u/Novel-Initiative-900

As someone finally reaching old guy status it's been hard for me to fully engage with the kind of media I've always loved, comic books, action films, space oriented sci-fi etc. as of recent.

Andor is the only show / movie in the last 10-15 years for me that still gives me that same wonder Star Wars gave you as a kid but all the enjoyment of a full on adult oriented thriller with all the political intrigue and character complexity you ever dreamed a show could have.

It's such an insane marriage of 2 different things you generally never get to experience together and I'm now treating myself to a 2nd repeat viewing of Andor. I was trying to hold off until I forgot as much as possible for I indulged and could really enjoy it again in 4k on Bluray.

This show is fucking unbelievable. It's truly amazing. Everything, all of it. The writing at the very top and very close behind on acting, cinematography, vfx, editing, world building, and just overall aesthetically it hits so well it kinda breaks your heart because you know you may never get to see something quite so detailed, so pleasing to the eye. I think we're damn lucky this not only got made but the whole story got told in just the way Gilroy wanted.

I have to connect to my VPN in order for tivimate to connect properly but the funny thing is, that it does connect on other iptv apps without the VPN connection.

Normally this wouldn't be an issue but when connected to a VPN I can't use my debrid services on stremio, so I'm always going back and forth turning it on and off depending on which app I'm using which is annoying.

Anybody have an idea how I can have it setup and only connected to TiviMate on Google TV? If that's possible?

This is more of an educational thing for me where I'll be putting in only the money I can afford to lose, so I'm not naive at how hard this could be or that I can lose what I put into it. My daughter has a knack for selling k beauty products on TikTok and other platforms and has shown that she understands the industry to some extent because now she is making decent money.

She believes in a couple products that she wants to white-label in an effort to build a brand and because she thinks they could be much more popular than they are if marketed the right way. I shrugged this idea off immediately as it doesn't seem worth while to invest 10-20-30k on some moq for 1 product but I realized that really what she wants to do is build a brand, make ads, design the whole look and everything, then scale and even one day create maybe her own products. So, I see the end goal here and to me it looks almost impossible with what the market looks like but I want her to have her own experience in starting a business.

So, I'm going to approach this with soberness and just acknowledge whatever I put into this will be lost but might provide a launch board for my daughter.

For anyone who's created a brand by first starting with a white label product, what do you wish you knew at the time? What was your approach in the niche you chose?

I'm new to MasterChef, only watched 6 seasons so far and I really love it. Season 6 was maybe the only one so far that felt a bit like they were really propping up some of the contestants with their narratives.

By the time it got to the finale I was surprised because after having seen the entire season in rapid succession, I could sort of see very clearly where they were starting to be a little biased. It's unfortunately easy to detect in these types of shows when you binge watch.

There were a couple times they seemed to favor Claudia when in previous seasons she would have never won the mystery box. The cake challenge was pretty egregious.

The overall finale though left a bad taste in my mouth. It just felt so biased and contrary to previous seasons. Every winner up till now had felt pretty earned and not a lot of obvious bias.

My question is does the show keep going in this direction? I just want to get the sense that they're really earning it and it's not biased toward narratives. It just ruins the time invested and the excitement you get from the show

Generally any account on insta that makes generative video / pics are always called out and there'll be a million comments calling it slop which of course is accurate and helps so that everyone knows. But I am curious... there's some now that I'm confused by and I'm wondering, is it vfx combined with video? Or is it video + some ai or is it 100% generative? Because I don't see any comments really talking about it at all.

Does anyone know of tools to verify which videos might be fully generative?
I don't want to link or support any of these accounts so for those that know what I'm talking about, maybe you can let me know. There's one 'hana.katoba' and I don't see anything in their account name or profile or in the comments mentioning ai but come on...

I felt like up until last year LeClerc, Russell and Piastri were considered in the top 5 drivers on the grid, with Max and Norris at the top possibly.

But now, it feels like all 3 of them are not really doing so hot. I didn't really like the way LeClerc came off last race. Then Russell doesn't seem to want to rock the boat and is afraid for his job now and so I almost don't take him seriously as a contender anymore and Piastri has sadly really dropped off and can't figure out these regs. He might be close to Norris' level on one lap but after that, it's obvious there's a pretty big gap.

Now it feels like Antonelli is a legitimate force, not simply because he's been driving the best car but there is some real magic behind him. Norris seems almost on Verstappen's level in some key ways now and Hamilton, I feel embarrassed to have rated him as low as I did last year. He's been incredible

I don't know if Mad Men is literally my favorite show, probably top 10 all time for me but I cannot believe how I can't stop watching it once I start. It's actually impossible to stop from continuing to the next episode once I start. Might be the only show that has had me in such a psychological head lock that I'd rather watch the next episode than get work done that needs to get done.

What's that show for you if there is one?

So I'm pitching a feature to some local investors who are not in the film world. They've invested into other projects and I already know that they value a certain "literary" quality to stuff they like. I think mostly because they don't read screenplays all day and are not in the industry.

My scripts are VERY sparse. Action, dialog, nothing else because I'm usually shooting what I write and not doing it to get everyone excited by simply reading it or to procure investment.

I've attached 2 pages here from the beginning and I'm wondering, is it too much? Everything after these 2 pages is pretty sparse and not so overly descriptive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VX6jEhcyTh43ZZqz5ayQd0pfS8QrtSk3/view?usp=sharing

I've only seen 4 episodes so far but I have to wonder, how much is being spent on this? This is easily in the running for the highest quality sci fi space anything, ever made. It's basically like a big budget movie every episode.

