Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Are there books, movies, TV shows, plays, musicals that other people seemed to love but you did not? And the reverse! Books, movies, TV shows, plays, musicals that you love, but others don’t?
I’ll go first.
I simply cannot understand the draw of The Simpsons, South Park, anything horror, anything with snakes, and *all reality shows. Anything I like is, of course, beloved by everyone. (Not intended as a factual statement.)
*baking shows excepted
One final thought from me. When there’s a mismatch, are you out of step with the world, or is the world out of step with you?
War for Ukraine Day 803: Russia Bombards Continues Its Bombardment of Ukraine Despite the Holy Day
Albatrossity
We are all out of step with the world, and, with the current state of the world, that is likely a good thing
hueyplong
I don’t get the Rocky or Star Wars franchises.
Don’t have a problem with fans of either one. Just not in the club.
VFX Lurker
I stopped watching Game of Thrones midway through the first season. Not sure if I’ll finish it or not. I’m so behind on so many shows.
strange visitor (from another planet)
IMO zack snyder is the most overrated filmmaker working today. i don’t understand his appeal AT ALL. he doesn’t seem to understand how his characters work or how characters work in general
@Albatrossity: out of step. minor threat, 1983. good tune.
Suzanne
Things I hate that others love: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Everybody Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, Ford F-series trucks, matte lipstick.
ETA: low-rise pants. GTFO of here.
Leto
Villeneuve’s Dune. Just misses the mark. Glad people are enjoying it, hope they read the books, past that… yup. Just about every reality TV show* is also off the list.
*except baking shows
piratedan
I don’t wanna be in the cool kids club. I like what I like, I want to share the joy of what I like with others who also find joy in that subject. I don’t need to be the top geek, I don’t have to compete in my fandom.
What I enjoy about these threads is how we share our joy with each other and inspire others to try new shows that we might otherwise have passed on.
sometimes it’s cool to revisit something in the past that you forgot was awesome the first time: Farscape
something all the cool kids liked that I never connected with: Lost
Starfish
Seinfeld
Eyeroller
The first five seasons of The Simpsons were brilliant, especially for late Boomers/early GenX who would get the references. Enshittification set in very rapidly after that. They’ve been bad for much longer than they were good IMnsHO.
South Park was kind of amusing the first couple of seasons till it went full glibertarian/fash-curious. Again IMnsHO.
Other than that I have no opinion, since I’ve watched no new media, other than a few documentary series, since approximately 2001.
AliceBlue
Things I hate:
Movies: Marvel/DC Comics universe
Book: A Confederacy of Dunces
Starfish
@piratedan: Some of these things that people hate, I love them so much. 😂
I saw a snake on my hike today. It was a very good snake.
Leto
@strange visitor (from another planet): agree with that. Snyder’s universe of movies are just bad. He needs to go back and watch, continuously, the original Batman The Animated Series if he wants to understand “dark” but still relatable/loved. The fact that Netflix backed up the Brinks trucks for those two shitty movies of his is just mind boggling.
delphinium
Never could get into The Sopranos or Monk either (though I like Tony Shalhoub in other things).
Liked the series Wolf Hall but didn’t care for the Hilary Mantel books it was based on.
Adored the movie Moulin Rouge but most people I know couldn’t stand it. Different strokes for different folks and all that : ).
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne:
OMG YES THANK YOU
ETA: dang it, meant to post that using my Omnes sock puppet account
Jackie
Never understood the Harry Potter love. My entire family was addicted. I’m not a sci-fi fan, so I didn’t read the books, nor watch the movies.
Eyeroller
@Suzanne: And you’re relatively young and slim. For us olds, low-rise pants just result in muffin-top and try to pull themselves down. I have to buy my pants from the “old women in Florida” catalogs to get pants that hit at my waistline or just a little below. (Also Florida is something that a lot of people like that I hate, sorry Betty C, though my hate is more due to the politics and climate than the natural environment, which is pretty neat, except for the pythons.)
RSA
I haven’t watched more than a sampling of The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones… you may see a thematic similarity. I’ve chatted with friends about the shows, about my initial impression that the world would be a better place on balance if all the characters were killed off in the first episode. I wasn’t questioning the artistic value of the shows but rather why I should invest myself in stories about bad characters doing bad things… My friends did convince me that watching could give insight into the human condition. I’m not up for it yet.
Suzanne
@Steve in the ATL: Matte lipstick makes no sense! Why do you want to look like your skin is dry?! (And if your lips weren’t dry before, matte lipstick will dry them out!)
It’s dumb!
mvr
Opera. I just don’t get the appeal. I could say more but that is the basic set of facts.
Leto
@Jackie: I think the first thing is: it’s not sci-fi! That might help :P
This is incredibly niche but I fucking hate the current World of Warcraft expansion: Dragon Flight. I don’t like the changes they’ve made to the professions, numerous class changes, the fact they brought back talent trees, or how the gearing system has changed over the course of the expansion. Majority of players hail it as the right direction to move after Shadowlands and BfA (and honestly those two expansions nearly killed the game entirely) but I want to move the fuck on to The War Within. Also I’m hugely excited for the Panderia Remix that’s coming on May 16th.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Leto: holy shit. the rebel moons were abominable. just SO awful. an unfathomable mishmash of kurosawa and star wars.
laser beams. in slow-mo.
“...i’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. the dc franchise on fire off the shoulder of krypton. speedramping snyder beams glimmering in the darkness. all of these things will be gone, if we’re lucky, if the bastard would just stop. plz…”
Nukular Biskits
Seconding what @Eyeroller had to say about The Simpsons.
I used to watch it every Sunday as the humor was topical and a great commentary on social and political events.
Someone here (Eyeroller?) observed that the original writers for The Simpsons were a bunch of cultural nerds but the latter half of the show’s run have had writers who grew up watching The Simpsons, so none of the originality is there anymore.
Sj
How can you say you like baking shows and not recognise Paul Hollywood?
bluefoot
For things that other’s love that I don’t: Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones are the big ones for me. Nearly all of the MCU. I love Formula 1 but Drive to Survive is pretty meh for me, even though I know quite a few people who have become F1 fans because of it. For older television, I could never get into Friends, nor Seinfeld.
I think everyone is out of step with the world on *something*. But that’s part of what makes things – and people – interesting.
sab
@Jackie: I was very late to Harry Potter books and I didn’t like them at all. They were often funny, but the little girls cried at every minor frustration and all the kids lied all the time to everyone. And they mostly grew up to be police sending people to that horrible prison.
Eyeroller
@Nukular Biskits: That wasn’t me but I think it’s true. There may have been issues (cough misogyny perhaps cough) with Sam Simon but after he left in 1993 the show seemed to deteriorate a lot.
Leto
@Nukular Biskits: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain”
@strange visitor (from another planet): I watched the first one out of sheer curiosity and went: well, that’s two hours I’ll never get back. I saw the reviews for the second one and just laughed. Writing, story, pacing… everything. Everything is soooo bad.
UncleEbeneezer
This itself, is like a very famous Simpsons joke.
sab
My husband loves sitcoms, but I mostly can’t stand them, especially the ones where the family members are horrible to each other.
Almost Retired
Baseball. Painfully dull and five innings too long. I also don’t like hot dogs or beer – so an MLB game is a trifecta. The best thing about the Dodgers is that it’s socially acceptable to leave during the seventh inning to avoid traffic.
Scout211
I tried to watch This is Us when the series hit Netflix but I thought it was pretty bad. Just one long soap opera and overly dramatic manipulative sob fest. I dropped Netflix right after that and may sign back up to watch when the next season of The Lincoln Lawyer begins. Although that could be 2025.
