Esper Posted July 24, 2018 Share Posted July 24, 2018 If I had to pick only one. Game Of Thrones. If I had a top 5. Game Of Thrones, Firefly, Stargate (all of them) Battlestar Galactica, Marvel agents of shield. (only because they fill in the gaps between the movies) I don't consider anime a "tv show" so I don't include them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted October 31, 2018 Author Share Posted October 31, 2018 Just binge watched season two of “Stranger Things” last night. It’s fun to see the show set back in the early 80’s. The Walking Dead has been pretty good so far this season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted October 31, 2018 Share Posted October 31, 2018 Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House series was decent, though it wasn't really "based on" the book but rather used certain names from it and other light touches. Not at all a remake. The first episode or two has some people being obnoxious, which is dull to sit through, but then it picks up speed. Also, I am watching the first season of The Mist there. Again pretty decent. Differs a lot from the movie; never read the book. I'm also watching a lot of documentaries on Netflix. There's constant talk about this being the age of "Peak TV," but it's always in relation to fiction. I'm finding much of the fiction underwhelming to say the least, but where TV is really starting to shine now, for me, is in the documentary series. Rotten, Explained, Toys, Ugly Delicious, Chef's Table, The Wild, Dirty Money ... plenty of outstanding series around now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted November 1, 2018 Author Share Posted November 1, 2018 It’s amazing how many Netflix original series there are. I like several of the documentary series they have as well. Rotten - check. Toys that made us - check. They have some good travel shows and hotel/house/architecture series as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted November 5, 2018 Author Share Posted November 5, 2018 Speaking of documentaries to watch, anyone see this Netflix doc “Print the Legend?” I’m about four years late to the party, but it was an interesting show documenting the early days of 3D printing for the masses. The growing pains and tribulations were eye-opening. You get to know some of the people behind the products. Worth watching. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted November 5, 2018 Share Posted November 5, 2018 Haven't seen it, but that is an inherently interesting process. So much has already been accomplished in a short time, and there's so much more that is also likely to be accomplished, a great deal of it in a relatively short time. Pretty exciting field! And it intersects so many sciences and other fields. Lots of cause for optimism there! I'll probably check that one out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted November 9, 2018 Author Share Posted November 9, 2018 I like a lot of options, but you know the sad thing is that there's no way one can possibly watch all the interesting productions out there. Even on my mediabox with some of the apps like Bobby Movie or Morpheus TV, there are movies and shows I've never even heard of, and a lot of them have some pretty big named stars. I recently watched a weird Indie movie called "Good Dick" by Marianna Palka. It had Jason Ritter (John Ritter's kid I think) in it. It was a quirky and unusual movie about a broken woman that a video store clerk inexplicably falls for. She's abusive and dark and very unlikeable, but the protagonist is completely infatuated with her to the point of allowing her to abuse him. Unconditional infatuation? I never knew there was such a thing! But it was a trip following the two and trying to figure out what made this woman the way she was and see how Jason Ritter kept believing that he could find his way into her heart. I almost didn't make it through the whole movie, but it had an appeal to it that kept me watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 I have always liked anti-heroes -- who doesn't like The Godfather? or Tuco Ramirez? or Mr. Pink? -- but have trouble getting into the swing of things when characters of much importance don't have sufficient redeeming qualities to make me want to come along for the ride, so to speak, of their story. I'm sure we've all seen shows in which we were rooting for the hero to die! There seems to be a lot more of that these days. I have seen a lot of that in Japanese anime. You start off with a snotty kid who seems to be more a slouch and a hairstyle than anything else, and perhaps are supposed to find that cool and all-around awesome or something so now you like Mr. Snotty Slouch ... but I find it hard to care what happens to a dull, jerk. I used to go to writer's groups and take creative writing classes. Often, when we shared our writing, you'd read flat characters who were supposed to be cool a priori, just because. But I couldn't help wondering why until considering the writer, who might well look like The Prince of the Untroubled Brow, too lightly tested by life to even consider how deep his qualities really ran. I think these are the people who write characters no one could ever care about, assuming that's enough. They are writing what they know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted November 11, 2018 Author Share Posted November 11, 2018 Have you seen this documentary? It’s pretty unbelievable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Er ... The Unbelievable? No. It sounds like something sold on the Home Shopping Network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted December 7, 2018 Author Share Posted December 7, 2018 Been watching a few first episodes of this show on Netflix called “Monty Don’s French Gardens.” It’s rather interesting! I’m no green thumb or gardener, but some of the places he visits in France are very scenic. They almost beat meep’s traveling places that he rolls around to. If I die before seeing some of that French countryside in person, I’ll have lived a life unfullfilled! https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/81032669/s 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted December 7, 2018 Share Posted December 7, 2018 There are a whole lot of beautiful places in the world, and it's fun seeing them however we can. That's one reason I often find foreign films inherently interesting, especially period pieces. They show a different place, and the period ones tend to have more that's different about them, from more nature and all the lovely scenery involved with it to food and crafts, even table manners. It gives you something to look at while the characters are yapping. With more modern settings, things tend to look much more alike, from mini-malls to hair cuts to music to clothes ... and people rarely go near nature for long, if at all. Even more fun, to me, are period pieces in places distant from my cultural background, like the Kurosawa films set in old Japan. To me it's fascinating that window shutters there are left with cracks between the slats, or that steps of even a middle-class home might be made of sticks bundled together into a rough log. Seemingly everywhere you look, there's something to see. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted February 13, 2019 Author Share Posted February 13, 2019 The Punisher season 2 is on Netflix! I've been binge watching a bit of that show lately. I think season one was better, but the second season has a slow smoulder to it with Billy Russo going all out cray cray. The whole 10 guys beating the crap out of The Punisher and then him getting up to dish it back to them all gets a little old after a while, but it's entertaining. Star Trek Discovery is on as well, and I'm liking it so far, but I can see why some fellow Trekkies are a bit divided on it. It's more boom and pow than thought provoking introspective cinema, but hey the production values are through the roof! Shameless season 9 I think it is has also filled in some viewing voids during this cold snap. Game of Thrones is coming back in April, but man it's been so long I've totally forgotten a lot of the plot lines and character interactions. That's the bad thing about a long hiatus. You just lose so much of the momentum. I think there was a dragon that turned into an undead dragon last season.... pretty certain... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanghamP Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I've recently rewatched the first season of The Wire, which I hadn't seen in ten or so years, and I was struck at how these inner city neighborhoods predicted the drug situation. In case anyone doesn't know, each season of The Wire describes the drug trade, the transportation trade, public education, and City Hall. Fundementally, the first season describes the war on drugs with some success, with the understanding that powerful opiates are dangerous to the public good and they must be stopped. In contrast, our present opiate crisis describes an entirely legal process whereby opiates many times more powerful than crack cocaine were sold to the entire population of the US, with call girls/saleswomen persuading doctors to prescribe opiates to patients. Result? 70,000 Americans die each year from legal drugs. Drugs so powerful that, ludicrously, we need pure heroin as the treatment drug. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/12/prescription-heroin-opioids/577615/ Shareholders pretending to give a fuck about opiate deaths. In reality these shareholders need people to overdose because otherwise the drug wouldn't be powerful enough to one-shot normal people into addicts. It's akin to auto companies saying they are trying to reduce crashes while building more powerful engines. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/opioid-crisis-responsibility-profits/538938/ The Wire is brilliant, but its optimism makes it dated. It couldn't have forseen collusion at the highest levels of government and the private sector to introduce and distribute highly profitable addictive drugs to a large public. The Man moved in, took over the the drug trade nationwide, and killed hundreds of thousands while making a few people billionaires. Also note the introduction of the drug and the drug treatment program is by the same person! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/the-man-who-made-billions-of-dollars-from-oxycontin-is-pushing-a-drug-to-wean-addicts-off-opioids/?utm_term=.21b6c498bee0 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 The Orville, helmed by Seth McFarlane, is fantastic. Often very funny, and, on the serious side, a true tribute to Star Trek. Also unafraid to take on SJW-sensitive matters in a way we can't expect from current media otherwise. Dororo, on Amazon, is also a good one, though too new for a true binge watch yet. I've also enjoyed the first season of Cheo Yong on Netflix, about a detective who solves cases by dealing with the ghosts of the murdered. And Lilyhammer, with Steve Van Zandt, the bar manager in The Sopranos and also Bruce Springsteen's long-time guitar player, is really fun. I thought it would be just a dumb retread along Soprano lines, but it is a fish out of water story, mobster style, that takes place in a smallish town in Norway. The contrast makes it fun, and there are some good characters. Some decent horror on Netflix lately too. And on Amazon, I just saw Hereditary, which was amazing but a grueling watch in some ways. The family dynamics are pretty grim. But it's authentic traditional horror, which I like much better than the usual slasher or torture porn stuff that passes for horror these days. Yes, I already know people can be psychotically bad. Everyone knows that. But I don't want to revel in it. For horror, gimme real supernatural monsters, not aspiring human ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 I don't watch TV (well, streaming mostly) that often, but when I do, I can binge a season or two of a series in one go... I like watching series from start to finish in a very short time span, like several seasons worth in consecutive days, at least when I have the time. Lately, as in maybe within the past 6 months or so, just off the top of my head & what's on my Netflix list or HBO waiting watching or new seasons: The Good Place, The Strain, Rick and Morty, Killjoys, Paradise PD, White Gold, Lucifer, Disenchantment, The Expanse, Cuckoo, Black Mirror, Castlevania. Probably forgotten a lot of good ones I've finished... I just finished watching the first season of Nightflyers the day before yesterday, it starts up interesting, but at the end of first season wasn't that good IMO. Didn't really like any of the characters, they seem... too "thin" to me, and you can guess the "twists" a long time ahead. Might be worth the try if you like scifi though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingfelder Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Black Mirror is fantastic. (The show, haven't bothered with the movie yet.) One Punch Man can take a bit to get your head around, but it's pretty good also. A favorite from way back is Mushi-Shi, probably my favorite anime series ever. Did Disenchantment start picking up as it went along? It started so slow and bereft of surprises for me that I quite after two or three episodes. I watch a lot of cooking shows, too. Not competitions, though. Can't stand those. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 I liked The Strain, but my interest fizzled out after a while. I just saw “The Imitation Game” with Benedict Cumberbatch the other day. It follows the life of Alan Turing and his work on breaking the Enigma coding machine. It was a really good movie well worth a watch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olav Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 A few Brits in here, and neither of them have mentioned Doctor Who... Shame... There also NO mention of Farscape... Though this has been cancelled for quite a while I thought there were Sci-Fi fans in here... My favorites are: Firefly Farscape Stargate SG1 Doctor Who List goes on, but had to stop somewhere I enjoyed Discovery (s1), but I consider it an offshoot off the rest of ST. Currently watching Battlestar Galactica (just started), though not too sure about it yet. Fantasy (e.g. GoT) not my cup of tea... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 (edited) On 2/19/2019 at 11:50 AM, Dingfelder said: Did Disenchantment start picking up as it went along? It started so slow and bereft of surprises for me that I quite after two or three episodes. I watched it sometime in the last summer, so don't remember that much anymore, other than that I found it funny... There were probably some slow-paced episodes. On 2/21/2019 at 12:00 PM, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: I liked The Strain, but my interest fizzled out after a while. I've watched the entire series (so far, 3 seasons I think), it has become less interesting, but I'll still likely check the next one. Same with Killjoys, maybe I start to get bored with it, but have still watched all the seasons. On 2/21/2019 at 12:00 PM, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: I just saw “The Imitation Game” with Benedict Cumberbatch the other day. It follows the life of Alan Turing and his work on breaking the Enigma coding machine. It was a really good movie well worth a watch. Seen that too, it was a good movie from what I remember. And let's face it, if you're a programmer, you're going to watch a movie about Alan Turing, good or not Not only did he work on Enigma, but you may have heard such terms as "Turing test" and "Turing complete", among others... 6 hours ago, Olav said: A few Brits in here, and neither of them have mentioned Doctor Who... Shame... There also NO mention of Farscape... Though this has been cancelled for quite a while I thought there were Sci-Fi fans in here... Doctor Who and the darker off-shoot Torchwood were good, haven't seen the latest seasons of Dr. Who though. Quote Currently watching Battlestar Galactica (just started), though not too sure about it yet. (new) Battlestar Galactica (never saw the original) & Babylon 5 are pretty much on my top of the list, Expanse seems good too. From what I remember, BSG takes a bit to get off the ground, but is well worth it. On the books side, lately I've been reading Alastair Reynolds's books from the Revelation Space -universe, and they're really good... no wonder he's called "the master singer of space opera". Edited February 24, 2019 by esaj 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lutalo Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 (edited) X-files episodes in the 90's. X-files episodes on DVD now. Edited February 24, 2019 by Lutalo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanghamP Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 My favorite type of TV series, of which there seems to be precious few of, is the "fish out of water". Now the FOOW archetype is like the Western whereby a gunslinger comes in and with prenatural knowledge cleans up. The FOOW is the opposite; instead of knowing everything he knows nothing. He's not stupid; often people explain cultural mores to him to hilarious effect as they won't make sense. I enjoy watching the protagonist accepting or rejecting Kulture while trying to understand it. People should be looking at you as an idiot at least some of the time instead of infallible. Mork and Mindy. Full Metal Panic. Lord of the Rings (the 3 part movies). Ozarks. The Expanse. Lillyhammer. Marco Polo. Altered Carbon. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In some ways Game of Thrones is one giant roadtrip whereby a person is being told that's a bad idea every step of the way; it'd be interesting and meaningful if we could follow one character and no one else. We'd only see what he/she sees. Every single episode of Game of Thrones follows the "person told that's a bad idea and does it anyway." Every. Damned. Episode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fat Unicyclist Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 19 minutes ago, LanghamP said: In some ways Game of Thrones is one giant roadtrip whereby a person is being told that's a bad idea every step of the way; it'd be interesting and meaningful if we could follow one character and no one else. We'd only see what he/she sees The problem there is that (being the Game of Thrones) they would be killed halfway through the series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted March 16, 2019 Author Share Posted March 16, 2019 Anyone watching Netflix’s Love Death and Robots? It’s crazy how realistic the level they have gotten computerized animation to. Avatar looks so cartoony compared to some of these shorts. I predict that actors might be losing their jobs in the future... or switching to voice acting roles... Anyone catch the EUC in When the Yogurt Took Over? Be warned these cartoons are NSFW!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Bathos Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 On 3/16/2019 at 1:23 AM, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: Anyone catch the EUC in When the Yogurt Took Over? I came here to point that out as well. Nearly did a spit take when I saw what the future of transportation holds for us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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