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

xp

and the sop to ever so hip food porn was just pandering (and where did they eat all that, anyway? there's no sit down in Russ & Daughters, or is that recent? Continuity!)

― Iago Galdston, Saturday, 28 July 2012 01:44 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just don't get this - like it makes me understand the thing someone was saying about how louie is just selling out for the mainstream & replacing paedophilia jokes with like salmon-eating-montages; i really think this show is singular enough that it can stray into well-worn territory as comfortably as it can operate in uncharted terrain. we don't have to lose our shit if it does something that's happened before. the food sequence is like a minute and a half of nice ambient new yorky date vibes, it's isn't his step towards getting a cooking show or trying to instil a feelgood buddy-movie vibe in the audience.

recycled manic pixie dream girl archetypes

To me she seemed to be teetering on the edge of something much darker and weirder than this

xpost I also don't get what would be pandering or opportunistic or whatever in that scene. People like food in real food, and sometimes they stumble upon something new and really get off.

Bagels and herring are supposed to be hip? I can see if they went to some black market artisanal pickle place or whatever, but

like food in the real world

real life whatever argh

The other half of the MPDG cliche is the starry-eyed dude who is able to self-actualize thanks to her. There was absolutely no risk of that here.

eh, look, i'm not losing my shit.
this was just a weak episode in my eyes

black market artisanal pickle place

most fav display names

yeah that's okay, & sorry 'lose my shit' was hyperbolic. i didn't even think this was an amazing ep. but i think it's super interesting & not lazy & valuable for its direction & doesn't succeed or fail in relation to how amusing it is, i get a lil defensive.

All ignoring his biggest failing. Russ and daughters open late? Closes at 8 pm. That was not shot in the dead of winter. I'm never watching again.

It's gonna become Seinfeld except instead of obvious lols its gonna have obvious bummers

the 'depressive jerry' ep is a classic

All ignoring his biggest failing. Russ and daughters open late? Closes at 8 pm. That was not shot in the dead of winter. I'm never watching again.
--dan selzer

Lol, I thought this too

I hate how everyone is referring to this as "Manic Pixie Dream Girl"...outside of maaaybe something I once saw in a Woody Allen movie I don't think Parker Posey's character here has anything to do with awful characters like Natalie Portman in Garden State; this was less "self-consciously unique" and more "psychotic and maybe a danger to herself and others"

the piece on the roof w/the female vocals, so good.

You mean...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2KvM2T40RQ

Thanks for that!

No prob. I recognized it right away -- it's on a Best of Blue Note comp I've had forever.

(And, of course, a great piece of music.)

I am jazz-ignorant so I had no idea. Not to totally derail, but is there a ton of other jazz that hits that kind of extended, melancholic vibe, with that sort of vocal approach? I'd like more of that in my life.

she is manic
and a pixie
and a dream girl

Wait, was that Cristo Redentor? I thought it was a similar-sounding piece.

Yeah, just did a comparative listen; v similar style, but not the same piece.

Ah, sorry, then.

no, thanks! that's great, i don't know a lot of donald byrd, this kills. the music for this show is new recordings, so it could be a take on it. i am still frustrated by the slow horn thing i mentioned that recurs throughout this series - it sounds a lil like miles' all blues, i can't quite place it.

I did think manic pixie...but I also thought back to when I was single and would meet random girls randomly and think they're cute then start talking to them and be like wow, this woman is crazy and wacky and annoying and thinks she's really unique and interesting but really she's just damaged and annoying. Men are like this too of course. I think NY has a lot of people like this. I'm sure they're everywhere, but I'm also sure NY particularly attracts them. It's hard to tell if the PP character is just wacky fun or wacky crazy, definitely walking that edge.

yeah I thinks a lot of this pixie business is the energy/physique that PP brings to the role

Renewed btw

I thought of this as a quite deliberate critique of the "manic pixie dream girl" cliche.

yeah we had a pretty decent understanding of why PP was the way she was, and it wasn't solely to shake Louie out of his rut. If anything, this was primarily about PP.

I guess? Just didn't resonate so well. Don't see how this woman is working at a small bookstore.

I thought of this as a quite deliberate critique of the "manic pixie dream girl" cliche.

Yeah me too. Also Slate guy on this

In fact, this whole episode could be read as a devastating critique of that troubling Hollywood trope. A certain breed of writer-director likes to imagine a pretty, whimsical, wild girl who will come along and sweep his alter ego off his feet, opening up new worlds of possibility. But C.K. shows that someone with that kind of crazy energy would be exhausting, pushy, and quite possibly deeply troubled.

looool at this is not comedy, instead it is like woody allen.

maybe these days when a comedy involves crotch-shots and pie-schtupping then yes, this isn't a comedy, but... ?

/morbs.

cinematography in the walk down the sidewalk while she tells her life story is really excellent. also loving just the montage of expressions of bafflement and confusion on louie's face all thru the night.

Loved this one. Posey was so dangerous.

Marlene Dietrich profile shot of posey on the roof is just stunning.

Not only no other show on TV, but probably 95% of films made these days (including indies) aren't this moment-to-moment surprising and engrossing.

maybe these days when a comedy involves crotch-shots and pie-schtupping then yes, this isn't a comedy

these days? american pie came out in 1999

that's "these days" to a /morbs

i liked this ep OK, but I would have liked it more if her name was actually Tape Recorder.

Just saw this week's. I came into it not really a Parker Posey fan (I reached my fill in the 90s), but her performance was legitimately unsettling. I agree with people itt who say this turned the manic pixie dream girl trope on its head.

Also, I have a fear of heights myself and that whole final scene on the edge of the roof had me whiteknuckling my chair even though I was in absolutely no danger myself. Well done, tv show! Well done.

I think I need to go see Ruby Sparks y'all, my faith in MPDGs is shaken.

Isn't the whole twist of Ruby Sparks that it disassembles the MPDG ideal?

not seeing manic pixie at all, really. not even necessarily in a "sly commentary" sort of way. this felt very true to life, not necessarily from a world of ideas where responding to other sorts of widespread tropes is an issue, or even where such tropes are known and acknowledged, really.

this felt very true to life, not necessarily from a world of ideas where responding to other sorts of widespread tropes is an issue, or even where such tropes are known and acknowledged, really.

agreed. her character felt very real.

Isn't the whole twist of Ruby Sparks that it disassembles the MPDG ideal?

Honestly I don't know! I just saw the ad and it looked like the ultimate MPDG movie, assumed it was probably straightahead stuff because it's coming out in America and someone's paying for ad time...

Chortle reporting that he just got a fourth series of 13 episodes

Renewed btw

― Legendary General Cypher Raige (Gukbe), Saturday, July 28, 2012 11:39 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oops

Haven't seen the new ep yet, internet's been down, so it'll be a few days. I've been loving the new season but it sort of feels like most eps have been designed (intentionally or not) in order to get maximum groupie action when he goes out on tour.

yeah he's been showing a lot of skin lately