I am definitely out of step in that I don’t really enjoy streaming shows or movies. I much prefer reading.
The last book I detested that most people like is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. “Poverty porn” is what one reviewer called it. That sounds about right. I also detested Hillbilly Ellegy by J.D. Vance (more poverty porn) but I was definitely not out of step with that. Most people were not impressed with that book.
The only movie I paid for and walked out of was Moonstruck. It was a long time ago but I just remember so much yelling. It felt like torture. I’m out of step with that one, though.
NaijaGal
I love Loot (on Apple TV) but almost no one talks about it.
Phylllis
I lasted about twenty minutes into the second episode of Baby Reindeer and noped out. I don’t care for shows or scenes where someone is subjected to embarrassment or humiliation.
Baud
I can’t stand bird photos.
ETA: Oh shit…
NaijaGal
@Phylllis: Agree. My husband watched the whole thing, but I couldn’t, knowing it was based on someone’s actual experiences.
Leto
Just an aside, but Bernard Hill passed away today. (17 December 1944 – 5 May 2024)
TheOtherHank
Shows I don’t like: Seinfeld, Sex In The City, Friends. Don’t like might be a bit strong, I can watch an episode and enjoy it just fine, but I never seek them out.
As far as the MCU, I used to get into
argumentsspirited discussions with my sons about them. I liked the early ones fine where there was a super hero doing super things, but as soon as they started doing the ensemble movies I got bored.Another spirited discussion topic is/was Season 8 of Game of Thrones. I don’t have a problem with it. Most TV shows don’t stick the landing, so the fact that GoT’s final season wasn’t as good as the others is OK with me. They told their story and wrapped up most of the loose ends.
Scout211
@Baud:
Just use a good shampoo, it will come right out.
Oh, you said bird photos.
delphinium
@Almost Retired: Speaking of food items, I don’t like BBQ sauce or gravy.
ETA: fixed typo
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Nukular Biskits: i think there’s a very good case that can be argued that the simpsons didn’t start their nosedive until later, around the twelfth or thirteenth season. the movie had a lot of good beats and the incomparable albert brooks but wasn’t nearly enough to halt the decline.
@Leto: i didn’t think it was possible, but the second was actually worse than that first flat piece of crap.
Craig
@Leto: I don’t understand reality shows. Horrible people.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211:
I drew this conclusion from reading the first two paragraphs on Amazon. People keep recommending it to me but I don’t succumb.
I could not get away from people recommending A Gentleman in Moscow. Then somebody gave it to me, so I felt I had to try to read it. I got through about 30 pages before throwing it across the room.
Never watched The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or The Wire. Never found Seinfeld funny.
Reality TV leaves me totally cold.
Princess
I usually avoid yucking someone else’s yum but here goes: I can’t stand Louise Penny’s mystery novels. I don’t get how some of my friends love them (and, yes, I silently judge them). I think she’s a terrible writer. With good fiction, an author can take a place you’ve never been and put you right there. Penny writes about places I know well and I get zero sense of them. Okay, I’ll shut up now. *ducks shoe
jowriter
@RSA: I’ve lived long enough to recognize a lot of the world’s darkness, and don’t need a television series to hammer it home for me. I enjoyed The Sopranos until about midway through the third season, when it all became just too much illumination of the ugly underbelly of humanity. Could not watch anymore. After hearing some of the themes in Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, I just had to say no to them, too. My daughter thinks that, even with my aversion to violence, I might enjoy The Wire, but I’ve not tried it yet. Would rather read something that leaves me with a little sunlight, and some hope. A recent book that I enjoyed immensely was The North Woods. I’ve spend my life looking at and writing about the natural world and the built environment, and this novel about a house in the woods of northwestern Massachusetts and its inhabitants over three centuries kept me thinking about it for days. I guess it’s become popular recently, but I read it on a friend’s recommendation before it took off. I mostly love books, films, and other cultural pastimes that stay with me like it has.
Josie
The only reality shows I enjoy are the Great British Baking Show and Bama Bass. For those who have never seen Bama Bass, the narrator filmed his creation of a huge pond and surrounding wildscapes that are just magical. It is fascinating how the whole project was envisioned and how it took shape. His mellow voice and slight southern accent are very soothing. Brings my blood pressure down.
ETA: free on youtube
zhena gogolia
@Princess: I maybe don’t feel as strongly as you, but suffice it to say I read one and never read another.
I did like the dramatization with Nathaniel Parker, but I’ll watch anything with Nathaniel Parker in it.
wonkie
I love a good story with interesting characters who are not like me. I hate dramas about angsty middle class white people. So even though the emotional manipulation was heavy handed, I still like Downton Abbey. I also watched religiously the recent anti-hero shows: Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad and its spin offs. In fact I watch episodes from those shows every now and then just to savor. Right now I’m watching Fallout, The Rest of Us, Reservation Dogs, Griselda, The Outlaws, and Sex Education. I’m not sure what unifies my tastes, but I think one factor is that I like ironic, sardonic, and darkly whimsical humor.
UncleEbeneezer
Things that didn’t appeal to me at all: The Good Place, Schitts Creek, Oppenheimer, Knives Out (the first film), La La Land, The Big Lebowski, South Park, Harry Potter, etc.
There’s no accounting for taste but I have always felt there are a lot of people who just love really simplistic shit. I don’t. Songs/Albums at the top of the pop charts nowadays, with rare exceptions like Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, are full of ridiculously simple, two-minute tunes with no interesting changes and super-repetitive melodies. The fact that Drake and Taylor Swift are super-huge kind of says it all. I respect Swift and I can see the appeal for sure, but her stuff is really simple. There’s still lots of great music being made, but the charts are really just full of shit, imo.
A Ghost to Most
I read thousands of science fiction books back in the day, and I still consider Dune the most singularly dumb sci-fi book I ever read. YMMV.
Scout211
Come sit by me. I could not understand all of my book group members waxing poetic about how wonderful that book was. It was awful! So pretentious and boring.
HumboldtBlue
@hueyplong:
Same here, I watched the first Rocky and the first Star Wars and that’s it.
Phylllis
I do enjoy fun, gentle mysteries, like Death in Paradise, Beyond Paradise, and McDonald and Dodds. I used to enjoy the dark, anti-hero stuff, but now I find it just makes me anxious and gives me bad dreams.
UncleEbeneezer
@wonkie: Have you watched Snowfall? It’s the story of the crack epidemic in Los Angeles and has a similar vibe to The Wire and Narcos. Produced by John Singleton so it also has a ton of social commentary and celebration of Blackness. Great series.
scav
cars. most sport, especially when televised. sitcoms. I’m no doubt the one with an entirely different mode of locomotion, probably one with no steps to match beats with, more of a rolling slither or an arhythmic series of tumbles.
HumboldtBlue
@RSA:
why I should invest myself in stories about bad characters doing bad things
That happened to me with the Sopranos. I am stuck on episode 7 season 3, and I haven’t decided if I want to invest any more time in the shittiest people on earth.
That’s why I have Shogun in my back pocket.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: Not to mention the situation described was utterly impossible. And insulting to all the victims of Leninist and Stalinist terror.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@HumboldtBlue: i’m only on episode 4, but shogun has me hooked. haven’t gotten too deep into the plot yet, but the characters are interesting and the production design is outstanding.
TBone
🤮Ancient Aliens. Anything on a channel called “History Channel” or “Discovery Channel” that is actually designed to melt your brain so it runs out of your ears.
I love classic film and watch TCM a lot. Almost no one else I know IRL likes it at all although Hubby has come around, somewhat.
kalakal
I have never understood the appeal of The Princess Bride. People go on about how wonderful it is but to me it just doesn’t work.
