What are you binge watching?

[ZooCougar]

So it just dawned on me that the actor who plays Jack McKinney in Winning Time is none other than Tracy Letts. Letts really caught my attention in Ford vs. Ferraris where he played Henry Ford II and pretty much stole every scene. The scene where he starts crying in the GT40 is just aces.

Anyways. In Winning Time both Letts and Jason Clarke have blown me away. Jerry West and Jack McKinney are really interesting and these actors did these guys justice and then some.

As for the show, I’m not a basketball guy but the subject matter is great. The characters are well rounded and they disappoint you as much as you want to cheer them on. For instance I loved Jerry Buss talking about Red Auerbach, but he also shows an utter lack of human decency when McKinney gets hospitalized, not to mention being in denial over his mother’s condition.

In short. It’s a good show.

 

[Palatine]

super pumped.

 

[ZooCougar]

It may not be accurate but it’s entertaining. 'A total mischaracterization': Portrayal of Jerry West in HBO's 'Winning Time' sparks criticism

 

[storrsroars]

Just binged last 15 episodes of Better Call Saul to prepare for S6, which I think starts Monday. Good thing I did as I misremembered a couple of storylines.

 

[Deepster]

So it just dawned on me that the actor who plays Jack McKinney in Winning Time is none other than Tracy Letts. Letts really caught my attention in Ford vs. Ferraris where he played Henry Ford II and pretty much stole every scene. The scene where he starts crying in the GT40 is just aces.

Anyways. In Winning Time both Letts and Jason Clarke have blown me away. Jerry West and Jack McKinney are really interesting and these actors did these guys justice and then some.

As for the show, I’m not a basketball guy but the subject matter is great. The characters are well rounded and they disappoint you as much as you want to cheer them on. For instance I loved Jerry Buss talking about Red Auerbach, but he also shows an utter lack of human decency when McKinney gets hospitalized, not to mention being in denial over his mother’s condition.

In short. It’s a good show.

I just crushed the first five episodes and love it. I think the actor playing Magic has a serious star on the rise. And I love John C Reilly in anything. He’s awesome in this.

 

[ZooCougar]

I just crushed the first five episodes and love it. I think the actor playing Magic has a serious star on the rise. And I love John C Reilly in anything. He’s awesome in this.

It’s fake as hell, but it’s super well written. Halfway through the season and they developed how many characters?

John C. Reilly is awesome in everything. Stepbrothers forever.

 

[Mano]

Tokyo Vice has been really interesting as a peak behind the curtain of Japanese culture, something I've long been incredibly intrigued by. Need to watch the two new episodes, hopefully some of the storylines start building momentum. It has been a touch slow to start. I'm in till the end tho.

 

[Rich]

It’s fake as hell, but it’s super well written. Halfway through the season and they developed how many characters?

John C. Reilly is awesome in everything. Stepbrothers forever.

Ah, the story is probably ~90% straight. The characters are drawn liberally but the history is on point.

It's a must watch IMO, as is Tokyo Vice.

I've also been watching The Gilded Age with the wife and it's.....surprisingly good. The set design is absolutely superb and very evocative of Victorian Era NYC

 

[ZooCougar]

Ah, the story is probably ~90% straight. The characters are drawn liberally but the history is on point.

It's a must watch IMO, as is Tokyo Vice.

I've also been watching The Gilded Age with the wife and it's.....surprisingly good. The set design is absolutely superb and very evocative of Victorian Era NYC

You’d have to pay me to watch Gilded Age.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

So it just dawned on me that the actor who plays Jack McKinney in Winning Time is none other than Tracy Letts. Letts really caught my attention in Ford vs. Ferraris where he played Henry Ford II and pretty much stole every scene. The scene where he starts crying in the GT40 is just aces.

Anyways. In Winning Time both Letts and Jason Clarke have blown me away. Jerry West and Jack McKinney are really interesting and these actors did these guys justice and then some.

As for the show, I’m not a basketball guy but the subject matter is great. The characters are well rounded and they disappoint you as much as you want to cheer them on. For instance I loved Jerry Buss talking about Red Auerbach, but he also shows an utter lack of human decency when McKinney gets hospitalized, not to mention being in denial over his mother’s condition.

In short. It’s a good show.

Letts was great in a small role The Big Short, and while I didn't like the movie, I thought he shined in Lady Bird.

Reilly does an incredible job portraying Buss. Buss is one of these classic promoters that win at life mostly through force of personality rather than brains. His partner Frank, along with his daughter and mother are absolutely critical to keeping him from going off the rails, and when he realizes he is losing one of them, he is crushed. He isn't just losing his mom to dementia, he is losing a critical part of his support network. It is really hard to get a character like Buss right, and Reilly crushes it.

