Aziz Ansari's 'Master of None' on Netflix

high maintenance, the first season of this show

he could be a parent in real life maybe?

you're welcome! sorry if i sounded defensive and snippy upthread.

Np. If you were, I probably deserved it.

I do find it refreshing to see male friendships on screen that aren't defined by insults and ball-busting. not that there's anything inherently wrong with that dynamic in reality but it's pretty much the only thing you ever see on TV

― evol j, Wednesday, 17 May 2017 13:57 (two days ago) Permalink

Good point, I agree

I enjoy this show and will keep watching it but any time o read someone be over reverent I just kinda roll my eyes, it's hit this weird sweet spot of being in the style of prestige tv but with a 90s network drama level depth, but one of the good ones

Me: I like master of none

Friend: yeah it's so great!

Me: I guess

Anyway I feel like the relatability of the last few eps was cool but if they keep a romantic entanglement between them going I'm gonna be mad

There were lots of well done moments tho like when he runs into Rachel and It feels like she's talking to a different person & he can't register

Also I was in Brooklyn when the snowstorm happened a few years ago & stayed at a partner's house early in the dating process so it was like wow I know this

i do Keep wanting it to make a deeper point about that kind of connection though and I'm not sure it's going to: it's left kind of ambiguous what he's trying to say about these situations and I'm really afraid it's gonna end up being as idealized as it is in his head

Ah this was a mixed bag. The show in general lurches so much all over the place. The lols from devs shouting at grandma were funny. But the series really overstretched itself. Even if it was making a point about representation and truths about who constitutes modern new york/American society. Denise is a shockingly poor actress. Arnold has improved a bit. Brian is probably a bit better but we barely saw him sadly. it's odd to say but for all that dev or aziz gets right in talking about the casual racism like francesca saying curry person I feel like he does all he can to make this a show about being brown/muslim. He is more comfortable being an all-minority person than just an indian/Muslim person. The romance was very woody allen but thankfully less self pitying. she's obv very hot and cool but I'm more interested in seeing if dev/aziz can own up to his white woman obsession/difficulty with brown women outside of his mother. This show looked like it was hitting on something new for western Asian's in the first series. This series seemed to back down from that to much broader sort of 'lemme tackle every big SJW concern going' focus.

*All he can to AVOID making this a show about being brown/muslim

this season is masterful, surprised you aren't are loving it more. it's so much more interesting and varied than the first season, also who would not be in love with that italian woman

agree with this. i was really cold towards the first season - the nashville episode was appalling, rachel wasn't great, etc. This was stronger throughout - funnier, better written, and i thought the romantic plot was good, and i was glad that in the final episode ansari wasn't afraid to make dev seem like a dick. it seemed honest in a way a lot of the first season didn't.

also the way they filmed new york during the helicopter ride was wonderful. also i can't take my eyes off his amplifier whenever its onscreen.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2017/may/24/master-of-none-aziz-ansari-sitcom-many-flaws

i don't agree with everything in this and it's not a great piece - imo - but it sort of generally captures some of my thoughts about the show.

i actually haven't even gotten round to finishing the season yet, not compulsive viewing for me

i actually haven't even gotten round to finishing the season yet, not compulsive viewing for me

its interesting how platform/release impacts how one thinks of it, & i dont disagree. i just finished s2. i think if it was weekly, say as louie was, id def anticipate new 1s and watch it quickly & maybe would think more highly of it, altho i did mostly really like this season

also that outdoor sculpture park looks dope im going

^^^yes!

Was it the nj grounds for sculpture? I love that place

It was Storm King in NY

is there a picnic scene in "she's gotta have it" at this sculpture park? (maybe not this one, it's years since saw it SGHI: but it really rang a bell when i watched this scene)

anyway i just completed my bingewatch (both series): i really enjoyed it, for the same reasons shakey and others have indicated -- its meandering stroll, its lightness, its likeability

it does something indie films do now and then, not often, and have since the 60s and early 70s, and TV sometimes used to do when programmes were madein-house to fill a schedule --- which is make the piece feel like this little thrown-off no-big-deal fragment, which usually the sense of budgets and deadlines and getting a pitch accepted and multiple people together to make a production renders impossible, bcz all this makes it already too big a deal so it has to Justify Itself with lesson to impart or big comedy (or insight) pay-off

obviously -- as ppl have said -- it's netflix approach to commissioning that's enabled this try-it-and-see let's-have-fun no-pressure, and it's quite hit-and-miss (i enjoyed the playfulness of doing each ep as if it were part of a different type of series but clearly plenty of ppl didn't and plenty were also offput by the low level of professional sheen in everything except the look) (sand i liked all the different registers of approach to acting technique in friction with one another, but i'm always interested in this kind of stuff, which conventions we decide are "good" and which don't seem to work…) (i didn't think lena waithe as denise was a bad actor at all, tho i did think her approach and timing didn't really gel with the others, which is a slightly different thing)

i loved AA speaking italian: his take-the-plunge energy which bordered on a cartoon of italian and actually meant he sounded like he spoke it better than his character was meant to, and i loved his interplay w/alessandra mastronardi, so relaxed that it felt that they were just improvising, and were actually two chums having a good time laughing about the quirks of the two languages they didn't quite speak properly -- and i also loved the way it would lurch from silly and cartoonish stuff into quite serious or heavy (or melodramatic) subject ,atter and back… they didn't always get the mix of this right, the relationship stuff was probably over-dwelt on, but it kinda came nailed to their decision abt how to treat each episode apparoach as stand-alone

i finished this.

i found the relationship stuff literally painfully bad. didn't feel like they have any chemistry, felt like the writing was a bit cheesy, and don't think ansari necessarily has the acting chops.

i basically enjoyed most of the stuff that wasn't the relationship with the thanksgiving episode being one of the stronger ones.

one of the flashback lil' aziz actors does a pretty good aziz impression "whoaaaaa bacon is AWE-summmm. i better save some for later just kidding i'll eat it all nowwwwww!"

yeah, I liked little Aziz. Was less impressed by teenaged Aziz.

