This series is a French supernatural drama, that takes places in a mountain town in the Alps. People who have died in the past start to come back to life. I have been watching this show on Netflix. They have english subtitles made for this version and is translated extremely well. I never would have guessed that even with subtitles I would continue to watch more than the first episode.
I feel like the shots are longer than they would be if the show was produced in the U.S. At first you feel like the shots should cut quicker and they are showing a shot for too long. By the second episode I got use to these shots and it adds to the mystery of the show. The overall look and feel of the mountains is very different from any location in the U.S. so the exterior shots grab my attention. Visually this show is so great that I could watch it even without subtitles and still find it interesting.
This show originally aired in France on Canal+ under the name Les Revenats, in 2012. Not to get confused with the American series Resurrection(ABC, 2014), which has the same premise as Les Revenats. Or the American Adaption also call The Returned, which recently aired on A&E last month. I haven't seen the American version but it seems to not be nearly as good as the original, looking at the reviews.
Season one of Les Revenats had eight episodes that are all just under an hour an episode. Season two is apparently in production, but I'm surprised they are taking this long between seasons. This show has been doing very well! They won an International Emmy for best Drama Series.
Shows with subtitles don’t usually interest me. I feel like reading the subtitles takes away from the experience because I usually consider it too much work and not worth the effort. With Les Revenants, this is not the case. I could not stop watching this series after just one episode. The aesthetics are so strong that I didn’t even mind the subtitles. The setting, the shots, and the pacing all work together to keep me wanting more.
I would rate this show a 9/10, even if you don't understand any French and hate reading subtitles on foreign films you still need to give this show a try.
Boardwalk Empire is an HBO show created by Terence Winter. It is an American period style show based around the prohibition era of the U.S.A. It follows a group of characters that are involved in the illegal sale of alcohol throughout the New York/New Jersey area.
The show aired from September 19, 2010 to October 26, 2014 having five seasons. I have not completed the series as of now, but am in the middle of the second season. I personally love the show. It is unique and the writers have done a good job crafting creative characters for the audience to interact with. My favorite character is Jimmy, played by Michael Pitt. Jimmy is a Young man that does what needs to be done, and also has an interesting past that is unknown to him in the first season.
The show also incorporates real characters from history such as Al Capone played by Stephan Graham.
The show expands on american history to help tell a fictional story that keeps its audience on the edge of their seat and wanting more with each episode.
HBO invested a lot into this show. The pilot episode alone cost around 18 million dollars according to wikipedia, and in my opinion it payed off. The series ended up winning 2 Golden Globes and 4 Emmy's.
Award Season has finally kicked off! The Emmy Awards were
this weekend and they were quite different from years before. Check it out.
Neil Patrick Harris was the host this year so expectations
were high, not only because he has quite the experience with hosting big award
shows like the Tonys, but also because he is the main character of the funny
sit-com How I Met Your Mother. However, perhaps my expectations were too
high. The grand entrance of an original musical
number, specially choreographed to the Emmys for our excitement and to keep us
wanting to watch more was none other than disappointing. Mostly because there wasn’t one. Instead it was like most previous openings
where other celebrities are in some way trying to tell him how to host a show
and what he is doing wrong, as well as him taking a few jabs at other
celebrities in the audience. The opening
of the show was quite sad, much like the rest of the show.
This year the show seemed more to me as a funeral reception
more than anything. Like Ken Levine, a
hollywood comedic writer, put it, “it was one long funeral interspersed with
production numbers.” There were individual tributes, musical tributes,
presidential tributes, and they even felt it necessary to show Lee Harvey
Oswald get shot again. I was very confused by all of this. Especially by Elton
Johns tribute to Liberace. Its been over
25 years, I didn’t get it but maybe im just missing something, I don’t know. Regardless, I did not see the relevance most
of that had to do with the actual Emmy awards.
To kick off one of the big shocks of the night. Merrit
Wever, from Nurse Jackie, won the Emmy
for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She out-won Anna
Chlumsky from Veep, Jane Krakowski
from 30 Rock, Jane Lynch from Glee, Mayim Bialik from The Big Bang Theory, Sofia Vergara in Modern Family, and two-time consecutive
Emmy winner, Julie Bowen, from Modern
Family. I definitely didn’t see that one coming. And perhaps what was even more
unexpected was her speech. A short and
humorous “ Thank you so much. I gotta go. Bye” was all she said in response to
her new piece of gold. Maybe she was
afraid of the getting cut off by the music cue in the middle of an important
acknowledgment like every other winning actor and actress of the night. Either
way it was actually pretty fun to watch since it was not at all what I was
expecting to happen.
The other major shock of the night was when Jeff Daniels, as
Will McAvoy, in the show The Newsroom,
was the winner for Outstanding Lead Actor in Drama Series. He beat out John Hamm as Don Draper in Mad Men,
Hugh Bonneville for Downton Abbey, DamianLewis for Homeland, Kevin Spacey for House of Cards, and Bryan Cranston as the infamous Walter White of Breaking Bad. My mouth dropped to say the
least. I definitely would have lost a bet on this one. All of these actors do tremendous work,
however I firmly believe Breaking Bad
would not be the show it is without Bryan Cranston. His performances are incredible and very much
worth of the acknowledgement.
On a different note, The mid-show performance referencing
all of the shows for best TV drama was really cool to watch. The choreography
was spectacular in the way that every move correlated to the different themes
of the shows and what they represent. It
was by far my favorite part of the entire show.
Besides when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler decided to crawl up the stage.