I go back and forth on Adrien Brody in every role. I am still not sure about this one.

I really like DeVaughn Nixon playing his dad. Norm Nixon is one of the more interesting characters in this show, and I wish his story got more screen time.

 

[ZooCougar]

Letts was great in a small role The Big Short, and while I didn't like the movie, I thought he shined in Lady Bird.

Reilly does an incredible job portraying Buss. Buss is one of these classic promoters that win at life mostly through force of personality rather than brains. His partner Frank, along with his daughter and mother are absolutely critical to keeping him from going off the rails, and when he realizes he is losing one of them, he is crushed. He isn't just losing his mom to dementia, he is losing a critical part of his support network. It is really hard to get a character like Buss right, and Reilly crushes it.

I go back and forth on Adrien Brody in every role. I am still not sure about this one.

I really like DeVaughn Nixon playing his dad. Norm Nixon is one of the more interesting characters in this show, and I wish his story got more screen time.

This show is so well done. I wanted to give Jason Clarke an award and then along came Tracy Letts.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

It may not be accurate but it’s entertaining. 'A total mischaracterization': Portrayal of Jerry West in HBO's 'Winning Time' sparks criticism

Perspective matters a lot in telling history. I think Winning Time is fairly accurate. Most of the subject matter is pretty well documented over the last 40 years. I don't have a subscription to the Athletic, but I suspect most of the people complaining about the show feel that they or their friends are being portrayed in an unflattering light. People, famous or otherwise, only want to be remembered for their good qualities. That is not reality.

Find me an article with people who go on the record with "Oh, that guy was a much bigger jerk than he is in the show" and I will be interested in reading about it.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Dropout is excellent. The ending is a lot sadder than I expected, not because of Elizabeth Holmes, but because of George Schultz.

WeCrashed is really good. The show demolishes SoftBank and Benchmark Capital. That is pretty ballsy.

 

[Rich]

You’d have to pay me to watch Gilded Age.

Clearly Sir you are a Phillistine!

In all seriousness it really is a good show. And there’s no one that retches at the thought of a chick flick more than moi.

 

[ZooCougar]

Perspective matters a lot in telling history. I think Winning Time is fairly accurate. Most of the subject matter is pretty well documented over the last 40 years. I don't have a subscription to the Athletic, but I suspect most of the people complaining about the show feel that they or their friends are being portrayed in an unflattering light. People, famous or otherwise, only want to be remembered for their good qualities. That is not reality.

Find me an article with people who go on the record with "Oh, that guy was a much bigger jerk than he is in the show" and I will be interested in reading about it.

I tend to veer to the show being incredibly entertaining and probably not accurate. So many of the characters are over the top, so over the top. This works great in fiction but not real life.

Last night’s episode was so good. I don’t know where the series stands, Episode 7 is right up there in Leftovers “International assassin” territory. The build up to the game and the opening minutes of the game in Boston were perfection. I was laughing my ass off. That Leprechaun was genius.

I think I will have to watch it again.

 

[ZooCougar]

Clearly Sir you are a Phillistine!

In all seriousness it really is a good show. And there’s no one that retches at the thought of a chick flick more than moi.

It’s too clean and the characters seem too PC to be real. I’m a sucker for Carrie Coon too.

 

[ZooCougar]

Perspective matters a lot in telling history. I think Winning Time is fairly accurate. Most of the subject matter is pretty well documented over the last 40 years. I don't have a subscription to the Athletic, but I suspect most of the people complaining about the show feel that they or their friends are being portrayed in an unflattering light. People, famous or otherwise, only want to be remembered for their good qualities. That is not reality.

Find me an article with people who go on the record with "Oh, that guy was a much bigger jerk than he is in the show" and I will be interested in reading about it.

And how perfect is the guy playing Larry Bird in this? It’s like they made a clone just for the show.

 

[ZooCougar]

 

[Deepster]

Letts was great in a small role The Big Short, and while I didn't like the movie, I thought he shined in Lady Bird.

Reilly does an incredible job portraying Buss. Buss is one of these classic promoters that win at life mostly through force of personality rather than brains. His partner Frank, along with his daughter and mother are absolutely critical to keeping him from going off the rails, and when he realizes he is losing one of them, he is crushed. He isn't just losing his mom to dementia, he is losing a critical part of his support network. It is really hard to get a character like Buss right, and Reilly crushes it.