Betty Cracker
The Wire. I’ve started it and noped out three times over the years, and I only gave it a second and third look because people whose taste in TV and film I respect urged me to. I know the memes because they’re so culturally pervasive. But the show just never grabbed me.
CaseyL
This one is very old, and rather embarrassing:
When “Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark” first came out, I went to see it with my then-boyfriend. He was a pill in a lot of ways, and he started complaining about the violence right off the bat. Since IJ:RofLA was indeed a pretty violent movie, I couldn’t argue the point. (A movie theater is not the place for an extended debate about “cartoony” violence versus “realistic” violence.) More to the point, his complaining about it put me off, too. We walked out about a third of the way into the movie.
(I saw it on my own soon afterward, and loved it.)
(And broke up with him soon afterward, as well.)
Barbara
I didn’t like The Bee Sting and I think Frances McDormand is overrated. I have more complex thoughts about the former than the latter.
I will not watch mafia themed tv/movies, and I hate, hate, hate gratuitous violence and didn’t make it through one episode of GOT.
Josie
I reacted very negatively to Breaking Bad. My son talked me into watching it and I became so angry after 3 or 4 episodes I could not finish it. It’s strange because I thought The Wire was one of the best series I ever watched.
ETA: Never watched The Sopranos or Game of Thrones.
thruppence
I can’t stand all The Real Housewives of the Dumpster Fire shows. I simply cannot understand the appeal of the fake travails of the fake pretty trashy people. Lots of people love them or they wouldn’t be making tons of money and endless nauseating spin offs.
Geminid
I didn’t like the Civil War novel, The Killer Angels.
Pete Downunder
@Baud: OT and just for Baud. My niece finally replied about Honor Levy:
”Honor is the bane of my existence The writing is just this crazy, speedy, adderall-induced empty provocation, very popular in certain racist online spheres.Not sure how the article neglects to mention her penchant for measuring skulls at parties ”
sorry this took so long but time zones are against me.
wonkie
I LOVED Schitt’s Creek! I was so sorry when it ended.
Melancholy Jaques
@zhena gogolia:
Situations being utterly impossible has never stopped anyone. (Cue Neil deGrasse Tyson.)
But I pretty much agree that here the impossibility kind of ruins it. I figure if that guy wasn’t shot, he’d be cleaning stables somewhere or learning to mix concrete or some other menial task. I think I’d watch that show.
scav
Dan Brown. Only in this case I’m entirely sure the bulk of world has got it utterly wrong.
Brachiator
Different strokes for different folks. It just seems obvious that people have different tastes, even if they have bad taste ;). But I am often curious as to why people love what they love in terms of movies, books, etc.
Also, two quick quirky examples come to mind. I know people who hate any science fiction, especially SF set in the future, because “it is not real.” Speculative, imaginary, it doesn’t work for them. And yet, they can accept any movie set in the past, even though it might be ridiculously inaccurate. It still represents for them, something historical and somehow based on reality.
I also remember a popular radio personality who adamantly refused to see any animated film, even a Pixar movie, because he believed that animation was only for children.
I always thought that “Dances with Wolves” was meretricious trash, phoney to its core. I also thought that it was stupid that somehow the Kevin Costner character found the only white woman around who lived with a Native American tribe.
I think that “Forrest Gump” is ultimately a dumb and mean-spirited slam against the liberal values of the 60s.
I think that Woody Allen made some good films, even after he became controversial. Love “Annie Hall” and “Mighty Aphrodite.” But ultimately I think that he is the best second rate director America has produced.
Barbara
@CaseyL: I nearly walked out of the second IJ movie when the young boy sitting behind me sobbed in shock at the level of violence. I had a migraine for 3 days afterwards. I refused to see any of the others.
JR
Reality shows are game shows (Nicole Beyer on the right gives that away).
geg6
I loooooove Survivor and I refuse to give it up even though…well, Mark Burnett. Top Chef and Project Runway are also beloved by me. I also like The Amazing Race. GBBS is chef’s kiss, especially Noel. I do not do the Housewives or 90 Day Fiancée or any of the ones showing people blowing up their lives for camera time. I like competitions.
HumboldtBlue
@strange visitor (from another planet):
It’s up next for me, I watched the first episode and then decided to wait until the entire series was out to watch it all. I also recommend Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix, excellent anime, and I’ve never watched an anime in my life.
FastEdD
I really don’t want to be the skunk at the picnic, bit I read The Einstein Effect by Cohen about 6 months ago. Youse guys had the talk with the author and all the reviews of it and I just didn’t like it so I didn’t want to spoil the fun. I kept my mouth shut! There’s an old saying that the more equations a book has, the fewer copies it will sell and I get it. The book had almost no science or math in it and I used to teach that stuff so I was disappointed. That’s okay and I understand not everyone is interested in what I like. It’s okay. Flame on! Life is too short to fight about preferences in art and music and literature. I respect you guys and glad people liked the book.
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker:
I’m surprised at that. Try Snowfall as Uncle Eb said, I followed his recommendation and enjoyed it very much.
wonkie
Taylot Swift was mentioned up thread. I’ve read some of her lyrics with appreciation–but she has no sense of melody. All of her songs sound alike and they are all over-produced. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to one all the way through. I’m not a Beyonce fan primarily because tend to respond to mega popularity by running the other direction, but “Daddy Said Shoot” is a complex, ironic, and musically interesting song with an actual melody that can be listened to more than once.
WaterGirl
@mvr: Oh my god, yes! Opera should have been on my list.
Fingernails on a chalkboard. If that makes me uncultured, so be it.
Barbara
@Brachiator: I dislike Forrest Gump for its usurpation and – okay — whiteification of serious social issues that face mostly poor Black people. And I dislike Brother Where Art Thou along the same lines. I don’t think BWAT could have been made now without some serious additional soul searching.
geg6
@Eyeroller:
I’m the opposite. I have a short torso and long legs. Low rise jeans hit me at my waist.
NotMax
Ghostbusters. One of only two times I’ve walked out part way through a movie.
99% of anime, no matter the medium, leaves me cold.
Barbara
@Josie: Oh I am so with you on this one. I watched one season, the last, while flying home from Munich and I was shocked that someone had seen fit to follow these thoroughly dislikable people for five whole seasons! I felt sort of the same way about Killing Eve — clever and well acted but why?
JR
@Barbara: I don’t have a sophisticated reason for it, but I didn’t like O Brother at all. I think the Coens have actually been pretty uneven. I also have a pretty selective taste for Tarantino.
WaterGirl
@Sj: I haven’t even watched baking shows, but they aren’t “reality” TV in the way that I hate.
NotMax
Used to attend ballet every couple of years only to confirm I still didn’t like it one bit.
Barbara
@JR: What clinched it for me was an integrated audience listening to a Black band getting angry at the police for trying to arrest them. That was so false on so many levels it made me angry.
WaterGirl
@bluefoot:
My dad always liked to say “that’s what makes the world go ’round.”
schrodingers_cat
In food; PB and J. Reese’s cups, Peanut + chocolate. Apart from peanut brittle I am not fond of peanuts in sweet things/ desserts.
Harry Potter, Princess Bride was just okay I don’t like it as much as many others do. Mad Men beyond the first couple of seasons.
Phein64
@sab: Yes, this!
That’s why I really liked “Modern Family”: No mean people, no joy in the suffering of others.
There is another show that is popular right now that eschews meanness, but it escapes me at the moment.
The meanness is why there are several seasons of Seinfeld that I couldn’t stomach.
Starfish
@wonkie: Taylor Swift has been milking break ups for song material for a decade or more. She needs to find another theme. Everyone can’t break your heart after a relationship that lasted five nanoseconds.
