[TV] August Television Discussion

[PetrolCB]

I just spent the afternoon watching the first season of Road Rules on MTV Classic. What the hell?

[J.T.]

On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 8:55 AM, Reed said:

I was watching the latest season of Bates Motel. .

One interesting thing about Psycho: Norman Bates always worked as a sympathetic character because he was insane. He didn't know he was insane. And you can't hate an insane person.

Then, at the end of season 4, you get the implication: "Yes, Norman is vaguely aware, on some level, of what is going on here. He's manipulating people. He's lying. He's covering up. He's ill, sure, but now he's eagerly going along with it all."

In that respect, the TV show is a whole lot sicker than the film or Hitchcock, in general.  

Hitchcock suckers you into feeling compassion for Norman Bates, but he is far from innocent and he's always known that he's fucking crackers.  He's the one that murders his mother and her lover in a jealous rage and Norman is the one who absorbs her persona in order to absolve himself of the guilt of his act caused by his Oedipal desires. 

At some point in the timeline of the movie and the novel. Norman must've been keenly aware of his deteriorating mental state, but he is also completely lacking in empathy so he doesn't really care that he's a sociopath.  I think that the television show does a pretty good job of telling that part of his story.

IMO, the reason his mother's persona is so abusive and eventually gains dominance in the movie and in the novel is because Norman continues to punish himself for the homicide.  Think about it.  We as readers of the novel and the audience of the movie have always assumed that Norman's mother was domineering woman is because that is how Norman portrayed her when he slipped into "her" identity. 

"We" have no idea what she was really like (ie. how Robert Bloch might have envisioned her), but we know what she might've been like thanks to Bates Motel.

I don't think that one is sicker than the other.  Bates Motel just seems more disturbing because you have a lot more information to work with.  When we are introduced to Norman in medias res in the movie, he's already experienced all of the trauma that pushed him over the edge.

[Craig H]

Ballers is better this season, but that's not saying much. It still isn't good, and yet, I still keep watching for some odd reason. It's 100% NFL Entourage now since, unlike last season, they're name dropping real, current names left and right and NFL and ESPN people are constantly coming on the show for guest spots. The Rock and Rob Corddry are infinitely more likable than anyone from Entourage, which makes this better.

Vice Principals continues to crack me up. It was awesome to see them finally get a victory, only for Lee to fuck it all up.

 

[Chaos]

On 8/22/2016 at 11:18 AM, Craig H said:

Ballers is better this season, but that's not saying much. It still isn't good, and yet, I still keep watching for some odd reason. It's 100% NFL Entourage now since, unlike last season, they're name dropping real, current names left and right and NFL and ESPN people are constantly coming on the show for guest spots. The Rock and Rob Corddry are infinitely more likable than anyone from Entourage, which makes this better.

Vice Principals continues to crack me up. It was awesome to see them finally get a victory, only for Lee to fuck it all up.

 

I'm half-way caught up on Ballers Season 2. I agree. It isn't good, but I also can't turn away. I think The Rock's charisma in almost everything he does goes a long way. Plus, it does feel the void of mindless dumb TV that Entourage left for me. I feel like there's a really good show in this somewhere. I'm just not sure how you get it there.

[Mister TV]

I gave up on Ballers last season but gave it another shot the other day and it's still bad. Also the Jonathan Silverman looking guy on Ballers is Jane Fonda's son, is there some sorta rule that HBO needs to have the offspring of famous people on their shows? 

[Jerome Miller]

6 hours ago, happjack said:

I gave up on Ballers last season but gave it another shot the other day and it's still bad. Also the Jonathan Silverman looking guy on Ballers is Jane Fonda's son, is there some sorta rule that HBO needs to have the offspring of famous people on their shows? 

 

Presumably it's being done as a favor for Fonda's appearances in The Newsroom

[Curt McGirt]

Why in the living hell is Sundance playing an EDITED version of Goodfellas?!

Meanwhile right after, the 2 1/2 hour (!) debut episode of Gomorrah is playing, and I guarantee that won't be censored.

