Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX)

But the high points are amazing - the Tonight Show/David Lynch episodes, the Parker Posey/Chloe Sevigny arc, a bunch of the one off episodes like when he does the benefit for Seinfeld in the Hamptons. Still can't stand Pamela Adlon's character and their relationship, things just grind to a really unpleasant halt when that takes over.

woah just wait if you haven't finished the show yet

you think Pamela's annoying now

oh she's definitely worse once she returns

I complained about her upthread iirc

have you finished the latest season

I mostly like Pamela idk

yes I've seen the whole run

one thing that bugs me about Louie is how the character deals with his sexuality - he does this thing where he generalizes his own behavior as being universal to men, and then does a lot of self-centered, assholish stuff, subsequently shrugging it off as just being honest. And then there is this tendency within the show for women to throw themselves at him. The sex is often awkward or uncomfortable, but it is crazy how many times he just ends up banging whatever random female character shows up in the episode, whether it's Joan Rivers (which works, and that episode is great), or some rando from the club, or the model(!), or the aggro mom from the PTA meeting. It is a *long* list. After awhile it feels like sloppy writing: "gee, wouldn't it be funny if *this* kind of person had sex with Louie!"

totally agree, to the extent that i had to go find my posts to that effect:

in his stand-up there's a lot of stuff that's really self-loathing with regard to heterosexual relationships and put into general women/men terms, i often find myself thinking "nah i think this is just very specific to your issues, dude."

― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, December 2, 2014 3:31 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and i appreciate comedy and art that's vulnerable and specific, but it's precisely because it comes off as not self-aware that it bothers me.

― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, December 2, 2014 3:32 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah. I still think he's very funny and a guy whose work I will follow.

otoh while I'm usually loathe to confuse one's work/public persona with the performer and would hardly convict him in a court of law or anything, in retrospect there's stuff in his work that makes me think hmm, yeah those creepy sex assault rumors seem kind of believable in light of the way he handles sexuality in his work.

That is not fair.

Did they ever figure out how many people Hitchcock murdered?

Yeah, don't blame Louis, blame his writers.

that's a joke because he writes almost all of it himself, right?

(yep)

I mean I get the creepy vibes stuff, but it's tough to write about sex with any specificity in a way that doesn't involve your character having a lot of sex when he is basically the only character

how about just don't "blame" anybody for fictional content?

calm down I made it clear it's my personal impression, no doubt compounded by his own intentional blurring of his fictional/real self in his work. I'm not going to put him in on trial or anything.

Are people still not clear why men choose to pursue fame, or..

Understood, sorry.

It does gets tiresome though. This kind of speculation is what it means to be "put on trial" by the public—to the extent such a thing exists.

It's not harmless, and it does damage people.

If you are a single hetero male comedian w your own TV show, you probably will be dating lots of women on your show. Look at Seinfeld.

does his character have a tv show?

oh nm I see what you're saying, it's just the nature of the medium/topic

I mean what do you want him to write about, doing his taxes?

yup that's all single white guys do, fuck lots of random women + taxes

yeah, fuck taxes

C'mon, man, that's such a stereotype. I hardly ever did taxes when I was single.

I mean go to the club, obviously. Fuck the taxes.

Second ep moved at a glacial pace

steven wright is p. good in this

skipped the 2nd ep but the third was pretty impressive

p. impressive is an understatement.

just a massive leap in quality from the first two.

yeah the extended duologue format is a way better fit, plus Laurie Metcalf killed it

good lord yes.
metcalf is secretly among the greatest actors of her generation.
this third ep easily justifies all the fumbling of the first two and it was exactly what I was looking for from this exercise.

like "louie" i think there's more punch in having the show meander and flop around and then occasionally pull into something laser-focused and ambitious like this.

haven't watched the second episode yet and haven't heard a good thing about it. can I skip right to the third?

Yes, though i thought it was okay.
I like the lange character

I'd watch the second tho it meanders. Wright is good and it establishes a bunch of stuff which i imagine will pay off later. Helps a little even with the setup for the third, tho the first gets you most of the way there.

Watched episode 5 tonight. This has become my favorite non-TV, TV show right now.

Steven Wright is so great.

CK tells Howard Stern he's losing millions on this, the former seems basically unconcerned.

I ended up pretty much loving this, though it would have been way better had CK cast a real actor instead of himself (though he's sometimes fine)

everybody on this show sounds like Louis CK talking to himself so subbing in another actor would not have made a noticeable difference to me

louie pulled the interview circuit superfecta now of talking abt this on howard, maron, bill simmons, & Charlie rose in the span of a few wks

The full ginsburg

he's lost money on the project and now it's done; I presume he's trying to get it sold to a network now.

He's selling the whole series for $31/pop, and then will sell it to Netflix or other later. It doesn't sound like he's scrambling to cover his ass - he wanted to release something without context before doing press, same as Bey et al.

did anyone watch them all? I wasn't really impressed w what I saw

I did, if you get to ep 3 and don't like it you should probably stop

yea its not really accurate to say hes lost money & its only done to the extent he hasn't decided if he wants to continue it

I want to watch it but will just wait til whenever he sells it to a service