Mike in Oly
I loved the Simpsons for about the first 12 years or so, then just completely lost interest. Most TV that is popular is lost on me. Never got into GOT or the Wire. South Park was funny for about three episodes then just became annoying. I have never understood the appeal of reality TV, however I am completely addicted to Drag Race. But I could care less about the backstage drama – I am here for the lewks and the performances. Also a huge fan of the Marvel movies. Grew up with a complete fascination and love for superheroes and comic books, so seeing that all brought to the big screen has been so much fun! Very disappointed in DC for not getting it right more often. Wonder Woman (first one) was really good and Nolan’s Dark Knight was good, but the rest have fallen flat for me. I used to love DC and didn’t care much for Marvel characters, but the movies have totally flipped that for me.
Starfish
@WaterGirl: There was some musical thread you started in medium cool, and it could have been about any type of music, but it went down a classical rabbit hole.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You are bad, very bad. :-)
RSA
Thanks for the recommendation! Reading your description and a synopsis online, I think I could appreciate this.
Math Guy
I grew up reading science fiction in the late 60’s through the early 80’s. The novels stood or fell on their own merits and there were plenty of short stories – enough to fill several “best of” anthologies each year. Now, when I browse those shelves, I find a mix of fantasy and horror, tv or movie franchise series, space zombies and space vampires, and half the books on the shelf are part n of an n+1 long series. I still try new authors, but it seems the selection of core science fiction has grown smaller. (Or maybe my tastes of changed over the past 50 years.)
I’ve never watched even a minute of the various Bachelor or Bachelorette series: the tv trailers were sufficient to warn me off. Can’t stand American Idol.
There are things I like. Hearts of Space on public radio, Midsommer Murders on the local PBS station, and the Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays anthologies that I’ve been reading every year since the mid-80’s.
delphinium
@schrodingers_cat: Come sit by me-PB&J and Reese’s cups make me gag.
Rachel Bakes
Right there with you on Simpson, et. Al. Never got them nor wanted to put in the effort. Gbbo and an occasional other cooking shows but no other reality shows.
animal movies are always sad and I haven’t willingly watched any since Bambi and Dumbo as a child ( daughter went through a big Dumbo kick at age 2; it was tough).
Christmas Story holds no appeal. I’ve watched about 10 minutes of it and hated it. Can’t be bothered to try again.
sports too. College bball, especially UConn women, but otherwise I don’t care in the slightest.
and I love Billy Joel, including the ones most people hate.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I never watched Mad Men when it was first on and assumed I would hate it, but I watched the whole thing last fall and was totally riveted by every episode. (except the lawn mower one)
zhena gogolia
This really is the thread for me, because I was a kid when The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins came out, and I never saw either of them until I was in my 40s or so. Oh, wait, I STILL have never seen Mary Poppins. I’m a bit allergic to Julie Andrews, except in The Americanization of Emily and Torn Curtain.
PaulB
Seinfeld
The Office (and any other comedy series that makes me cringe rather than laugh).
All “reality” shows, including baking shows. There is little that is real about any of them and the few snippets I’ve seen here and there completely turn me off. There isn’t a single one of them that I find remotely interesting.
Practical jokes of any kind. Personally, the element of cruelty in these “jokes” completely turns me off and I don’t find them funny.
Skinny jeans. Most fashion, now that I think on it.
Pretty much all sports, not because I don’t like sports, per se, but because I don’t like what they have become. Either the players are used and abused, or they are coddled too much and become users and abusers, or the impact of money has corrupted the sport irredeemably (looking at you NCAA, FIFA, Olympics, etc.). And don’t get me started on the blackmail for multi-billion dollar stadiums that taxpayers are on the hook for.
Podcasts and YouTube news videos; I’d much rather read the news.
Now get off my lawn, you youngsters!
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Interesting. I see what you’re saying.
This movie is a favorite of mind because it is a witty reworking of The Odyssey. I take your point, but I don’t think that the Corn Brothers see movies as any kind of vehicle for social issues. There is always some detachment, and quiet insistence that movies are artifice.
Eyeroller
@geg6: We’re all still in search of pants that don’t ride down and fit our body types. I’m long-torso-short legs so mid-rise pants don’t work (I’m not sure truly “low rise” would work for either of us). Men, of course, get inseam lengths as well as waist so they can control the rise better than women. Men’s sizing in general is much more rational than women’s sizing.
karen gail
Back in the early 50’s I watched television with my grandmother; (grandpa spent years repeating what I said when she got up to do “chores” during the commercials) I was convinced that the best part of programs was the commercials. So years later I still held that view and when started living on own 12 years ago I unplugged the television and haven’t missed it at all.
I read books, I have some favorite authors that have collected and will reread when need comfort; if a book hasn’t caught my interest by first chapter I won’t finish it. I have to admit I will read anything fiction and nonfiction.
citizen dave
@bluefoot: I’ve been following F1 since 2000–more closely until Hamilton’s dominance (attended all the Indy races with my dad)–less so since Hamilton/Verstappen. But am right with you on Drive to Survive. I watched it for about 5 minutes once. Have since dropped netflix. Watched the Miami race today on free, over-the-air tv.
In general, many things are on this list for me: Star Wars, all the major comic book universes (Harvey Pekar was my jam); GOT, Big Bang Theory; also Modern Family (I never understood why they were talking to a camera–was a documentary being made on their lives? ‘Course one could say the same about Parks n Rec, which I love).
Grateful Dead (too tinkly and trebly–where’s the bass?); Phish and Dave Mathews
I don’t mind Spielberg at all (Duel is an all-time favorite for me), but for some reason I never watched E.T. or Schindler’s list.
mvr
Or cats being tortured.
Ivan X
@strange visitor (from another planet): Sure, no argument here, but I feel that way about Christopher Nolan, too.
CaseyL
@Barbara: The second one was at best “okay,” the third one was excellent, and the last two… I didn’t even bother watching via streaming, much less in a theater.
Jackie
@sab: Yes! I detested Roseanne and Married With Children. 30 minutes of degrading and insulting people you supposedly loved. I only saw a few episodes of each because friends and family members raved about them. The so called humor wasn’t humorous to me, at all.
PaulB
There are a few TV series that I remember watching the first few episodes of and thinking, “Wow! This is amazing!” And then, a few episodes later, I completely lost interest and abandoned the series. So I never finished the first season of Ugly Betty, Lost, Heroes, Penny Dreadful, or Mr. Robot.
I’m still not sure why I found the first few episodes of each to be so compelling, nor why the later episodes completely turned me off.
schrodingers_cat
@kalakal: Agreed about the Princess Bride.
Ivan X
@Josie: I hated Breaking Bad, and only lasted about 1.5 episodes before deciding I hated everyone too much to keep going.
But I loved Better Call Saul, especially its earlier seasons. Really superb show.
RSA
Armin Shimerman was a guest on Seinfeld, and his reminiscence is pretty sour, which I was surprised and sad to read.
schrodingers_cat
@scav: Da Vinci Code was such a stupid book. Its the only book I have bought and then returned.
Leto
@Math Guy: got a recommendation for you that would fit that 60s-80s sci-fi: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. He’s written three in this series so far, but this is the first. My wife and I loved it, we’re split on the second, but we both really enjoyed the third. He’s done a number of other series which I’ve really enjoyed, but just wanted to toss that out there.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve enjoyed most of the superhero movies that other people usually loved (and disliked most of the ones they hated). But the people who I consider to have good taste generally loved and raved about The Batman (the gloomy Robert Pattinson one), and I couldn’t get more than a quarter of the way in before considering it too unpleasant to keep watching. Maybe I’ve just gotten weary of taunting-serial-killer procedurals.
