Rambling TV: Thoughts on Game of Thrones and Veep

I had a busy week, so not much TV here. I'm hoping to finish off Daredevil tonight, but I only got a chance to watch Game of Thrones and Veep this week. That's okay, they're the best shows on television right now.

Game of Thrones

Beyond the Wall
Bran and Meera are still being chased by wights. Poor Meera finally drops from exhaustion pulling that sled. Bran is still getting several visions "uploaded" into his brain. Lots of wild fire, visions of Jaime killing the Mad King, the deaths of his family members, and white walkers. He wakes up, and he and Meera hold each other before the Wights descend on them (aww) then all of a sudden Ghost Rider a hooded figure shows up and kills the remaining wights. He reveals himself later to be Benjen Stark, Bran's uncle who was lost beyond the wall in S1. He was stabbed by a White Walker's sword, and the Children of the Forest saved him by stabbing him in the heart with dragon glass, the same way the White Walkers were created in the first place.

Horn Hill
Sam and Gilly rival Jesse Pinkman, Walter and Skylar White in the most awkward dinner conversation ever. Sam's dad is the fucking worst. He spends a good majorty of one of the books telling Brienne she "needs a good raping" so I was happy to see his dickishness (not a word) translated to screen well. He berates Sam, when Gilly stands up for him and tells them Sam killed a White Walker and that he's a better warrior than Dickon or Randyll will ever be, Randyll rages over the fact that Sam brought a Wildling to his table. The best part, Sam, Gilly, and Little Sam run off in the middle of the night and steal Randyll's Valyrian steal sword, Heartsbane. I cheered. Go Sam.

Braavos
Arya watches the play of Joffrey's wedding and goes back stage to poison the actress' whisky. She accidentally runs into her and they have a nice discussion about how she plays Cersei. Arya has a change of heart last minute and slaps the poisoned drink away from her and tells her to be careful of the other actress that wants her dead. The Waif sees this and reports back to Jaqen, who says the Waif can kill her, but to make sure she doesn't suffer. Arya goes and retrieves Needle from her hiding spot.

King's Landing
Margaery and Tommen talk about how she only pretended to be nice and really needs to atone for her sins. They have her out on the steps looking like she's about to do a walk of shame when Jaime and Tyrell soldiers show up. Of course, this is all a ruse, The High Sparrow wasn't going to make her walk and says she atoned by converting Tommen to the Faith. Tommen then promptly fires Jaime from the Kingsguard and sends him off to the Riverlands to try to regain control of Riverrun from the Blackfish.

Later, Jaime bitches to Cersei and they kiss. I'm too annoyed to even talk about this story, I HATE what the show has done with Jaime. He's no longer Cersei's puppet in the books and I have no idea why they insist on throwing away all the development he had in S3 for this. 

The Twins
Walder Frey bitches out his sons for losing control of Riverrun. There's Red Wedding, Tully, and Brotherhood Without Banners mentions. Lawd, give me Stoneheart.

The Dothraki Sea
Daario for some reason is super supportive of Dany and no longer a creep, she rides ahead of the Dothraki and returns mounted on Drogon to give them another pep talk. Dany's pretty good at political rallies, and the CGI of her on Drogon looked far better than it did last season.

Veep

This episode was brilliantly titled "cuntgate" and was all about Selena trying to 1) Find out who in her office called her a "cunt." (it was everyone) and 2) Trying to make a decision on who to bail out, but not before completely dragging Mike, Ben, Tom, and Kent around with it. Dan also became Jonah's campaign manager only for Bill to show back up and let Dan know just how pissed he is for being thrown under the bus earlier this season.

Gary also thought the C word was "crone" in the most amazing scene in the entire episode. 

Memorable quotes: 

"This is so much more beautiful to watch than the birth of my child."

"Oh wait I do have hard feelings. I'm consumed by it." 

"They make you look half smart you fucking goon!" 

"Have you ever been called a cunt?"

"......many times." 

"You wouldn't know the smart move if it bent you over and fucked you with a Coke bottle."

"At least when Truman made the decision to drop the bomb he wasn't fucking anyone in Hiroshima"

Indie Gems: I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

Take off your mask.