I like the show so far, great writing and I'm curious where it'll end up but more than anything I'm so baffled by how good looking this show is, there is not 1 single corner cut anywhere.

1 of the main characteristics of a true high budget / really well made show or movie is how much it can afford to actually showcase large pools of people / talent. Audiences, crowds, people everywhere in the background doing real things and it's all period. It's not really about CGI and stuff like that, it's the obvious scale you see through all the large sets, all the people filling in the crevices of every moment etc.

Pardon the botched title, I couldn't edit it

I watched Hell or High Water the other day and it was a really good film written by Sheridan. I guess that was over 10 years ago at this point but I'm interested in the experience of writers who've worked in a room vs solo on features. What do you think causes someone's style to change significantly? I went on IMDB to see the writing credits for the show Lioness and it seems like it was all Sheridan, is that normal?

I'm curious if maybe writing too many episodes solo has consequences for writers. I also watched some of Mayor of Kingstown and I started to think... maybe I'm just not understanding what's happening here, is it like a wink wink situation where everyone knows it's basically just a soap opera etc?

Okay so I don't think I've ever seen a genuinely... genuinely compelling spy show or movie that made me think what was going down was so legit in every way that counts, through dialog, through action etc. Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy was one of the few spy movies I've seen that felt incredibly real because it was inspired by a true story.

The Agency is adapted from Le Bureau, the French show which is of course legendary at this point and just as compelling. It follows pretty close plot wise to the show but I gotta hand props to the writers because the amount of work it probably takes to make everything sound so convincing is not something you see often on TV. This is a monster of a show, pretty complex, doesn't hold your hand but is completely understandable if you pay attention.

I feel like it's a rarity to find a show you don't look down at your phone for a second in case you miss something. This is that show

The cryptocurrency concept Proof of work basically proves that one person did a certain amount of work / effort to others within a transaction.

Just made me think of the ease in which people are creating ' ai ' and digital art that is flooding our feeds, our minds, everywhere we look where we don't know who created it, for what purpose and is it based on someone else's work, their own work etc etc

With modern film, the interest from both the viewers and the creators of films to show, hey, we've put in effort in x amount of ways, IMAX cameras, the sets, we were drowning, it was cold etc, the emphasis on showing, exhibiting a certain amount of suffering for the art as it were is becoming more normal and it somehow translates into a new appreciation of the art, even though it was always this way, we're just trying to really show the human side of what it takes to make these images in a world where they are becoming seemingly less valuable

Some of my earliest memories are watching TNG with my Dad, probably no more than 3 or 4 years old. There is something nostalgic about Star Trek of the 80s and 90s for me but more than that it really cemented what I look for and love about certain shows. I like discussions about problem solving, about morality about figuring out the best path forward and juggling a million vectors through which things can and will go wrong.

I feel so sad trying to get into any of the new Trek stuff but there's no point on saying it here, we've all heard it before many times. I just genuinely feel so bummed out that not once in the last decade of the experiment that was big budget streaming Star Trek did anyone think to just give a little love to a solid science fiction creator / writer that wasn't Alex Kurtzman.

Was there really no opportunity for some new voice that actually has something to say in science fiction to create a smaller Star Trek show with real ideas / real problem solving etc?

One of the things I admired on repeat viewings of older Trek was the realization that the writers rooms on these earlier shows were always a revolving door of interesting people, real scientists, real authors, legit life long science fiction enthusiasts with really cool ideas to infuse the show with. Sounds dumb but it almost makes me want to cry hah, there was such an opportunity for something good to come out of all the money and resources put into making these shows

I often get roped into watching a show or a movie with family friends and acquaintances. Sadly, most of the people I know love a good cowboy soap opera and so I find myself watching Taylor Sheridan extended universe.

I don't know what the deal is with Sheridan but I don't know whether to laugh or cry in anything he makes. I think I've come across 3 different shows all talking about some kind of land deal or a ranch or some oil... or some guy that's angry about being in prison.

I uh... I just can't understand who's watching this stuff... WHO? I guess it's me but I'd rather avoid it altogether.

I remember seeing Hell or High Water and Sicario both good movies but from my understanding he only wrote those movies and maybe that's why they're good, he wasn't trying to do everything?

Either way I thought this deserved a post on here because we're basically at the point right now where the average person in America almost has to go out of their way to avoid this guy and all the Yellowstone adjacent slop on Paramount and other networks. I don't even care about hating on a television / movie creator but it's just TOO much now

I don't know what it is but whether it's inception or Oppenheimer etc, I rather enjoy the exposition in these sorts of films where I wouldn't be able to sit still in another movie with that amount of explaining.

Nolan does this thing where the exposition (imo) is intrinsically interesting, like the actual conversation outside of the world of the movie seems to either have some relevance or it's just fun to think about. Hearing someone explain how the dream world works is so fun, because it's someone pitching you on how this would actually work even if it's all bs.

Exposition in a crime movie where it's about how the protagonist knows some person, explaining some relationship that we should care about for some reason, makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out and press fast forward. But, a character explaining how this neat idea works feels like it has more documentary / educational energy to it that is fun to listen to when sprinkled into a film.

I just feel like Nolan gets SO much hate for this one thing but I've always thought it was more of a strength. I'm probably completely alone on this one though hah