Rewatching this (3rd time)
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Fall of the House of Usher
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 13, 2024 02:33 PM)
I just started episode 1. I adore this cast! Roger is especially appealing. Love his voice.
Lenore is fantastic.
Juno is a little too…peculiar.
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 14, 2024 12:12 AM)
Wow! I forgot just how fantastic this series was!
Everything is done to complete and total perfection. I love the way everything was tied together so poetically. Beautiful.
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 14, 2024 12:34 AM)
I'm on episode 8 at the moment.
I love how every episode was woven together. It was crafted so brilliantly. Everything, from the costumes, to the lighting, the themes, just everything!
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 14, 2024 12:51 AM)
She totally did.
Did you know that the theme was somewhat ripped off from an episode of
The X-Files
called
Je Souhaite
? There was a Djinn, a woman, who was freed when a carpet was unrolled, and Mulder ended up putting the pieces together and found pictures of her with rich, influential people throughout history including the Kennedys, Nixon, the Romanovs… Not quite the same, but similar. A Djinn vs Death.
Totally agree with you on Carla's performances. The way she created a different character to interact with each Usher child and only presented as herself as Verna when dealing with Roderick and Madeline, was just so expertly crafted. She altered her carriage, her voice, her acting style, everything! She's stunning and talented all wrapped up in one package.
I liked her take on Death, how she "couldn't accept [Roderick's] resignation" when he tried to off himself. Oh no, it wouldn't be that simple. And I loved the way she got her hands dirty because of how Freddy got nasty with his wife so Verna "slipped him the nightshade". The ruthless tragedy of the entire series, however, is Lenore, the one pure, innocent heart in this whole ill-begotten Deal.
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 17, 2024 05:18 PM)
I'm pretty familiar with Poe's works, but not extremely familiar with all of his works, and I really like how they drew inspiration from several of his poems and blended them together, and brought them in under one umbrella, even to the name of Roderick Usher (Enterprises) = RUE.
All of the stories made sense to me, but the one I'm not finding as easy to put together is Gold-Bug, although they did take the name Pluto and use it for the cat, so well done, that. The Gold-Bug story involves cryptography which would have better suited Camille, but I can't figure out the whole fitness and "GOOP-like" product launch.
Can you make sense of that part?
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 17, 2024 07:30 PM)
I think that like most people, we're probably more familiar with the more famous/familiar of Poe's poetry, and from what I recall, or actually do not recall, I don't remember ever reading Gold-Bug, which is one reason I had such a hard time wrapping my head around this particular storyline. Plus, I think the storyline sucked. Putting aside any Poe relevance, which I don't see, the theme itself just doesn't do it for me. Not like the others. The acting itself was also very dry and mundane. (Unless it was supposed to be?)
Legrand explains that on the day he found the bug on the mainland coastline, Jupiter had picked up a scrap piece of parchment to wrap it up. Legrand kept the scrap and used it to sketch the bug for the narrator; in so doing, though, he noticed traces of invisible ink, revealed by the heat of the fire burning on the hearth. The parchment proved to contain a cryptogram, which Legrand deciphered as a set of directions for finding a treasure buried by the infamous pirate Captain Kidd. The final step involved dropping a slug or weight through the left eye of the skull in the tree; their first dig failed because Jupiter mistakenly dropped the bug through the right eye instead. Legrand muses that the skeletons may be the remains of two members of Kidd's crew, who buried the chest and were then killed to silence them.
^^^^While there's more, that's the basic gist of the Gold-Bug storyline. The only thing I can think of is they were trying to make something to tie into Cleopatra, Egypt, the sapphire eyes, the mummification tools, and of course, the gold scarab - but even then, that was just the logo and didn't seem to hold any other particular relevance to the Gold-Bug storyline. This one confused me the most. The mirror effects were brilliant, but again, what's up with the storyline?
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 17, 2024 09:38 PM)
So, you like Hill House first, top of the list, with House of Usher and Bly Manor tied for 2nd place? Why do you like Hill House the best?
I need to watch Hill House again.
I'm doing some repetitive work at home and while I'm doing that, I've been putting House of Usher on (also on repeat) in the background, and as always, I enjoy picking up things I may have missed before.
Well, I mean, I am focusing on working on a project, so it technically is in my background, but I just really enjoyed it. Tonight, it's time for some new horror flicks, time to settle down with the popcorn!
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Lilith — 1 year ago(October 18, 2024 02:36 AM)
That's definitely one of the parts I enjoyed the most: having the Bent Neck Lady explained and have it being a throughline within all of the episodes. It seemed like such a arbitrary thing at first, but the importance was a real payoff in the end.
When it comes to these series, regardless of the role, I think we can agree that Carla Gugino is perfectly splendid!
Bly Manor
threw me for a loop. Did you see/predict what was happening? I only caught onto a few aspects because they were so heavily focused on. That little boy did a smashing job given the task/s he had of essentially portraying two different people. Brilliant performance.
With regards to
The Addams Family
movies with Angelica Houston, I think the casting was very good. (Much better than Morticia in the series
Wednesday
who went so off the rails that she missed the mark entirely). Houston kept to Morticia's devilish and whimsical charms and her same sense of humour. She also maintained that deadpan delivery. I think that Christina Ricci did a better job as Wednesday that Lisa Loring did! I enjoy them because they kept sufficient references to the original. I wasn't quite a fan of Uncle Fester, however (Christopher Lloyd). Not sure why, just couldn't buy into it. I'll still watch them, however, every October!
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith