LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOL 3 | NIGHT SKY | NOW & THEN
Pop Culture Weekly Round-Up 20/05/2022
Happy Friday, everyone! Gilby is here to give some Pop Culture recommendations for your weekend. This week’s newsletter has thoughts on three series. LOVE, DEATH, AND ROBOTS (Netflix), NIGHT SKY (Amazon Prime Video), and NOW & THEN (Apple TV+). One is Amazing. One is only OK. And the third one is a hard pass. And as always there is a playlist with five songs I listened to last week.
I also would like to take some time to let you guys know that next week, May 27, I won’t be writing the newsletter. The reasons for that are — I’m tired and I need some rest. Since I started this newsletter in December of 2020 I haven’t missed a single week. So I think I deserve a break. I also want to launch a second newsletter about my photography and I need some extra time to work on that. So I looked at the next weeks releases on my calendar and I realized that the only thing coming out that I would be exctited to talk about was the season 4 of STRANGER THINGS. But Netflix already told me that they wont be able to offer advance screeners for this one. So yeah, that felt like the universe telling me to have a break lol. Anyway, enjoy this week’s newsletter and I talk to you guys again on June 3. Gilby out!
QUICK THOUGHTS
NIGHT SKY tells the story of Irene (Sissy Spacek) and Franklin York (J.K. Simmons), a couple who found a bunker hidden in their property years ago that somehow connects to a weird, abandoned planet. They've kept their secret for many years, but everything changes when a mysterious young man enters their life. NIGHT SKY delivers excellent performances from Spacek and Simmons. It is beautifully directed and has really good character development. However, the series is unnecessarily long and sluggish halfway through. It would work much better as a movie than an 8 episode series. So if you have nothing better to do this weekend and need something new to watch and kill some time, this show may be for you. Otherwise, just go outside and get some fresh air.
NOW & THEN is about a group of college friends and how their lives are forever changed after a celebratory weekend ends up with one of them dead. Now, 20 years later, the remaining friends are reunited by a threat that puts their seemingly perfect lives at risk. So yeah, I saw the trailer of this show and I thought it looked great and I would enjoy watching it. I was wrong. This is so mediocre. It feels and looks like a telenovela. A really terrible one. The writing is so bad it is almost funny. The dialogues are super cringing and the acting is so over-the-top. Apple TV+ was doing so well lately. They not only won an Oscar a couple of months ago but also released some amazing series this year such as SEVERANCE, PACHINKO, and THE LAST DAYS OF PTOLEMY GREY. But unfortunately NOW & THEN is truly awful. Just skip it.
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOL 3
LOVE, DEATH, AND ROBOTS, the highly popular adult animated series, is returning with more amazing standalone adventures. The third season of the anthology series consists of nine episodes and I had a chance to watch three of them. The past two seasons of the Netflix series won multiple recognitions for stretching imaginative limits and I think this one will get the same treatment. Every episode of the show is an animated gem that immerses you in an extraordinarily gorgeous, yet occasionally, dystopian future.
I was lucky enough to attend a virtual advance screening last Monday, May 16. Netflix showed us a compilation of the best hits from the first two seasons, hand-picked by the executive producers. And also showed us three new episodes from Season 3. The screening was followed by a Q&A with executive producer David Fincher, executive producer Tim Miller, and supervising director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. It was a lot of fun! I highly recommend you guys check this show out. It is mind bending and very well done. Having said all that, here are my thoughts on the three episodes I had a chance to watch.
Three Robots: Exit Strategies follows the iconic trio of robots while they investigate a post-apocalyptic world after humanity was wiped off. These are my favorite characters of the show and I’m glad that they are back for one more episode. The jokes about humans’ survival skills are hilarious and sadly, very close to reality. The writing of this episode is super sharp and very funny. The animations are super cool and the ending is absolutely hilarious.
Bad Traveling is a very special episode. It was directed by one of my favorite directors ever, David Fincher. It tells the story of shark hunters attacked by a giant crustacean whose size and intelligence are matched only by its appetite. The episode is incredible. It has a lot of gore, mutiny, betrayal, and ventriloquism with a corpse. Do I need to say more? OK just one more thing, the episode was written by SE7EN screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. Yeah, Fincher and Walker have reunited after all these years and the result is amazing.
Jibaro is a reimagining of the traditional legend of a woman whose music draws men to their deaths. However, her sorcery fails to affect the deaf knight, Jibaro, and the Golden Woman becomes enchanted with him. Thus begins a lethal dance between two predators. The animation and sound design of this episode are absolutely gorgeous. The writing is really good too and a great example of fantasy and greed colliding.
TOP 5 SONGS
These were the 5 songs on heavy rotation in my house last week. You can listen to them on Spotify and YouTube.
Enjoy your time off!! 😎