I go back and forth on Adrien Brody in every role. I am still not sure about this one.

I really like DeVaughn Nixon playing his dad. Norm Nixon is one of the more interesting characters in this show, and I wish his story got more screen time.

If you're not watching the "behind the scenes" after each episode, I recommend it. Really good insight into how the actors took on certain aspects or storylines.

 

[Rich]

It’s too clean and the characters seem too PC to be real. I’m a sucker for Carrie Coon too

Well, I think it's a matter of perspective. None of us were alive at that time so we have to depend on the writers to create a dialogue and atmosphere accurately evocative of that period in American history. I do believe that's how people in the upper crust conducted themselves back then....ceremony was prized, just as it was in Victorian England which basically ran the world back in those days and served as a societal template for most of the world. There's plenty of racism, commercial violence, underhanded business dealings.....it's just....done a lot more politely than we're used to these days. Most of that veneer started to wear away after WWI, and really started to fall apart after the Great Depression and World War 2 once England was reduced to a shell of its former commercial influence.

I know it's hard to buy. But sometimes you just gotta.....believe it, especially when it comes to these period pieces. If you've not already seen it I highly recommend 'The Knick' which is set about 20 years later but gives off the same vibe of late stage Victorian New York.

I had a similar reaction when I read 'War and Peace' (yes, I have read it, twice) a few years back. Like, 'Whoa, the French and Russians really conducted these elaborate social dances?'

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I tend to veer to the show being incredibly entertaining and probably not accurate. So many of the characters are over the top, so over the top. This works great in fiction but not real life.

Last night’s episode was so good. I don’t know where the series stands, Episode 7 is right up there in Leftovers “International assassin” territory. The build up to the game and the opening minutes of the game in Boston were perfection. I was laughing my ass off. That Leprechaun was genius.

I think I will have to watch it again.

The show has to give the characters depth. We want the Lakers to beat the Celtics because the people around the Lakers are so flawed but we care about them. West comes off like a lunatic, Buss is a hedonist and con man, Magic does feel like a phony at times, and Kareem is giving the world the finger. Which is why we care about them.

I do question the show's characterization of Paul Westhead. The show is just brutal to him. He can't really have been that helpless.

The funniest part of the episode is when we first meet Larry slowly walking down the hallway, spitting tobacco into a beer can, and the screen flash is "YOU KNOW MY [BLANKING] NAME".

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I will add that Winning Time's characterizations of Chick Hearn and Johnny Most were really funny. Making fun of the old-time radio guys is low hanging fruit, because they all were such characters. They had to be. Try filling two and a half hours with just words, and making it interesting enough that tens of thousands of people would want to listen to it for 82 games a season. They had to be a little crazy, and the ones that could do it well got a lot of leash, because it was hard. Many of them drank on the air like Hearn did, and Most was a jerk to opposing players.

I wish Winning Time would have had some of the lesser known radio personalities that worked smaller markets for lesser teams and were only local legends. I bet some of them were really good.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Dropout is excellent. The ending is a lot sadder than I expected, not because of Elizabeth Holmes, but because of George Schultz.

WeCrashed is really good. The show demolishes SoftBank and Benchmark Capital. That is pretty ballsy.

Super Pumped (Showtime) is pretty good. It goes a different direction than Dropout and WeCrashed, focusing on the business more than the characters, which I like so far.

 

[ZooCougar]

The show has to give the characters depth. We want the Lakers to beat the Celtics because the people around the Lakers are so flawed but we care about them. West comes off like a lunatic, Buss is a hedonist and con man, Magic does feel like a phony at times, and Kareem is giving the world the finger. Which is why we care about them.

I do question the show's characterization of Paul Westhead. The show is just brutal to him. He can't really have been that helpless.

The funniest part of the episode is when we first meet Larry slowly walking down the hallway, spitting tobacco into a beer can, and the screen flash is "YOU KNOW MY [BLANKING] NAME".

I can’t recall the last time a show developed this many characters in 7 episodes.

I don’t know if Westhead was that helpless, but I do know that the show runners have said that the show is heavily fictionalized. Did Riley really throw him in the shower? I don’t know but it works.

What bums me out if that I think the sports world missed out on seeing a genius like Jack McKinney.

 

[Waquoit]

I don’t know if Westhead was that helpless, but I do know that the show runners have said that the show is heavily fictionalized. Did Riley really throw him in the shower? I don’t know but it works.

It's wrong to fictionalize about living people for the sake of the story. I hate that Secretariat movie. And Moneyball for that matter.