Tag: television

CNN done fucked up

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was a kid, I was always under the impression that the news was just the news; reporting on facts, with no bias or leanings.  Maybe a little bit of personality from the anchors, and on snow days, waiting for the weather people, otherwise, waiting until the last 5-7 minutes of the show for sports, so I can see which team was the latest to fall to the Chicago Bulls or what Cal Ripken, Jr’s consecutive game streak was at.  But that the FOX5 10 o’clock news was just news, the same as all other news outlets, and really nothing more.

I don’t think it was until the 2000 Presidential election did I realize that news outlets were far more capable of things other than just, the news.  Regardless of what one feels about FOX News, there’s no denying their involvement in the 2000 election, about how they declared a victor a little too precariously early and their overwhelming support for the Republican party.

This experience opened my eyes that news sources were not as neutral and unbiased as I had grown up thinking they were, and that there were most definitely rosters of various sources taking difference sides and positions in political spectrum.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that I lean left when it comes to most facets of life, and I like to believe I’m a pretty liberal thinker, open-minded to lots of logical things.  That being said, I used to often read the Huffington Post, because I appreciated their want to broadcast positive and uplifting stories, especially in a media-driven world hell-bent on reporting all the stories of violence, hatred, gunfire and war; if it bleeds, it leads, and there’s really only so much of it I can tolerate on a daily basis without feeling like I’m losing my humanity.

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GLOW was pretty good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It doesn’t happen often, but not only did I manage to dive into a Netflix original fairly close to when it drops, I’m already done with the series and can write things about it in a timeframe where it’s likely that not every single TV watcher on the planet has also watched every single episode yet.  But I didn’t want to write anything about it until I was finished with the series, and ultimately, I’m glad that I waited.

As a wrestling fan throughout most of my life, GLOW was one of those things that I remember its existence back in the day, when they’d manage to sneak in a sparse commercial during WWF Prime Time Wrestling broadcasts, but being the little girl-hating misogynist as a kid, I didn’t think anything of it, other than trying to remember the acronym behind the name.  I never watched anything aside from the commercials, and I never sought out to seek out what kind of product they put on.  I just knew, they existed.  Nothing more.

When Netflix announced that they were doing such a show, I was mildly interested, because I am now an adult, capable of understanding things other than Masters of the Universe and Super Mario Bros.  I’m always intrigued with the wrestling industry in general, and it didn’t hurt to build promotion of the show around Alison Brie, whom every nerdy guy in the world had a crush on while watching Community.

To be honest, in spite of my enthusiasm and anticipation of the show, GLOW was actually a little bit difficult to get into, for me.  But after watching through the whole series, a part of me felt like such was constructed in a deliberate manner, as to really exaggerate the finer points of what progresses a storyline – much like how it’s done in the wrestling industry itself.

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So good.  Master of None, Season 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve (attempted to) articulated before on how much I loved Netflix’s Master of None, and applauded it on its sheer realism and top-top shelf writing and direction.  The whole minority and LGBT-aware aspect of it took a back seat to the fact that it was simply a dynamite show, that I could not get enough of and was sad when the first season came to an end.

It was wonderful news when the second season was confirmed, and it was happy days all over again when I found the time to binge through the first half of it, and turned into a melancholy end of a good roller-coaster ride as I methodically watched the last few episodes.

Seriously, Master of None is pretty much on my perma-list of favorite television shows.  Ever.  Up there with Parks & Recreation, Black Mirror, and a few other titles that are probably up there that have the unfortunate distinction of being left off because they’re not as fresh on the brain.

Season 2 of Master of None did not disappoint, and I’m hard pressed to say that I didn’t not enjoy a single episode.  Even the prototypical palette-cleanser episode, I Love New York, which barely featured any of the actual cast was done in a manner that was still captivating, entertaining and generated humor in creative and believable ways.

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Remembering Adam West

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ll be honest, the vast majority of times I hear about a media personality dying, I don’t really care.  Actors, musicians, performers, guys like Chris Cornell, Roger Moore, Chuck Berry or Bill Paxton come to mind.  Some, I feel like I should have appreciated more than I did, like Mary Tyler Moore and Don Rickles, but they were also of a different time than my own, and I never sought them out later in life.  Often, I’ll see stories of their passings flash on the web and social media, and sometimes I’ll recognize their names, but other times, I quickly come to the conclusion that as unfortunate as the loss of life may be, I didn’t really know much about them, have any sort of emotional, nostalgic connection with them, and not really care and be off with the rest of my days.

