Top Ten TV series??? — 180 Proof

I'm so old I forget what I've watched. But some are Rake, Lillehammer, Luther, White Lotus, Veronica, True Detective, Fargo, Money Heist, You, Sopranos, and on and on. I enjoyed them all.

:cool:

Top Ten TV series??? — 180 Proof

1. Breaking Bad
2. Weeds
3. City on a hill
4. Better call Saul
5. The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House
6. Stranger
7. Social experiment Lain
8. Death Note
9. Neon Genesis Evangelion
10. Inuyasha

My baker's dozen ...

All in the Family 1971-75
The Boondocks 2005-10
Chappell's Show
Deadwood (+ Movie)
The Expanse 2015-18
Fawlty Towers
Firefly
I, Claudius
Mad Men 2007-10
Rome
Star Trek 1966-69
True Detective 2014
The Twilight Zone 1959-64

I agree with what you say. The actions of Disney come to mind as a perfect example. A company that had the valuable "Marvel-universe" and an American icon, the Star Wars films, to make money. And now they are in trouble.

Even if there are, especially with Pixar, still great animated films (if computer-made movies can be said to be animated). But usually the corporate system just makes disasters and lousy reurgitated stuff. In fact George Lucas in a prior interview when he hadn't yet sold Lucasfilm yet to Disney pointed out that Disney wanted to make a rehash Episode IV... which in the end years after they surely did with Episode VII and the complete shitshow of the others.

I think it isn't anymore about the wokeness after the traumatic scandals of Harvey Weinstein and me too -era. It's basically that the corporate system doesn't take anymore chances and are totally happy with mediocre films.

It's statistical reasoning, which makes films so bad.

First of all, they aren't made for the movie-lovers, but the occasional movie goer who goes to a film only once or twice a year. And to get this infrequent moviegoer to get up and go to the cinema, you have to have a huge media blitz that makes the film nearly a phenomenon which "everybody is talking about", such like Avatar etc. Hence the media campaign takes a huge chunk of the budget and when the budgets are colossal, no reason to make something that isn't untried.

And because films aren't made for those who like films, who know the stories and previous films and can be critical, we get the trash we have. Hollywood assumes that these people just to tag along and go to see it even if it's crap... or that the film gets free publicity from "toxic fans" having something against it.

But the most essential thing is to have patience.

Akira Kurosawa was a master of cinema and a very wise person. I recommend you this video (link below) about Kurosawa speaking about modern film-makers and screenwriters. It is magnificent.

Many favorites is a contradiction.

“A Few Good Men” for its content in general, the final courtroom scene in particular for the justification of it, and the ending for the subliminal ramifications because of it.

Tom Cruise & Demi Moore ruin it for me. Like the way Sophia Coppola mars Godfather III.

:fire:

Yeah, they weren’t that impressive.

Best cast overall…..LOTR series? Not counting old westerns and war epics.

What do you think of the anime Death Note?

Ever watched King of Queens? And/or Seinfeld?

Being a native Ne]w Yorker of (mostly) the 60s-70s, I couldn't relate to either show.

I walked out of Fellowship of the Ring (too annoyed demand a refund) by the time "they fought the cave troll" in Moria. I can't say I'd liked any aspect of Peter Jackson's DnD-fan wank adaptations; it was all so wrong for me. I'm still waiting for LotR & The Hobbit – as well as the Earthsea Saga, The Black Company, The Prince of Nothing trilogy, stories of "Conan the Cimmerian", etc – to get a proper multi-season series treatment like HBO's GoT received (at least for the first 4 seasons).

Ok. So…best cast overall? Any favorite?

Wouldn't the 90s and 00s have consisted of your early adulthood, then? Seinfeld is around your age, if not even a little bit older, I think.

I mean Jerry Seinfeld. The man himself.

I was too busy during the 80s & 90s to much, if any watch tv and only started watching tv again when I moved across country to be closer to my family while my nephews were growing up in the 00s & 10s. Btw, Seinfield's brand of "humor" doesn't do a thing for me. I grew up mostly in the 70s and was an undergrad in the early 80s. From what I can tell I really didn't miss much on television from 1980-2010. I think my list above illustrates my tastes in tv entertainment.

From my own list of favorite films
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/774715 I think most of those casts were perfect.