Brachiator
Damn. How could I forget. I really enjoyed the “Lord of the Ring” movies. Well crafted fun, and clearly a labor of love. But I couldn’t get through the novels. But I enjoyed the hell out of the parody novel “Bored of the Rings.”
But even with the movies, that the antagonists all seemed to be evil creatures and monsters that you were supposed to hate dampened some of my enjoyment. One of the many things that makes something like The Iliad and enduring epic is that the Trojans are just as noble as the Greeks.
pieceofpeace
I don’t like watching fights, like boxing, partly due to the violence and enjoyment of it by the participants and the wildly cheering crowd.
Baud
@Pete Downunder:
Thanks!
ETA: Your niece would fit in here.
RSA
I wish ’50s scifi films had turned out to be right, that we would all be wearing silvery jumpsuits by now.
Barbara
@Brachiator: I didn’t see the movies, but however long they were, you could get through them much quicker than the books. I disliked LOTR books, but then I dislike most fantasy.
Matt McIrvin
Dune: I have never been able to get more than a few pages into the first book. I just bounce off hard. I kind of enjoyed the weird-ass David Lynch adaptation, which is usually described as an abomination. Liked it more than at least the first half of Villeneuve’s (I haven’t seen part two).
prostratedragon
Took me a long time to get into opera or Mozart, though there have always been little snips of both that I ike. Doubt that I will ever care much for “reality” tv — if I want to see something real, sports works.
Lots of thing I like for which my opinion is my own. One that came to mind with the recent death of its director is the original Thomas Crown Affair. I often like storytelling where small symbols and gestures tell a lot. That seems more realistic to me.
Gin & Tonic
I have always been out of step with entertainment. My peers were saving their allowance for Beatles records, I bought Freak Out and Lumpy Gravy.
Leto
@Matt McIrvin: I think current Batman is too similar to Toby McGuire/Andrew Garfield Spider-Man: they keep starting around the same point, with roughly the same cast of villains. I don’t know exactly how you move away from that. Fans don’t exactly want to see C list villains but I don’t think you can do Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. It’s a quandary.
Central Planning
TL;DR: I like escapism since the real world can be pretty shitty. I don’t need that reinforced with TV, movies, podcasts, or anything else.
I’m not a fan of country, opera or classical music (although classical is great when trying to fall asleep on a plane). I wonder if it’s based on forced piano lessons when I was a kid and it all seemed like classical music I had to learn. I regret it now, but 10-year-old me had no idea. My best friend in 5th grade introduced me to Billy Joel and I’ve loved his music ever since. Blues is my thing now, but I just want to listen to good blues music. I don’t care about the individual artists, backgrounds, or any trivia I need to pay attention too.
I don’t like horror movies; I don’t like/need being scared. Violence doesn’t bother me but I don’t seek it out.
I love Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek. I have tried the typical popular shows – Orange is the new black, Sopranos, GOT, The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Crown, Downton Abbey, or things like.
Sometimes I will let series play in the background when I’m doing other things, especially shows that don’t require full attention. That can be things like 30 Rock (hasn’t aged as well as the last time I left it on) or Brooklyn 99, any of the late-night shows (Seth Myers, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver are preferred. Jimmy Kimmel is good, Jimmy Fallon is…).
I liked the Marvel MCU. Movies/series after End Game don’t really do it for me. I think Ironman is probably my favorite. I like to watch all the Star Trek movies, and am not against the Star Wars franchise but would only prefer Episode IV. Same with Indiana Jones. The first one was great, the others not so much. I think I could watch Galaxy Quest or Mystery Men forever.
One other thing we haven’t mentioned is podcasts. I like Simon Sinek’s “A Little Bit of Optimism”. There were some 15-minute Freakanomics podcasts that were interesting like on bowling alleys or hotel toiletries (but I’m aware of some of the Freakanomics issues).
Sure Lurkalot
@NaijaGal: Loot is a hoot! The characters are overplayed in a good way and it’s sweet and endearing.
I’m also watching Palm Royale…it’s called a drama but I’m not sure that fits. I think Carol Burnett and Ricky Martin steal the show.
Brachiator
@Leto:
Here’s the thing. I also use to read a lot of science fiction, but have fallen away from it. I might be curious about a good novel, but I am not interested in any series. Maybe the market has changed so that series are necessary to keep the genre alive, but I might appreciate a good standalone novel. Also one that’s short.
HumboldtBlue
@Josie:
Newest Bama Bass just dropped.
zhena gogolia
@mvr: You guys haven’t heard some good opera.
UncleEbeneezer
@HumboldtBlue: Oh cool. Glad you enjoyed it. Such an underrated/overlooked show.
billcinsd
I hate streaming. To me, this is an example of the death of the commons in American society. In general, I don’t do material I don’t think I will like from the ads.
I would say The Simpsons started getting worse following the 3rd Season
Matt McIrvin
@Leto: Tonally, I think it’s well past time for Batman to get a little lighter again, if they want to keep him going. Not necessarily full camp like Adam West, but a few steps in the Silver Age direction.
They actually did a full-on comical Batman in the Lego movies with Will Arnett, but it was a different kind of camp/parody–riffing on all the post-1980s edgy versions
…And, come to think of it, the Brave and the Bold TV cartoon was kind of doing that.
UncleEbeneezer
TV series’ I loved that a lot of people hated (or at least complained about): Beef, Swarm, Dahmer, Them. All pretty brilliant in their own ways.
Series’ I loved that are criminally overlooked: Sex Education, Godless, Snowfall, Underground
Brachiator
@RSA:
Unfortunate to learn about the bad experience he had. I ran into a longish video podcast devoted to Star Trek where he talked about his career in theater and TV. I ended up watching the entire thing. I appreciated how he approached developing the character he played on DS9, and especially how he found ways to convey the emotional range of the character through the alien make-up he wore.
Sure Lurkalot
There are exceptions but I don’t like multi season shows. Too often the characters get pigeonholed and stale, the plots go awry, the anticipation lessens.
For that reason and many others, I recommend Shogun which has well drawn characters, plot and a beginning, middle and end in one season.
JWR
@Brachiator:
Not being a movie person myself, I thought his best film was What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, which was even better than Sleeper, his second best film. And no, I am not a crank. ;)
Jackie
@zhena gogolia: It’s funny; I LOVE musicals, but hate hate hate opera. I’m also not a fan of ballet. I CAN appreciate the physical strength required, but all the horror stories of forced starvation and feet deformation…
Melancholy Jaques
@zhena gogolia:
It helps to see a couple operas rather than just listening to a recording. I listened to all kinds of music my whole life, but not opera or Schumann lieder or similar vocals. When I was at Ohio State, you could attend the students’ performances. It helped me to develop an ear for voices.
I’m a live music person to the extent I have time and money for it.
Phein64
@JWR: Am I the only person repulsed by Blue Jasmine? To me, it read as a warning to anyone who would testify against the Woodman: See what will happen to you, even if you are right? So shut your mouth, and maybe it will all be OK.
piratedan
@JWR: will suggest that having the Lovin’ Spoonful on the soundtrack with the incongruity of the Japanese location shots was something of a plus.
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: I can definitely see why some people wouldn’t enjoy Mad Men (super-white, misogyny they lived through etc.) but it is so freaking good just for the craft of writing, costumes, production etc. I mean, there are SO MANY iconic moments, memories, scenes…I think we’ve watched it twice already. Will probably watch again, at some point.
mrmoshpotato
You will never know what’s it’s like to find out Samuel L Jackson’s feelings about snakes being on a plane. 😁
wjca
I’m guessing that cricket would be agonizing for you.
Cathie from Canada
I’m fascinated by how my TV watching experience has changed now that we can binge-watch.