Adam West is a different story however, because I am a nerd who was and is a fan of Batman in just about every possible iteration of the property.  And despite all the jokes throughout history about a jaded and resentful portrait of Adam West, resentful of the passage of time and the laundry list of other actors who have portrayed the character, there was always a shred of truth to his underlying message: he’s Batman.

As campy and corny the 60s television series was, it was still classic and iconic television that will probably never be touched in terms of formula and execution.  As a kid, I wanted to mock it and goof on how campy it was, but when the day was over, I realize that I had sat through two episodes of the show and found myself enjoying it.  Every day after elementary school was the same formula:

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A new genre of horror

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few months, I’ve watched a lot of television shows and movies, that albeit good and entertaining, I’ve noticed an unnerving possibility that these stories could be realities.  Such in themselves transcend a typical horror genre of jump scares or traditional psychological fright, and seem like it’s becoming something of a new genre of horror, in the horror that such fucked up stories could be modern day reality, with just a few realistic tweaks to the world here and there.

Black Mirror and Get Out come to mind pretty quickly, but what really pushes the ball down the path is The Handmaid’s Tale, which the present story is disturbing and disheartening, but it’s really the series of flashbacks that really invoke horror, as modern American society crumbles and deteriorates into the dystopian, Christianity-driven world of Gilead.

That’s really the horror of the show; believable, relatable situations, that especially in today’s modern society, feel like things that could very easily happen with just a little bit of coercion in the wrong direction.  Dystopian inequality?  Just a few wrong bureaucrats voted in away.  Legalized xenophobia?  Same impetus.  Fahrenheit 451 becoming a reality, technology evolving into wrong directions, people getting hanged in public, these are all things that feel like they could become common place with just a few wrong decisions from society here and there.

And I feel like storytelling of today is very much aware of this new genre of horror, and is capitalizing on it, leading to such frightening and captivating television and film.  Much like trainwrecks, they’re hard to turn away from, but goddamn does it provoke thought and make you wonder just how close to chaos it feels like the “real” world is actually operating under, and if things will ever get better, or are all these nihilistic ideas a little too close to reality, and it’s not so much a matter of if, but when shit hits the fan and these stories become reality.

I find this offensive

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Who is the ultimate Warrior?  Between Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant?

How about fucking neither?? 

How about having some god damn respect for the most polarizing man in the history of the professional wrestling, and not comparing him to an industry full of bitches and is somehow more fake?

Look, I get that ESPN is all buddy-buddy with the WWE these days, and I know Stephen A. Shit is pretty much the worst talks-about-sports guy in history, but jesus christ it’s never a low they’ll sink to in order to have a clever quip or graphic to put onto screen.

Neither is an ultimate warrior, but if you had to answer who was the best between the two, the answer is obviously Stephen Curry.  The guy won without Durant, and then Durant being the lazy gravy-training leech, jumped ship from a great team onto the best team, hoping to coast his way to his own ring.  I mean, never in my life did I ever think that anyone would be clawing to join the Golden State Warriors, but I’ve also seen the Cubs win the World Series too.

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I did nothing but pretty much watch television all weekend

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And it was everything I thought it could be.  No really, for the vast majority of my weekend, I watched television primarily, and for the first time in a while feel like I actually had a nice relaxing weekend.

Prior to this past weekend, I’ve had to go into work at least once per, in four out of the last five weekends, and was just coming off a stretch where I’d gone into the office twelve straight days.  Working overtime for the betterment of the team, keeping shit on schedule and because the season occasionally dictates it isn’t really that big of a problem, but the sheer volume of my work compounded by a faulty machine that failed more frequently than a Volkswagen was putting me into a situation of rapid burnout, and this past weekend wasn’t so much of a deserved weekend off, it was absolutely necessary.

Needless to say, I slept in both days, which relatively speaking, means I slept like eight hours, instead of like six.  Granted, my body is so accustomed to waking up at like 6:30 a.m., I hit points where I always wake up between 6:30 and 7:30, panic about having overslept before realizing that it’s the weekend and then crawl back into bed with tremendous relief and try to go back to sleep and hope the animals didn’t hear any commotion and start trying to wake me up.

And when you’re feeling rested and caught up on sleep, everything afterward feels leisurely and relaxed.  Coffee tastes better.  Going to the gym for a run felt pleasant and not like a nuisance chore.  Taking the dogs out is more leisurely without a clock over your head on when it’s time to head to work.  Going out to hang with friends is more enjoyable when you know that there’s no drop dead cutoff time to get back home and get to sleep in order to get enough rest.

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