Thursday, March 13, 2014

Logging

TV: True Detective Finale

Probably my least favorite episode. I liked the final line, but almost everything up to that point was disappointing.  Again, it goes back to the mystery -- I can't help but feel "that's it?" This is a problem with mystery as a genre.  The premise of a mystery is that your questions will be answered and the audience will be rewarded by paying attention.  The bigger the mystery, the more intriguing questions asked, the increased expectations for delivering on the answers.  JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof are the masters of posing huge, intriguing questions, and then giving you, small disappointing, nonsensical answers.  Prometheus, Super 8, you see this storytelling device enough...I don't need to watch 100s of hours of Lost to know it'll make me feel stupid and make no sense at the end.  True Detective commits a much lesser, but similar offense.  It promises a big dark monster with "broader ideas at work," but ultimately settles on just a big weirdo in the woods.  I can't quite understand how the cops didn't find this guy earlier, frankly.  Still, the show was enjoyable.  A nice hold-me-over until Game of Thrones.

Film: Chungking Express

I stopped watching because I fell asleep.  I had no idea whether I was halfway through or five minutes from the end.  Still, there are some great parts.

2 comments:

PWD said...

Finally got around to finishing True Detective last night. I literally could not understand the final line. Even rewinding it three times. What does Rust say?

And exactly, regarding bringing up "broader ideas at work," but in the end it's just a crazy manifestation of evil in the woods. All the leads were empty red herrings.

Who else is participating in the sacrificial video found in the politician's home? How does visiting the evangelical leader (Jay O. Sanders) pay off? Question after question looms if looking back on everything. And the show asks the viewer to very much pay attention to these details...A case where the direction and two acting leads cover up looming plot logic and dead ends. The writer posed ambitious ideas and wrote himself into a corner.

Still, it was good t.v. Unsettling and a dark, looming world view.

PWD said...

True Detective: 2666 is up next.