Last week I watched a Norwegian film about characters suffering from mental illness, and while I didn't plan for this to happen, this week I watched one from South Korea. 

Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim) believes that she's a Cyborg. When she slits her wrist at work, she winds up in a mental institution. She refuses to eat, thinking that she can charge herself to get the energy she needs. She licks batteries and talks to lights. She catches the eye of Par Il-Sun (Rain) another patient that frequently steals things. She intrigues him, and he makes it his mission to get her to eat.

Director Chan-wook Park is someone I'm really coming to love. He did Stoker, Oldboy, and Thirst, all great films, and this one couldn't be more different. In fact, this might be one of the weirdest fucking movies I've ever seen. Unlike Elling, my Indie Gem from last week, this one isn't out to make a case for the mental health community. Every part of this movie is completely over the top. Even the doctors seem tongue in cheek about their jobs. It makes for a beautifully strange atmosphere.

Young-goon and Par Il-Sun blossom into a sweet couple, and while I was never sure if romance was a good idea for them, I couldn't help but root for it at times. Sometimes two souls just need each other. Pacing does become somewhat of an issue for a film like this. It felt longer than it needed to be, and it let the weirdness linger. Thankfully the upbeat and infectious soundtrack always keeps us going. 

Grade: B-

Memorable Quote: "You knew right away that you were a light?" - Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim)

Thursday Movie Picks: The Internet

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is movies where that thing we bloggers all need and love; the internet. I'm an admitted internet addict. I'm not sure I could function without it at this point. The Social Network and Disconnect are two of my favorite internet based movies, but I used them in other weeks, so I went with a two documentaries instead.

1) The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz was a programming genius who is responsible for things like RSS and Reddit. He was also an activist that wanted all kinds of information to be readily available to anyone, and sadly, some trouble he got into lead to him taking his own life when he was 26. This is a fascinating doc, and in true Aaron fashion, the whole thing is on Youtube.

2) Me and You and Everyone We Know

There's a lot of interweaving stories in film, but one of the biggest involves two brothers in an internet chat room, with the youngest one striking up a relationship with someone on the other side of his screen, even though he's far too young to even comprehend the things he's typing.

3) Talhotblond

Another documentary, this is a hot mess of fucked up. So much so that it ended up being a Lifetime TV movie by the same name. (I can't speak to that, but the doc is fascinating) It involves an internet love triangle that leaves one party death and another in prison. 

Rambling TV: Thoughts on Game of Thrones, Agents of SHIELD and Veep + more

Game of Thrones

The Wall/Molestown

Sansa is sewing away when she gets a raven from Littlefinger to meet her in Molestown. She and Brienne head off. LF swears he didn't know about Ramsay, we know that's bullshit. She details the abuses he inflicted on her and told LF "If you didn't know, you're an idiot and if you did know, you're my enemy." I liked that line. But of course, LF has to get in one last manipulation by pointing out he has the Vale army standing by, Riverrun has been retaking by the Blackfish, and that Jon is only her half brother and she needs people fighting for her. She should've had Brienne kill her.

Later, as Jon, Davos, and the rest of them are planning their strategy, Sansa tries to school Davos about the North when she really should've listened to him. She reminded me of Daenerys there in a way, thinking she knows more than she really did. The whole scene rubbed me the wrong way. I loved Sansa in the last episode. I like her in general but I hate when she's snobby and this felt snobby. Then she lied to Jon about how she know Blackfish has control of Riverrun and I do not understand the logic behind that at all.

She did win me over a bit when she sewed Jon Stark armor, even though I'm not so sure what the motivations are. 

Vaes Dothrak

In a very emotional scene Jorah shows Dany his greyscale and tells her he loves her, but he has to leave her so it doesn't spread it. She commands him to find a cure and return to her. It was so lovely and Emilia was actually very good here. Iain is always phenomenal. 

Pyke
The boring Iron Born have their Kingsmoot to determine their new inept leader. Yara, who is probably the best candidate makes her case. The newly cleaned up Theon backs her, then their uncle Euron shows up. You know, the one that threw Balon off a bridge. He admits to this, says he's going to build a huge fleet, then marry Dany after "showing her his big cock." Kinslaying be damned, they pick him and Theon and Yara and some men loyal to then escape with their ships. Now Euron has to build new ones. 

Braavos
Arya is STILL getting beat up by the Waif, though she's taking it like a champ. Jaqen sends her off to kill an actress in a play. The play happens to be of Ned Stark's beheading and poor Arya has to watch while everyone else laughs. When she questions the motives of this actress being killed, Jaqen tells her not to ask any questions. Yeah, this isn't going to work out for her.

Meereen
Tyrion and Varys meet Kinvara, a priestess of R'hollor like Melisandre who is going to spread the good word of Daenerys after thoroughly creeping Varys the fuck out.

Beyond the Wall

Bran and Bloodraven are having a vision of the first While Walker being created. The Children of the Forest are responsible for creating them. The men were cutting down their trees and wouldn't leave them alone. It's tragic to think the thing they made to protect them from man became both of their enemies. Later, Bran goes back into a vision alone and sees the army of Wights, but the Night's King seems him in his vision and touches him. When he wakes up, Bloodraven tells him he's marked and needs to leave. He then pulls him into another vision as Meera scrambles to pack everything. Then the Wights and White Walkers show up. The CotF try to fight them off, Hodor is freaking out and Meera is trying to shake Bran out of his vision so that he can get Hodor to help. He hears her and sees young Hodor in his vision, so he wargs into them. The White Walkers enter the cave. Meera manages to kill one and she, Hodor, and Bran on the sled run off. Summer stays behind to fight the Wights and is killed. Dog whimpering, cue the tears for me. Then the Night King kills Bloodraven in the tree. Leaf sacrifices herself so that Meera and Hodor can move futher.

Then we find out the meaning of Hodor. There's a door at the back of the cave, He gets it open but the Wights are approaching. Meera yells at him to "hold the door" shut as she runs pulling Bran's sled. Bran looks at young Hodor in his vision who begins to have a seizure while screaming "hold the door" over and over, eventually all running together and coming "Hodor." Adult Hodor is then ripped apart by Wights

So Bran is responsible for Hodor being the way he is. It's devastating. Hodor knew his entire life he was going to die at this moment for the boy he grew to protect. He was normal before. This has been the hardest ending since the Red Wedding. To lose Hodor, Summer, and Bloodraven like that, plus Leaf and all the other CotF was too much. And to think how Bran is going to feel when he wakes up, he and Meera are alone, and he's lost his pet and Hodor who he's known his entire life. That's rough.

Veep

Thankfully Veep was pretty funny this week, I needed a few laughs after I got done crying over Game of Thrones. Dan became Tom's version of Gary which was hysterical. I did feel a bit bad for Dan after they made fun of him for his panic attack though. Selena also got some cosmetic surgery under her eyes and spent the entire weekend holed up in the Oval office with two gigantic shiners. 

My favorite quote:

"You look like a southern housewife who just burned dinner."

Agents of SHIELD

The two hour finale saw Hive and Lincoln dying in that rocket towards the end, Lincoln taking Daisy's place unfortunately. I'm just happy because Fitz was wearing that stupid jacket for half the episode and I was worried it was him.

SHIELD was picked up for a 4th season, probably because they're close to syndication, and I'm honestly not looking forward to more of the Daisy show. The ending jumped ahead 6 months, Daisy is now "Quake" in the papers and is robbing banks in some Robin Hood act to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Coulson is no longer the director and is trying to catch her. So more Daisy worshipping next season. Yay.

Here's the problem with this scenario. In order to be a good show, AoS needs to avoid situations where the viewers can ask "Why don't they call the Avengers?" Shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones handle this so well. They make mentions of the "big guys" but they handle things small time. Someone like Daisy taking down buildings and robbing banks is begging for the Avengers to intervene and it's not realistic that they don't. Then you have Chloe Bennett, the actress that plays Daisy bitching about the movies not paying attention to their show. Sorry Chloe, I know she's probably pissed she didn't get made an instant movie star after they cancelled Inhumans, but she can't barely hold her own in a TV show. She wouldn't be able to carry an entire movie. AoS is better when they focus on the actual agents doing spy stuff. Not the Inhumans. I hate how this show has some great characters and interesting things to say and lets it get muddled by their boner over the Inhumans.

