I think this skews older than 'Conchords' - more like Gilmore Girls meets Columbo. In an age where swifter uses Devo songs, I think it's not a 'hipster' show,
( poor or slumming, lazy, partiers, Saturday nights at Union Pool) but rather a cultural creatives and cultural creatives wannabe show show ( responsible, tidy, dooce readers, employed, Saturday nights in loft condos in Kansas City). In short, the audience is the sensitive stroller moms ( and dads), not the loser dudes. Don't forget that outside of NYC the average age for marriage is 25-26, and these young responsible clean living married folks are watching whilst home with kids or babies . As for hipsters not being sincere, tell that to etsy, whatever twee band is flavor of the month and those handicraft chicks and beard farmer dudes I see everywhere. Speaking as an Old, I must say that people under 30ish are the most sincere frikkin crowd I've ever met.
Anyone else think that clip was pretty damn funny?
Haven't seen the show, but if you're gonna take it down, try and find a shitty clip.
As far as hipster drivel... everybody raves about Flight of the Concords and that is about the biggest hipster show on the market. While I love the songs, I can't stand the characters: they're the guys on Bedford I want to stuff bodily into their clever hats and down the f*ckin' toilet.
Christ. If Raymond Chandler was still around, he'd have flown to NYC, taken the script and shot it in the gut, and then proceeded to get drunk on gimlets with a Schwartzman twist.
sure, y'all, throw your reductive labels around, attempt to pigeonhole all heart and soul out of somebody's sincerely personal vision,'cause, clearly, that sort of thing makes you uneasy, it being so much more comfortingly familiar to stay detached, but I'd have to disagree. this was a profoundly enjoyable, irrepressibly sweet, keenly observed, rousingly cast, redemptive and refreshingly distinctive vision of early millennial New York, an understated, unassuming, unforced, breezily, unpretentiously, whimsically self assured pilot (Jonathan is a colleague. but I speak from the heart).
Firstly, the hell is a PBR? Peanut Butter Reeses Pieces? Poor Broke Republicans? Panko Breaded Rib eye? Too insidery.
This show didn't interest me in the slightest. Schwartzman is too cerebral to be effortlessly funny. Too awkward to be intriguing. And easily labeled a whiny ninny, as he's played in several movies. Also, there are just too many detective shows about non-detectives on television right now. That genre is hemorrhaging from unoriginality overload. From the quirky Psych, to the typical CSINCIS, Law, Order, and Mentalling, Monking, Boneses, Castle -- Nathan Filion, get back on a space ship offerings to really stand out for real.
@gabrielsong: I can't even imagine going to a bar and ordering a Pabst Blue Ribbon with a straight face. Isn't that like asking for a O'Douls or a Canada Dry Ginger Ale?
@Spirit Fingers: No one orders a Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's a PBR. And it's not a hipster trend, it's usually just really, really cheap. The hipsters cannot have PBR. It is not cool, it is economical.
I had the choice of watching this show or picking up the mess my dog and child made with tissue paper yesterday afternoon. I watched 10 minutes and started picking up the mess. That bad.
Beyond the fact that all of the twentysomething indie cultural signifiers were really condescending and hamfisted, this show just isn't well-written. Having a thin premise is fine if you're an able enough screenwriter to sell it, but Ames absolutely isn't, and Schwartzman is too much of a lightweight to help him do the heavy lifting. Ames sets up the entire series in the span of about 150 seconds: guy loses girlfriend, reads Raymond Chandler book, decides to become private detective--through a craigslist ad! How offbeat!--but it isn't believable in the context of the show because...we don't have any context. The dialogue isn't as sharp or smart as its creators obviously imagine it to be, and exchanges that might otherwise crackle just lay there on the screen because no one (Schwartzman, Galifianakis, Thirlby) except Danson has any sense of timing. There were definitely moments that had me chuckling, and I did get out of the show what I really wanted going in: shots of familiar neighborhoods around Brooklyn. I think I'll continue to watch at least through the third or fourth episode cuz if I've learned anything from the Wire, 30 Rock &c, it's to not give up on a show due to a shitty pilot. But overall I'd give it maybe a C- at this point.
@Glanton: You pretty much sum it up at the end. It's a pilot. They are invariably mediocre at best. Setting up the entire series in 150 seconds is pretty much how it goes. I have no idea whether this show will pan out or not, but it's certainly impossible to tell at the moment. They also need to just let ZG off the script and do what he does. Otherwise there really isn't any reason to have him around.
@MyNameIsChris: Agreed, to an extent. The best shows (the Wire, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, &c) have a premise that can be explained in a sentence or two but take hours of hard work to flesh out. Here, Ames basically just filmed the two sentences. It felt weak, rushed, and sloppy.
@hamburgerhotdog: Got it. Then again, nobody uses phone books anymore, but a hipster might since it's ironically retro cool, right? Oh, the conundrum. Lift that phone book, hipster!
@NigelAstydameia: I see these more as "huppies" or "yipsters." Hipsters don't, as far as I can tell, hang out in places where there are baby carriages unless it is to poo in an abandoned one in public.
I don’t understand the analysis. This is basically a hipster-ish version of Monk, but tons more watchable and 1/2 shorter. Meaning, Bored to Death is a good show!
09/22/09
( poor or slumming, lazy, partiers, Saturday nights at Union Pool) but rather a cultural creatives and cultural creatives wannabe show show ( responsible, tidy, dooce readers, employed, Saturday nights in loft condos in Kansas City). In short, the audience is the sensitive stroller moms ( and dads), not the loser dudes. Don't forget that outside of NYC the average age for marriage is 25-26, and these young responsible clean living married folks are watching whilst home with kids or babies . As for hipsters not being sincere, tell that to etsy, whatever twee band is flavor of the month and those handicraft chicks and beard farmer dudes I see everywhere. Speaking as an Old, I must say that people under 30ish are the most sincere frikkin crowd I've ever met.
09/21/09
09/21/09
Haven't seen the show, but if you're gonna take it down, try and find a shitty clip.
As far as hipster drivel... everybody raves about Flight of the Concords and that is about the biggest hipster show on the market. While I love the songs, I can't stand the characters: they're the guys on Bedford I want to stuff bodily into their clever hats and down the f*ckin' toilet.
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if all you had to say was 'don't take the show so seriously, it's meant to be funny', that might be acceptable.
but unless your comment was too ironic for me to get, i think maybe you were watching some other show.
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09/21/09
This show didn't interest me in the slightest. Schwartzman is too cerebral to be effortlessly funny. Too awkward to be intriguing. And easily labeled a whiny ninny, as he's played in several movies. Also, there are just too many detective shows about non-detectives on television right now. That genre is hemorrhaging from unoriginality overload. From the quirky Psych, to the typical CSINCIS, Law, Order, and Mentalling, Monking, Boneses, Castle -- Nathan Filion, get back on a space ship offerings to really stand out for real.
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apparently you've never been to Wisconsin
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really? badgers are people, too
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