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Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

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Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#331

Post by jjk166 »

anon84873628 wrote: post #317
telesilla wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also extraordinary in Apple's Foundation, some say he carries the show. I treasure The Fall and every frame of it, in this he's uniquely blended with other great actors and images.

IMO the plot of Apple's "The Foundation" is an infuriating insult to the original series. However, the production is great and Lee Pace is awesome as usual.

I think it's best appreciated as an original space opera that just happens to have the same name, especially given that so much of the show is genuinely original.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#332

Post by evanelias »

robot_jesus wrote: post #243
tptacek wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patriot is amazing, more people should watch it, everyone I know who has was enthralled by it. Counterpart was great but structure made it hard for to watch knowing it'd been cancelled. Scavengers Reign was great; I couldn't get into Common Side Effects. Evil is exactly the Catholic X-Files, which is an amazing concept, but by the end of the 2nd season it is all the way off the rails and hurtling into a canyon. Given…

Patriot is my single favorite show of all time. I absolutely adore it and every preposterous, absurd line. So many quotable moments. Vantasner Danger Meridian. Structural Dynamics of Flow. The attaché badge. So many phenomenal scenes. I’m not surprised it didn’t get more traction with the general public but it was unafraid to take some serious and weird risks. But they pay off in spades for me!

> So many quotable moments. Vantasner Danger Meridian. Structural Dynamics of Flow. The attaché badge.

My friends and I have found that Patriot phrases make excellent team names in pub trivia, even if no other teams get the references. (Also "double great", "disgraced veterinarians", "pin-flam-fastened pan traps", more I'm forgetting... clearly I need to rewatch the show yet again!)

> I’m not surprised it didn’t get more traction with the general public

I suspect the show would have had a larger audience if it had a better title. That seems to be an instant negative whenever I try recommending it to someone. Hopefully Steven Conrad's new hbo show will raise his profile enough to let more people rediscover Patriot. It's an absolute gem.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#333

Post by jjk166 »

seneca wrote: post #79
protocolture wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy gives me chills, he reminds me of every sales douche who has ever tried to pull the wool over my eyes, or sell a customer something so horrendous and undeliverable as to be actively business ending. An absolute legendary performance.

> The guy gives me chills, he reminds me of every sales douche who has ever tried to pull the wool over my eyes, or sell a customer something so horrendous and undeliverable as to be actively business ending. The thing is, Joe is supposed to actually have substance and vision. He's not faking it. The difference is that all those sales guys are pretending to be someone like Joe.

No, Joe wants to have substance and vision. The tragedy of his character is his slow realization that he just doesn't have it. Indeed it's the tragedy of all the main cast that each has some of what it takes to make something truly revolutionary, but they lack some key aspect. They each know that another has the missing piece they need, but they can't sustainably maintain a relationship with them.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#334

Post by pchristensen »

mikepurvis wrote: post #152
danielvaughn wrote: post #3

Lee Pace's performance in that show is one of my all time favorites. It's incredibly hard to play a charismatic marketing guru because in some sense, you're not acting. In a given scene, the character might be trying to convince people around him of some crazy idea, but if he hasn't convinced you, the viewer, then the entire illusion falls apart. So he really has to do in real life what he's pretending to do on scree…

"... what he's pretending to do on screen" I remember seeing this discussed around the show The Marvelous Mrs Maisel , which is about a midcentury NYC divorcee getting into the world of stand up comedy. Overall it works and is a funny and enjoyable show, but there's definitely some of the standup routines depicted on-screen that are not actually as funny as the baked-in audience laughs might indicate. Because yeah...…

A stand up audience from the 1950s shouldn't be reacting to jokes the same way a 2020s audience would.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#336

Post by jjk166 »

mikepurvis wrote: post #86
esafak wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lee Pace is a first rate actor but I could not recognize him or indeed, most of the characters in this show, as representative of their roles. I struggled to suspend my disbelief. The show felt like it was written by people who imagined what it must have been like rather than people who had any experience of it. I still enjoyed it somewhat. Not Silicon Valley good but okay.

I'm always surprised Lee Pace doesn't get more recognition; I've loved a lot of his quirkier projects like Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, but it's not like he hasn't also been in mainstream things like The Hobbit and Guardians of the Galaxy.

He's in very heavy makeup in Guardians of the Galaxy (and his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Captain Marvel), and while you can get a good look at his face in The Hobbit, his character doesn't get much screentime and isn't especially prominent - and indeed I don't think the Hobbit trilogy really turned any actors into household names which weren't already.

I love Lee Pace but there really hasn't been a blockbuster where he's front and center.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#337

Post by justin66 »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #206

I despised this show. The acting, writing and (probably) direction was poor at best and, as someone else here mentioned, it's like what some writer thought things were and not how they actually were. And please don't downvote my comment based on any political or social thoughts one might have. Based on the story line alone, I quit when, for no apparent reason, during a tense moment in the story, the lead sales guy ha…

> Based on the story line alone, I quit when, for no apparent reason, during a tense moment in the story, the lead sales guy has a kissing session with another guy. The lead guy isn't gay. I don't think the guy he kissed was gay.

1. "Kissing session," "kissed," etc. Funny stuff. I hope you don't really think they were just looking for wine when they were off camera.

2. He's bi. We meet an ex boyfriend in a later episode, although the fact of his ahem "kissing session" would seem to be evidence enough.

3. The reason is obvious enough if you watch through the end of the dinner.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#338

Post by jjk166 »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #206

I despised this show. The acting, writing and (probably) direction was poor at best and, as someone else here mentioned, it's like what some writer thought things were and not how they actually were. And please don't downvote my comment based on any political or social thoughts one might have. Based on the story line alone, I quit when, for no apparent reason, during a tense moment in the story, the lead sales guy ha…

The lead guy is bisexual, and it is a very important part of his character throughout the story.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#340

Post by Gormo »

walterbell wrote: post #287
Gormo wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TV is distributing physical media?

Scroll past the subscription options to find the full series listing. "Box Set" licensing terminology is as anachronistic as "Seasons", but both are used in Apple TV product listings for non-subscription streaming media purchases.

I'm not seeing anything anachronistic about either term. "Seasons" is absolutely aligned to the way television series are still produced and distributed. "Box Set" implies physical media. Using the latter term to refer to something else sounds like a case of false advertising.
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