Daredevil

I watched 208-210 of the superior Marvel show. The choreography in this is so amazing. Especially compared to Jessica Jones. I love how Fisk came back to manipulate the Punisher and those fight scenes in the prison were amazing.

I still feel bad for Foggy, Matt is being such a dick. But I love Claire showing back up. She and Matt belong together, I need them to be a couple, please.

I love how Karen, with no creditionals gets to essentially be a lawyer and question Frank, now she gets to be a journalist. If they would've mentioned her that she was originally a journalism student at the beginning of the series, I'd buy her getting a job at the paper. But some random with a good lead walks in and is given a job and an office? What? Karen's okay, I don't hate her character but her job situation is just weird at this point.


Rambling TV is a weekly series where I ramble semi-coherently about the things I've watched on television. This week was brought to you by my tears because of GoT. Click those gifs to be redirected to their makers. 

2016 Blind Spot Series: Funny Face

What I knew going in: The premise.

Admittedly, I haven't seen a lot of Audrey Hepburn's movies and this may seem like a weird place to start, but Funny Face is one that a good friend of mine frequently raves about. I had to see it for her.

Jo (Audrey Hepburn) works at a book store that is spontaneously ransacked during a modeling photoshoot by an ambitious editor, Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) and a photographer, Dick Avery. (Fre Astaire) When Dick stays behind to help Jo clean up, he's intrigued with her. Then when sees her in the background of one of his photos, both he and Maggie are taken in by her appearance and convince her to join them on a trip to Paris for a modeling show. Jo only accepts to see the city, but soon realizes there's a lot more to modeling than she thought.

For a musical, the numbers in this film strangely fell flat. What's actually the most memorable part was the dancing. Hepburn has this lovely ballerina body and she looked so graceful, particularly in the scenes where she dances in a wedding dress. The cinematography and costumes are stunning and make up for the lackluster music numbers. I like Hepburn and Astaire, but I didn't think they had any chemistry as leads. It's Kay Thompson that absolutely stole the show for me. 

It's a gorgeous film with a decent story, but as a musical I felt it could've been so much better. The songs shouldn't be the weakest link, but they were here. 

Recommended: Yes

Grade: B-

Memorable Quote: "This must be the place." - Dick Avery (Fred Astaire)

Indie Gems: Elling

Why have an apartment if you just want to leave it?

Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen) is 40 years old and spent his entire life never leaving his mother's side. When she dies, he's institutionalized. There he meets his new room mate, Kjell Bjarne (Sven Nordin) another man in his 40's that was extremely sheltered, though much more outgoing than Elling is. After two years they are off to live in a government funded apartment and must learn how to function on their own.

For a movie about the mentally ill, I was surprised at how few clinical terms are actually used in this film. It's quite different from the type of film we'd see in the United States. No one is on medication, and the only disorder mentioned is anxiety, and only twice. No other diagnosis is given. Seems Norway treats mental illness far different than we do here, and that was a nice thing to see.

Ellefsen and Nordin have amazing chemistry. Both Elling and Kjell Bjarne are very different individuals who use each other as their crutch and it's fun to watch them slowly but surely come out of their shells, Kjell Bjarne with getting a girlfriend, and Elling learning he likes poetry. 

I kept expecting tragedy to strike, but it never did. The film remains fun and upbeat throughout and feels like a breath of fresh air.

Grade: A

Memorable Quote: "Did I just make a friend without help from the Norwegian government?" - Elling (Per Christian Ellefen)  

Thursday Movie Picks: Aliens

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is Aliens. I gave myself a small rule, that I couldn't chose any from a theme last year, Alien Invasions of Earth. Here are a few of my favorites.

1) Alien

I'll start with the obvious, even though I know I should try a little harder to think of something more original. But come one, this movie is great. 

2) E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial

I can't not go with this. E.T holds a special place in a lot of people's hearts. It's another typical pick, but it would feel wrong to leave it out.

3) Space Jam

I fucking love this movie. I don't care how ridiculous it is. How can you not love little aliens possessing some of our favorite NBA players?