Hacker Cinema
Curb Your Enthusiasm
2000 · TV series · 12 seasons
Created by Larry David
The off-kilter, unscripted comic vision of Larry David, who plays himself in a parallel universe in which he can't seem to do anything right, and, by his standards, neither can anyone else.
23 positive1 negative46 neutralfrom 70 commenters
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74 comments on Hacker News
This reminds me of my favorite segment of the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm: https://youtu.be/JqrJ4wGid4Y
Did anyone notice that anonymous donators[1] have the picture of Larry David, and the link points to the Curb Your Enthusiasm - Anonymous Donor Pt2[2] episode?
So geeky, so cool !
- [1] https://scrollprize.org/#sponsors
- [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqrJ4wGid4Y
There's a well-known story about a man who escaped a murder conviction because he was at a Dodgers game when the murder happened, and there just happened to be a TV show filming at the stadium that just happened to record him there.
https://innocenceproject.org/news/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-an-innocent-man-from-death-row/
I'd like to think motive and a police sketch wouldn't be enough evidence for a conviction, but that's optimistic.
the life support machine called
In case anyone is out of the loop, these are both lines from an eminently quotable Seinfeld episode (The Comeback, S8E13) that perfectly encapsulates the concept of l'esprit d'escalier, which I’m not sure has a direct English translation in common terms, but is a sort of loan word in my parlance, but I’ll admit I have studied French in secondary school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comeback_(Seinfeld)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier
> L'esprit de l'escalier or l'esprit d'escalier (lit. 'staircase wit') is a French term used in English for the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late.
Now that Curb Your Enthusiasm has wrapped, I could go for a rewatch of Seinfeld, as I can’t think of a better coda to Curb than a return to the roots from which Larry David’s own show sprang.
Hope springs eternal, and both Seinfeld and Curb are wry reminders that every silver lining has its cloud. I’ll take the rain.
Alright, buckle up — here’s a *Curb Your Enthusiasm scene* where Larry takes the iPhone Air press release way too personally at the Apple Store.
---
### Scene: Apple Store, Santa Monica
*Larry* walks in, holding his old iPhone with a cracked screen. He approaches a blue-shirted *Apple Genius*.
*Larry:* So I hear you got this new iPhone Air. Thinnest phone ever, huh? Five-point-six millimeters. What is this, a phone or a Wheat Thin?
*Genius:* It’s our most advanced design yet. Stronger, lighter—
*Larry:* Stronger? If it’s so strong, why is it thinner than a Ritz cracker? You ever eaten a Ritz cracker? Crumbles right in your hand! That’s what I’m gonna be holding here. Crumbs! Phone crumbs in my pocket!
*Genius:* Actually, it’s titanium. Aerospace grade.
*Larry:* Oh! Aerospace. Yeah, good. Because when I’m playing Sudoku on the toilet, I really want NASA technology under my thumbs. Very important. “Houston, I got a number two problem.”
*Genius:* The new 48-megapixel Fusion camera—
*Larry:* Fusion? What am I, splitting atoms now? I just want to take a picture of a sandwich. I don’t need the Manhattan Project in my pocket. And the front camera’s square? Square! Cameras are round, wheels are round, even faces are round. You make it square, now I look like SpongeBob in every selfie.
*Genius:* Well, the square sensor lets you take landscape photos while holding your phone vertically.
*Larry:* Vertically? Vertically?! Oh, thank you, Apple, you’ve saved me from rotating my wrist. What a terrible burden it’s been. Centuries of humanity struggling, and finally Apple says, “Don’t move your wrist, Larry, we’ll do it for you.” Unbelievable.
*Genius:* It also has all-day battery life.
*Larry:* All-day? What’s “all day”? My day? Your day? A raccoon’s day? Be specific! At 11:58 p.m. the phone dies and you go, “Oh, sorry Larry, guess your day’s over!” I still got two episodes of Columbo left, pal!
*Genius:* It’s also eSIM only.
*Larry:* Oh, fantastic. No physical SIM. So if I lose signal, I can’t even take it out, blow on it, do the old Nintendo trick. I just stare at my \$1,000 “air” sandwich and pray. That’s the feature? Praying?
*Genius:* It starts at \$999—
*Larry:* Nine-ninety-nine! For a phone that could slip between two couch cushions and vanish forever. You should sell it with a metal detector. “Find your iPhone Air before it suffocates under the ottoman!”
(Larry storms out, muttering.)
*Larry:* Thin phone, thick price. What a world.
---
Want me to *write another one where Larry’s actually at the launch keynote*, interrupting Tim Cook from the audience like a heckler?
(British OP)
I agree that British sitcoms (not comedy generally) were superior for a couple of decades, but think we need to give modern American comedy much more credit; Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry Sanders, various animation series, etc, etc have established them back at the top. I can't see the UK as that competitive these days.
That's not considering American standup, movies etc which leave us in the dust.
Hahah, love it, thanks!
I’m a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm but didn’t get to this episode yet.
It’s interesting seeing the progress of technology, with Larry using feature phones in the first few seasons.
This was an episode of curb your enthusiasm.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mPzjbXgaVOk
My completely unscientific impression is that other services are making the effort to produce high-quality films and series, including Apple TV+ (Slow Horses, Silo, For All Mankind, Foundation, etc.), Max/HBO (Barry, Curb Your Enthusiasm, GoT, The Last of Us, etc.), FX (Shogun, The Bear, The Old Man, Fargo, etc.), and AMC (Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Night Manager, etc.). Whatever you think of the quality of shows in those services, they at least show genuine effort to make things that don't suck.
Cellphone location data is not extraordinary evidence, he was not cleared based on walking into frame of the show as it was taped and hour and 22 minutes before the murder; giving him time to still do it. It was his girlfriend calling him 20 minutes before the murder placing him at the stadium.
He also had a strong motive as the victim testified against his brother in an unrelated gang murder in which he attended and his brother is serving time for. He also had a record and an eye witness (found later to be wrong) giving a description that could have been him. Add it all together and it was not about a poor minority being targeted by the system. The due process worked here. There is nothing extraordinary about this particular case--except--as promotion for a Netflix documentary that was promoted in the NYPost article:
"As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
The real injustice is how “Curb Your Enthusiasm" is taking the spot light from a very real problem that was exposed here. The "clerical error" that had him sit in jail for 2 weeks after being cleared of charges. He won a settlement, but it never should have happened and is a larger problem facing the poor, drug addicts, and minorities, wrt the system.
I am somewhat surprised so many are skipping over this very real issue present in this very story for virtue signaling over death row that has nothing to do with this story other than unfounded speculation.
He was never facing death row; there was no trial for that to be a possibility. The unnecessary speculation of death row has no barring on this story.
There are real cases that have made it to trial where your argument is better suited. He was in jail for a month, but not prison (there is a difference here) and nowhere near death row. I didn't see where the reason was, my guess is he could not afford bail (a separate problem altogether from this story). Prosecutors had reason to believe it was him; not only from an eye witness but because he had a record and had motive.
>> "..Martha Puebla, who had recently testified at a preliminary hearing about a gang murder in which Juan’s brother Mario was charged as an accessory. (Mario was convicted and is currently serving time.) Authorities argued that Juan — who had been in the courtroom during the hearing — had killed Puebla in retaliation for cooperating with police."
The NYPost article hints all the drama over this case is for a Netflix documentary:
>> "As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
If not for the involvement of Curb Your Enthusiasm and a documentary, this would simply be another case that got dismissed from an alibi checking out and never making so much as a local community newsletter. Thus, the title is dramatic as it does not accurately summarize the truth of the story.
Curb your enthusiasm had a good segment of episodes that were a parody on Netflix and how they shifted hiring from merit to other criteria.
So far only a certain episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm have given me this
Im hopeful US will have some subsidy for real creative works like ive seen in europe.
My limited understanding is that AI could generate Netflix top 10 hits that mostly recycle familiar jokes. The creators made a great product, but i expect anyone who attended film school would rather try something new, only issue is Netflix wont foot the bill (i know, they take a few oscar swings a year now).
Recent examples: TV Glow, Challengers, Strange Darling. All movies with specific, unique perspectives, visuals, acting choices, scripts, shots, etc. Think about the perspective in The Wire, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm. There is plenty of great work that obviously is nearly impossible to reproduce by an AI and i hope that AI "art" is taxed in a way that funds human projects.
I can looking for a reference to curb your enthusiasm's dearest aunt episode. So posting this for some other fellow traveller.
> "Apple is another strong player (but they don't have productivity tools like docs, sheets or youtube)."
Can anyone help me understand how Apple allows Siri to remain so absurdly incompetent? Last night I watched the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which Larry David's Siri interactions devolve into an apoplectic rant -- and part of the reason it was so funny is that it's so relatable. I rarely even try Siri anymore, but when I do it's still just abysmal. Are they deliberately handicapping it, to boost the perceived relative benefits of a future successor?
I can imagine a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David spending the season trying to bring the codpiece back into fashion, after another embarrassing pants tent episode like in the very first season! Would be an awesome signoff for his final season.
> With that wise suggestion, Weathers skyrocketed into the pantheon of the best "actors playing a version of themselves" in 21st century TV history, up there with Larry David in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Adam West in "Family Guy."
One that always gets overlooked is Ron Silver playing himself in Heat Vision and Jack. It’s an unaired pilot for a spoof of 80s “man on the run” series like the Incredible Hulk. It starred Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Ron Silver, Christine Taylor, and Vincent Schiavelli, made by Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon, directed by Ben Stiller. Ron Silver is an assassin working for (evil) NASA to hunt down the smartest man on Earth (Jack Black) and his talking motorbike (Owen Wilson). However Ron Silver plays himself – the assassin stars in Hollywood films as a part-time hobby (when he isn’t murdering people).
Damn and I thought it had ended. I think both it and Curb Your Enthusiasm are excellent comedy shows.
Have you watched Gomorrah? Top tier Italian crime drama, although it kinda drops off after season 3 from what I recall.
There is already a Larry David - Curb your enthusiasm episode on this one. I thought it was just Larry being Larry. But as the article suggests it was done only for a smaller planes not the large ones.
Larry David had the same thought, and it was the theme of the episode "The Covid Hoarder" in Curb Your Enthusiasm wherein Albert Brooks stages a funeral for his non-deceased self.
True. Which is why a lot of people recognize this and perform acts of charity anonymously.
Curb Your Enthusiasm did a whole episode on anonymous donations. Absolutely roasted the entire premise! The ego of anonymous donors is just as big, if not bigger! The anonymity is worth even more ego points!
