TRUE DETECTIVE on hbo - matthew mcconaughey, woody harrelson, michelle monaghan, fukunaga, pizzolatto

i kinda wish they were a bit more mcconaughey-y and harrelson-y. seeing the woodmeister as the straight man harshed my buzz a bit

I was prepared to hate the writerliness but totally enjoyed this. Actors acting. Cinematographers shooting. Southern gothic. Evil that men do. Millennium meets Blair Witch in Louisiana. What's not to like?

A Henriksen cameo would really pull this together but it probably takes itself too seriously for that.

This ruled.

yeah this was fantastic

Good to have Mac's pretentious musings undercut by Woody. Love them, love the atmosphere, and I can see it slinking a bit in the mid but despite that when I finished the first ep I immediately wanted to watch the 2nd.

Encouraged by this... Felt burned by the US version of the The Bridge, so I'm crossing fingers that this will keep it together. Good to hear The Black Angels cash in on some of the HBO cash that BJM has been making.

Texas Killing Fields recommended to folks who like this new wave of Southern Gothic.

Don't know how I haven't seen Texas Killing Fields, thanks!

if you liked the killing fields...

I haven't seen the movie but this definitely put me in mind of the actual texas killing fields--which is so grim I can hardly imagine enduring a movie about it.

loved this though. thought MM's monologue in the car was a little over the top until it became clear his character is a bit crazy.

this was p great - rog mexico otm
altho its easier to build the mystery than reveal it so im remaining a bit wary

the taxman called himself a realist/pessimist but “I have a bad taste in my mouth out here. Aluminum and ash. Like you can smell the psycho-sphere.” made me think of speculative crime scene investigation. a thread about this would be nice , someday.

wow so good

ya guys but the shirts

they looked awesome in their suits--i consider this as necessary as modern hair and makeup in movies that take place in ancient rome.

it didn't look particularly "90s" at all. Apart from the fog of cigarette smoke in the office scenes

it's funny, i was 16 at the time but if you asked me to describe what 1995 was like i could only shrug in response.

well, yeah

1995 was like JNCOs and shitty music

would def loved to have seen trhem rockin jncos

wish this sho was more like vh1 'i love the 90s'

a better thread idea than this one would be "POLL the 90s: music in the 90s"

anyone read pizzolatto's novels?

McCounohay holds his cigarette like a joint

“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law…We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory, experience, and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody.”

hope Taxman will apply his view on things to his detectiving, remove the humanity from the crime and let animality run loose to reveal trails/ scents/ connections that will possibly break the case. the crime looks pagan in nature, enough to alert Reverend Tuttle to pressure the police into making an "task force to investigate crimes with an anti-christian conotation"... more likely it's a crime with an anti civilisation conotation. the victim met "a king" (anti democracy? "King Tyrant Lizard" dominance over other species like the victim, a prey with antlers )

what other detectives use similar speculative method, on top of my head i can only think of, maybe, agent cooper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK4CD2BfA0g , 60s kitsch tv batman, johnny to's mad detective... an "interesting" way to go from there would be to , maybe, use these intutions and make the jump from fiction to real life, using the effect of what we know about the life of the actors and how it reveals something about the narrative as a bridge into "real life" to... idk

i'm pushing the joke too far with that last sentence but i think it could be a fun thing to think about.

there's a well-known dutch (?) detective novelist whose character practices zen—can't remember the name at the moment.

tv's 'life' had a framed and unjustly imprisoned cop damian lewis who picked up self-help zen while in the joint and then compulsively broke into puzzled quasi-koans about the ordinary things people around him said while he was working cases. not sure that was methodically effective tho.

also philip kerr's 'a philosophical investigation', somehow.

Cohle: This place is like someone's memory of a town, and the memory's fading. It's like there was never anything here but jungle.

Hart: Stop sayin' shit like that. It's unprofessional.

Cohle: Oh, is that what I'm going for here?

Hart: I just want you to stop saying odd shit, like you "smell a psychosphere," or you're "in someone's faded memory of a town," just stop.

Cohle: Given how long it's taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can't figure I'd forgo it on your account, Marty.

if this is writerly I'm fine with it

I'm guessing the occult angle is a misguided assumption a la WM3.

McCounohay holds his cigarette like a joint

― ilx snitch (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, January 14, 2014 7:32 PM (54 minutes ago)

Yeah, this was distracting, the exaggerated drags on the cig and the way he held it. After a while I started looking for exhaled smoke and not seeing any -- often there were cuts away just as he would have been exhaling. Otherwise, I thought this was really good, looking forward to the rest.

there was a weird bit where he gets ash on the table and swipes it away before the other detectives turn around and see it.

