What no love for HBO’s new series starring Jason Schwartzman?
Fairly decent show, even Ted Danson didn’t ruin it. Rest of the cast did a fairly nice job. I was hoping that Olivia Thirlby (the ex-girlfriend) would say something like “For real, for real?” Looking at the IMDB page it appears that there were a lot of nice cameos that I didn’t pick up on. Guess I’ll have to watch it again.
The post-breakup closet, the Raymond Chandler references, etc. worked pretty well.
Jason Schwartzman has done good things and some not so good things. I like him in “Rushmore” (and several other things) but then he just walked thru “Funny People”. This is a good performance for him.
Sure, there were a lot of people doing crazy implausible things, but in some people’s lives these kind of nutcases exist in excess. I guess I bought the premise.
I liked it, at least enough to watch again next week. One question I had was about the cop telling him not to do it again, even though he said, “technically, what you did wasn’t illegal” or something to that effect. What was the deal with that? Was it illegal or not? Obviously we know that he’s going to keep doing it, otherwise there would be no show. I think it will be fun to watch him hone his skills.
Hey, I watched this after CYE and thought it was ok. I like Schwartzman, enough to see if it grows on me. As the credits started rolling, I recognized a buddy of mine’s name in the credits. He’s the location manager… so I Facebooked him and asked him if it was indeed him, and it was. He hadn’t seen the show and wanted my take.
Jury’s still out but I will likely watch again. They’ve got the best lead-in on HBO, IMO.
I’m pissed that it started like 2 minutes late on HBO and therefore my Tivo cut off before the ending. I’ll give it another shot or two, although I think it needs to dial back on the weird characters just a bit.
Oops, I should mention this possibly has a spoiler or two, depending on your definition of spoiler.
I thought it was… meh. Kind of plodding, with a few funny moments.
One thing was so unbelieveable I was kind of shocked… the HOOKER next door called the cops, who showed up within 5 minutes in New York, over a loud argument in a cheap hotel room? I can’t decide which part is the most implausible.
I do like that there is another stoner series on TV now…
Hmmm… pathetic loser moonlights as pretend hardboiled detective. Well, I guess next week he will ask for his expenses to cover all the bribes. And it will be kind of interesting to see how they manage not to kill him off. How many semi-friendly kidnappers are there?
Yeah, the 2nd episode wasn’t not as good as the first. Watchable, but not much more than that.
The key issue for me was the coincidence of the ex-girlfriend and the “target” meeting up. If the show was all about such coincidences, “Dirk Gently”-style, that could be interesting. But a single inexplicable occurrence just leaves me cold.
For what it’s worth, everything I’ve read about Bored to Death says to stick with it-it gets better once you get over the first few shows. I’m still watching for that reason alone.
I don’t understand the dislike for this show. Clever dialogue, low key humour, a bumbling detective. What’s not to like? You want action-packed high profile crimes solved in ridiculous, unrealistic manners?
A better episode than last week’s. Liked it, but not sure why. So the following may seem incongruous.
I don’t like “see it coming from a mile away” writing. I like things that surprise me. I particularly despise what I call “the man in the green hat” jokes. A guy says: “You know what I hate, men in green hats.” And at that second a guy in a green hat appears from behind.
And they did a man in the green hat joke regarding Ted Danson’s ex. Blyeah. Also, you knew the girl was underage, that the shrink would do something once they stepped out the door and that Jarmusch would turn to someone else for the script job.
So, all that was not good.
But several things were nice enough to overcome these. I especially liked the scene with the shrink. He’s trying to be a 100% no baloney guy, which of course means that he is full of it.
They also did the obligatory random appearance of a topless woman on an HBO show thing. Shades of “Dream On”.