I'd also add
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
In the Heat of the Night
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Good, The, Bad and The Ugly
Chinatown
Jaws
Alien 1-3
Annie Hall
The Color Purple
Star Trek 2, 4, 6
The Cook, The Wife, The Thief & Her Lover
Full Metal Jacket
Hannah and Her Sisters
Do the Right Thing
Miller's Crossing
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Se7en
Casino
Gladiator
Analyze This
Serenity
Bourne 1-3
No Country for Old Men
Mystic River
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Fences
Inception
The Children of Men
Inglorious Bastards
Django Unchained
Margin Call
etc ...

I’ve watched that multiple times. Not only is it great advice for filmmakers, it’s great advice for life. Fantastic.

What do you think of the anime Death Note? — Xanatos

Good anime, I watched a few years ago and I liked it. Nonetheless, I felt sad when L died and the plot just continued without zero reasons. I mean, it was a great anime until the episode of his death, later on I remember it as a ok anime...

Frankly, I like L's cleverness and seductive voice most of all.

Frankly, I like L's cleverness and seductive voice most of all. — Xanatos

Same. I remember getting disappointed when Kira killed him. I never liked the personality of Kira... such arrogant. L is more related to my personality, introvert and silent.

I wish that Light didn't make himself so exposed to L by killing Raye Pember.

I guess the mangakas wrote all the plot depending in the role of Kira. Believe or not, most of the fans have rooted for Kira instead of L...

It's statistical reasoning, which makes films so bad. — ssu

For sure. But this was often at play, Pauline Kael made a similar argument over 40 years ago in 'Why Are Movies So bad? Or, The Numbers'. She was politically incorrect and brazen. Obviously written before TV got good.

The studios no longer make movies primarily to attract and please moviegoers;
they make movies in such a way as to get as much as possible from prearranged
and anticipated deals. Every picture (allowing for a few exceptions) is cast and planned
in terms of those deals. Though the studio is happy when it has a box-office hit, it isn’t
terribly concerned about the people who buy tickets and come out grumbling. They
don’t grumble very loudly anyway, because even the lumpiest pictures are generally an
improvement over television; at least, they’re always bigger. TV accustoms people to not
expecting much, and because of the new prearranged deals they’re not getting very
much. There is a quid pro quo for a big advance sale to television theaters: the project
must be from a fat, dumb bestseller about an international jewel heist or a skyjacking
that involves a planeload of the rich and famous, or be a thinly disguised showbusiness
biography of someone who came to an appallingly wretched end, or have an easily
paraphrasable theme, preferably something that can be done justice to in a sentence
and brings to mind the hits of the past. How else could you entice buyers? Certainly
not with something unfamiliar, original. They feel safe with big-star packages, with
chase thrillers, with known ingredients. For a big overseas sale, you must have “international” stars performers who are known—such as Sophia Loren, Richard Burton,
Candice Bergen, Roger Moore, Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Alain Delon, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen. And you should probably avoid complexities: Much of the new
overseas audience is subliterate. For a big advance sale to worldwide television, a movie
should also be innocuous: it shouldn’t raise any hackles, either by strong language or by
a controversial theme.

Best cast overall….. — Mww

Might be Oliver Stone's JFK

Best cast overall?

Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Or maybe Royal Tenanbaums.

The Firm also had a great cast.

The overall best cast? :yikes:
Just barely ... The Lion in Winter
-Peter O'Toole
-Katherine Hepburn
-Anthony Hopkins
-Timothy Dalton
-Nigel Terry
-John Castle
-Jane Marrow

The Godfather had a decent cast…

For sure. But this was often at play, Pauline Kael made a similar argument over 40 years ago in 'Why Are Movies So bad? Or, The Numbers'. She was politically incorrect and brazen. Obviously written before TV got good. — Tom Storm

Earlier it was the idea that the studios have the "blockbusters" and then you can dare to have something interesting on a "smaller" budget.

Best cast?

I'd go with what @Mikie noted, the Godfather.

Older era actors ensemble might be "A Bridge too Far", even if the film isn't great, but just good. (Thin Red line had also a stellar cast ...of men, not surprisingly.)

Pulp fiction had a good cast too.

The Godfather had a decent cast… — Mikie

That's an understatement ... :smirk:

All these best picture winners of the 80s I never saw until recently — Chariots of Fire, Ghandi, Out of Africa, the Last Emperor, etc— have such similar feels: they’re mostly boring as shit, but have some great features — scores, some great photography, some great acting. Sprawling epics. But the stories and pacing and length — oy.

A lot of political correctness to boot.

They also were the start, in my opinion, of Oscar-baiting movies, carefully crafted for critical praise. Dances with Wolves— a 1990 film and movie I’ve always loved — is in this tradition too.