How would you protect someone like Vindman from that kind of retaliation? Would you force the MAGA crowd to wash his feet? He's also benefited- I was surprised and delighted to see him on an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm
We were talking about protections from prosecution which Snowden absolutely had.
It sometimes beautifully worked across seasons as in "The Puffy Shirt" (where George becomes a hand model).
I think this was mostly Larry David's work. Jason Alexander once mentioned in an interview that after David left, this "dovetailing" of story lines kind of stopped, and I tend to agree. David continued it (even more pronounced) in "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Even the golf ball twist was kind of repeated - in extreme form and with a baseball - in "Curb".
Side note: another early TV show that often pulled this off to great effect was "The Honeymooners". I think this is the show that had the most influence on Seinfeld. Ed Norton is basically Kramer, Ralph Kramden is basically George, Alice is Elaine, and Alice's mother is Newman (you can also map "The Honeymooners" characters, and even entire plot lines, to "The Flintstones", but that is another story, and AFAIK Jacky Gleason, the creator of "The Honeymooners", considered suing Hanna-Barbera in the 60ies).
Jerry Seinfeld himself once said that we should wait and see if "Seinfeld" is still funny in 50 years like "The Honeymooners" (that was 20 years ago).
"Fawlty Towers" also did this very well.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
if you loved Seinfeld but never tried CYE you're missing out.
I love them both in different ways, but lots of overlap (because of Larry David), and overall I've had way more LOL moments with CYE.
By the end of a typical episode (esp in the first few seasons) by the time the end credits roll I'm chuckling non-stop right up through the start of the next one, simply by replaying portions of the episode in my mind. Such a treasure of comedy.
Arrested Development up to Season 3 (the rest doesn’t exist). In my opinion, it is the most rewardingly rewatchable comedy show of all time. Extremely dense packing of humor that takes multiple passes to fully appreciate.
Curb Your Enthusiasm, as others have mentioned. It has an improvised feel to it (intentionally!) which makes it quite unique.
What We Do in the Shadows is more modern but also a brilliant comedy.
The Office is amazing too, though it’s not for everyone and has its downs.
It’s funny, I’m more sympathetic than ever to pirates, given how frequently creative works are disappeared or moved these days - pulled from streaming for political/social norms reasons (1984 style), “purchased” items removed from libraries for licensing reasons or because a platform outright closes, and then the garden variety shuffling of content between platforms in what seems like a hypermodern version of IP musical chairs (“who has 30 rock this week”).
But at the same time I engage in piracy less than ever before. For me it seems like the hard part used to be obtaining the content — “why can’t I buy or rent the new Sopranos online” — but now the hard part is choosing something worth my time in the oceans of available titles.
This past week I watched a Norwegian miniseries about people stuck in an airport at Christmas (Netflix). Prior week I watched videos from a London Clojure conference (YouTube premium). Prior to that I rewatched an old Jim Jarmusch movie (Criterion). A couple months ago I was on a Hulu binge (The Bear, Only Murderers) before cancelling. I bought a comedy special from Louis CK’s own website. I only used a couple months of a free year of Apple TV, to watch Ted Lasso.
My default is to watch old Anthony Bourdain, either streaming (back when I had Hulu, or when I had HBO Now for Curb Your Enthusiasm) or buy a copy on Apple’s store.
But just as often I look around and give up. Most nights there’s nothing I want to watch. If I can, I make myself read a book or do some coding or maybe a podcast. I subscribe to streaming platforms then cancel. It’s so easy to sign up and then leave.
My point is, if I can find something I want watch it’s only a few clicks to watch it legally for a decent price (helps that I am not in my 20s, income wise). But it’s hard to find anything I want to watch. Piracy is almost a non sequitir these days, most of the time. But sure, if you find something you love, make sure to torrent a copy, because it will disappear eventually for one reason or another.
There's an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm about wet bias:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0551426/
I am convinced that him not believing in it, getting paid a boatload to do a commercial stating he doesn't believe in it, then it failing is definitely the plot for a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.
I don't know the man, but what I see is that he is, ultimately, dissatisfied with his work. There is an effortfulness to what he does that belies an underlying cynicism about comedy. He is a tragic figure in that sense, all that success and yet not quite content. I can believe that he micromanages everything. Maybe part of it is that he really wants to do standup, but the show was much better than any of his standup. The standup pieces he does for the show are undoubtedly the weakest part of Seinfeld. It is notable that in the Seinfeld reunion episodes in Curb Your Enthusiasm, all the old cast gets skewered but not Jerry [1]. I suspect Larry knows that deep down, Jerry can't take that kind of joke. Still can't.
[1] I just want to say that the scene where Larry impersonates George is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
I tried watching Seinfeld with my partner like a year ago; we couldn't make it past the first few episodes. We never laughed, maybe a slight smile a few times but that's about it.
The standup bits were my least favourite part. What I found to be remarkable was that Jerry couldn't act, especially after learning he is the richest comedian in the world.
Maybe it's a generational thing, though there's stuff I find funny from the 90s. They say Seinfeld's quality went downhill after Larry David left, and that I understand. Curb Your Enthusiasm is a much better show IMO.
Curb Your Enthusiasm was filming an episode during a baseball game. A man accused of killing someone walked into frame as part of the crowd and that was proof of his location at the time of the crime.
YouTube video of 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V5Cj8d43Yw
Movie? I guess you meant show?