EDIT: Nevermind. Somebody said "fuck" and they blanked it out of the subtitles. Fuck.

[Curt McGirt]

Well, Gommorah was... okay. Pretty standard mafia stuff despite the Neapolitan placement. I guess this shit still goes on but you would think they'd be just a little smarter after all these, well, centuries. They probably are but it just doesn't make for good cinema. As it is though, well acted, well shot, starts off with a really cool setpiece. Far as the story goes though, if they needed 2 1/2 hours to set everything up then I just hope they can be more interesting than Ray Donovan. The Wire, this ain't. I mean they've even got their own Fredo character. 

[J.T.]

Speaking of Sundance Channel, I've been trying to get into Cleverman, but it is kicking my ass.

I really really really miss Samurai Saturdays on IFC.

[odessasteps]

I found some of those i still had on vhs not long ago when i was going thru black tapes looking for mid 2000s cmll.

[J.T.]

2 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I found some of those i still had on vhs not long ago when i was going thru black tapes looking for mid 2000s cmll.

When Tower Records was still at Willow Lawn in mid-town Richmond, they had an As Seen Om IFC section and I pretty much raided nearly all of the Samurai Saturdays shelf.

I am still missing a few movies in the Zatoichi series, but I got the ones that were my favorites.

[Curt McGirt]

The Champaign, IL crown jewel of video stores, That's Rentertainment, had a going-out-of-business sale. My friend that worked there said some asshole that didn't even know what Zatoichi was bought the WHOLE SERIES, just because he thought it was worth a good chunk of change. 

Sorry J.T. I know you're holding in the rage right now. Go scream in your ride when you get out of work.

[Elsalvajeloco]

I'm through three episodes of Last Chance U and boy, do I know, have hung out with, and can relate to a lot of the dudes on this EMCC team. This goes especially for Ollie. Back in junior high and high school, I had about two or three of those dudes in just about every class. You just knew that nobody in class was gonna get work done. I'm not saying that someone like Ollie is necessarily a distraction because for the most part, I always completed my work. However, that's mostly because my mom didn't play that shit. However, it highlights a lot of the shortcomings of many schools in the rural South where you have to pass people like that.  Either that or you have to pray that they are able to be a part of the special education program. On the other side, if you've followed all the work that someone like Dr. Umar Johnson has done, a lot of black kids don't belong in special ed. Shit, I can testify to that. They tried to put me in special ed. I was in special ed for about one day. Then the very next school year, I was in the gifted program and winning all types of academic awards. So I definitely sympathize with Ollie.

That's how fucked up it is going to a majority black grade school in a small ass Mississippi town tucked away from anywhere relevant. In effort to avoid intervention from the state, they try their very best to hide students so those students won't affect their standing. The problem is, especially in the last ten years or so, that ends up working against them. You have students who should have graduated years ago coming back at the end of the school year and taking standardized tests with the kids who are on track to graduate on time (at least the kids who have the grades to pass). That's not even counting the kids who repeatedly get held back because they can't even make it on a curve.

For someone like Ollie (based on what I've seen in three episodes) who fits into that gray area and comes from a very rough background, what do you do to make up that lost ground? I graduated number three in my high school class, and I'm still trying to make up ground because of the real world competition I'm facing. Luckily, I am able to make it with a comfortable job and able to make ends meet. So yeah, I am not surprised he seems hopeless and just wishing that a check falls out of the sky when he's done at EMCC.

As an educator on the collegiate level, what the hell do you with someone like Ronald Ollie? I get what Ms. Wagner is trying to do by being that Blindside type benevolent but stern white person guidance. However, that's only a small fraction of Ollie's life. Having lived near Mississippi Delta CC and Coahoma Community College for quite awhile, I'm pretty sure there is a Ms. Wagner type person at both schools. However, I am not sure that rounding them all up like cattle as they wonder about campus and all but doing their work for them is going help more than hinder if they are fortunate to move on (or go back) to a 4 year institution. Several people I know (or knew) played football at MDCC. Afterward, they either went to Delta State, one of the local HBCUs (Valley, Jackson State, Alcorn), or in most cases, came right back to town and never ever got to played D1 football ever. If it's the very latter, it ain't a whole lot of shit to do back home unless you really enjoy working fast food, cutting/fixing hair, or driving trucks. All the other jobs that require minimum education and/or training rarely have openings. Otherwise, you're chilling at the house and trying to figure out different ways to come up on some money.

