the new USA show MR. ROBOT: the rise of Rami Malek and the inexplicable solidness of Christian Slater

afaict no

i mean when christian slater is the most fun thing about your show, i question how fun your show is

entertaining prob a better word than fun, and unpredictable

voiceover is good here if only bc it's so thoroughly subjective to elliot, it doesn't exist (for the most part) to fill in storytelling gaps, it puts you in this damaged mind in a way that another method couldn't.

and sure I suppoze it can be compared to having the "anti-corporate 4 life skate or die mannnnn" viewpoint of fight club or w/e but I think it's manifested with greater complexity by far here, there is nuance that's not present in fight club - like the hackers question what their revolution would actually accomplish at times instead of being true believers all the way

also, while the anti-corporate viewpoint (that admittedly sometimes resembles that of someone who just read no logo or something) might seem like nothin new to a lot of us in a place like ILX, I'm still somewhat surprised that it's being paid for by nbc/universal.

then again the counterargument as voiced in that one black mirror episode is that that's part of the plan so, shit.

this show rules

the show is definitely getting increasingly fun. I've come to really like the trio of women, esp Shayla, who got the best line of this last episode ("...Obamacare.")

the voiceover is interesting because half the time he addresses "you" and it's obviously something else in his head that he's talking to

or he's talking to christian slater

imo the ideal would be that by the end of the season we find out, in a casual way, that Eliot's been hallucinating Slater, but only some of the time.

enough ppl have been addressing slater directly that i'm beginning to think he might be a real person, but that wouldn't stop elliot from hallucinating him in certain situations necessarily given how often he hallucinates in general, so that could make sense

I think (hope) the show's too smart to steal the Tyler Durden riff wholecloth. It's Durden-esque enough without having him actually be imaginary. I feel like it teased that idea early on, when he goes back to the boardwalk and they're all gone, but then resolved that they are actually real.

i dunno if people have been addressing slater directly - it always seems a bit ambiguous to me whether they're speaking to him or elliott.

i can't help thinking of this show as 'mr rowboat' for some reason btw

http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/i-rowboat-10875

pleeeease don't fight club

so yeah i guess they did just kinda flirt with this & then back away from it

i wish to take a long drive to the sounds of this show's synth score

although slater does speak to other characters in the last episode, Elliot isn't involved in the conversation and is almost invisible in his black clothes against a black arcade machine. when slater storms off after arguing with darlene Elliot steps in and starts talking - they never interact with the other characters at the same time. there's definitely a case to be made that elliot and Mr rowboat are alternate personalities, as much as I hope they're just fucking with us.

yeah i was eagle eyeing that and actually enjoyed the degree to which it felt like they were fucking with us by having robot's voice literally in elliot's head during the steel mountain sequence

also lol @ 'steel mountain,' are we all aware of irl offsite data storage facility 'iron mountain'

http://beforeitsnews.com/contributor/upload/291278/images/iron-mountain.png

iron mountain was one of my company's clients :/

my last job used iron mountain for everything!

we wrote their newsfeed and blog content and whitepapers, it was such a pain in the ass account that required like 6 writers

The World Leader in Pain in the Assery

lol p much

Just watched 1st 2 on a computer monitor that kept pixilating or otherwise breaking down. So hoping I get to watch this on something more stable.
What I could see of it looked interesting.

seems oddly fitting though

I'm enjoying this but it feels like it's moving in an almost inevitably Fight Club-y direction at this point. Is it possible that neither Mr. Robot nor Swedish Patrick Bateman are real? They pop up in inexplicable places with little explanation as to why they're there. And Elliot's cruel interaction with the Steel Mountain employee seemed very Bateman-esque. I want this show to just be what it appears to be on the surface because it does what it does so well, but I fear that we're gonna be going high concept before long.

pretty sure swedish patrick bateman is real cuz we've seen him with other characters away from elliot. i really do hope they're messing with us by making it look like mr rowboat is a delusion but yeah it does feel like a fight club reveal is increasingly likely.

idk, i feel like Inevitable Fight Club Denouement is such a trope at this point that it wouldn't be weird for it to be something they're able to play with & misdirect around. episode five probably had enough moments of sort of unavoidable christian slater participation for it to be retroactively ridiculous if the finale is a shutter island thing. who knows though. also i think the other guy is for sure real, we see him solo/with his wife/&c. anyway i like this series & most all of its cast feel like real finds. it's like michael shannon & kristen stewart: the college years.

did i read somewhere that this was supposed to be a miniseries then usa decided to pick it up for a second season? kinda makes me worried that they had a self-contained story with a shocking mr-rowboat-is-a-delusion finale plotted out.

no way is rowboat durden

i really hope not!

