Portlandia (new comedy series on IFC)

Featuring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein

Friday nights at 10:30e on IFC, starting Jan. 21

http://www.ifc.com/portlandia/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIyI94acJv4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVmq9dq6Nsg&feature=channel

they have been advertising the fuck out of this. was sorta not interested but the bit about "I don't like it to be taken for granted that a man doesn't menstruate" lol. mostly cuz northwest gender politics are very lol

i lol'd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7VgNQbZdaw

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3261629/2/istockphoto_3261629_fish_in_a_barrel.jpg

i enjoyed it and i live here

ep 1 is up:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/206160/portlandia-farm

wait how is "i feel it all around" the theme song

because of indie

buscemi!

laugh count: 3

seems to be at it funniest when it's not straining to mock hipsterism and veers into absurdity. sudeikis was the best. kind of dire overall! buscemi was good too but that was the worst segment, ugh.

I read "Portlandia" and like usual, I'm pretty bummed out that it's Oregon, not Maine. MAINE NEEDS A TV SHOW!

Fred armisen lookin mad old

I get a Hyundai hipster couple vibe from the previews. Feel like I would hate this despite liking both actors

I was born in Portland and have lived here (with minimal interruptions) for 56 years. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recognize my home town in this show. But, I'm old, you know, so it's probably not improtant.

aw aimless I wasnt tryina make an old guy dig, more like ae Fred armisen thinks he can be 25 forever joek

no umbrage taken

I thought this was surprisingly funny.

agreed!

I haven't watched the ep yet, but i did watch the "Have Ya Read" sketch, which I thought was great once it hit its absurdist climax.

cant tell if i should hate this b/c its about 'hipsters' or like it cuase its making fun of 'hipsters' or maybe hate it b/c it assumes that there is an audience large enuf to support a show devoted to making fun of 'hipsters'?????

r u serious i cant tell

max stop thinking and just laff, way better approach imho

kinda hope carrie brownstein has second career as SNL cast member tbh

r u serious i cant tell

― David Warner (Princess TamTam), Friday, January 21, 2011 1:57 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i cant either

something just rubs me the wrong way--the jokes are spot-on and i do laff but theres something that rankles me about the whole like... "were all in the joke"

i guess what im saying is that for someone to be effectively comedy-owned they need to not get the joke

max u are making up fake comedy rules

don't tell lex

I think the real problem is brownstein + armisen are gently ribbing instead of savagely satirizing because they actually have deep seated fondness for hipsters

like "it's okay to laugh at ourselves!" gee thanks

yeah edward otm - this is affectionate self-parody

(not that ive seen it or anything)

i think this sort of self-clowning is totallu viable as comedy, not everything needs to be a takedown. i think it works here. i also have never seen it.

otm, i get a lot more mileage out of self-clowning than vicious "beatdowns"

you might be on the wrong message board then

http://campusprogress.org/articles/portlandia_edges_into_stuff_white_people_like_territory/

Works best before it gets to the over the top climax of each skit.

^^^ SNL, in a nutshell

but i did watch the "Have Ya Read" sketch, which I thought was great once it hit its absurdist climax.

opposite for me, i was dying and it gets all wacky and punchline-y, whatever.

I think the real problem is brownstein + armisen are gently ribbing instead of savagely satirizing because they actually have deep seated fondness for hipsters

the best satire is often insidery and affectionate to some degree. like repo man works because cox was familiar with and fond of punk(s). people making fun of supposed "hipsters" = automatically boring. self-admitted hipsters mocking themselves = at least potentially funny.

tbh I wasn't really passing judgment on portlandia, just trying to help max work through his issues

hipsterism is overdue for some OTM savagery tho

the best satire is often insidery and affectionate to some degree. like repo man works because cox was familiar with and fond of punk(s). people making fun of supposed "hipsters" = automatically boring. self-admitted hipsters mocking themselves = at least potentially funny.

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Friday, January 21, 2011 3:29 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

not true, mocking ppl who are different from u is actually the funniest thing

doesn't have to be either/or

fey as sarah palin / poehler as clinton SNL skit is a good case study

this looks hilar

its not tho

Yeah, I don't like it.

the hulu full ep is expired so i cant tell either way, i like the clip where he comes back to l.a. all excited abt portland tho

all i've seen is the "did you read" thing but that was way better than i thought it'd be. i also live here.

the oregonian had a front-page story about this btw, complete w/ quotes from people worried it would "draw more unemployed young people" to the city.

haha

i just saw a banner ad for this on pitchfork and physically recoiled

ok the celery episode was really solid straight through.

i loved the bacon guy

garage sale

How much would a car even cost? Seventy THOUSAND dollars?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2wyUiwCEl4

lol

opening sketch of going to a concert hit pretty close to home

Taped to my door this weekend:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10645194_10152291367796596_6382859478097610209_n.jpg?oh=a574da15bcba0789f5c65ffbd489cb69&oe=54711E43&__gda__=1416117014_98c6b64590136d25c25d3e29dbd289c6

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10686844_10153120431724056_2268476487472643577_n.jpg?oh=7c24db306446dc209b5a075848f6c86e&oe=548FAF19&__gda__=1418311756_7bb78080f50be5a60dc1211745fbd6f8

Pee-Wee Herman posted this today

Watched a couple of the new series. This show is so smug about itself it's hard to watch. It's got no jokes, punchlines or new ideas. Brownstein is still charming but Armisen is really vulgar and not funny at all as a woman which is pretty much all he did in the episodes I saw. Couldn't they just get a funny woman to play those characters? What a shitty show.

