Tag: television

Let’s talk about Game of Thrones

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Normally, I haven’t really posted much about Game of Thrones.  It’s one of those properties that I really love, and I often times don’t really write about the things that I really love until they’re over, be it being between books, seasons, or a definitive end of some sort.

But with the show winding down, and that we’re getting to the point where the remaining episodes presumably are all going to be epics in their own right if episode 3: The Long Night was any indication, I’m finding it difficult to contain all the things swirling around in my head about GoT, and by the time the next episode rolls around, I’ll probably lose my shit if I don’t take the time to do any writing about it.

Plus, speaking of writing, it’s pretty clear to me that George R.R. Martin isn’t actually ever going to finish the actual book series,* so as far as I’m concerned, the tv show is pretty much shaping the end of the series, definitively.

*Even if Martin finishes, I have little faith that the evolution of the show will mutate all of the thought processes that went into the original five books, to where he’ll deliberately alter and swing the story (and not in good ways) to keep book followers on their toes, and there’s no way he’s not going to be picturing Kit Harrington, Sophie Turner, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey or any other actor in his head when he’s writing key characters.  The books will DJ Tanner Wrestle tragically as a result, and it’s at this point where I’ll bust out the phrase “Dextering” again, named after the shitty way Jeff Lindsay steered the Dexter book series long after the television show started and ended.

SO, the Long Night – needless to say, this is where I write my disclaimer about how there will be spoilers, but also the fact that I’m still offline, and there’s no definitive timeline to when I’ll ever be back online, because I never have any time, and even if I did, by this point, I’ll have nearly four years’ worth of posts to back fill into the brog, which is a Sisyphus’ boulder in its own right.

SO, the Long Night – fucking incredible.  Kind of everything I had imagined the inevitable, eight-year build up to the battle between man and dead would be.  I can’t really think of anything that I was legitimately disappointed in, and despite the fact that a lot of my GoT death pool predictions did not come true, I still felt a sense of great satisfaction when it was all over.

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Thoughts on Cobra Kai S2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Disclaimer: there will probably be spoilers.  Despite the fact that this has little chance of being public for a long time.

Over the weekend, I shotgunned through season 2 of Cobra Kai.  I admit that I liked season 1 more than I thought I would, but it had no shortage of some eyerolling moments that were both funny, but tickled the nostalgia factor to where it was somewhat acceptable. 

However, after the first season, I was very dubious and had plenty of doubts about the direction of the show going into the second season.  As clever as the writing of the first season was, it was somewhat predictable, and I had some very strong predictions going into S2.  Needless to say, given the fact that I had low expectations that were surpassed going into the first season of the show, I was kind of back to being skeptical about the quality of the second.

Ultimately, the vast majority of the things I predicted about S2 of Cobra Kai, basically came true.  The return of John Kreese at the end of S1 meant that there would be something of a faction system within the dojo.  The cheesy love triangle between Samantha, Miguel and Robby came true, although it kind of turned into a square with the introduction of the pleasantly surprising Tory character.  Johnny would get involved with Miguel’s mom, and Daniel LaRusso would have some personal struggles balancing his hectic professional life with the world of karate.

I had all of these predictions, and every single one of them came true.  The writing of the first season basically laid the groundwork down for each of them, and the it’s been so linear, that it’s almost more impossible to deviate from it than let it ride its course.

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I feel like a lack of time is all part of being adults

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I take the time to write, it’s usually because I’ve built myself a nice little cushion of time to where I can write, fairly uninterrupted, for anywhere from 45-90 minutes.  That, has not happened in quite some time, and therefore I have not really taken the time to write, which in itself gives me a little bit of anxiety, because I don’t ever want to fall out of the habit of writing, because writing is important to me, and it makes me anxious when I haven’t done it in a while.

It’s literally been two weeks since the last time I sat down and did any sort of writing.  This isn’t to say that there’s been nothing interesting or worth writing about, although I will say that the usual bullshit that occurs in Atlanta and/or Georgia itself has been a little on the dull side or a little too darkly serious side, like the prehistoric anti-abortion laws they’re pushing, which are things that I don’t really feel remotely capable of speaking about.  I ran in my first-ever official half marathon, the Star Wars half at Disney World.  UVA won a national championship in an actual sport (basketball).  Women, main evented Wrestlemania, with Becky Lynch winning both women’s championships from Charlotte and Ronda Rousey.  Tiger Woods won the Masters and proved that winning shit in sports absolves anyone of their personal indiscretions because they’re totally related.  Game of Thrones embarked on their final season, and the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris almost burned down, because bad shit always tends to happen this time of year.