"I have an ending and it's about 4 or 5 seasons away."

https://twitter.com/samthemovie/status/622503766940475393

spoiler alert: turns out they were all in purgatory all along

spoiler alert: it's all just a dream

turns out they were on 77 all along

I sincerely hope they avoid any of that nonsense because I think I'd be done with the show at that point. I'm pretty much over the Shyamalaning of television.

finchering

slater is the least interesting element of the show imo; it's a very good television program(me in teh uk)
if they fight club this i am going to be very pissed.

otm x2

hey as well as the score
something else i like about this show
particularly the first few eps
is
its new york locations
which are v credible & sort of temporally accurate & meaningful vibewise

i mentioned this on another thread but the show is primarily filmed both in my neighborhood at the Church Ave F/G stop, surrounding environs and just off the F stop at East Broad where I do some charity work so it feels VERY accurate and it's fun to see places i spend time in as part of this show
EXCEPT all the "shady areas" are like 1800 dollar apartments

and yes, the score is excellent
kinda surprised that ctrl+f "kubrick" isn't getting any hits here

i don't think i know kubrick well enough to speak to that, it didn't ring bells for me

& re: locations i think maybe one of the pluses of abundant routine voiceover is in necessitating a lot of accompanying silent footage of the guy, usually traversing the city, slumped on subways, &c, & some of those cuts are pretty judiciously picked, like aren't new york in a glitzy skyscrapery way but are just sort of familiar city fabric

but yeah the score is rad

the openings of every ep are studied kubrick homage

Thanks for the recommendations, loving this show - if it reminds me of anything it's Utopia

Yes not bad after 2 eps, guarded optimism for the rest

Well that was quite ruthless and brutal but a very good episode.

Been enjoying the songs that they've chosen from MOR or whatever background. Neil Diamond If You Go Away & the latest one opening with Nancy & Lee's Some Velvet Morning. Hadn't heard the Diamond before but I did recognise he source and the Nancy & Lee is a song I love but never know how many people know.

Not sure what else there is of that sort. Will probably have to rewatch the series at some point. Especially as the 1st 2 were in a format that my computer was struggling with.

Durdenisms of the episode, chance appearance of somebody sitting on a set of stairs at a crucial moment?

I just think the Swedes area pair of psychos, the embodiment of that purple people school that was being touted before the most recent recession.

this was so good! wow. it is also kind of as credible as it could possibly be when pitching nerd vs tough guy & feeding him lines about making the best move.

not foreshadowing this episode for anyone who hasn't seen it yet but just in general i am o_o

Wellick freaking out while his wife snacked in the foreground was a killer shot, this ep was beautifully directed

Was thinking of starting Esmail's Leave the World Behind this weekend--anyone seen it?

Watched it last night. Mostly pretty decent but it falls apart in the last 15 minutes by over-explaining and being so on the nose. Hitchcock didn’t tell us why the birds were rebelling against Man…

I'm halfway through and it's really starting to feel like M. Night Shyamalan.

that was definitely a movie by Sam Esmail

I liked the book, will watch the movie eventually.

By the end, I liked about half of it: the sinister massed deer, the Tesla pile-up, clunky dancing to "Too Close." In terms of sounding an alarm, I didn't think it was all that convincing.

imo the entire apocalyptic background and happenings were window dressing for the actual plot mechanic: the lack of trust and basic human connection necessary for survival when every person has their own preconceived notions and agendas that are ultimately irrelevant

having the one seemingly paranoid character be not that much into conspiracy theories (he was just reacting to the factual information he had) was a choice

i still enjoy esmail's visual style but this was all a bit of silliness. good performances, but didn't really have anything to say.

This was a really good movie, sort of frustrated by the massive online chorus of "Why did it not end with rescue and hugzzzzz"

it falls apart in the last 15 minutes by over-explaining and being so on the nose.

only if you think of the "explanation" presented by the character as having anything to do with what's actually happening

i will concede that the Julia Roberts / Ruth dialogue in the shed near the end is too on the nose

The very ending--what the strange daughter did--was one of my favourite parts. Kind of obvious, I know, but in a good way: felt like it had to end that way.

ps the involvement of Barack and Michelle in this movie has created an entire online ecosystem of people who think it's a leak of plans for the impending satanic NWO takeover

it’s funny that a bunch of people online think the 13 year old was weird when she just wants to finish the one thing that was interrupted. maybe the wide-eyed stare at all the weird shit was part of it?

i’m sure each character maps on to some psychological archetype in some way

xp I can see where the Obamas as producers (they just have a Netflix production deal, who cares) is hatching some conspiracy theories but I doubt they’re that hands-on

conversely, I was aware of the production credit and when Ali and Hawke’s characters are negotiating with Bacon’s, I thought “both of these guys are different parts of Obama’s internal dialogue”

I actually love that there's just that one shot kind of hauntingly establishing there's a woman inside Danny's house, wife, daughter, doesn't matter

only if you think of the "explanation" presented by the character as having anything to do with what's actually happening

I don't think his speech has to be the 'real story' - it was an retelling of things we'd already seen (cars going haywire, transport isolating everyone, communication down, etc.) turned into a narrative. The viewers all got to make that narrative up as we watched, having the prepper lay it out at the very end was unnecessary. (If that conversation came halfway or two thirds in, maybe, but it acted as a summation.)

it was F Society, obviously

anyone else spot the E Corp logo on the meal kit buckets in the back of the pickup at the beginning?

this was super entertaining. great cinema? probably not but a thoroughly enjoyable 2+ hours. I loved the ending. Also it's an interesting choice to put Hawke and Bacon in the same movie as they are morphing into the same guy as they age.