A friend of mine thinks like you, he feels extremely uncomfortable watching Fielder and his brand of comedy, and any sort of "cringe" comedy about sociopathic individuals, e.g. Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I really can't empathize, because after all he's playing a character which should be very obvious.
I think for my friend, the stuff depicted in this sort of comedy hits a bit too close to home, i.e. this sort of comedy doesn't work for people who are socially awkward because it reminds them of IRL too much, and conjures up bad memories, while normal people just laugh at the exaggeration of the awkwardness.
There's a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Jeff gets his head shaved by accident due to something Larry said to a doctor who was about to work on Jeff.
From then on Jeff experiences loss of a client, being ignored by wait staff, and is made to experience the status Larry tried to tell him about.
I think there are a lot of physical things that people judge us over: body type, height, weird quirks like an eye problem or a big mole. Attractiveness of the face is very important in how we're treated.
I feel like we'll hyper focus on whatever our weakness is compared to the norm, and it turns into the center of the world for us. The most important is the attitude and vibe you put on. There are inspirational figures in government, industry and entertainment that buck the trend and use whatever personality traits to overcome the physical. I can point to any number of ugly people who are treated as if they weren't.
I think you would really enjoy the Nautilus article about Game Theory of anonymous philanthropy:
https://nautil.us/larry-david-and-the-game-theory-of-anonymous-donations-2-9470/
The opening call out is pretty great, too. Ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry's big donation is upstaged by Ted's anonymous donation?
Visible philanthropy is not a simple system of rewards. It's much more interesting than that.
Larry David contributed so much of his trademark awkwardness, but also was responsible for tying together multiple plot arcs at the end of episodes.
The episodes that all seemed to culminate perfectly on multiple levels as the credits rolled where largely his doing.
Similar to George learning to walk out on a high note, leading to outsized expectations. And that type of pressure is largely why David left the show.
ETA: If you've never watched curb your enthusiasm, watch a couple of episodes and you'll immediately recognize what was largely missing in the episodes once David left.
Larry David did an episode on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which he lost his small pocket notepad. In it he had written that he offered a $500 reward if lost and found. His next door neighbor found it in the yard and demanded the money, which Larry's character thought was outrageous.
From that I realized I needed to start writing down my ideas because I was losing most of them. If it works for Larry David, maybe it could work for me.
Larry David’s new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has an episode where he highlights exactly this problem and comes up with a way to fix it. He calls it House Husband where someone who knows a little about everything can come and check to see if the repair being offered is legit.
I don't know (or care much) about the details of Canadian politics but these complaints sound like BS from my perspective.
E.g., if a group uses a statue to promote their cause -- probably specifically because people care about the subject -- is it fair to complain that people don't like it? As if they are entitled to positive attention for associating themselves with the statue, but somehow should be exempted from the negative attention? It makes no sense.
More laughable is the suggestion that it's unfair to believe protesters are associating themselves with Nazism when they use the swastika as a protest symbol. Maybe they just think it's a cool symbol, like sewing kid in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode?
And the complaints about the narrative sound like a guy aggrieved that gravity is trying to hold him down! Narratives will emerge from a movement (unless it's simply ignored). That an unfocused movement with disparate groups/motives/goals, without strong leadership won't produce and sustain a focused, favorable narrative seems like a foregone conclusion. If your movement doesn't craft the dominant narrative, then someone else will. Can you really expect them to craft just the one you wanted? That's hopeless.
I think this guy is yelling at the clouds.
I think it's actually pretty debatable, depending on what you count "longest running" to mean. Curb Your Enthusiasm has been on since 2000 but has taken years-long breaks. Is that longest running?
FWIW It's Always Sunny is, I believe, considered the longest running live action sitcom. Longest running sitcom overall is The Simpsons.
I wonder if they got the idea from the Seinfeld reunion episode of Curb your Enthusiasm where George used his skill in identifying acceptable toilets in New York City to create the "iToilet" app[1].
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pci_7o6cCbM
There's a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry David's character donates to a museum with his name on the donation. There's no self deception for him; he wants to do something good AND he wants the credit. And that's totally fine! The character is self aware enough to know that part of his motivation is selfish.
My point is that by not acknowledging the selfish part of "wanting the credit", the author comes off as not self aware [or disingenuous, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt]. That's what I meant by cheapening it for them.
That last line sounds like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I never watched Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm however I grabbed season 1 of Curb two weeks ago as I am in lockdown and wanted something different/new (to me) to watch and fell in love with it.
I am now on season 8(!) and there hasn't been a single episode I have not thoroughly enjoyed.
It is a superb show with some excellently executed jokes. Probably some of the best I have seen on TV. Some of the jokes are so superbly setup as well that you don't realise until the punchline drops that the build up has been several episodes.
I also watched Mythic Quest earlier in the year which was a lot of fun. We mostly watched it because my wife is a video game producer so we had a good time laughing at how real some of the craziness can be in the video game production world.
Avenue 5 took a while to find its pace but by the end of the season it was quite fun. Different but well done. I am looking forward to season 2.
I plan to sit down and watch Always Sunny, Veep and Seinfeld now :)
Thanks for sharing this , I wish they can recast the show and come up with new current episodes. Curb your enthusiasm is close to this but not the same
In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the protagonist has to find the total weight of all the passengers for an airplane, but every passenger is uncomfortable sharing their weight. To me this seems like a problem that could be solved cryptographically, as it seems reminiscent of the SMP or distributed key generation. Does anyone from the crypto community know if there exists a solution for a problem like that?