Things, have most definitely been happening all around the world; it’s just that I really haven’t been able to build that cushion that I always tend to want in order to do some writing, because it never seems like there’s ever any time in the day for me do such.  Whether it’s the increased responsibilities and the seemingly endless parade of little and large tasks that I have at work, meetings after meetings, I barely have the time to have proper lunches on a daily basis, much less be able to eat food and type words at the same time. 

And then when I get home, whether or not I have to cook dinner or an endless litany of small tasks and daily chores that I feel the need to do in order to have a somewhat kept house, that by the time I’m done with everything, I’m at that awkward point of the day in which I don’t feel like I have enough time to write, or watch anything other than a 30-minute program on Netflix, because I should probably start considering going to bed in order to be a responsible adult and not be tired during work.

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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But apparently, Love Death & Robots probably requires a trigger warning; despite the fact that it’s an 18 episode anthology of entirely self-contained individual stories, snowflakes on the internet declare that the entire series has a problem and that it is not okay.  I almost don’t want to link to it out of disgusted spite, but I don’t really hide the things that make me tick.

Long story short, the triggered link basically ignores every one of the 18 episodes except for Sonnie’s Edge and The Witness, and considering the fact that prior to Netflix’s alleged decision to adjust the order of the episodes, implies that this “author” watched the first three episodes and then went off on a tangent about how the show solely glamorizes violence against women; otherwise, it goes without saying that Good Hunting would have made this post as well.

Obviously, I agree with their point that glamorized violence against women is definitely a bad thing, but I’m not the least bit convinced that the so-called author actually watched the rest of the series, and decided to anoint the series as a whole as an enemy to women, and that people should watch it with such preconceived notions.  Sure, Netflix could’ve presented the order of the episodes to not start with such jarring violence, but the fact of the matter is that in today’s bingeing viewing society, viewers would still end up watching the suspect episodes eventually.

I did a really stupid thing today, which was I commented about this link on social media, when an online acquaintance of mine posted this link in the first place.  I will admit that my defenses were up seeing criticism of something that I’d so recently declared my love and enjoyment for, and even after a few hours of thinking about all of this, I still feel similarly about my opinions.  I think the article was cherry picked, and ignores the 14-15 out of 18 other episodes of the show that have literally nothing to do about sexual violence towards women.

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Love Death & Robots was incredible

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I sat down with no real objective other than to see what I could find to watch.  I selected Netflix, and although I usually think the auto-playing of whatever featured thing was being recommended to me at that very moment is pretty annoying and I wish could be turned off, Netflix squared up and hit my sweet spot for once.  After letting it auto-start the first episode of Love Death & Robots, I didn’t switch to anything else until I had finished the entire series.

To cut to the chase, Love Death & Robots was pretty much the best thing I’ve watched in a really long time.  That’s not to say I abhorred everything I’ve seen between like, Black Mirror and Love Death & Robots, but it’s the shows that really spark all my senses and most importantly get me thinking and analyzing that tend to stand out for me.  And it’s a little by design that I mentioned Black Mirror, because the easiest way for me to describe Love Death & Robots is that it’s kind of like an animated version of Black Mirror, in the way that it’s an anthology of self-contained stories that are well written, entertaining and provoke a lot of thought.

I know after the first film, the Matrix receives a lot of flack and is a constant source of ridicule, but I will admit that I was a big fan of the Animatrix anthology released in the midst of the film series.  In the same vein as Love Death & Robots, it was various animation styles on display, but they were all thematically tied together in some way shape or form, all relevant to the whole concept of the Matrix.  And although Love Death & Robots has no central theme, and every single episode is a self-contained storyline, the various forms of animation were all mind-blowing, ranging from obvious Unreal engine movie making, traditional cel animation, to some of the most realistic looking CG cinematography I’ve ever seen.

