I'll be on the couch

Once in awhile I will read an article arguing whether TV is superior to movies or movies are superior to TV in terms of quality. I fall firmly on the side of TV. While there aren’t a ton of movies we want to see in the theater, there are more than enough prestige and non-prestige TV shows to keep us occupied.

For instance, take The Master (please!), which we watched a few weeks ago. I figured it would be a slam dunk, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, both of whom I like. I thought it was terrible. It was a movie about a bullshit artist (a thinly veiled portrayal of Scientology) that turned out to be two hours of bullshit. Or maybe it was nine hours because it certainly felt that long.

Don’t tell me “You’re supposed to be bored and frustrated” while watching a scene of a guy repeatedly running back and forth between a window and a wall because I don’t like being bored and frustrated. Joaquin Phoenix gave such a pretentious performance, running around drunk and having a hissyfit in prison and I just hated it.

I went to bed all pissed off because of this movie.

Anyway, I just get so much more out of good TV like Mad Men, The Americans and Breaking Bad. I can find oceans of depth in characters like Walter White, Don Draper, Elizabeth Jennings, Peggy Olsen, Jesse Pinkman and Joan Harris and just can’t find as much in characters in movies like The Master. Granted, shows like those I listed have had years to build characters and we watch them with the weight of their history informing the scenes. But I think I could edit a few episodes of Mad Men into a movie-length feature and it would just be so much richer than nonsense like The Master.

I am just giving up on managing our Netflix queue because I always manage to pick out these turkeys. I like watching prestige movies from the past but there are a few older, well-regarded movies that kind of underwhelmed me: 2001: A Space Odyssey (beautiful but boring), Repulsion (the sad sack main character annoyed the hell out of me and I had no sympathy for her) or Taxi Driver (it was OK but movies about the dirty New York ‘70s wear thin with me).

From now on, it will be blockbusters in the movies and prestige on TV. You can keep the multiplex; I’ll be on the couch.