My feeling is if you're really talented, they (whoever has interest in you) will find a way for you to make it. However, if you can't hack it at a school like MDCC that's basically extended high school, you got no shot elsewhere you do the Gary Payton and have people do your work or they make up bullshit classes for you to attend. In my opinion, it should never, ever be that way. If you don't have a clear learning disability, you should not have to make up for the shortcomings of your school district. To put them in a situation where they only get passed through and get handing off to people who don't have time to baby them is completely unfair. You have twelve years at the grade school level to figure out who and what they are as a student. You have the data and assessments to prove that. If you can't do that, you need to overhaul your system and your approach. 

[supremebve]

17 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I'm through three episodes of Last Chance U and boy, do I know, have hung out with, and can relate to a lot of the dudes on this EMCC team. This goes especially for Ollie. Back in junior high and high school, I had about two or three of those dudes in just about every class. You just knew that nobody in class was gonna get work done. I'm not saying that someone like Ollie is necessarily a distraction because for the most part, I always completed my work. However, that's mostly because my mom didn't play that shit. However, it highlights a lot of the shortcomings of many schools in the rural South where you have to pass people like that.  Either that or you have to pray that they are able to be a part of the special education program. On the other side, if you've followed all the work that someone like Dr. Umar Johnson has done, a lot of black kids don't belong in special ed. Shit, I can testify to that. They tried to put me in special ed. I was in special ed for about one day. Then the very next school year, I was in the gifted program and winning all types of academic awards. So I definitely sympathize with Ollie.

That's how fucked up it is going to a majority black grade school in a small ass Mississippi town tucked away from anywhere relevant. In effort to avoid intervention from the state, they try their very best to hide students so those students won't affect their standing. The problem is, especially in the last ten years or so, that ends up working against them. You have students who should have graduated years ago coming back at the end of the school year and taking standardized tests with the kids who are on track to graduate on time (at least the kids who have the grades to pass). That's not even counting the kids who repeatedly get held back because they can't even make it on a curve.

For someone like Ollie (based on what I've seen in three episodes) who fits into that gray area and comes from a very rough background, what do you do to make up that lost ground? I graduated number three in my high school class, and I'm still trying to make up ground because of the real world competition I'm facing. Luckily, I am able to make it with a comfortable job and able to make ends meet. So yeah, I am not surprised he seems hopeless and just wishing that a check falls out of the sky when he's done at EMCC.

As an educator on the collegiate level, what the hell do you with someone like Ronald Ollie? I get what Ms. Wagner is trying to do by being that Blindside type benevolent but stern white person guidance. However, that's only a small fraction of Ollie's life. Having lived near Mississippi Delta CC and Coahoma Community College for quite awhile, I'm pretty sure there is a Ms. Wagner type person at both schools. However, I am not sure that rounding them all up like cattle as they wonder about campus and all but doing their work for them is going help more than hinder if they are fortunate to move on (or go back) to a 4 year institution. Several people I know (or knew) played football at MDCC. Afterward, they either went to Delta State, one of the local HBCUs (Valley, Jackson State, Alcorn), or in most cases, came right back to town and never ever got to played D1 football ever. If it's the very latter, it ain't a whole lot of shit to do back home unless you really enjoy working fast food, cutting/fixing hair, or driving trucks. All the other jobs that require minimum education and/or training rarely have openings. Otherwise, you're chilling at the house and trying to figure out different ways to come up on some money.