We decided to wait for all of Masters of the Air to drop before watching and we enjoyed it more, we watched over 3 nights and I found it easier to track all the characters this way.
We also binged all 9 seasons of The Office – 3 or 4 a night over several weeks. I had only seen occasional episodes before and didn’t think I would like it much, but with bingeing, we could follow a plot arc through several episodes in a row and I found it much more enjoyable, the humour really spoke to me watching it this way.
I now record cooking shows and HGTV series so I can binge them, fast forward through the commercials and the parts of the shows I am not interested in (the couple fights, the phony deadlines, the scenes with their cute kids, the dishes I know I will never cook, etc)
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I have never seen The Wire. But I loved its spiritual antecedent, the NBC series Homicide. Probably one of my all time favorite TV shows.
SpaceUnit
I don’t watch a lot of television shows anymore. There’s been a few, but mostly I’ve lost interest.
It used to be more common for each episode to be a story unto itself, with its own arc and conclusion. Solve a crime. Complete a mission. The the current trend is for the action and drama to continue from one episode to the next, from one season to the next, and so on until it all just peters out when the show is cancelled.
I feel that too often the producers and writer have a premise but no roadmap. They’ve got no idea where they’re going. They just drag things along, always hoping to ink a contract for one more season. It wears me out.
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin: I haven’t noticed: have they let Batman age a little? That would be a surefire way to introduce a note of absurdity into the whole caped crusader (in tights!) thing.
zhena gogolia
@Melancholy Jaques: Some of my best opera experiences have been college-level performances.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator: I loved Homicide too. But for some reason never wanted to watch The Wire.
citizen dave
I can’t remember watching Blue Jasmine–could have–but I just can’t do Woody Allen any longer. Watched the doc a couple years ago, and more recently read about his fixation on Mariel Hemingway–flying to Idaho right after she turned 18 to invite her to Paris. Woody was her very first kiss–creepy AF. I’m sad that Larry David participated in the “old man/young woman” archetype that will be Woody’s legacy
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/03/woody-allen-mariel-hemingway-manhattan
Cowgirl in the Sandi
I know a lot of people didn’t like it, but I loved Lost. It was so fun and different but the best part for me was after an episode when I would log on to the Lost fan boards and see all the crazy (and not so crazy) way people would take apart the episode – blowing up driver’s licenses and medical charts to get additional clues. It was a fun, immersive experience and the music was great – (although the end was weird I admit).
mrmoshpotato
@Almost Retired: How do you feel about peanuts and Cracker Jack?
prostratedragon
@Melancholy Jaques: True, even with nontheatrical orchestra performances (and a pretty good pair of ears) it surprises me how much more I get from the music when I can also see them go to work on it.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: What are your feelings about rock operas?
Leto
@Brachiator:
The market has changed to where if a writer wants to live, they gotta write more than 1 book. Or if a writer wants to explore concepts further, that’s also where a series is handy. Regardless, you can read that first novel and just leave it there. Don’t have to read any more. That one is 608 pages, and it was fairly quick because it kept me turning pages. *does the card dealer hand wipe, walks away*
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. I thought the Lego Batman movie was light and funny. BTAS and the further works they did were all really good. You know what might be really cool? If they did Batman Beyond. Man I really liked that one.
Torrey
@Geminid:
Right there with you on the novel. I would probably have thrown it across the room, except it was a library copy, and they tend not to look kindly on that kind of reader response. And, while there were parts of the movie I liked, I’ll add to my out-of-step list Jeff Daniels as Joshua Chamberlain and Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee. I found neither one of them believable.
(The director gave an interview once in which he said that he tried to get a young unknown from Australia, some guy named Russell Crowe, who gave a perfect reading of the crucial scene used for the screen test, but the suits demanded a big name, so they got Daniels.)
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: Domo arigato, Mr Roboto…
Gin & Tonic
@prostratedragon:
Indeed. We just returned from a live performance of Bach’s B-Minor Mass, a piece of music I have listened to at least a hundred times. and it’s amazing how much more I got out of it by watching *and* listening.
mrmoshpotato
@Starfish: Oh Seinfeld…
West of the Rockies
I’ve only read the first 25 comments, so sorry if I’m totally repeating anyone. I can’t stand Southpark, Rick and Morty, GoT, Sopranos… I don’t enjoy meanness and thirst for power interesting.
wjca
You might want to check out Victor/Victoria as well.
Brachiator
@Almost Retired:
I like hot dogs. Beer is okay. But I love a good cheeseburger and a glass of red wine.
Not a big baseball fan, but I have had big fun with friends at Dodger games.
mvr
@zhena gogolia:
My friends tell me I have. One spent an evening playing me highlights and I lived in a house with someone who was an excellent jazz DJ and who thereby helped me understand and like jazz. It never worked with opera.
I kind of suspect it might be a failing of mine, but I’m not entirely convinced.
mvr
@billcinsd:
I grew up with radio and I still feel like it matters that other people are listening with me. There are songs about this.
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato: Nope.
kalakal
Wuthering Heights – I hate that book, it has some great atmospheric writing but all the characters have to be idiots for the story to ‘work’. Having dissed Emily, I think Charlotte more than makes up for it – I love Jane Eyre
Chris
Popular things that I hate: any show that’s all about basking in what terrible people its characters are. So Game Of Thrones, House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Mad Men. There’s exceptions. I’m enjoying Peaky Blinders largely because I like the setting and all the real life history they intersect with. I stayed hooked all through the second season of Sons of Anarchy because I really wanted to see the Aryan Nation villains get what was coming to them, which was definitely my frustration with real life 2009-2010 politics bleeding over. But that just means there are things that can outweigh my dislike of the basic genre. At the end of the day, I’m still rooting for the protagonists to get a bullet in the head.
SpaceUnit
@kalakal:
The song is good.
ETA: Kate Bush Wuthering Heights
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: They’ve had multiple Batmans going on at once. The Ben Affleck version was an older, more grizzled Batman, in some ways inspired by The Dark Knight Returns. They even brought back Michael Keaton as an aged version of his movie Batman in The Flash, which I’m happy to say I never saw. But Pattinson’s was the young Batman just starting out and still getting the hang of it.
Leto
@Almost Retired: I will say, I hate watching it on tv. Just not enjoyable at all. But I do like going to see it live. A hotdog and a Coke is a real treat, but being at an actual game is different. I guess it’s like opera.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: First season of Peaky Blinders was awesome. It becomes bloodier and bloodier as it goes on.
Chris
On a slightly older note:
Edith Piaf, on the female end of things, and Bob Dylan, on the male end of things. I think they have the ugliest damn singing voices of the entire twentieth century and genuinely don’t understand how people find them pleasant to listen to. Hearing them always makes me feel like a cranky white reactionary listening to rap: “that’s not music, it’s just noise!”
CaseyL
I’ve never been able to get into rap. Which is weird, because I did very much like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” which came out in 1970 and could be considered proto-rap, or the ancestor of rap. And there are some individual bits/songs that I’ve liked. But the genre, in general, does less than nothing for me.
And because rap is an important part of Black culture and experience, I always feel guilty (White Guilt guilty) about not liking it at all.
Jackie
OT PSA: I just watched a segment of Ayman on MSNBC. They were discussing an A24 documentary: “The Sixth.” Jamie Rankin highly recommends it. Apparently it was to be aired on Amazon Prime, but they just quietly squelched it with no explanation. It’s available on other streaming services – including YouTube TV, which I have, and have earmarked to watch, since Jamie says is it’s a Much See before the General Election.
It’s an “accidental documentary,” in that the filmers were at the Capitol for a different reason and got caught up in the Insurrection.
