Amazon Prime

[KnightswoodBear]

Reacher was the most enjoyable thing I've watched for ages.  Looking forward to S2 already

[paul-r-cfc]

Upload season 2 is out on the 11th March. Loved the first season and had totally forgotten about it to be honest.

[KnightswoodBear]

I'm really not sure how i missed this on the BBC in 2016 when it was forst on, but i've watched all of The Night Manager this week on Prime.  Really excellent John Le Carre adaptation with Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.

I've never really  bought into the idea that Hiddleston could be the next Bond, but as this went on I found myself thinking that he could work very well.

[scottsdad]

Picard season 2 starts on Friday (unless Paramount pull it at the last minute, like they did with Discovery)

[Jinky67]

On 28/02/2022 at 09:07, KnightswoodVanBear said:

Reacher was the most enjoyable thing I've watched for ages.  Looking forward to S2 already

Quite enjoyed Reacher too tbf once i got my head around the guy who was playing him as he couldnt be anymore different to the Reacher from the films

 

[Savage Henry]

On 02/03/2022 at 09:50, scottsdad said:

Picard season 2 starts on Friday (unless Paramount pull it at the last minute, like they did with Discovery)

The last series was better than anyone had the right to expect.  I cannot wait. 

[Savage Henry]

On 02/03/2022 at 09:50, scottsdad said:

Picard season 2 starts on Friday (unless Paramount pull it at the last minute, like they did with Discovery)

It’s utterly, utterly brilliant. 

[Rodhull]

Watched all of Reacher over the last few days and have to say I thought it was way better than I expected. 

Started watching Wolf like Me as well and all I'll say is it's a lot weirder than the trailer makes it look. Pretty funny and worth a watch.

 

 

[scottsdad]

On 05/03/2022 at 19:19, Rodhull said:

Started watching Wolf like Me as well and all I'll say is it's a lot weirder than the trailer makes it look. Pretty funny and worth a watch.

 

 

The wife put this on having not seen a trailer or anything. Someone at work said she should watch it. The first 20 or so minutes, it was a bog standard rom com will-they-won't-they about two kooky people. Then when she was running home before the sun set...the wife was very unhappy. She was not expecting this at all.

[Gianfranco]

Just finished the final season of Bosch. Agree with those who said it keeps getting better as it goes on. I was going to moan about finding something new to watch that won’t be as good but the spin-off starts next month.

[velo army]

Started watching Goliath. Excellent first series, with smart writing and well written characters (except Patti, who was a little but two dimensional, but a minor gripe).

Season 2 now and I have a very bad feeling about it. Some character decisions already are giving me red flags that this isn't going to be up to much. Why is Patti coming back if she's so busy? Could Silva be any more obvious as a femme fatale here? She seems to fancy him a lot and immediately, throwing caution to the wind in doing so. It's not very credible. The whole cartel thing feels like it's out of a dated Segal vehicle as well. I'll keep going with it, in the hope that it gets a bit better.

One of my televisual PTTGOMN is a show whose story isn't supposed to go beyond the first (or first two, in the case of Money Heist) series, but it's popular so they make more, despite the creative juice having utterly ran out. The writers and director from the first series are gone, and it doesn't have the same strong cast and characters as the first, so this could be utter pish. 

 

[velo army]

Yup.

Season two is utter, utter garbage. It features the same actors, but very different characters. The characters in season one make understandable decisions based on who they are as characters. In season two they make decisions because the script demands it. The decisions they make are infuriatingly stupid too. The relationship between BBT's character and the tidy mayor wifie is completely unbelievable and an absolute insult to the intelligence of all but the most lobotomised viewer. How it comes about is pure plot convenience. It has no substance to it whatsoever. The script and pacing are both complete shite too. Characters return for no reason. Patti returns because the script demands it, ditto Brittany. I was happy to see Brittany return as she was well written and well played before. I cared about her and wanted to see her develop. She's given nothing though, and the same with Patti. Patti is just an obnoxious arsehole again for no reason, Brittany is just there. I gave up after about 4 or 5 episodes, so they may do something with her, but I hae ma doots. 

The portrayal of mexicans is borderline racist too. I'm not normally one to jump on such things but f**k me, it's like it was written by a Trump campaign staffer. Even the supposed good one (Mayor Marisol Silva) turns out to be connected to the head of the cartel (and in this universe not a single journalist or party official knew about that). 

So, in sum, watch season 1, it's brilliant. Avoid season two, it's utter shite.

[BFTD]

Sticking this on here, as apparently it's on Shudder, which I believe is on Amazon Prime?

Downloaded a series called Cursed Films, as I keep seeing an advert for a second series that's apparently going to feature Cannibal Holocaust.

Series One is terrible. Each episode chooses a film production that was supposedly cursed. I'm only on episode three, but they clearly had trouble spinning out the flimsy evidence to half-hour length, so it keeps drifting off to interviews with irrelevant nobodies who believe in curses, or sidetracks into discussions about unrelated films that definitely didn't have curses. Most amusingly, after establishing that there was no evidence of a curse on the production of The Exorcist, they begin the next episode by having someone state that The Exorcist was a cursed production  

Screams of a documentary idea that somebody was told to make, rather than a project anybody had any passion for.

Edit: alright, it got worse. Third episode is nominally about The Omen, but they give up the pretence after the first few minutes and instead chat to a bunch of black magic shysters, allowing them to try to persuade the audience that their services are required to stop "evil forces". That's me finished with it.

Edited April 15, 2022 by BFTD

[FairWeatherFan]

39 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Sticking this on here, as apparently it's on Shudder, which I believe is on Amazon Prime?

Downloaded a series called Cursed Films, as I keep seeing an advert for a second series that's apparently going to feature Cannibal Holocaust.

By the sounds of it they could have just given it the 'In Search of Darkness' treatment. There's two films in the series about the 80s video nasty era in Horror. It's pretty much talking heads about the various films with little detour stories along the way. Each film is about 4 hours long.

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, FairWeatherFan said:

By the sounds of it they could have just given it the 'In Search of Darkness' treatment. There's two films in the series about the 80s video nasty era in Horror. It's pretty much talking heads about the various films with little detour stories along the way. Each film is about 4 hours long.

Not seen them yet, but the 'Video Nasties: A Definitive Guide' films were very good. The exact opposite mentality to this Cursed Films malarkey - a passion project where the makers were clearly struggling to squeeze everything they could into the running time.

Funny, as the guy who made them was responsible for some utterly awful horror films beforehand  

[welshbairn]

On 06/04/2022 at 18:24, Gianfranco said:

Just finished the final season of Bosch. Agree with those who said it keeps getting better as it goes on. I was going to moan about finding something new to watch that won’t be as good but the spin-off starts next month.

Watched the first couple of series after reading a few books and got annoyed by him continually tucking his shirt in and puffing his chest out like Barry Ferguson. Will give it another go.

[UpInTheAyr]

All Bond films now on Prime. Always have good rewatch value and handy having them all in one place now they've bought the studio.

[BallochSonsFan]

Working my way through the Bonds over easter. Goldfinger now.

Dr No wasn't a good film. From Russia With Love is probably the first great Bond movie. Just the right level of camp to balance out the intrigue. Doesnt have the daft gadgets. Plays on genuine cold war era threat. Daniela Bianchi an absolutely classic Bond girl. It's great.

[velo army]

Little Fires Everywhere

This was absolutely brilliant. It's a drama starring Reese Witherspoon as a stepfordian mother of four and Kerry Washington as a struggling artist single mother who moves into a property owned by RW's character. They both put in riveting performances, but the show is stolen by the younger cast who knock it out of the park. It plays like a drama like Dawson's Creek, The OC or One Tree Hill, but with real grit, sincere emotional weight and characters who are well written enough to be highly flawed but engaging and sympathetic. Washington's character is a spiky bitch at the start, and she's a bit hard to like, but the way the story unfolds you start to not only understand the choices she makes (even if we're shaking our heads as it's the wrong one) but to root for her too. Witherspoon's character is a mother who wants everything to be perfect, and her descent into wicked stepmother mode is almost Shakespearean. She looked like she had a pile of fun with that character too. She was fucking awful at times, but I was absolutely hooked.

The racism theme is mostly handled well. It explores white saviourism and how too much privilege (and not enough adversity) stunts character growth. It can get a bit on the nose at times and there were a couple of times I felt like I was being preached at, but this is a small gripe. It is set in white suburbia during the mid 90's, at a time before BLM and "woke" (the original meaning, not the milquetoast rainbow version derided nowadays) became part of the lexicon, so we see the beginning of the new political correctness and the anxiety of white bourgeoisie at the realisation of the necessity of lexical reconfiguration.

This is only one of the themes explored in this series, and it's interwoven sensibly and congruently. Two of the main characters are black, after all. The acting and writing are both superb. The emotional tone of this doesn't leave a huge amount of room for humour, but there are moments of levity. Joshua Jackson essentially reprises his role from Dawson's Creek and he's an excellent foil for the more highly strung and controlling Elena (Witherspoon). I was shocked how much I absolutely loved this and how my emotions got the better of me many times. There was even a moment where Elena experiences an unexpected defeat and I was giving a hearty GIRUY to the screen.

E.T.A it's one series wrapped up over 8 episodes.

As I said earlier, this was fucking brilliant.

Edited April 27, 2022 by velo army

[velo army]

On 28/02/2022 at 09:07, KnightswoodVanBear said:

Reacher was the most enjoyable thing I've watched for ages.  Looking forward to S2 already

I am thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying this. The plot is marvellous and cleverly written by writers who know what they're doing. The way the characters are written is excellent. They're given room to breathe and the dialogue has a purpose to it. The stakeout scene in Episode 6 where we learn a bit more about Finley is great. There is not a lot of dialogue, and what there is gives us enough information as to understand deeper motivations of his actions and also the type of man he is. It's very well done.

I'm on episode 6 and I reckon I've figured out who the big boss baddie is.

Spoiler

I think it's the accountant fella, Hubble. We still haven't found his body and his wife is making more sense as a femme fatale/lady macbeth type. I don't have any kind of smoking gun yet, and I may yet be proven wrong, but I think it's him. With his wife as a big player too. She's pretending to be a scared victim but they were never in any real danger. The accountant came on board, saw his opportunity to be bigger than Kleiner and took it. Classic case of a wee weedy guy who has a huge mind being underestimated due to his size and supposed/affected gentleness.

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by velo army