My feeling is if you're really talented, they (whoever has interest in you) will find a way for you to make it. However, if you can't hack it at a school like MDCC that's basically extended high school, you got no shot elsewhere you do the Gary Payton and have people do your work or they make up bullshit classes for you to attend. In my opinion, it should never, ever be that way. If you don't have a clear learning disability, you should not have to make up for the shortcomings of your school district. To put them in a situation where they only get passed through and get handing off to people who don't have time to baby them is completely unfair. You have twelve years at the grade school level to figure out who and what they are as a student. You have the data and assessments to prove that. If you can't do that, you need to overhaul your system and your approach. 

Finish the show.  It is pretty apparent that most of these dudes can do the work, they do not believe in themselves.  Ollie is not even the worst example of a kid who could do well in school, but have no confidence in their intellect.  Ollie is someone who would probably be a good student if he'd stop goofing off and do his work.  He's just always been able to get away with goofing off.  There is another player who legit has a ocean sized distance between his actual ability and his perceived ability.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

32 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Finish the show.  It is pretty apparent that most of these dudes can do the work, they do not believe in themselves.  Ollie is not even the worst example of a kid who could do well in school, but have no confidence in their intellect.  Ollie is someone who would probably be a good student if he'd stop goofing off and do his work.  He's just always been able to get away with goofing off.  There is another player who legit has a ocean sized distance between his actual ability and his perceived ability.  

Yeah, I'm gonna finish the show obviously.

I'm not even talking just about the confidence level. There are always gonna be the dudes who sneak through the crack just because there is X factor they've found. That could be a certain teacher or instructor, having an epiphany, or some other thing that motivates them. My point is what happens to dudes like Ollie who don't even get to the EMCC point in life where football is a viable option? Meaning if he didn't have the potential, what else could he do in life?  How did we arrive at the point where that's the perception of someone like him? Because if it is based on confidence and motivation, a lot of the schools I attended wouldn't be placed under state control. 

That is the whole problem that I was discussing. If the solution after a decade plus of schooling is hopefully, it will click one day on this level and/or hopefully the next, you've failed the students miserably. Also, you've done a great disservice to the people who have to instruct them when they move on. You've fucked these kids up royally.

[supremebve]

2 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Yeah, I'm gonna finish the show obviously.

I'm not even talking just about the confidence level. There are always gonna be the dudes who sneak through the crack just because there is X factor they've found. That could be a certain teacher or instructor, having an epiphany, or some other thing that motivates them. My point is what happens to dudes like Ollie who don't even to the EMCC point in life where football is a viable option? Meaning if he didn't have the potential, what else could he do in life?  How did we arrive at the point where that's the perception of someone like him? Because if it is based on confidence and motivation, a lot of the schools I attended wouldn't be placed under state control. 

You'd be surprised how many people are just plan afraid to try.  I grew up in a place where there was plentiful work for minimally educated people until right around the time my parents graduated from high school.  My mom decided to go to college, get a degree, and do whatever she needed to do to better her and her children's lives.  My dad, who isn't dumb, didn't see the writing that was on the wall.  He tried to find work, but when that didn't work he started selling crack.  My mom makes six figures and has no regrets.  My dad has been to prison multiple times and sits around wondering where everything went wrong.  These are two people who grew up in the same place, were married, had two kids, and are pretty much equal in every single way at the age of 22.   My mom believed that she could live a better life, my dad didn't.

[Tabe]

Only through 3 episodes of Last Chance U? Well, midway through episode 4,it goes completely BONKERS.  What a great show. 

[supremebve]

4 minutes ago, Tabe said:

Only through 3 episodes of Last Chance U? Well, midway through episode 4,it goes completely BONKERS.  What a great show. 

I think it is the best TV show about football ever, and I absolutely LOVE Friday Night Lights.  They somehow picked the exact right team, filled with the exact right players, at the exact right time.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

47 minutes ago, supremebve said:

You'd be surprised how many people are just plan afraid to try.  I grew up in a place where there was plentiful work for minimally educated people until right around the time my parents graduated from high school.  My mom decided to go to college, get a degree, and do whatever she needed to do to better her and her children's lives.  My dad, who isn't dumb, didn't see the writing that was on the wall.  He tried to find work, but when that didn't work he started selling crack.  My mom makes six figures and has no regrets.  My dad has been to prison multiple times and sits around wondering where everything went wrong.  These are two people who grew up in the same place, were married, had two kids, and are pretty much equal in every single way at the age of 22.   My mom believed that she could live a better life, my dad didn't.