JWR
@wjca:
Julie Andrews? The Tamarind Seed, regularly seen on the Movies! channel. (Hey, the only other Julie Andrews film I ever saw was Mary Poppins, okay?!)
Mai Naem mobile
Seinfeld/Ellen/Friends/Two and a Half Men/Full House(gack!)/Cosby/Everybody Loves Raymond/Fresh Prince/Home Improvement. It’s not like I don’t like sitcoms but these were crappy and/or dumb with crappy acting. Also the Twilight series. Any of the Marvel movies. The only reality show I used to enjoy was Project Runway because it didn’t seem formulaic and there were surprises. The Kardashians. Seriously who cares? They all need to go out and get some real jobs. I give the Kardashians the largest amount of blame for young uns having totally unrealistic expectations for their lives. It seems to me they’re the ones who popularized the use of filters, botox, unnecessary plastic surgery and all the fake set up experiences they showed on their show.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@HumboldtBlue: i was an early adapter of anime, waaaay back in the mid-eighties, when you’d get undubbed, unsubbed vhs’ wrapped in brown paper and you had to buy magazines like protoculture addicts or animag to have any idea of what was going on..
which is to say, i figured out the tropes blue-eye samurai is playing with in about fifteen minutes. but it is ALSO gorgeous and i’ll have to watch the whole thing before i really generate an encompassing opinion
@NotMax: ?!? isn’t anime.. a medium?
zhena gogolia
@wjca: I saw it when it came out, not since then. i think I liked it.
NotMax
Marionettes. I find them creepy as hell; make my skin crawl.
...now I try to be amused
@RSA:
So the Seinfeld actors were like their characters.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Leto: you don’t. you accept that the alley scene is part of popular culture, you DON’T have to show it again! you assume the audience is familiar with the elements, which they are, and you start the story where you want, hopefully in media res.
one of the better parts of reeves’ movie was that it didn’t really dwell on that (incredibly retread) moment
@Matt McIrvin: the brave and the bold was TOTALLY doing that.
Jackie
@CaseyL: I don’t like rap due to the language. I’m not a swearer, so it leaves me cold. 99% of movies and today’s shows turn me off for the same reason. Sometimes swearing is relevant; every other word using the “F” word as an adjective, noun, and verb isn’t, IMO.
I was raised believing those who swear have a limited vocabulary. I do have my swearing moments, but they’re rare enough that those who know me, know I’m extremely provoked and tiptoe away 😂
strange visitor (from another planet)
@prostratedragon: see batman beyond.
JWR
@…now I try to be amused: Given Michael Richards’, followed by Jerry Seinfeld’s more recent exposure in the news, I would think that yes, they were playing themselves.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@JWR: i always hated seinfeld. it was an awful portrayal of nyc, it was an awful portrayal of nyc jews and it was an awful portrayal of nyc people.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Batman on training wheels wasn’t very interesting. Besides, both Batman and Bruce Wayne were glum and sullen, like an adolescent. But he also could beat people up real good. This really seemed to work for some fans of the film. It almost put me to sleep.
I also thought that the direction and camera work were at best, barely competent. The movie was as plodding and lugubrious as Batman’s boots.
prostratedragon
@Gin & Tonic: Ooo. That one’s still on the bucket list.
WaterGirl
@West of the Rockies: There has to be at least one redeeming character, someone I can identify with, or at least root for. Otherwise I have no interest.
NaijaGal
@Jackie: Couldn’t swear much at home growing up, so rap is my guilty pleasure 😂. I’ve been getting into British rappers recently. My favorite is Little Simz, who swears but also has something interesting to say (see venom and gorillaz).
mrmoshpotato
@strange visitor (from another planet): It was also stupid as hell. I hope Jerry’s apartment got robbed multiple times.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Brachiator: it was his second year. an area not covered in comics or film. i found it fascinating, it was the first time a batman on film was an actual detective. also, the first movie batman who didn’t kill anyone.
it was lugubrious as it should be bc it’s a story about a man getting over his parents’ murders by finding his lot in life. i didn’t think it was overstuffed. it was like a dream. i didn’t mind the length and thought it was full of excellent performances.
@mrmoshpotato: heh. yeah. that woulda made a great episode.
Brachiator
@Leto:
Baseball on radio is often good. But I guess it greatly depends on the announcers. Like the wonderful Vin Scully.
It’s not over until the fat lady is warming up in the bullpen?
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator: Hahaha!
wjca
Baseball is inherently a radio game. You can enjoy listening to it while doing something else. I used to listen while doing engineering problem sets in college. About the time I finished each problem, something interesting would happen.
wjca
The Murdoch Mysteries series was fun. (Where else does the hero detective mostly travel by bicycle?) Also Firefly — plus it was amusing, on Castle, when Nathan Fillion’s character would occasionally toss off a comment which worked for that show, but was an obvious reference to Firefly if you were familiar.
Tehanu
Things I’ve never understood why anyone liked them:
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Princess Bride
Forrest Gump, a paean to ignorance even Tom Hanks can’t save
Game of Thrones — the Middle Ages without St. Francis or Giotto, without the universities of Oxford, Paris, Bologna, without Roger Bacon, Pierre Abelard, Erigena, Hildegarde of Bingen…
The Bear — this is a comedy? My husband watches it and whenever I’ve tried, every scene is people screaming and cursing each other.
...now I try to be amused
@JWR:
Jason Alexander said in an interview that George Costanza was based on Larry David.
Brachiator
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Probably a good reason for that. But this raises a good point. I tend not to like “adventures of Young X” stories. Young Sherlock Holmes, the early life of Han Solo. I just don’t care. So that’s on me. Unfortunately, I didn’t think that the movie was well made, which didn’t help.
But he barely did any detecting and the bad guy was always a step ahead of him.
I like Batman. I even like much of the animated Batman. I can watch the movies if they are on and I randomly click onto them. Except for the George Clooney Batman and this movie. I understand what they were trying to do. Just didn’t work for me.
Also, this Batman did too much standing and walking. I noticed all of the director’s choices and they seemed like the wrong ones.
...now I try to be amused
I don’t know if I would hate Marvel superhero movies, but I haven’t bothered to watch any of them. I did enjoy two commentaries on the superhero genre, Watchmen (the graphic novel, not the movie) and The Incredibles.
Over the last few years I’ve watched more new documentary films (The Sparks Brothers, They Shall Not Grow Old, and In the Court of the Crimson King) than new fictional films. I suppose Rush (James Hunt vs. Niki Lauda in 1976) was a sorta documentary.
SpaceUnit
@Tehanu:
I’ll disagree on The Princess Bride. That movie goes out of its way to be brilliantly flatfooted and stupid.
NotMax
@wjca
Scratch that was. New episodes still being cranked out. Season 17 just finished up airing in Canada last month and the show’s renewal for season 18 recently announced.
;)
Chris
@…now I try to be amused:
The Incredibles is a strong candidate for the best superhero movie ever made. Which makes it all the more baffling that they haven’t been able to make a good Fantastic Four movie, since TI is basically that.
wjca
Delighted to hear it. We in the US are always behind the curve on Canadian shows.
Pennsylvanian
@Suzanne: We are spirit animals somehow. Thank you.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Madmen might be my favorite show of all time. Don Draper and the women on the show are just riveting and so well written.
NotMax
@Chris
The Fleischer studio’s Superman cartoon shorts, even with later entries turn to wartime propaganda elements, remain outstanding.
geg6
@Eyeroller:
I only buy low rise. Just got a pair the other day. They fit me like high rise. And I have no trouble getting the right inseam. I did when I was younger, before there was so much specialization in sizes and styles. But I tend to find a brand that fits and stick with them. Levi’s are good, so are Calvin Klein and Anne Klein, all depending on style. I like Levis for skinny, Calvin for wide leg and AK for cropped and boot cut. Now that we’re allowed to wear (nice, not “torn”) jeans to work most days, I have a whole wardrobe of them.