"universally a negative + derogatory"
No it isn't. It's often hilarious, as in the above example. And in that one episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. You wouldn't use it in mixed company, but if you know your audience you can say any number of horribly offensive things.
If you want more of that check out Curb Your Enthusiasm if you haven't already. Most episodes follow a similar formula, several interleaving stories that join up at the end of the episode in some outlandish way, usually at the expense of the main character (Larry David in Curb's case). It's one of my favorite TV comedies.
The article viewpoints are probably right, Netflix and Amazon need a few more hits that people trust.
The Office was a big fallback show and Netflix needs a few of those of their own. Stranger Things probably fits that.
The Witcher might change things for quality on Netflix.
Netflix shows have high production quality in terms of cinematography, lighting, sound, color, sets, on location etc. Writing and big draw actors aren't there just yet, though they have a bunch of that going and started that way with House of Cards. Stranger Things was new actors except a couple like Winona Ryder, the writing was better and it was successful. Maniac and Sabrina are also pretty good in this area. Bojack Horseman has a cult following. Dark is amazing. Black Mirror was a great acquisition. I Am Mother was pretty good and premiering Annihilation was a steal. Russian Doll was excellent. Animation like Death, Love & Robots, Voltron, Castlevania and more are solid. Those are all the model to go for. What is missing in most shows is writing and casting/actors draw to make a staple series that becomes a fallback like the article mentions.
> Consumers turn to a trusted source when they don’t know what to watch on their streaming service
> Subscriptions like Netflix and Amazon Prime offer plenty of critically-acclaimed, award-winning content. But the thing is, viewers have to pick which movies and series they’ll watch, and observers say many are getting burned out from all that decision-making.
Now with The Witcher the writing is based on a really solid book series, they have a big name actor Henry Cavill that has read the series and it looks great. It could be their Game of Thrones.
Amazon is also trying this with Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time.
These shows if they are done right, will get rewatched for a long time and draws in the mega fans that are influencers.
Netflix is doing pretty good with stand up comedy, maybe even the leader now. They paid Dave Chappelle and will forever be thanked for that by comedy content consumers.
Netflix and Amazon need some big hits like the coming epics, and they need some good staple shows like the Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99 (Netflix should have bought this), Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more. When they have that they equal the content competition that has that trusted good quality. They need a few more of these always watchable fallbacks.
They are both still chasing HBO, HBO is still the top in consistently good content and shows.
Personally I love the competition, some real funding and creator freedom is being unleashed, some are big hits, some are average and some not so good, but I like the amount of content and like the vibe of where Netflix is headed. Their new intro splash where the N goes into color bands is even great, matches their really colorful catalog.
George Costanza is Jason Alexander + Larry David. I recommend you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm if you enjoyed Seinfeld.
I was thinking the same thing. Within all of the time frames, you could ride a bike from the check cashing spot, shoot the guy, get back on your bike or hop the turnstile at 4 train, ride it back up near 205th st, leave and immediately swipe back in, then go to 185th and hang out with your girlfriend.
Now, I'm inclined to believe this guy didn't do that, because he probably would have pushed a lot harder on it if this was his pre-planned alibi, but I was hoping for a story of complete vindication because of this kind of evidence - maybe more like the guy who was acquitted of murder because he was filmed in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.
Improv classes ,, and find some actors in classic films or television series , try to emulate them and incorporate their quirks into your style and mannerisms basically you will fake it until it actually becomes a part of you because the grooves in the neurons will finally be beaten down. Also helps to do lots of exercise - work up to 1000 push-ups per day (with breaks) over maybe 2 year training period but since u rock climb ur probably fit conscious already . If you think a situation is embarrassing or something , reframe it as an opportunity to collect a funny story to tell, think stand up comedian , so underneath all the chaos of the situation there’s the shining gem of ‘what a f’ing funny - curb your enthusiasm - Essie uncomfortable situation I’m in , this will be a great story to tell later on .
Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, Sex And the City and The Wire are currently "free" in Amazon Prime.
At some point those licenses will expire but this illustrates the "innovator's dilemma" as applied to HBO.
They have a good business of selling cable subscriptions for new stuff, licensing their past shows to Amazon, Hulu and other willing buyers and selling on-demand access via Apple, Amazon etc.
Now they need to compete with Netlifx, which has a large catalog of licensed, popular shows from all over and their own exclusive content.
To compete with that HBO would have to drop revenue from licensing (there's less reasons to pay for HBO if I can get a lot of their good stuff elsewhere)
Their cable subscriptions are probably going to decline no matter what. Cable subscriber count is on a steady, 6 year decline (http://www.businessinsider.com/cable-tv-subscriber-losses-q2-chart-2017-6) despite being propped by internet + cable bundles.
That decline is accelerating i.e. every year more people are cancelling cable as a percentage. If that continues, it'll be a bloodbath. If the decline stops accelerating, it'll still be bloodbath, just later. I don't see a scenario in which cable starts growing again.
Netlifx model is easy to explain but almost impossible to replicate.
The model is: get so many subscribers from all over the world paying you relatively small amount that you'll be able to outspend any other company in quantity of TV/movie exclusive content, thus making it even more likely to get new subscribers.
This is "rich get richer" model and Netflix is already the richest.