There are a lot of clues that huge portions of the relationship stuff was pure fantasy, and I don't just mean the whole heart-ripped-out bit -- the entire L'Avventura night didn't actually happen (check out his text messages from a later ep) -- and I think the flash ending may also have been just a fantasy, maybe hers. I like that this show is ambitious. I also read an interview with Mastronardi where she was shocked to learn towards the end of the series that Aziz didn't think Francesca loved Dev, and he was equally surprised to learn that her entire performance was based on the idea that Francesca did love Dev, so he changed the ending,

Going for it with the Italian accent I found fantastic -- and as white English native speakers are fairly notorious for not even trying to get the accent right in foreign language learning (but still holding proper accents in English out as a sign of assimilation) I think the choice for the character to push hard on the accent was deliberate and not just for comedy.

I was super impressed by the accent too. As someone who has been trying the learn Italian on and off for a few years now there is no way I could sound that good.

Chef Jeff is much more Mario Batali than Bourdain IMO

Batali doesn't talk or look like that tho

Chef Jeff was a pastiche

The backslapping gladhanding sort-of-douche stuff reads just like Bill Buford's nights out with Batali in Heat.

Which I would guarantee Aziz has read a couple of times (since you can also just replace pasta-making grandma with sausage making family).

Chef Jeff was a pastiche

― dan selzer, Tuesday, June 13, 2017 1:24 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this...ive heard numerous ppl credulously wonder if bourdain had some sexual assault past they were commenting on cuz of this show, rmde

ugh just slogged through the final two episodes of this
thought the interminably long 'oh noes it's a snowstorm welp you better stay over' storyline was at least going to have some kind of twist, like it's a play on the godawful cliched cheesey romantic nonsense but nope, they really meant it. (Real or not? It still sucked)

Shame cos the rest of the series was sweet enough. I dunno. Not getting many laughs from it tbh and too much food envy.

that Graun article otm although SH's wife keeps popping up in the comments to say he's right actually and she should know because she's a minority

(that reads as far more unkind than I meant)

From Bourdain interview:

Were you pissed when a sexually harassing chef character showed up on the Aziz Ansari show, Master of None, and people surmised it was based on you?

No. No, no. Look, I make fun of a lot of people in my career and I think it is entirely appropriate if others make fun of me. I’m friends with Aziz. I haven’t seen it, but I hear it’s very funny. I think I am totally fair game, and I’m completely cool with it. I hear it was great actually.

Building an entire career on being 'The Woke Guy' and then pivoting to 'Our Culture Is Too Woke' once it comes for you is honestly kind of incredible pic.twitter.com/GDmQuBnQfU

— Alana Hope Levinson (@alanalevinson) October 5, 2018

new Netflix special is great, set is very smartly put together and def the best handling of the "comedian navigating strange new woke culture" type material that people have been trafficking in recently (Chappelle, uh, Louis CK I guess...)

It sounds like a brutal proposition on paper

true of most standup

Also opens and closes w the Velvets, a touch that works v well

I liked this too. He's way more likeable than Chappelle or Louis (even before the creepy perv stuff came to light), plus seems genuinely reflective and empathetic.

yeah my wife went in all prepared to hate it (I guess she'd read some negative things beforehand) but her reaction turned out to be v much the opposite to what she expected. I think his genuine contrition and self-criticism go a long way, and are also interesting to see worked out on-stage. And it's funny!

agree. i was always a lukewarm fan at best but he did a good job with this.

might his best thing yet...? I've liked his other stuff ok, incl the series in the thread title, but with reservations. I didn't really have any reservations with this, it seemed like a leap forward.

heh just remembered that i saw him close out a big comedy festival tour like 5 years ago... preceded by Chris Hardwick and Louis CK

ew

looking forward to this as some fairly reactionary people I know seem to have liked it. It helps that his infraction was pretty grey area; hard to imagine Louis CK being able to rebound in the same way. I'm not saying he never could, but it would take some monumental effort on his part and he doesn't seem to have bothered even starting.

yeah the big difference is that its apparent that Aziz *made an effort* (part of which is this special) - Louis basically dgaf

the weird thing about Louis in that sense is that just from a standup comedy purist POV - like, what makes for great/interesting performances - Louis doesn't realize what a goldmine this is as a performer, what a rich vein it is to mine. you wanna hold up standup as this venue for examining the unspoken and going deep into the truth maaaaaaan and then yr given this golden opportunity to do that (by virtue of your own massive, public errors, tbf) and you *don't take it*?! Instead you just run away from it? That's crazy.

partic when your whole usp is that you're a shabby fuckup who's nevertheless trying to figure it out

feel like this finally came back to bite lck at the exact moment that he'd finished successfully convincing himself he actually wasn't a shabby fuckup and was in fact god's gift to humanity. bad timing

xp. i think it's fairly clear he has no intention of really examining that stuff in public, i also am not sure that he could pull of having such a show and it being successful