NotMax
@wjca
Within season 18 they’ll pass the astonishing 300 episode mark. And that’s not counting specials and short original webisodes.
;)
jame
For what it’s worth, I disliked A Conderacy of Dunces, Bless Me Ultima, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I loathe Charles Bukowski’s writing.
I love A. S. Byatt’s Possession and The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye and Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin.
I love Blackadder. I hated Deadwood. I liked Strange Magic, Practical Magic, and Moonstruck, but thought Steel Magnolias was stupid.
I don’t stream anything, or listen to podcasts, although my children tell me I should.
JoyceH
Fifteen or twenty years ago, Food Network and HGTV were about all I watched, now I never watch them. I think what soured me on them was the emphasis on competition shows. Cooking and decorating/renovating both strike me as remarkably ill-suited to being subjects of competition. It just seems mean-spirited to me. “You’ve created a (delicious dish) (beautiful and functional space), but – bzzzz, you lose, we think this other thing is better.”
And even when not competing, the HGTV obsession with knocking down walls and open concept just grates on my nerves. As for Food Network, I gave them up when Guy Fieri came along. Ridonkulous!
But I can enjoy some renovations. I’m currently over on the ROKU channel, streaming George Clarke’s Old House New Home. It’s a British show, and somehow it’s better when the ‘old house’ being renovated for a modern family is a six-hundred year old farmhouse. Or a Victorian townhouse and George looks up the old census records and tells the woman that the tiny place once housed a husband and wife and their eight kids.
Also on ROKU, I’m enjoying Jeremiah. I like post-apoc, but most post-apoc television is too dang pessimistic. I like a vision where not EVERYONE who survives the end of civilization goes all Lord of the Flies.
Omnes Omnibus
Well, this thread really picked up on the mood of the week.
Brachiator
@jame:
For me, podcasts are just a variation of radio. I used to work an evening shift and would listen to broadcasts of classic radio comedy and drama on KNX radio in Los Angeles on the drive home. If I had a bout of insomnia I would listen to intelligent late night radio from KGO in San Francisco.
Some of the best podcasts are rebroadcasts of radio programs that are vastly superior to soundbite TV news. But there is also a lot of crap, so you have to pick carefully.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Brachiator: i have to say the scenes that stuck with me were the interrogation of the penguin (which was hysterical) after one of the most memorable batmobile car chases i can remember.
the thing that threw me off was when the thugs wrecked selina’s apartment and all the cats didn’t run away.
but yeah. he tried to detect and he got MOST of it, and managed to rescue a lot of people at the end. think about how much bale’s batman relied on lucius fox.
(and again, the batman doesn’t murder carries SO much weight with me, bc it carries so much weight with the modern conception of the character in print but in the films up until reeves, he’s been a murder-hobo).
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Wow, what a litany of complaints you’ve unleashed here! On the one hand, we have some evidence that the commenters here are fairly self-differentiated, able to voice separate opinions without getting too bent out of shape if contradicted, which according to family systems theory is a good thing. On the other hand, I find all the complaints get on my nerves.
Anyway, when I think of pop culture, I’m reminded of two seminary classes.
In one, Emotions, Passions, and Feelings, the professor was a stickler for distinguishing between them and noted that much of pop culture is aimed at sentimental reactions, sentiments being psychological states which superficially mimic emotions, but lack their depth or lasting power. I love the Marvel Universe, because the movies and series give me a cheap thrill and escapist fantasy.
Great art, music, literature, on the other hand, aims for our emotions, which motivate us, because they force us to think, mull, chew on the characters and themes. So, I came to love Moby Dick, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, going to art museums, and attending orchestras.
The other class dealt, in large part, with Harry Stack Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory of Psychology, a neo-Freudian who saw adult relationships as being based on three elements: the lust dynamism, intimacy, and what he called, security operations (the stuff that makes us feel safe in our own eyes and in the opinions of family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors). A lot of pop culture, it seems to me, is geared towards that latter category, even when it superficially seems to be about lust.
I enjoyed watching Burn Notice, Suits, and Royal Pains as playful romps. But that’s all they were to me. I doubt they changed me very much.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: growing up, my dad listened to classical music, and opera. So much opera. Wagner, Verdi, etc. I loved the classical, and there was one melodic chorus in one opera that was pretty. Mostly I didn’t like it. It’s grown on me, but it took a long time, and a few people explaining to me what to listen for.
Because I disliked it but heard a lot of it for so long (childhood is a long period; it’s before time goes faster) I did imitation fake opera, and sang high lyrical vibratory soprano bit, and then sang as low as possible in an operatic style, pretending it was bass; making fun of it.
I hate to admit this, but I don’t get it about Taylor swift. Why do people adore her? What is it? And why does she change costumes so much? Yes, yes, she has some catchy tunes but I can’t listen through one song. Except, “I’m gonna drive my car” which one teacher had in her playlist for preschool dismissal. It was a fun one to dance to with the 4 year olds. But I could get through the free song on her new released double album.
I can’t stand rap. I didn’t understand that entire half time show at Super Bowl, was it a year ago, that so many people liked..
I get clips from shows on YouTube, and Facebook so I get a flavor of some of the big shows. What I really like are the nature documentaries narrated by sir David A.
wjca
Yet a lot of folks went beyond sharing what they hated, to also talking about what they liked. Which seems healthy. Especially after the past week.
frosty
People hate it, but I love The Big Bang Theory. I didn’t go to Cal Tech but I went to a school that was a hothouse of STEM. Sheldon could have been my freshman year roommate. I see my classmates in all the characters, especially the engineer with a MS (Howard) who doesn’t measure up to the PhD physicists.
I could do without the laugh track though. Ugh.
Brachiator
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Coming back to a probably dead thread for a couple of thoughts.
I appreciate your views on the Batman film. The character has been around a long time, and it is fun to see how directors are bringing new perspectives to the Caped Crusader.
I liked how the rescue at the end showed Batman ultimately to be a hero, but in an almost somber, downbeat way. The lack of bombastic applause and “Yippee! Batman saves the day” corniness was good.
Batman’s reliance on Fox, and even Alfred is I think Nolan trying to ground the comic fantasy into a plausible world in which Batman has to be seen getting assistance and technology from someplace rational.
I hadn’t thought as much about this, but I see your point, I think. I have not read any of the comics in a long time, but am aware of this Batman’s ethical code.
Cathie from Canada
@Tehanu: Yes, there is a lot of yelling in The Bear, but not always.
the Xanax in the cooler scene:
https://youtu.be/yzEoT55hA5c?si=7-A8IoW9n6b8RTie
The mushroom peeling scene:
https://youtu.be/f7D8THR_osU?si=ImIO5Ws4MhZXSelm
Here is a great discussion of The Bear’s tenderness:
https://youtu.be/l1EaaCeAYFI?si=ipCtxR25teIZ7IXS
NotMax
@Cathie from Canada
Opportunity to again recommend the BBC dramatized mini-series Boiling Point on Netflix. Intense and at times heart wrenching, minimum of yelling.
bluefoot
@citizen dave:
Very late reply but: I am envious of your Indy attendance! I got into watching open wheel racing back in the mid-90s and went to my first race (Moslon Indy Toronto) in 1999. I get infuriated by the bullsh*t politics in F1 but still love the sport. It’s been fun watching it evolve over time.
I never could get into the Grateful Dead, though I’ve been to a show. My brother used to follow them around so maybe that’s why I didn’t get into them…in a big family you’re always fighting to be an individual. :)
Vickie Feminist