No, I am not really surprised by that. I've done tutoring off and on for about ten years now (more off in recent months because I have a full time job that requires bit more now), and I've seen lots of different people. Doing tutoring online is extremely different in that it runs the gamut. It's a bit strange getting the kids of immigrants where in the sixth grade they know more than you did in tenth and eleventh grade. Personally, that's a bit bewildering. Then, you get the kids that aren't even going to try. Tutoring onsite locally in Mississippi, yeah, you see why they would need the tutor. Usually, the response in my head is either "um...what the fuck are your teachers doing?" or "you better get in on the ground floor and start selling weed or working on your mixtape now". Several times, it feels like a mix of the two.

In talking with school intervention specialists, guidance counselors, and people sent in specifically by the state, I always feel like afterwards a sense of "Oh yeah, this is why these children keep failing." Instead of trying to reverse a trend permanently, they feel like they only have to power to get through that particularly school year. Moreover, the hope is that these children fall into that particular category. Specifically, they hope that they at least hit that mark for state tests. That's where we get so much incentive based learning. The problem is you're going to have students where those incentives don't do shit for them.

My mom is a "If I tried" story too. My dad (who was only around for a little while) smoked crack. Both didn't get past high school. The thing that I understand though is those where under similar but somehow incredibly different circumstances juxtaposed with my learning experiences. I was a technology integration specialist for two years at the high school I graduated from and was dumbfounded by how the conditions were poorer than when I attended just only a number of years prior. That's more of my experience than what my parents had in the 60s and 70s. Their definition of "didn't try" was molded by the fact that you could work at the catfish plant the next town over and make a decent living. There wasn't any state tests.  30-40 students didn't have to complete their essays with only one computer in a classroom. AmeriCorps/Teach For America teachers from the northern states (most of them whom are white) weren't there and had to interact with black kids for the first time in their lives. There are a ton of things that are the same, but is it a whole different ballgame. As a result, it's clearly a system designed to mass produce more kids of that nature instead of stopping it altogether. 

[DouglasC]

Have you ever wondered "Hey, whatever happened to that guy on the old Degrassi High that played Kathleen's abusive boyfriend?".

For both of you that have said that, here you go! Warning: Not stomach safe.

[EVA]

3 hours ago, supremebve said:

I think it is the best TV show about football ever, and I absolutely LOVE Friday Night Lights.  They somehow picked the exact right team, filled with the exact right players, at the exact right time.  

They just announced that they'll be filming this coming season, too!

Which is crazy to me, that Buddy Stevens would agree to being filmed again after how horribly he came off on the show...but I guess that's just another example of how egomaniacs have no self-awareness.

It probably won't be as good, but I'm in.

[Brian Fowler]

19 hours ago, J.T. said:

When Tower Records was still at Willow Lawn in mid-town Richmond, they had an As Seen Om IFC section and I pretty much raided nearly all of the Samurai Saturdays shelf.

I am still missing a few movies in the Zatoichi series, but I got the ones that were my favorites.

https://www.amazon.com/Zatoichi-Swordsman-Criterion-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B00EO2I6OM

[J.T.]

11 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

The Champaign, IL crown jewel of video stores, That's Rentertainment, had a going-out-of-business sale. My friend that worked there said some asshole that didn't even know what Zatoichi was bought the WHOLE SERIES, just because he thought it was worth a good chunk of change. 

Sorry J.T. I know you're holding in the rage right now. Go scream in your ride when you get out of work.

I do not know who this person is and I hate them with all of what is left of my heart.

[Curt McGirt]

The New Girl is on in the background on TBS and they had an episode where the girls got invited to a Prince Party... and they end up at a legit Prince Party... and Prince is on the fucking show. Who knows why he pulled The New Girl out of a hat to show up on but it was funny and awesome. 

"Prince is magic."

[AxB]

Heh: