True Detective

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Jasper
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Re: True Detective

#251 Post by Jasper » Mon Jul 13, 2015 1:40 am

Thanks for spoiling EVERYTHING, creep.

I got the feeling that the shootout would, in fact, be a news event (though you wouldn't believe what sort of shit is more or less swept under the carpet by the news media), and also a major problem for the main police characters, who must have had the sense that they were quite fucked by how badly things turned out.

I'm going to have to watch it again, because I was working on something at the time so I didn't really fully experience the episode.

So, is it going to be a thing in True Detective where the fourth episode of every season ends with a big violent action sequence?

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chaos
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Re: True Detective

#252 Post by chaos » Mon Jul 13, 2015 8:14 am

I think Colin Farrell does a better job as a sobberish cop (whereas in the three previous episodes he was more like a caricature of a cop going off the rails).

I can't help wondering whether Jordan, Frank's wife, is the biological mother of the red-headed kid (Ray's kid). I thought this during the first three episodes and assumed it was just because both had red head, but the kid looks like Jordan's ex. We found out last night that Frank's wife was pregnant once before and had an operation that might be affecting her ability to get pregnant now. Was it suppose to be a c-section or d & c? We know Ray hasn't taken a paternity test because he doesn't want to know (and why would his wife bother to get one herself after going through a pregnancy and birth). Ray & his wife went to a fertility clinic before she was raped, and Frank & Jordan have been to a clinic at least once. The infertility thing must somehow be connected. Maybe the babies were switched.

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perkana
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Re: True Detective

#253 Post by perkana » Mon Jul 13, 2015 9:54 am

Jasper wrote:Thanks for spoiling EVERYTHING, creep.
:lolol:
I watched this episode with my mom last night. Honestly, we watched it too late and I fell asleep, only to wake up for the shoot out. My mom had told me right before that it was a very slow and boring episode, that something good had to come out in the end. We weren't disappointed :cool:

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Artemis
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Re: True Detective

#254 Post by Artemis » Mon Jul 13, 2015 2:07 pm

I liked last night's episode, though the gun battle scene was a little long. One review I read said that Jeremy Podeswa,the director of last night's episode was going for an epic street battle like in the movie Heat.




I saw this article today that explains about that recurring aerial shot.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/07/true-det ... ok_vulture
True Detective and the Changing, Divisive Nature of the Aerial Shot

If you’ve been watching the second season of HBO’s True Detective, you’ve probably noticed how much time is spent in the sky. Not by the characters but by the camera — gliding over industrial barrens, hovering above traffic on California’s arterial tangles of highway. The diamond interchange that serves as the backdrop for the show’s title card — a photo by David Maisel — may be the season’s central image, in cold contrast to the lone tree of season one. Lizzie O’Leary of “Marketplace” even suggested a True Detective drinking game on Twitter: “Do a shot every time there’s a highway aerial. Surprise! You’re dead!”

“The aerials were written into the scripts from day one,” show creator Nic Pizzolatto says via email. “The idea was to highlight scale and connectivity; the big picture that informs these little lives.” Unlike season one, the current True Detective features multiple directors, so much of the responsibility for the visual style falls on the show’s director of photography, Nigel Bluck. He decided that, rather than a typical altitude of 200 to 500 feet, he would shoot from 1,000 feet — in part to amplify the abstract nature of the landscape, and in part because “we wanted a point of view that belongs to something bigger than us.”

Aerial shots have been a Hollywood staple since the beginning of the film industry: first via airplanes, then with the more versatile helicopter. There’s some debate over the first helicopter shot, though the film critic Nick Pinkerton traces it to Nicholas Ray’s 1948 film They Live by Night. In his recent consideration in Film Comment, Pinkerton writes, “The helicopter shot is, today, ubiquitous” and “a rank cliché.” When Hitchcock panned a cityscape in the opening shot of 1960’s Psycho, he was able to evoke a sense that evil lurked behind every half-pulled window shade. Soon, however, the hovering-copter shot became standard in every big-budget film; think of all the movies that start with a camera swooping over a city skyline. But, as Pinkerton writes, “I have not given up hope that the helicopter aerial shot may yet do new, great things for cinema.”

That day may have arrived. Aerial shots are much more accessible and versatile now, thanks to drones. The FAA cleared private drones for commercial use this past September, and they’re cheaper than helicopters, costing roughly $5,000 a day rather than the latter’s $15,000-to-$20,000 day rate.

Aesthetically, too, the aerial shot is transforming. Post-9/11 and post-NSA, the aerial imparts a new kind of unease, a more ambient dread. This new take is employed ingeniously by, for example, Christopher Nolan in 2008’s The Dark Knight, which opens on the Gotham cityscape over the sound of a ticking clock before we see a skyscraper window explode. What was once the filmmaker’s version of air supremacy now conveys pervasive vulnerability.

This, in part, informs the use of aerials in True Detective — as Bluck says, “There’s a sense of menace they can impose.” In this case, the menace comes from the landscape itself — the endless roadways that seem to promise progress but deliver its opposite. “With the freeways, you’re free to choose a direction but not free to choose your choices,” Pizzolatto explains, then adds, “But if that’s all nonsense, and it might be, I think they’re just interesting transitional shots.”

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Artemis
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Re: True Detective

#255 Post by Artemis » Mon Jul 13, 2015 2:39 pm

Haha..this is good.


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chaos
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Re: True Detective

#256 Post by chaos » Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:56 pm

This season is a mess, but I'm am still watching.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/true-dete ... RzZWMDc2M-

'True Detective' is not a good show
By Joshua Rivera
7 hours ago

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(Lacey Terrell/HBO) Vince Vaughn is really sad, and so is everyone on "True Detective."

Warning: There are spoilers ahead if you're not caught up with "True Detective."
Are things finally picking up on "True Detective?"


The fourth episode of the turgid HBO drama ended with a stunning shootout that seemed to signal a sea change for the series. And yes, while last night's episode, "Other Lives," kind of got things moving with a time jump and a vague sense of purpose, there still really isn't much to recommend in the way of quality.

"True Detective" is simply not a good show.

Of course, that's a subjective statement, but it's one made after five weeks of earnestly hoping that "True Detective" would come together, coming from someone who really liked the first season. After five weeks of following vague developments in the nonsensically elaborate story about the corrupt municipality of Vinci, California, it's probably time to close the book on season 2.

Even if the final three episodes (and we only have three left in this story, which is over for good when this season's up) end up being incredible, "True Detective" is still a television show, and television shows are judged by how much their individual episodes are worth watching, not how much their finales are worth the slog.

I'm not even sure what "True Detective" as a series is definitively about, other than just how hard it is to be a man, specifically a white one. It's so hard, says "True Detective." Don't believe it? Look at all the scowling! In the world of "True Detective," everyone is always trying to undermine your manliness. Observe:

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(Lacey Terrell/HBO) Everyone is literally trying to upstage everyone else on "True Detective" for the best scowl.

Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) is in danger of losing his money and his imagined dynasty — literally the only significant plot beat his wife Jordan (Kelly Reilly) is given involves a brief bit of jealousy over an associate's advances and her infertility, and they're both played for how much this hurts Frank.

Image

War hero Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) is a man of action — he got hooked on adrenaline at war, and now resorts to high-speed motorcycling at night with the lights off to get his kicks in civilian life. This is all super manly stuff — the speed, the danger, the action, the fact that he's played by Taylor freaking Kitsch — but there's a problem. Woodrugh is gay. He hates this about himself, because he wants to be a man — and even gets a woman pregnant and asks her to marry him in order to cover it up, even though he clearly is not into being intimate with her. But he has this clear picture of what he's supposed to be, and he's sticking to it.

Image

Burnout cop Ray Velcoro probably has the most tangible threat to his masculinity — his ex-wife was raped, and the paternity of his son isn't certain. Velcoro hates this, but doesn't want to find out that he's not his son's father. This is probably the clearest plot thread of the bunch, giving us one of the few big moment's of the fifth, most recent episode — Velcoro finds out that his wife's rapist has been apprehended, and that his wife might now know the truth about their son's paternity. (This is also a big moment because it reveals that Frank tipped Ray off to — and had him murder — an innocent man when they first crossed paths years ago.)

Image

Existing as a counterpoint to all this is Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), who exhibits a litany of traditionally masculine traits: She drinks and gambles hard, doesn't do commitment, is into porn and weird sex, and even balks at smoking her trademark e-cigarette once Ray compares it to oral sex with a robot. "True Detective" seems like it wants to make some kind of point about sexism with her character — she's punished for fraternizing with a male coworker who doesn't even get a slap on the wrist — but also seems blind to its own sexist attitudes, like the way it seems incapable of developing Bezzerides' character in ways that don't relate to her sexuality.
The fact that I could barely remember the actual character's names when writing this speaks to how unbearably dull this all is.

What makes it worse is that this is all a retread. Putting aside its Southern Gothic aesthetic, season one of "True Detective" was also preoccupied with similar ideas about masculinity, and they were about as tired then as they are now. The only notable difference in its attitudes was the way it tended to veer to more outward extensions of masculinity — particularly with Marty Hart's (Woody Harrelson) overreaching paternal attitude towards every younger woman he came across.

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In fact, just about everything wrong with season two is there in season one: The overwrought, pretentious dialogue, the self-serious tone, and the slow pace. Presumably, this is due to the show's only constant: Creator Nic Pizzolatto, who writes every episode.
As season two plods along, it seems more and more like the things that made the first season better were the work of the talented people Pizzolatto collaborated with — virtuoso directing from Cary Fukunaga, stellar performances from the cast, the novelty of its setting, and creepy texture added by referencing a fascinating work of weird fiction.

At its core, though, "True Detective" is just as lumbering and dull as it has always been, and we should've known all along.

I mean, it's called "True Detective."

What a silly title.

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Re: True Detective

#257 Post by creep » Mon Jul 20, 2015 7:56 pm

:noclue: i think this season is really good. i look forward to it every week.

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perkana
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Re: True Detective

#258 Post by perkana » Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:00 pm

I agree.

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Jasper
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Re: True Detective

#259 Post by Jasper » Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:27 am

I look forward to it every week, and I already said I think it's the best thing on right now, but I do think this season has a lot of big flaws, and pales in comparison to season one. That said, I'll never need a vapid television critic to convince me of this, or anything else for that matter.

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Re: True Detective

#260 Post by perkana » Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:09 am

I even read "The Yellow King" to try to understand season one last year (didn't help, btw). I still enjoy this season. It's not predectible at all, flaws and everything.

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Hype
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Re: True Detective

#261 Post by Hype » Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:17 am

turgid
That's the perfect word for the second season. It's not that I couldn't follow it if I wanted to, it's that the pacing is all fucked up and I find myself not wanting to invest in it. It's like it's convoluted and cryptic for the sake of being so, rather than because it's trying to convey something meaningful. I might still try again from the beginning, but I don't know if I'll make it.

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kv
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Re: True Detective

#262 Post by kv » Tue Jul 21, 2015 1:02 pm

That's how I felt about season 1

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Hype
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Re: True Detective

#263 Post by Hype » Tue Jul 21, 2015 1:35 pm

I think there were redeeming qualities to that first season... Probably mostly the performances, and the fact that it was a new thing and there was nothing else like it out... but doing it again with less impressive characters is killing it for me... Like uh... Jane's Addiction? :confused:

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Re: True Detective

#264 Post by Pure Method » Thu Jul 23, 2015 5:06 pm

Yeah I still like it.

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perkana
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Re: True Detective

#265 Post by perkana » Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:37 am

Also, it's nice to see Rachel McAdams breaking out of her annoying sugary rom-com characters for a change.

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Jasper
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Re: True Detective

#266 Post by Jasper » Mon Jul 27, 2015 1:41 am

That was a bit more interesting than most (or perhaps all) of the previous s2 episodes, particularly the orgy sequence. Very interesting music during that part as well. Probably the best piece of directing this season.

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Artemis
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Re: True Detective

#267 Post by Artemis » Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:04 am

Jasper wrote:That was a bit more interesting than most (or perhaps all) of the previous s2 episodes, particularly the orgy sequence. Very interesting music during that part as well. Probably the best piece of directing this season.
I agree. I thought last night's episode was the best of the season.
One of my fave parts last night was the opening scene with Frank and Ray at the kitchen table.

In a little review I read in the WSJ,it mentioned that yesterday would have been Stanley Kubrick's 87th birthday.

" It was like we were plunged into show creator Nic Pizzolatto’s vision of Hell, and it played a lot like a drugged-out blend of the climax of “The Shining” and the creepy masque at the heart of “Eyes Wide Shut.” A perfectly creepy, “True Detective”-style celebration of Stanley Kubrick’s 87th birthday."

Last night's episode was quite intense especially Ray's own private party and the sex party with Ani's flashbacks.

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Re: True Detective

#268 Post by blackcoffee » Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:41 am

I was thinking of the Kubric references also last night. While I did really enjoy the episode I thought there were two things that seemed if not silly than a nod to network television police procedurals of the past: the way they conveyed Ani being under the influence of ecstasy seemed rather textbook--like that's how we will always see someone on television respond to being drugged. And then the way Ray's car fishtails out onto the road--very Chips or Starsky and Hutch.

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Re: True Detective

#269 Post by creep » Mon Jul 27, 2015 5:22 pm

ray is somehow involved with all of this.

this was one of my least favorite episodes. it seems to be the opposite for many others. :noclue:

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Re: True Detective

#270 Post by Artemis » Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:47 pm

I was surprised about what happened to Paul last night, didn't see that coming at all. I might have to watch the episode again because I'm not really clear about why he was set up by his former lover. Overall, pretty good episode, a lot happened and also some pointless stuff too. Other then finding out more about Tasha, the Vera story line doesn't go anywhere. She was a hooker who didn't want to be saved, but I guess it has more to do with Ani saving herself and coming to terms with her past. :noclue:

Bezzerides: Maybe—and this is just a thought—maybe you were put on earth for more than fucking.

Vera: Everything is fucking.

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Artemis
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Re: True Detective

#271 Post by Artemis » Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:36 pm

This article explains what's going on pretty well

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/201 ... src=huffpo

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Re: True Detective

#272 Post by blackcoffee » Tue Aug 04, 2015 10:17 am

I am really enjoying this season. I think the critical lens with which people are judging it is largely unreasonable. Consider how implausible so much of House of Cards is, but it seems to get a pass.

Sunday's episode was great. The connection between the two orphans from the Jewelry robbery and Caspere's secretary is an interesting twist. It's also something my wife thought was a bit of a stretch.

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Re: True Detective

#273 Post by Jasper » Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:20 pm

I thought the last one (ep. 7) was relatively decent. There was some tension, the plotting was fairly coherent, and there was some good cinematography — like Ray and Ani in the motel with the fake fireplace. On the other hand, there were times when it felt like a middling network series, mostly involving Frank. Then there was that silly part where Paul became Jason Bourne.

It will be interesting to see how the finale puts the rest of the season in perspective.
blackcoffee wrote:I am really enjoying this season. I think the critical lens with which people are judging it is largely unreasonable. Consider how implausible so much of House of Cards is, but it seems to get a pass.\
Really? Not from me. I think that show is very, very silly. Besides, I'd say that whatever people think of House of Cards is irrelevant. I think True Detective is being judged on the merits of its first season, and by that metric it's been found wanting.

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Re: True Detective

#274 Post by creep » Sun Aug 09, 2015 7:35 pm

the finale was ok....not great. it was pretty easy to guess who was going to live and who would die. if everyone was looking for ray why would he be driving around in his car? it makes no sense. you also knew that paternity test was coming.

overall a fun series. i wonder what the body count is in the end. i think at least 50 people were killed.

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Re: True Detective

#275 Post by Jasper » Sun Aug 09, 2015 11:03 pm

It was a good ending. Being long was helpful. I haven't been reading anything about it, so I didn't know it was an extra half hour. I really wish we could go back and give the first season finale an extra half hour.
creep wrote:the finale was ok....not great. it was pretty easy to guess who was going to live and who would die.
Ray seemed like he was going to die from the very first episode. In the finale, there came a point where you knew he was going to die with 100% certainty, and that was when he decided to visit his son. Before that, it was only about 99.9% certainty. :lol: Frank was doomed from the point of that dialogue about the white dress and the white suit with the red rose.

In the final analysis, I think Vince Vaughan did a really good job, but Nic Pizzolatto did a (mostly) bad job writing Frank's lines. I mean, fuckin' a, nobody could have sold some of those lines, and poor Vince Vaughan got 95% of the clunkers. I could've fixed that portion of the script for him, not that I would've known what to do with the convoluted mess that was the plot of the entire season.

In any case, even with the old movie tropes, the final episode did sort of help to give some shape to the season as a whole. If there's a third season I certainly hope there's more clarity to the script. I don't mind unanswered questions and so on, I just want to be able to keep better track of things so I can feel more tuned-in to the story.

Maybe somebody found Ray's recorder and sent that voice message to his son. :sad:

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