Fantasmas

This is a sketch comedy show of how Julio's brain works. It's about his "profession" and how he is not any "one thing" in life. He is an artist that struggles with the question, "so what do you do?".

These sketches go far down a rabbit hole of fleeting ideas, with stunning makeup, costumes, and set design. Sketches range from bizarre sitcoms to reflective narrative moments on what it means to be an artist or creative person in the modern world.

For those who do not know Julio Torres, he is often associated with the term "magical realism". I'm assuming that if he ever wanted to be confined to a genre that would be appropriate.

I think the way the series starts is rather bold. He's consulting for a crayon company and saying they should make a "transparent" color. The crayon people are apprehensive - I don't blame them. So Julio gestures to a glass of water and basically says if water can do it, so can you.

I get this is supposed to show how creative Julio is and that he thinks outside the box, but really it makes no sense. You obviously can't make a transparent crayon, and if you did it would be the worst crayon ever.

So I was a bit put off by this, but the rest of episode was fine and strange in its own quirky way. Overall it's not bad. It's definitely its own unique flavor.

Premise: been forced to watch this stuff by a group of friends. Had no idea.

Do not waste your time.

Opening scene somehow promising: "maybe we are getting into Zoolander territory?" I asked myself. You know, full on farce, clear over exaggerated characters who become a caricature of themselves and hysterical dialogues.

Well, the illusion evaporated quickly.

The whole thing is a step below the surreal stories kindergarten kids create when bored.

Our writer-director-protagonist gets into one senseless situation after another (+ pitiable characters who take the spotlight) with the explicit goal of taking himself seriously in the search of an earring and pretending to make the audience laugh (or at least giggle). The egotism is too intense for my brain and I had to (mentally) check out.

Seeing Steve Buscemi made me sad, but I guess the paycheck was alright.

Out of curiosity I had a look at some critic reviews. One pathetic sentence after another meant to elevate what i think are the author nightmares written once he woke up.

High-concept mania; dream logic-fueled sketches ; nihilistic remark ; loose, over-arching narrative ; digressive vignettes ; outsized characters

Must say would love to be a fly on the wall in the producer's room when the marketing folks are discussing the different ways to present this colorful scam to the HBO audience.

I felt like I needed to give this a rating even after 2 episodes. From the set design and costumes to the multidimensional characters and stories they tell all within a world that can only make you think of things like Alice in wonderland or any novel by Vonnegut. I don't want to give anything away but the show does have a story that is certainly absurd at first glance but wholly satirical on every detail it presents about certain mundanities in our day to day lives that really are ridiculous when given further consideration.

Excited to see more of that this world is like. Expect to be weirded out at times, but please give it a shot if you're at all interested.

Lovely use of color and obviously very creative, but having seen one episode, I am unlikely to see any more of them. It's surrealistic and quirky, with some characters that are trying to be perfectly normal and Julio Seeming to be puzzled by life.

But he's a consultant to various companies starting with Crayola where he advises them to create a crayon that's transparent. He points out that a glass of water is transparent so how would you color it? Of course, the very glass of water he points to has blue edges to it, and anybody who's ever, painted a glass of water and blues that work quite well for it.

He has a robotic creature who keeps house for him and nags in the other things, including the eviction notices he's been getting. He's too busy trying to find a lost earring and apparently that's going to be the theme of the whole series.

Well, good luck, Julio. I hope things work out for you and for the TV show.