That was priceless.
The Emmy awards are always something I look
forward to watching around this time of year.
However this year was a miss in terms of entertainment for me so I hope
for the Oscars and Golden Globes to make up for it in the next few months.
Over the Summer, my family decided to take a huge leap into the 21st century and not only buy a new TV to replace our 20+ year-old model, but to also spend an extra $8 per month on Netflix's streaming service. This opened up a world of possibilities; my dad could watch old episodes of Star Trek, my mom could finally catch up on Mad Men, and I had three whole months to binge-watch to my heart's content.
After re-watching Breaking Bad, I decided to take what I thought would be a brief detour to the world of Friday Night Lights. I quickly discovered, however, that the town of Dillon, Texas had a certain magical quality about it, and I soon found myself falling deeper and deeper under its spell. All of the notions that I had about the show - that it would be a conservative, cliched story about a football team vying for an ever elusive spot at the Texas State High School football championship game - were thrown out the window after the first episode. (SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD)
Is it cliche at times? Certainly. But the fact that the Dillon Panthers end up winning the State title is in no way reflective of the show as a whole. In the pilot episode, all star, pretty boy quarterback Jason Street, who was predicted to lead the team to victory and maybe one day even play in the NFL, isparalyzed and told that he will never walk again. Throughout the show, characters are hurt, cheated on, lied to, and forced to deal with the hardships that come with being in high school, a football program, or any kind of relationship. It can be dark, and not everyone has a happy ending.
But through all the soapy drama and football action alike, there is one constant: Coach Eric Taylor. Played with a steel jawed, sparkling-eyed confidence by the incredible Kyle Chandler (who won the Emmy for best actor in a drama series for his performance in FNL's fifth and final season), Coach Taylor is everything that this show stands for. He is a symbol of hope for those who have none, and commands attention whenever he is on screen. Youtube videos can't do him justice, but for what it's worth, here's a highlight reel.
So I'll admit it: Friday Night Lights got me hooked. I watched the whole series, all five seasons, in just under two months. Now, this may not be binge-watching in the truest sense of the word (I've known people who have plowed through the show in a matter of weeks) but I still watched it much quicker than the creators ever intended it to be watched. Some people claim that this ruins the integrity of the show by not allowing you to connect to the characters as much as you should be and by also helping to promote the "gotta have it all right now" attitude that our generation tends to live by. Hell, Jim Pagels, a columnist for Slate.com, wrote a very convincing argument against binge watching. Read it here.
Maybe it's just my college student mentality, but I have to strongly disagree. Not only are sites like Netflix and Hulu Plus a resource for television students like myself, but they offer a TV watching experience that is 100% tailored to the viewer. If I wanted to watch three episodes of FNL back to back to back, there was nothing (besides my job) that could stop me from doing so. On the flip side, if I was busy for a few days straight and not able to watch an episode, I didn't have to worry about missing anything, since I knew that whenever I got back, Tim Riggins and Matt Saracen and all of my other favorite Dillon Panthers would be there, waiting for my return.
Which brings me to another point; all of the TV characters that I've felt closest to, that have connected with me on a deeply personal level, have come from shows that I've binge-watched. Whether it be Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad or the more recent Coach Taylor, these characters have all left their mark on me. It's not that I now find watching shows on a week to week basis to be boring: it's that I have had the experience of truly immersing myself into a world for two month's time that it's now hard to be torn in and out of that world once per week. The times are changing, and TV is learning to change with it. I'm just along for the ride.
I just finished Friday Night Lights, and after I choked back my manly tears, I got the feeling that you get when you finish a really great book and realize that everything is over; that there's no more story to tell. But with the recent news that Connie Britton (Mrs. Taylor) has a copy of a script for a potential FNL movie, the Dillon dream may live on after all. That sounds like pretty great news to me: any chance to hear Coach give one more goosebump-inducing speech or see Tim Riggins wistfully look off into a Texas sunset is an opportunity that I can't miss out on. The only advice I have to give for everyone involved with the possible film?
New York Comic Con is next week, which is an exciting time for the geek community. Many TV shows, movies, video game developers, comic book publishers, independent artists, and other organizations hold panels and give sneak peeks at the latest content they will be producing and distributing.
One program that I hope will be at NYCC is Regular Show, which was created by JG Quintel and airs on Cartoon Network. Like Adventure Time, the show has a large following among college students due to its absurd and surreal humor. The show follows Mordecai, a blue jay and his friend Rigby, a raccoon, who work as groundskeepers at a park; while attempting to slack off, the two often act irresponsibly and put themselves in surreal situations that threaten their status as park employees or even the park itself.
Regular Show draws inspiration from two of Quintel’s student films, The Naive Man From Lolliland and 2 in the AM PM; Quintel’s characters Mordecai, Benson and Pops all appear in the shorts, and look and act much like their Regular Show counterparts. Both shorts can be viewed on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56STDM667ds
Regular Show has been well received critically, and recently won an Emmy for Best Short-Format Animated Program for the episode “Eggscellent,” which features Mordecai and Rigby attempting to eat a twelve egg omelet in order to win a trucker style hat with the words “I’m Eggcellent” on it. The episode also contains a humorous reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This clip shows Mordecai completing the Eggscellent Challenge, and demonstrates the show’s surreal sense of humor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvZ-22mb55o
Now entering its fourth season, the season premiere “Exit 9B” introduces Roger Craig Smith as Thomas, a goat who interns at the park for college credit. I hope that Regular Show will have some great sneak peeks if they attend New York Comic Con!