I liked the history of the women's bookstore episode

this show is hit or miss tho (and v repetitive)

Bookstore episode was like a slow victory lap of a previously amusing sketch.

it is quite painful at times. the bookstore for me has always been a bit of a one-note, mildly funny at best scenario. did not benefit from them fleshing out their backstory in a full-length episode.

smugness is def a feeling you get from the show, or complacency at least. they seem very pleased by the characters and situations they've made and will just persist with them interminably and aimlessly. also i increasingly find armisen just detestable, and while brownstein is much less obnoxious, i just don't find her a very compelling comedic performer.

I liked the episode where Spike proposed marriage too

may have been entirely due to remarkable similarity between Justin Long and Carrie Brownstein in a mustache tho

Armisen in a wig is not as funny as they think it is.

Are you having a laugh?
http://www.filmmisery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Screen-shot-2013-10-21-at-2.06.20-PM.png

Is he having a laugh?
https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/011511_portlandia_episode_1_t.jpg

its still reasonably funny imo but so much of it is just structure and editing

rapid-fire, back and forth cut conversations, i mean

i think that means the joeks don't have to be as good and it still sorta works

ok the feminism episode had some good lulz

I liked the Tiny House episode. Some well done physical comedy and that escrow VHS was great.

Documentary Now! is pretty funny.

Get that Old Navy money. Do what you have to do in this world.

Carrie did an American Express commercial a little while back too iirc.

Teenage me would've been bummed, but 30 something me would probably do the same thing.

Would 30 something you already have, like, enough money from their entertainment career?

Rolling in all those Wild Flag airplay royalties.

Carrie & Mary Timony did some Price line ads w/Shatner back in the day: http://www.mtv.com/news/620299/helium-sleater-kinney-members-do-commercials/

this has worked the best as a broad city substitute

Season 7 premiere tonight, any watching?

*anyone

So good to see Abbi Jacobson on this while waiting for Broad City.

Steve Buscemi's mannerisms are very Alan Alda in his apperances.

Is there a thread for Documentary Now?

I just started watching this after years of going "eh I think I will hate this"; I'm in season 3 now and I think it's overall one of the funniest shows I've ever watched

curious what yr favorites are, mine is definitely they're gender-switched couple (Carrie in a mustache and muscle-t etc)

their

I am listening to the cacao sketch right now actually, lol

I love Nance and Peter the most, oddly

Brunch Village is a masterwork

Dave and Kath are pretty great too

the milk council bits are also amazing

Oh yeah. I think I dropped it after season 2 and then picked it back up after it was completed and on netflix. It's really great. That one song "The Best Part is Going Home" (after seeing a band) has been a huge help in making me feel better about not going to shows anymore.

otm about Nance and Peter. Oddly I skip all the gender switch couple bits. I think Carrie's voice freaks me out too much.

Watched part of the 30 ROCK infomercial for NBCUniversal. More of their Dig Our Privileged World cut-rate comedy. I want to see a PORTLANDIA reunion deal with that city's police state a la Haskell Wexler's MEDIUM COOL. How funny is a pepper-sprayed Fred Armisen? pic.twitter.com/AlE2lBAWyg

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) July 18, 2020

Morbz on some midsummer night's dream shit with this Dennis Perrin infatuation

you guys can stick with Tom Cruise i guess

My assumption is that Dr Morbius follows exactly three people on Twitter: 1) Dennis Perrin, 2) Doug Henwood, and 3) Alex Pareene.

i'm tempted to say even the worst episodes of 30 rock are funnier than dennis perrin but in all fairness the weather app on my phone is also funnier than dennis perrin

i'm not on Twitter

I also look at many film crix and sportswriters on it however

also the rock in the backyard is funnier than ilx

Portlandia already did a "let's take over the police department" skit and it was ridiculous and sort of bad, mostly because it existed in the extremely White sphere of "cops just answer our noise complaints, right" and ended up taking the cops' side. (On the plus side, the uniforms Fred and Carrie created to make the police more relatable to the community were pretty funny, as was the fashion show where they presented them to an increasingly incredulous chief of police.)

Most of the times that the show involves police officers, they're seen as largely benign government agents patiently dealing with increasingly ridiculous White/White-passing people, which glosses over the problems endemic to the modern police force. It's still usually funny, thought; the skit I reference above was an outlier.