ShogunRua wrote:mattorama12 wrote:I know you, Shogun, didn't care for Breaking Bad (which still surprises me),
At first, I was surprised you knew this, since I mostly wrote about the series on the Cinemageddon forums. (I watched everything up to episode 4 of season 2, and had posted thoughts after almost every episode) Then, I realized I had made a post on here about it, too. Yeah, with the exception of the Tuco arc and the actor who played him (Raymond Cruz), and the strong performances by Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris, it was a dreary, mediocre show.
I'm actually shocked that people like it so much. Like, what is the appeal? About 15 minutes of every 45 minute episode is meaningful content; the rest is a complete waste. The family drama is nauseating and uninteresting. The crime drama part is limited, and at best, a decent procedural with good acting. Certainly nothing Earth-shattering. What is the appeal?!
Now I'm even more surprised! I thought you had just watched a couple episodes and gave up on it. The family drama is annoying and the worst part of the show at the beginning, but becomes increasingly interesting as it goes on. By far the best thing about the show is watching the slow descent of Walter White and Cranston's portrayal of it, which to me is some of the finest acting I've ever seen. Norris' Hank was pretty amazing once the series got going as well. But, I think the great appeal was just in watching a normal man become a monster in such a slow fashion. It can't be done in a movie, since you have at most a couple hours. It's the only tv show I've ever watched that had that kind of descent, which was just completely engaging for me. (On second thought, Nip/Tuck had that to a certain extent, but didn't do nearly as good a job and wasn't really about that, so much as the descent was a side-effect of constantly trying to raise the stakes.)
ShogunRua wrote:mattorama12 wrote:But how can you not love Bill Simmons?
I liked him more when I was 17. Nowadays, I think he is okay. Simmons is a decent Internet writer with occasional humorous observations. However, he is frequently a complete idiot who thinks he knows way more than he does about both basketball and football. Honestly, his knowledge of either sport is not particularly high.
I was never super-impressed by him, even in my teens.mattorama12 wrote:He's a great writer with a ton of insight into both the business and Xs and Os of sports, particularly basketball.
Okay, I can categorically state this is false. As someone who used to write about basketball myself (I don't consider myself an expert, but I have some insight into the type of writing) and has come across a lot of brilliant minds, even on smaller blogs, I can say that Simmons' knowledge of basketball is quite limited.
It's not terrible, but it's also no better than that of any average hardcore fan. And a lot of what Bill states is just laughably stupid and incorrect. (I can give specific examples if you really care) In particular, his "The Book of Basketball" was awful.
Zach Lowe is an excellent basketball mind on Grantland's site, if you genuinely want to learn about the sport.
Fair enough. I'm way more of a football guy myself (mainly bc I can't find the time to watch every Lakers game in a season, but I can commit to watching every Chargers game without much of a problem). So, I can't speak to Simmons' knowledge of basketball as a game. As for football, he's pretty middle of the pack in terms of the game. But for both, and basketball in particular, he appears to know a ton about the business of it, which is something I don't find others write about as ofter or as deeply. I do read Lowe, as well, though not religiously. If you have any other basketball writers you'd recommend, I'm always looking for new and better streams of information. I'm much more interested in the NBA than college, for what it's worth.
ShogunRua wrote:mattorama12 wrote:As for the the Scott article itself, I agree with Shogun that it's nothing particularly unique to Scott. It's hard to think of a great movie that doesn't aim for more thoughtful themes than its genre may suggest. That said, the article is still interesting for going through some of those specific movies and looking at how they are bigger than their genre. It particularly made me want to revisit Black Hawk Down, which is a movie I loved when I saw it long ago, though I think it'd be interesting to watch again with that bureaucratic/workplace theme in mind.
Their site would massively benefit from someone like the Filthy Critic on there, who I'm a fan of. What's the point of having your own site when you're still obeying the same rigid style and censorship of ESPN or any standard magazine?
Not sure I agree with your premise that they're "obeying the same rigid style and censorship of ESPN." Maybe of a standard magazine, but then, doesn't that make it distinct from the ESPN.com website itself? Most obviously, I believe Grantland is notably lacking a language censorship that ESPN does have. I also believe they have an entirely different set of editors. I don't think ESPN controls any aspect of Grantland, but I can't say for sure. Either way, I can certainly look at two articles and tell you which was on ESPN and which was on Grantland.
I'd never heard of Filthy Critic before, so I checked him out. From the few reviews I read, seems like he has good ideas, it's just unfortunate that I have to sift through his schtick to get to them. To each his own, I guess.