I've been told I hold my cigarettes like a joint, been trying to work on that.

some ppl hold their cig like a dart, too: probably not in texas unless the guy is "weird".

the taxman takes notes, wonder how he "holds em all together" .he draws some of em so i assume conscision must be a part of his system . i'm having a bit too much fun with this, maybe. don't let me down, television!

when i saw antlers i thought: aw no, not again. hannibal got that covered already

the crime scene looked like tumblr art

throw together some antlers and naturey paganish symbols and stuff

Pinterest these pagan ritual twig pyramids

pagan iconography hack

Some spoilers in this but also some interesting speculation:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/01/12/true-detective-premiere/

… man possessed by ungovernable rage…

omg i love this

i wonder if it was set in the 90s just because pizzolatto wanted this retrospective structure, or because he actually wanted it then for some reason. at the very least, that puts it pre-internet, sorta pre-cell phone, pre-computerized crime investigation, which seems like a conspicuous difference from the norm now.

It seems evident that the duration of the case is important what with them arresting the wrong person.

I wonder if, since this show is following the anthology format, that every season is going to be a flashback of sorts to a different time or will a season (if it lasts that long) take place in current time.

“There could be a season that’s much more of a wide-spread conspiracy thriller, a season that’s a small town murder mystery, a season where nobody is murdered and it’s a master criminal versus a master detective,” Pizzolatto said. “Even the title True Detective is meant to be, of course, purposefully somewhat generic. There are deeper indications, the word true can also mean honorable….as long as there is some crime in there.”

It was not made clear if — like FX’s American Horror Story — the anthology would retain a few faces from season to season. For his part, Matthew McConaughey, who stars alongside Woody Harrelson, made clear that this season’s story was “contained,” but Pizzolatto was hesitant to agree with the actor when he claimed, “That’s it.” “We’ll talk later,” said Pizzolatto.

o thanks gukbe, that's good

this new trend of anthology series is pretty cool and a good way to get around the limitations of long-arc storytelling. like how long did prison break go on after they actually broke out of prison? or did they keep sending them back or something?

maybe they went back to break the others out

or life lost meaning on the outside so they started deliberately getting arrested so there would be more prison breaks

I was surprised by (and liked) the minimalism of T-Bone Burnett's score. Maybe I don't listen to the guy's work enough but, yeah.

Probably stretching here but I wonder if those were originally actual band posters that they couldn't get (or wouldn't pay the rights for) so they last minute threw AI slime over 'em?

of all the things that happened in the episode it is very ILX to be “BUT THE POSTERS”

sure, but it's not like they are just anachronistic or something, they are absolutely horrid!

Fargo had great character-defining band posters in Gator's bedroom

(sorry I got rid of HBO so I will only be posting about Fargo in this thread)

Ferris Bueller or Mike Damone's bedroom being the obvious standard here.

Interesting that with the CGI elements and those posters that they filmed everything set outside in the Arctic outside:

Every shot outside in the ep was shot outside, in the arctic.
So, by living there for 10 months, I learned that visible breath depends on humidity. Sometimes it happens...
Sometimes not.
🤷🏻‍♀️ https://t.co/BlpVHoSYZB

— Issa López (@IssitaLopez) January 22, 2024

(though then I go google and find out that Iceland isn't actually the arctic, but 40 miles south of it)

Amazing response from her about the AI posters:

pic.twitter.com/y9pggkqwll

— grimm (@ExileGrimm) January 22, 2024

lol awesome

I think the very north of Iceland is technically the Arctic.

There’s one village (Grimsey) on an island off the north coast, near Dalvik (one of the filming locations for this show)

The grocery store scene triggered a massive “I know this place” moment for me; seems maybe unlikely that they filmed in one of the three Reykjavik/Hafnarfjordur grocery stores I’ve shopped at, but maybe so?

I have fond memories of an AirBnB in Harfnarf Du Jour, as we still refer to it.

Probably because I clicked on this thread or maybe because I googled True Detective, but now I'm getting served all these news stories claiming it is a direct sequel to season 1. So ... watch this one first and if we like it go back to season 1?

The first season is a great, iconic season of television, although sh wometimes it's a bit annoying, and parts of it are Very Silly Indeed. Woody and Matty are fantastic; the writing for the female characters absolutely bites. Either way, it's definitely a good time.

I'm guessing the new season has resonances to the first but isn't a direct continuation.

I full-tilt adored S1, masterful writing, directing, acting, everything. I can't get my bf to re-watch it because he hates Matt McC and cares not for Woody H

Watching the first episode - we’re off to a great start

Season 4 specifically

should i start a S4 thread since we have one for each of the others?

Sure!

ok here it is

True Detective Season 4: Night Country (Ice Capades!)