matador43 wrote:

deina wrote:

personally i watch netflix every day, i just adore this platform!

 

Personnelle with the confinement, i've watched ALL Netflix! I'm now waiting for Netflix Season 2 😁

 

I've got you beat, I've watched all of Netflix and half of Amazon! 😎

I've just finished "Tales From The Loop." I love the show, for once a TV show that's not all motion and chattering, one that's willing to let itself be quiet and atmospheric. All the tales are interrelated though each stands on its own as separate episodes well. It's funny, the stories are completely different from those in the book, but manage to capture the feel of the book very well. Not quite the feeling of dread, foreboding, and existential dread the book conjured, bit lighter IMO.

I have read all three of the books, Tales From The Loop; After The Flood; and The Electric State and enjoyed them all.

 

Jeff wrote:

I have read all three of the books, Tales From The Loop; After The Flood; and The Electric State and enjoyed them all.

Are you referring to the big square illustrated book or are they different edition more like novels?
If thee illustrated book, how do they compared one to the other in termes of illustration?

Thanks. 

First, I mistyped, it's "Things From The Flood." I mean the large illustrated books. The imagery in the paintings in the books is all very much the same style, he has a unique style of dreamy techno-surrealism that carries across to all the books. What got to me is how the totals is so much greater than the sum of the parts. The books are lots of beautiful illustrations with spare, sparse text yet somehow this manages to produce an emotional feeling far beyond what you'd expect. I started with the last book, "The Electric State" which describes a young teenage girl's journey across the US with a small toy robot, traveling across a wasteland littered with strange abandoned military vehicles from a previous war and where people are addicted to this immersive VR technology. You get the feeling all of humanity is committing suicide using this VR, yet something is there waiting to be born to replace us.

The Loop books are different from the series in that there is an awful lot more of this technological junk of unknown function laying around and the people who built and run the Loop are not particularly concerned with the effects their flotsam has on the world above. There's some strange stuff out there and the impact of it and the side effects of Loop operation are not good. In the book, the two who swapped bodies due to the sphere were identical twins so no on noticed. "Things From The Flood" takes place after the loop was shut down due to the problems it created, and it flooded with water, yet the strangeness still continues, as if the Loop broke space-time in some manner and things are still filtering in. Or perhaps couldn't get back.

I greatly enjoyed all three, very beautifully illustrated and very thought provoking and emotive. Keeper books that need to be held in physical form, can't imagine trying to experience them in a digital format on a reader.

 

 

Thank you for the quick review.

Jeff wrote:

I greatly enjoyed all three, very beautifully illustrated and very thought provoking and emotive. Keeper books that need to be held in physical form, can't imagine trying to experience them in a digital format on a reader.

Must be true, because right now, they all three seems difficult to find in printed edition, at least in euros and in english.

matador43 wrote:

Must be true, because right now, they all three seems difficult to find in printed edition, at least in euros and in english.

I seem to recall it took a while to get one of the books back before the TV show and the recent pandemic. I think I remember that at least one of the books was published via a Kickstarter campaign, and that it wasn't the first book. He apparently had enough fans to push it over the top and get it published. While the show is excellent, I hope this does push more people to acquire and experience his books, they are indeed something special.

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Loving Vincent

Two handful actors, more than a hundred painters created the story of a postmaster’s son trying to deliver a letter written by a not very successful painter to his brother, who died before this letter could reach him. Then he tries to find out the circumstances of Vincent’s death.

Now I have to pay another visit to the Kroeller-Moeller-Museum in Otterlo and the van-Gogh-Museum in Amsterdam.

Binged a couple documentaries on Netflix.

The success of Tiger King surprised me, because before it hit viral it's like one of those insane trashy shows that The Soup covers and exists under the radar. Every turn keeps getting crazier but there's still a lot of things the documentary didn't include - especially Joe's past life before the GW Zoo. His feud with Carole also exists in internet comments, if there is something the creators got right is that those two are obsessed with each other.

How to Fix a Drug Scandal - Slow burn but really compelling. It has clear villains but rarely is there a genuine sympathetic pull on one of them by the opposing side. The build up was amazing, the music helped I guess.

The Pharmacist - I haven't finished this one bec it got me teary so early on. It was touching to see the Dad fight so hard for his son to get some justice and how a tragedy really does change you.

I haven't gotten around to Tiger King as yet, undoubtedly I will just to see what all the viral hoopla is about.

I've started "Band Of Brothers" which somehow I never watched before, very good WWII drama. I also put "The Pacific" in my queue, I've watched it years ago but it makes a nice bookend for the former show. I do notice, watching "Band Of Brothers" just how different the two theaters of war were. Neither were walks in the park, but I'd much have preferred to being in the European theater, the Pacific seems to not only have had a level of brutality that goes beyond the Eurpoean war but also a miserable jungle environment.

Re Van Gogh, it would be nice to see that museum. The only single artist focused museum I've ever seen was the Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. And man, that's more Dali than should be seen at one time.

I'm also working my way through two old series, the remake of "Battlestar Galactica" from the early 2000s, which is one of the best dramas I've seen regardless of genre. And the 1960s original "The Outer Limits" which is still amazing. The things they accomplished with no budget and limited special effects still are impressive, and the use of camera angles and such are right out of avant garde cinema of the era, quite a stretch for a network TV show.

Just finished watching Devs by Alex Garland. Excellent existential, future-thinking sci-fi thriller. Highly recommended.

Duels wrote:

Just finished watching Devs by Alex Garland. Excellent existential, future-thinking sci-fi thriller. Highly recommended.

I saw some teasers for that show, it looked interesting. I don't do Hulu but might have to think about changing that. I've resisted as I have so many items in my Netflix and Amazon queues it'll take me until the heat death of the universe to watch them all, but hearing a good review from you on top of what I've seen about the show makes me want to watch it.

I see "The Last Kingdom" has a new season on Netflix, going to start on that soon. Our schedule in lockdown here has been usually listen to music most of the day while puttering, cooking, etc. then after a late-ish dinner settle down for some TV in the evening.

I did watch the old movie "Strategic Air Command" starring James Stewart last night. Always brings back memories as much of it was filmed in Florida at MacDill AIr Force Base, Tampa. My father was stationed there when it was filmed, he was going to have a bit part in it as an extra in the scene where they showed all the guys lined up getting on transport aircraft for deployment. However he and his buddy were the only two on base rated to load the rocket assisted take off bottles (RATO) on the B47 so they got pulled to do that. There's a scene of a B47 rocketing into the air using these, and I always get a kick out of it, thinking "My dad loaded those rocket bottles!"