Seriously, I look back to things like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and the Polar Express, and remember all the skeptics of CGI declaring that the fallacy of computer graphics would never ever be able to capture the humanity of live action in CG.  Claiming that no matter how realistic the people looked, their eyes would always look dead and soulless, and be incapable of conveying the subtle nuances of human emotion that real life people do.  Such is not the case in Love Death & Robots, where there are some episodes where I had to really narrow my vision and really look hard to be able to tell that certain things were actually CG.  Seriously, episodes like Shape Shifters and Lucky 13, are so realistic looking, that if I weren’t wearing my glasses, I’d probably imagine that they were live action.

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No-context writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, I feel like I haven’t done any writing in a while, and then say that I haven’t really found anything that’s sparked any inspiration to write.  But then I chastise myself that the whole point of me wanting to write doesn’t always have to have specific context behind it, and that sometimes, it’s just the urge to write, even if there’s no specific subject at hand.

Despite the fact that I’m still offline, a notion that isn’t ever not there whenever I sit down to write, it’s been an entire week since I last ranted about how much the Morbius movie is probably going to suck.  Since then, no matter how much I scour the news for an interesting topic, various websites and feeds to hope to see something that piques my interest to turn into a word explosion, it’s been pretty barren out there for my interests and inspirations.

Regardless, such shouldn’t be an excuse to go stagnant for too long, and despite the fact that I don’t really feel like I have anything to write about, the inherent urge to write is still there, which brings us to now, where I’m sitting in front of my laptop with a word doc open, no specific topic in mind, and my fingers still moving.

For the most part, a lot of this general writing stagnation probably has to do with the fact that these days, I don’t really have a tremendous amount of free time anymore.  Such is the nature of being an adult, and trying to maintain my place in the working world, as well as undertaking the responsibilities of a job that is no longer really on the ground level anymore.  At work, I’m often times operating with varying levels of stress in place, with there seldom being none at all, and simultaneously I have to remind myself that my decisions hold more weight than they used to, and that I am actually responsible for other people.  I can’t phone it in as much as I’d like to at times, and sometimes it feels like I’m doing less work, which feels strange, especially since I still see that the workload amongst the team hasn’t exactly dwindled.

Outside of work, has been a tremendous amount of other work, specifically all related to the planning of my own wedding.  I’m not going to pretend like it hasn’t felt overwhelming at times, the sheer amount of tasks and things to consider before June, because it sometimes does, and I hit points where I don’t want to do anymore work at home, and just want to marathon something on Netflix or watch the WWE Network for four hours instead of doing actual work.

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Thoughts on True Detective S3

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

*There will likely be spoilers mentioned in this post, not that it matters considering the whole “I’m still offline” thing

Now that the third season of HBO’s True Detective is now in the books, I feel the compulsion to write some words about it.

Firstly, the show has completely redeemed itself from the terrible celebrity circle-jerk known as the second season of True Detective.  Although this line was pretty classic, there’s no mistaking that it was an utter bomb, especially in comparison to the first season.  I can’t really take Vince Vaughn seriously, and there’s no doubt he always has to try to get in some wisecrack into whatever role he’s doing, no matter if he’s supposed to be a cold and callous hustler.

Frankly, when I saw the initial teasers for season three, and how it only seemed to have the star power of just Mahershala Ali, I thought to myself that this might have some promise.  I’d been high on Ali after how much screen presence he demanded in Luke Cage and House of Cards, and I figured he seemed like the just right balance of recognizable actor without making himself bigger than the show itself.

Overall, I will say that S3 of True Detective was pretty outstanding.  Considering the plot of the show was basically three different timelines, several of the show’s actors like Ali and Stephen Dorff were playing triple-time, and really flexing their acting chops portraying their characters in three different decades.  For me, their scenes together really capture the bond between two men who have served, been partners, and lifelong friends on top of it all, and I felt that the show’s strongest moments often involved the two of them having intense and meaningful discussions.

The story did an excellent job of slow-releasing the characters and the revelations of the multiple plots going on throughout three different decades, all trying to solve the same murder/disappearance case, and at the end of every episode, I would always proclaim that “all the pieces of the puzzle haven’t been revealed yet!”  And despite the fact that the series took place in three different eras, all the clues were still drawling a pretty linear path towards the same goal.

However, as much as I enjoyed the season as a whole, it wasn’t without flaws; obviously this is talking about the ending of the series that left me about as satisfied as eating 95% of a Willy’s burrito – the show never really finished, because there were some pretty large things left unexplained!

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