People will be willing to buy 2-3 such subscriptions so that's how many winning slots there are.
So HBO better fight hard for that 2nd or 3rd position, but unfortunately just like BlockBuster or Borders had a good business until they didn't, HBO might not do enough to compete.
Party Down. If you like The Office or Parks and Rec, it's kinda like that but funnier. I like them all but I laugh more watching Party Down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_Down
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Arrested Development. The first 3 seasons.
Master of None. Season 2 is funny. Season 1 is good but not that funny. It's more real and depressing. Season 2 is great, and funny.
This is literally the same as an app from the Seinfeld reunion episode [1] on Curb Your Enthusiasm 2012, except theirs was called: "iToilet".
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pci_7o6cCbM
I'm a bit surprised by that comment. I actually find Prime to have pretty good content and typically better movies than Netflix (who's movie library has been shrinking pretty drastically over the years).
If you haven't already watched it, I'd highly recommend Season 1 and 2 of "The Expanse" on Prime. There are a lot of pretty great shows on there as long as you don't rely on DC/Marvel shows for all your entertainment. Other shows that are reasonably acclaimed are:
- The Man in the High Castle
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The Nightmanager
- Mr. Robot
- Boardwalk Empire
- Downton Abbey
- Sneaky Pete
- Orphan Black
- Dr. Who
- Veep
- The Good Wife
- Transparent
- Hannibal
- Deadwood
- Curb your Enthusiasm
- The Wire
- Six Feet Under
- The Sopranos
> Unless you have a clear alibi with documented proof that you were nowhere near the scene of the crime, every public defender in America (and plenty of private lawyers) recommends you take a plea deal.
And even when you have a clear alibi including video proof, you're still in grave danger[1]:
> Three months later, Juan would be facing a murder rap. The slaying in question had taken place on May 12, the same night he was at Dodger Stadium — 20 miles from the crime. Investigators didn’t buy his story. As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
*
> Show’ producers allowed Melnik to view their footage from that day. He sourced eight 10-minute tapes before finding his holy grail: Juan, in his No. 27 Kevin Brown shirt, and his young daughter walking to their seats after returning from the concession stand.
*
> The discovery seemed a home run for Juan, who by then had been in jail over a month. Still, the prosecutor argued that the footage was from 9:10 p.m. — and the murder had occurred at 10:32. Juan ostensibly could have left early, driven to the scene of the crime, and still had time to kill Puebla.
It's worth reading the whole thing. They were going to push the death penalty for the guy. Eventually, his lawyer finds other evidence proving he wasn't there. After sitting in jail for five and a half months, he's finally let out, but then has to go back to jail for another 2 weeks because of a clerical error.
[1] http://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-this-man-from-prison/
I'm sorry but I can't help but be reminded of this Curb Your Enthusiasm episode http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049250/
I tried to start one, but it didn't get any traction.
My theory was that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were involved at one time in something very shady, and that they created the "Seinfeld" TV show as part of a plot to protect themselves in the case their past activities came to light.
Consider that the show "Seinfeld" is about a comedian named "Jerry Seinfeld", and the part was played by the real Seinfeld. The character Seinfeld's best friend was George Costanza, and it was well known that he was based on Larry David, and that many of the things George did on the show were based on real-life Larry David incidents.
Note that a few years into the show, character Seinfeld and his best friend get a chance to write a pilot for NBC for a show called "Jerry" about a comedian named Jerry Seinfeld and based on the life of character Jerry Seinfeld, and that included characters based on the character Jerry's friends.
Then, after Seinfeld ended, Larry David went on to make "Curb Your Enthusiasm" for HBO, a show about a character named Larry David who was a comedian and was the Seinfeld co-creator, and real life Larry David played character Larry David. Much of the incidents in CYE were based on real-life Larry David incidents.
These two shows, especially Seinfeld when it went down the recursion rabbit hole with "Jerry", seem designed to blur the line between fictional Jerry Seinfeld and real life Jerry Seinfeld, and between fiction Larry David and real life Larry David.
It's well known that human memory is malleable. If you remember something fairly accurately, but then you hear someone else's recollection of the same event and their recollection differs, your memory can change to better reconcile your account and their account. (This can be a big problem in criminal justice matters...it is not hard for an interviewer to alter the memory of a witness by phrasing questions in a way that suggest something at odds with what the witness remembers).
So my theory was that the purpose of the Seinfeld and CYE shows was for Seinfeld and David to present alternate versions of themselves and of incidents they had been involved in many years earlier to reshape the memories of others who witnessed those incidents, to get them to forget or doubt something that Seinfeld and David did that would be very embarrassing or damaging to their careers if it came to light.
To a point I see what you're saying, but think of it this way.
Remember the episode of "Curb your Enthusiasm" where Larry David makes an empty gesture to his friend "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you". And what do you know, his friend takes him up on it.
REI saying "Sure, if you bring back your worn out 15 year old shoes we'll replace them free of charge". Then people start taking them up on that offer, and what do you know. Come to find out, they really didn't mean what they said in the first place. It was an empty gesture they were hoping no one (or only a few people) would take them up on.
As far as automation, "it's not an ethical dilemma" so say us programmers until computers learn how to code well and walk, run effectively, etc.. Taken to its logical conclusion, it seems obvious to me that computers will soon (within a few decades?) be capable of doing almost all jobs we humans currently do. And if not as soon as I'm predicting, then eventually. But I am fully convinced that no matter the timeline, it will happen.
And how is this an "ethical dilemma"? Human beings in the modern world depend on the ability to find work to make money to survive. What happens when all work can be done by robots?
Then the argument becomes. "Yeah, but we'll just find new work to replace the old work". This AI revolution is different in the sense that technology is approaching the ability to do all things humans can do. So as soon as we find these "new things", what will keep robots from doing them? More cheaply and more effectively I might add. I will say that the more likely scenario is as soon as robots surpass human intelligence and agility there will be new jobs, but those won't be filled by humans, because humans just won't have the right skill set.
I wasn't sure if this was a joke when I saw the title, as something similar to this was the premise for the "Seinfeld reunion" episode of Curb your Enthusiasm.
> ...George Costanza...made a fortune by devising an iPhone application called the iToilet, which directed the user to the nearest decent public toilet anywhere in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld_%28Curb_Your_Enthusiasm%29
However, private restrooms like proposed here don't sound like too bad an idea! I suspect there will some people who will be willing to pay for them. :-)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is the new show to watch on the comedy side now with Jon Stewart stepping out.
HBO allows some of the best in the business work together and do amazing things, Curb Your Enthusiasm could have only happened on HBO and it is probably the best comedy show ever.
HBO is the only reason left other than live sports to have TV.
Part of the reason HBO is so good is lots of the original content is produced like a movie or like a full binge season as Netflix is doing. Because both don't have to chop things up and change or only write a few episodes out to get ad revenue, better quality content is produced. The networks that aren't writing in movie style or full season binge mode will miss out on this quality aspect.
Just wanted to say that I just discovered this and love it! Combines two of my favorite things - economics and Seinfeld!
I'd look to incorporate some Curb your Enthusiasm in there as well.
Also, I would explain how the economic concepts correspond to the episode a bit more. There's the general episode description and explanations of each of the concepts. I know enough to be able to put 2 and 2 together, but for some students I would think they'd need it spelled out a bit more how exactly concept B is used in the episode.
The exceptions to the rule are where the writer/star/director is aware of their own ridiculousness - see also Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I haven't seen The Room, but the ne plus ultra of that kind of self-indulgence for me is Garden State. 90 minutes of Zach Braff's daddy issues and romantic wish fulfilment - I've had better afternoons. (It amazes me that it picked up an audience more or less on the basis of having The Shins on the soundtrack.)
The Star Wars prequels fall into that category, even if Lucas isn't in them. Proves very well that he should be shot on sight if ever he approaches a typewriter again. Not a fanboy of the first films by any measure, but at least Lawrence Kasdan or whoever can string a couple of lines together. Left to his own devices, Lucas is capable only of bloated, soulless tech demos.
It's from a recent season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where the whole season is about a Seinfeld reunion episode - "to make up for the terrible original finale"
This being said, tipping led to excellent Curb your Enthusiasm episodes. :)
So what about when TV shows are released on DVD/BluRay? Are we are to guess when the act ends and the next one starts?
Sorry, but I don't buy this. An episode of, say, Breaking Bad does not need several-minute "act breaks" to work, so that something will "sink in".
There is no series in existence so intellectually or emotionally overwhelming that one needs ad breaks to deal with them.
(Though admittedly I frequently have to pause shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm because I need some fresh air after all the social embarrassment, but that's different.)
You and mchurch should start a YouTube sitcom or something, where you rant about all your horrible experiences.ike a Curb Your Enthusiasm for techies. It would be entertaining and more profitable than just posting on HN. Larry David should love to invest, you've nailed his technique of railing against the firstworldproblems facing people who can't be happy in the most rewarding and comfortable niche around, and brought it from the LA social scene to the Silicon Valley / Seattle office space. And you are good writers.
I love 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. That doesn't mean I want stereotype humor here – unless it can be artfully deployed to add some unique new insight. (Many others don't grant even that exception for referencing stereotypes.)
Also, CYE's humor is way beyond recitation of cliched stereotypes; common knowledge of stereotypes is the setup, not the punchline. Usually, Larry's elaborate mishaps while trying to escape, reverse, or disavow stereotypes creates the humor.
So perhaps if you now go through comically absurd lengths to prove both your religious sensitivity and your essential loyalty to The Tribe, but fail miserably so that by the end of the episode everyone is against you – then you can use the "I'm just like Larry David" defense.
Well, yeah, but these are all memes wildly spread. Cryptonomicon (sadly) not so much.
I just think it would have been a nice gesture... 7 letters, not that much of an effort. Of course, it's not a crime, I wouldn't deem anyone a douche because they forgot to forewarn in the heat of discussion.
They should do a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode on this one :P
But what country could have produced "Airplane!", or "O Brother Where Art Thou?"
You could say that something like "Seinfeld" (and "Curb Your Enthusiasm") is more the product of a very unusual subculture (in fact, this is the basis for much of the humor, how poorly new yorkers fit in the rest of US culture), but keep in mind Seinfeld had the highest ratings of any sitcom in US history, so the appeal is obviously very broad.
No one complains ???? Have you not watched TV in the last 10 years? There are entire genres of comedy mostly devoted to jews complaining about their parents.
When art historians analyze late 20th and early 21st century culture, they will certainly coin the jewish-complaining art movement, which spanned television, movies and stand up comedy for like 30 years, and is still running strong with Curb your Enthusiasm.
Pretty funny coincidence that he'd have yet another thing in common with the Larry David/Curb Your Enthusiasm situation he found himself in. There's a whole episode of CYE about penis cakes (Meet The Blacks).
If I have some wine sipping Kafka reading man in a top hat telling me that the things he likes are the definition of quality, he's no more right than the surfer dude who swears by fart films.
I prefer Beckett and I've lost my top hat, but I'll argue back as to quality. "Enjoyment" is subjective, "quality" is not. To take humor as an example: a fart joke is extremely generic, requires no thinking, and therefore can be utilized by anybody equally. For most people older than 15, this means fart jokes lose their value in humor. It's not that a fart isn't funny, it's just that it's old and it's been used again and again. Compare this to the opening of The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor Samsa awakes to find he has become a giant beetle. Yeah, there's an artistic point to be made about him losing his soul and humanity, but MUCH more obviously, here's a guy who's just turned into a bug. The first we hear of him, he's a bug. That's hilarious! It would be less funny if it suddenly became a comedic gag used by everybody, but as it stands it's rare and it's clever. Fart jokes can be clever, but most of them aren't. And, for the record, most surfer dudes are a lot more sophisticated than they get stereotyped as.
The problem with a lot of modern society is that people tell us what we're supposed to regard as high brow - because a film is made by fox searchlight does not mean it's qualitatively better than a nollywood film.
No, the problem is that people assume that another person's opinion matters. Fact does - some humor can be argued very formally - but that's not the same as a title meaning anything. I like HBO shows because they allow more freedom to the creators, but I think that Fox's Arrested Development beats the pants off Curb Your Enthusiasm, despite (and because of, in this case) censors, shorter episode lengths, and more restrictions on content. The Arrested Development DVD set contains an episode that's longer, more risque, and with censors removed, and it's less funny. So HBO's format wouldn't work for the show.
Intellectualism - our constant attempt to break through the limits of human thinking - seems nowadays to have built a fence around itself and defined what belongs in and what does not. That's what I dislike.
Of course. Real intellectuals don't do that. Roger Ebert doesn't do that with movies. Harold Bloom doesn't do that with books. (Bloom does insult lots of books - he hates Harry Potter - but his arguments are based on logic. While I like Harry Potter, his scathing criticism made me think much more about my liking it. I was suddenly more critical and judgmental, and just happened to find it wanting. Bloom dislikes postmodernism, though, despite its artsy airs.) However, what you're doing is responding by saying there are no standards at all, and that's just as heinous as saying that there are predefined standards in given genres. The proper response is to develop your own taste. That doesn't mean disregarding taste entirely. It means deciding for yourself what's good and what isn't.
To give an example, those wine sippers will overwhelmingly tell say that Jazz is a more intellectual musical form than country music. Utter bullshit, they are intellectually equal, one just happens to be inside the intellectual box and the other is not.
Au contraire! (Sorry, by the way: you picked humor and music as your two arguments, and those are two things that I spend a lot of time delving into, and I've already got a lot of these arguments rounded out in my head. Hope you don't mind.) Country music is defined by simplicity: the melody is simple, the instrumentation is simple. The lyrics - simple. Jazz music, meanwhile, is inherently complex. It requires a lot of skill on part of the musicians. I've played the flute for over 8 years, and I'm still mediocre at jazz improvisation. Meanwhile, jazz also deals with very complex tempos and melodies. As a result, it's got much more range in style - musicians have got a lot more to work with, and they produce more fascinating pieces.
I'm not at all a jazz fan, it's not my style of music, but at the same time I can intellectually acknowledge what's going on, and I like listening to certain jazz artists a lot. I've yet to find a country musician that really does interesting, nongeneric things. I like a few folk artists: Bob Dylan does some interesting stuff with his instrumentation, and he's got an incredibly unique sound; Sufjan Stevens takes folk and minimalism and creates some beautiful orchestrations. I don't have any country artists I can say the same about.
The people who listen to country almost all to a T are less diverse in their music than jazz listeners. This isn't because listening to jazz makes you smart. Some jazz fans are pretty stupid about their music. At the same time, though, if you like music for music's sake, and you give everything a chance, you find that certain genres have much more to offer than others. Jazz is one of the most unique in that it shares few elements with any other style of music. Country, on the other hand, is the opposite: it deals with the bare essentials of music style, and so elements of country appear in rock and even in some strands of orchestral music. A local band, Fountains of Wayne (they had the hit Stacy's Mom), has a few songs that borrow heavily from country. When I'm in the mood for that sound, I go to them, because there's nothing that "pure" country has to offer that I can't get from their few songs. There might be more to country than I think, and if so I'd have to judge that other music on its own merits, but at the same time, your assuming they're equal intellectually is hardly right. In fact, I'd counterpoint you by saying that your saying everything is equal is just as much an instance of fencing things out as assigning arbitrary values without thinking, because you're not giving each item a chance to make its case.
The intellectual box is very often full of shit, because not all intellectuals think. What I ask is that you don't deny the value of intelligence just because some morons try to fake it. At the same time, don't deny the value of quality to yourself. If you do, you will find that you will churn out items of much lower quality than you are capable of, and the only people that flock to you are the people who agree with you that quality doesn't exist. Then you'll realize you've created just as awful a box as the other camp - and worse, your box isn't creating anything for anybody.