her scenes with Marty are cliche as hell, and in her scenes with Rust, she's calculating and manipulative. Every other time she opens her mouth, I wonder why she's being such a bitch to Rust. And the way she used Rust to get back at Marty was just as loathsome as Lisa telling Maggie about the affair to get back at Marty. Rust's line about her asking him to lie to her essentially makes her culpable for Marty's years of cheating. Ugh.
But this episode did end on very good note for me. Because as pointed out on a forum for LSU sports fans,
I consider myself to be a smart, cognizant female, and as I mentioned in my earlier post, I do have problems with the way women are represented on True Detective.
But my biggest problem is that I just don't think I like it.
That's why I have such a hard time buying the argument that a subversive message is hidden within the subtle narrative. I don't find True Detective to be very subtle. It's definitely very cleanly written, for sure. But subtle? Not really. I've found most of it's major plot points, character arcs and story developments to be fairly obvious from very early on. The only times it's managed to catch me by surprise have been the few action pieces.
Sure, every story out there has already been told, and there's no denying that True Detective is a gorgeous incarnation of this particular story. But I'm not finding it all that interesting an incarnation.
So basically, if you're not already enjoying the show, it's hard to credit the idea that it's smart enough to be "subverting traditional masculinity and male values in society."
So while I agree with Rob that some of these articles (maybe even most) are by lazy authors desperate for a few easy clicks, others are written by people who don't like the show and/or don't think its messaging is effective.
The cinematographer, Adam Arkapaw, gets it. It's interesting to look at his IMDB. Nothing but shorts and documentaries and then Top of the Lake and now True Detective.
Thank you for that. I finished watching Top of the Lake a couple of weeks ago, so no wonder True Detective feels so familiar. It truly is beautiful to watch, and I can highly recommend Top of the Lake for the same reason.
That being said, I must say I really hesitated to watch this. After recently watching in quick succession Top of the Lake, The Fall, and Broadchurch, all of which feature wonderful performances by their leading ladies, I was in no mood to see a show that fails the Bechdel test as magnificently as True Detective does.
And I'm still not, if I'm perfectly honest.
The show is fairly well-written, very well-acted, and superbly directed, and it deserves a lot of the praise it's getting. But so far, it seems to me like every single woman in this show is a saint, a whore, or dead, and I'm finding that aspect of it pretty hard to tolerate. Hart's storyline leaves me feeling rather disengaged; it's boring and not at all what I was hoping for but also somehow exactly what I was expecting. Cohle, on the other hand, has a lot more to offer, as the end of episode four clearly demonstrates. Although I could do with a little less monologuing.
Which is in part why I have to agree with Doctor Submarine; the 2012 interview scenes don't make a lot of sense to me. I mean, in a police interview concerning an on-going investigation, why would those two detectives waste time listening to Cohle and Hart prattle on about shit that has nothing to do with their case? Marriage. Parenthood. The job. Life after the job. What on Earth does any of that have to do with serial murders? As a framing device, it leaves much to be desired.
So, I'm still on the fence on this one.
I've always loved Ron, and I think Rowling did too as she was writing it. That made it easy (for both of us) to overlook the fact that she was steadily forgetting to put in objective reasons Ron was lovable and worth having around.
These omissions on Rowling's part meant that I steadily lost interest in the Harry Potter series. She's made other Word of God proclamations, and they always seem to be inconsequential fan-service. Either pairing would've been justifiable, if she'd actually made the effort to justify them IN THE BOOKS. I'm glad she had that shit all worked out in her head, but very little of it made its way onto the page. As it stands, none of the romantic entanglements in those books made any sense to me.
It's not a sustainable relationship. Hermione would get bored with Ron.
I've never really understood this claim. Why exactly do you think Hermione would get bored in a relationship with Ron?
As a friend of mine pointed out, "The pose is a bit much, but I like the outfit."
I know this is just a promo shot, but it does make me curious what sort of adventures this Doctor has in store. What situation could inspire a person to stand in that position with that look on his face?
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by Cotterpin Doozer
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