Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 07:32:22 PM

Login with username, password and session length

How To With John Wilson

Started by Ja'moke, October 24, 2020, 10:05:14 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ant Farm Keyboard

The segment is totally crazy. And I love the uncomfortable way the camera lingers a little too long before the footage is cut.

Ja'moke

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on November 17, 2020, 11:46:51 AM
The segment is totally crazy. And I love the uncomfortable way the camera lingers a little too long before the footage is cut.

I tweeted about how much I'm loving How To With John Wilson and I got a follow from the
Spoiler alert
TLC Tugger.
[close]

This show keeps getting better and better. Lots of great social voyeurism this week. I felt genuinely bad
Spoiler alert
when that guy's whistle got stolen...
[close]

Mobius

Quote from: Pearly-Dewdrops Drops on November 22, 2020, 02:56:07 AM
This show keeps getting better and better. Lots of great social voyeurism this week. I felt genuinely bad
Spoiler alert
when that guy's whistle got stolen...
[close]

Haha, he was a prick and deserved it

Still amazed by just how much footage this guy must have recorded, to be able to weave it all into a narrative.


Hat FM

one boring thing i think when i watch this is how does he get permission from all of the people he films to show them in the footage? are the laws different in america about this sort of thing or something?

Ferris

Where is everyone watching this? Is it on iTunes?

Edit: found it on one my (legal!) streaming services! Exciting.

Sin Agog

Tiny, useless comment, but I find the way he stammers in the narration strangely appealing.  There's no way a program gets to HBO and something like that would slip through the gate unintentionally, so it must be a conscious decision on Wilson's part, but it makes it all the more folksy and engaging, and he clearly does it for jokes on a couple of occasions.  This has almost got a Charlie Brown vibe!

PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: Sin Agog on November 24, 2020, 09:33:05 PM
Tiny, useless comment, but I find the way he stammers in the narration strangely appealing.  There's no way a program gets to HBO and something like that would slip through the gate unintentionally, so it must be a conscious decision on Wilson's part, but it makes it all the more folksy and engaging, and he clearly does it for jokes on a couple of occasions.  This has almost got a Charlie Brown vibe!
Quote from: Hat FM on November 24, 2020, 01:26:12 PM
one boring thing i think when i watch this is how does he get permission from all of the people he films to show them in the footage? are the laws different in america about this sort of thing or something?

Fuck yes on both these

Ja'moke

Quote from: Sin Agog on November 24, 2020, 09:33:05 PM
Tiny, useless comment, but I find the way he stammers in the narration strangely appealing.  There's no way a program gets to HBO and something like that would slip through the gate unintentionally, so it must be a conscious decision on Wilson's part, but it makes it all the more folksy and engaging, and he clearly does it for jokes on a couple of occasions.  This has almost got a Charlie Brown vibe!

Definitely an intentional choice. I love that too.

Hat FM

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on November 24, 2020, 02:03:35 PM
Where is everyone watching this? Is it on iTunes?

Edit: found it on one my (legal!) streaming services! Exciting.

No doubt it will be legally available in the UK by 2025.


Mobius


Sin Agog

Quote from: Mobius on November 28, 2020, 10:08:11 AM
https://youtu.be/RCNsx_NyNOU

Funny video with John Wilson and Nathan Fielder

Gut Gott, that is great.  I won't do that youtube quoting lines for likes thing, but for a ten-minute vid there are so many bits that stuck with me.

Ferris


Haha,
Spoiler alert
love the shot of him casually setting a gun down on the table.
[close]

Petey Pate

Really enjoyed episode one of this, but not sure why they felt it necessary
Spoiler alert
to show real human shit at the end
[close]
.

Hand Solo

Feel like pure poop flavoured icecream just want Nathan back x

Ja'moke

#47
I really enjoyed the finale (disappointed the series was only six episodes), quite sweet in places. Also interesting to see him filming as the pandemic really started to kick-off.

EDIT: There's some great stuff on John Wilson's old Vimeo page too, including a couple of early versions of How To... https://vimeo.com/johnsmovies

Hand Solo

Quote from: Hand Solo on November 29, 2020, 11:25:28 PM
Feel like pure poop flavoured icecream just want Nathan back x

Is Nathan behind all this??


DrAlanStatham

How is everyone watching this?

I tried to torrent it last week and only found Eps1 and 4 were being seeded. Episode 1 hooked me and I am fiending for more.

C_Larence

#50
Before I start I just want to mention that I've only seen three episodes of this so far, so my opinion is subject to change.

I don't find John Wilson an engaging or funny narrator. In fact his delivery actively annoy me, for the same reason that I can't get into Joe Pera's work. I find them both too affected. If the script was strong enough perhaps it wouldn't bother me as much, but there have been multiple times where the joke appears to at least partly rely on the incongruous way he's talking and it always falls flat. In episode three there's a part where Wilson is talking over some footage and then a dog comes on screen and he distractedly trails off with a "...so yeah". It's such low effort humour, and feels like they couldn't think of something funny to write, which I have trouble believing considering the talent involved in the production of the show.

I understand that due to Wilson's nature of filming everything, the show comes to life in the editing bay. However, again I don't think the writing is strong enough to support a lot of the footage. For instance, the
Spoiler alert
Kyle MacLachlan appearance
[close]
in episode one is funny, but if you examine the way it's used I feel like it's actually shoehorned in rather shoddily. Wilson is talking about ending small talk by "touching and going", shows a few examples of that happening, then says "but even once you've touched and goed, your problems might still not be over" and it cuts to
Spoiler alert
Kyle MacLachlan having trouble getting through a subway barrier
[close]
. Many of the jokes in the episodes are essentially just word association with what's on screen, and they often feel ham-fisted to some degree.

There is probably a better format for the footage than the ostensible How To concept, which so far has completely fallen apart outside of the first episode. Nirvanna The Band The Show also uses clever editing to recontextualise existing footage, and even though it's far more narrative driven, the episodes are similarly always shifting and adapting, in a way that feels both more impressive and more natural than when How To does it. The Mandela Effect stuff in episode 3 wasn't funny enough to spend so much of the episode going off on a tangent about, and I think that's partly because I don't believe Wilson gets the best out of the people he interacts with, unlike Nathan Fielder or the aforementioned Nirvanna crew. Nathan Fielder has spoken in interviews about how regular people act differently and say crazy things when there's a camera pointed at them, but it seems to me that doesn't hold true when they're having to interact directly with the person holding the camera. It appears to put up a barrier that can't always be overcome with a personality like Wilson's behind it. Whether this personality is a deliberate choice, or just the way he is I don't know and I'm not interested in psychoanalysing him. Either way, I'm reminded of the scene in The Blair Witch Project where Heather talks about how as long as she keeps filming she feels separated from the world and her situation.

Anyway, despite talking so much shit about it, I don't completely hate it and have laughed multiple times each episode. I'm going to keep watching because there's only 3 more episodes, and it's still far more inventive and interesting than the vast majority of any comedy that's being made in the UK, but I think that says more about the state of TV here than anything else.


Edit: Just watched episode 4 after writing this post. The first half was pretty dire, but the
Spoiler alert
circumcision
[close]
part was very funny and I was glad it didn't overstay its welcome.  Something I forgot to mention in the post is how much I hate New York and New Yorkers, something which was affirmed multiple times in this episode (his friend who had a meltdown because brushes touched his car, the family with the shoes in the case, all the instances of anti-homeless architecture).

Vitalstatistix

I loved this show. Thank you CaB. Basically feel the opposite to everything said by C_Larence. No offense.

Can someone really be acting "too affected" on a television program? Of course it's affected, he's playing an exaggerated version of himself just like Nathan Fielder on Nathan For You. Hard for me to imagine anything else working better for this format in terms of personality and humour level though. The appeal of the show, in my opinion, is the faux naivete of the voiceovers and editing choices (not in the sense that the naivete itself is played for laughs, but in that it gives context for the narrative style). Despite this being in the same comedy universe as Nathan Fielder, the approach is almost the direct opposite. Nathan's comedy persona is ultimately very calculating and manipulative, whereas John Wilson is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

C_Larence

That's a fair point, both shows rely on a false persona. However, I have a much easier time buying that the character of "Nathan Fielder" would make a show like Nathan For You, than the character of "John Wilson" would make a show like How To. I've seen multiple people online comparing Wilson to Joe Pera, and as I mentioned in my post above Pera's work leaves me cold, so it's likely just down to personal preference.

Moribunderast

Loved the finale. Been chuckling all week at Wilson's assumption
Spoiler alert
that anybody walking with an elder was also accompanying their landlord, as well as his fear his landlord may be fed by "another boy".
[close]


PlanktonSideburns

anyone got any links to all the episodes beyond ep 3?


Bartholomew J Krishna

HBO just confirmed second series. Yay!

McFlymo

Quote from: MrMrs on December 10, 2020, 12:11:11 AM
it's on zooqle

Cheers!

Spoiler alert
(I got Ep1 on TBP but all the rest on iDope)
[close]