General Netflix Discussion-TV Shows

[Sock Monkey]

Finished season one and started season two of For All Mankind last night. I was a little wary about midway through the first season if the show was going to pick up steam, but the final three or four episodes really pulled various story arcs together and made some captivating television. For those who might be looking to give it a shot, just go in expecting a slow burn, but stick it out. As for season two, I'm only one episode in and I'm a little wary about the time jumps between seasons. Season one finally found its footing and now we have a slightly different status quo to get adjusted to and with only like 10 episodes a season, I'd like to spend more time in one spot before moving on. However, this is slowly becoming a new favorite so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

[Ben Staad]

One man's turd is another man's treasure?

I've gotten some recommendations for this in the past, but I've always skipped over it. I don't think your review of it being "a steamy turd" is going to change my mind otherwise.

 

[dannyboy121070]

We just wrapped up the first season of SLOW HORSES. I was ready to bail after two episodes...I was struggling with some of the accents, and the show wasn't moving fast enough, but by the third episode, I was hooked. Great twists, funny, action and intrigue packed, and Gary Oldman, as always, just kills it.  Apple has some of the best shows on streaming.

[Sock Monkey]

One man's turd is another man's treasure?



Â

I don't know. My sister likes the show, but she also watches stuff like VelociPastor, so...

[Sock Monkey]

We just wrapped up the first season of SLOW HORSES. I was ready to bail after two episodes...I was struggling with some of the accents, and the show wasn't moving fast enough, but by the third episode, I was hooked. Great twists, funny, action and intrigue packed, and Gary Oldman, as always, just kills it. Apple has some of the best shows on streaming.

I love Gary Oldman and am looking forward diving into this soon. My wife struggles with accents as well so we do a lot of subtitles. We watch a ton of foreign movies so it doesn't bother me. It does require a little more effort, in my opinion, but it eliminates the whole stopping and rewinding and trying to figure what was said. I normally never used subtitles for English-speaking movies, but I did it when I showed my wife Trainspotting for the first time a few years back and I couldn't believe how much I'd missed on the 6+ previous viewings I had of the film.

[dannyboy121070]

I had to break down and use subtitles for TALK TO ME, as the Aussie accents were just too much for me, and I was amazed at how much stuff that was REALLY important to the story was unintelligibly mumbled by side characters during busy party scenes. I would have missed a ton of it. The accents in HORSES became easier to understand after a few episodes of hearing them.

[Sock Monkey]

Finished the second season of For All Mankind last night and thought it was even better than the first season. The resolution to character arcs in the finale was, in my mind, perfect. It might have been a little too neat for some, but it felt right to me. I still think that a couple more episodes in each season would help to build out some of the storylines a little bit better. There's a decision a character makes in the latter part of the season that kind of feels like its out of nowhere on their part and a little more space (no pun intended) in the season might have made that a little less jarring to me. There is also one character in this season I just can't stand. Now, the series does play with making their characters rather unlikeable, but, man, I'm struggling with caring at all about this one. Anyways, a rather minor quibble over a show that is overall very enjoyable. Looking forward to starting season three!

[dannyboy121070]

Finished the second season of For All Mankind last night and thought it was even better than the first season. The resolution to character arcs in the finale was, in my mind, perfect. It might have been a little too neat for some, but it felt right to me. I still think that a couple more episodes in each season would help to build out some of the storylines a little bit better. There's a decision a character makes in the latter part of the season that kind of feels like its out of nowhere on their part and a little more space (no pun intended) in the season might have made that a little less jarring to me. There is also one character in this season I just can't stand. Now, the series does play with making their characters rather unlikeable, but, man, I'm struggling with caring at all about this one. Anyways, a rather minor quibble over a show that is overall very enjoyable. Looking forward to starting season three!

FOR ALL MANKIND was great, aside from the fact that I fucking loathe Margo and that fucking magical math prodigy girl. Looking forward to season five and the Star City spinoff.

[Sock Monkey]

FOR ALL MANKIND was great, aside from the fact that I fucking loathe Margo and that fucking magical math prodigy girl. Looking forward to season five and the Star City spinoff.

LOL! I actually like Margo, even though part of how she is written is to be unlikeable. If the "magical math prodigy girl" is Aleida, then I absolutely agree. I didn't find her that bad in season one, but I just can't stand her in season two. I'm also a little over the whole

Spoiler!

Ellen and Pam relationship

storyline. Nothing against the characters in particular but the storyline for season two was essentially the same as season one. I really don't need a further retread of it in another season. Or if they do, they better do something a little different with it. I will say that I am bummed about

Spoiler!

Gordo's death as I really came to like his character in the latter part of season one and into season two.

I still have two more seasons before I'm caught up to date, but I'm glad to hear about the fifth season and the spinoff. I'm not necessarily keen on everything having a spinoff, but if it can be done right (and Better Call Saul proved that it could be), then I'm all for it.

[dannyboy121070]

When they first showed Aleida, I said to my wife "That's the magical child that will grow up to do magical things." She always felt shoehorned in, at least to me. And I agree with both of your spoilers.

[TacomaDiver]

I had to break down and use subtitles for TALK TO ME, as the Aussie accents were just too much for me, and I was amazed at how much stuff that was REALLY important to the story was unintelligibly mumbled by side characters during busy party scenes. I would have missed a ton of it. The accents in HORSES became easier to understand after a few episodes of hearing them.

I had to do that with Derry Girls. The Irish accents were just too thick for me to understand them well enough. Eventually though my ears learned how to listen but it was rough for a bit.

[Sock Monkey]

I watched INFESTED on Shudder, a French film about increasingly large spiders infesting an apartment building. The compressed time frame for the massive volume of spiders reproducing is absolutely ridiculous, and the film completely fell apart for me in the last 15 minutes, but it was still a fun, well-made bug flick.

I also revisited GHOSTWATCH for the first time in a few decades, also on Shudder, and it still holds up remarkably well.

My wife and I continued to chip away at FRANKLIN on Apple+, which we're really enjoying, and CONAN O'BRIEN MUST GO, on Max, is absolutely hilarious.

So I checked out INFESTED with lowered expectations and I'm quite torn about it. On one hand, the film excels on capitalizing on the icky creepy-crawly fear of spiders, which almost covers over some pretty large weaknesses in the script. One being, as Dannyboy mentions in his post, the incredibly fast reproduction and infestation of the spiders. But on top of that, there is also the quick assumption by our group of heroes that the spiders are poisonous, though they don't really have a lot of information to support that other than the first death, but the script doesn't connect the dots for the viewer and it seems like a leap that's made.

On top of that we also have the following, which I struggled with:

Spoiler!

First is the when the dog eats the dead spider and it somehow reproduces inside the dog. I'm assuming that the film is suggesting that the dead spider carried babies inside of it, but dogs' stomach acid is stronger than humans and should have just destroyed eggs. I can understand maybe dying from ingesting the poison, but not the whole birthing thing. Second, why is the guy who first is bitten--and knows he's been bitten by spiders--continuing to call the main character instead of calling for an ambulance? And finally, the whole "the spiders won't move in light" makes no sense considering that they attack the guys in the desert in broad daylight in the beginning of the film.

The film also tries to weave in two emotional arcs--one between the main character and an estranged friend and the other between the main character and his sister--but it's too much for the film to execute effectively. I did feel like the film lost something as it moved from massification (lots of smaller spiders) to magnification (gigantic spiders). This could be personal preference as a bunch of little things that I can't see are scarier than a one large bugger that can be taken out with a shotgun.

Anyways, it sounds like I didn't like the movie, but there is quite a lot to enjoy, it is well made, and you could do a lot worse. Just bring a more "go with it" attitude to the plotting. The movie did win Best Horror Feature and Best Horror Director at last year's Fantastic Fest so there is some love for it. All this being said, I would absolutely check out the director's next feature. Grade: B- (Mostly because it did such a great job with the horror aspect of the film).

[Sock Monkey]

I also finished up revisiting Nolan's DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY last night with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. I actually started it the night prior and was just too tired to finish it so started it all over yesterday with renewed energy and I'm glad that I did. I was worried that I wasn't going to like this one and I think that I actually like it a lot more than the first time that I saw it in the theaters. As a trilogy-capper, it works as both a culmination of plot threads from the previous two films and actually feels much more like a sequel to BEGINS than THE DARK KNIGHT. I also really enjoyed Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle and I think that she nails my idea of her character from the comic books and her chemistry with Bale is great. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's arc also worked a lot better for me this time around. The film isn't as much "fun" and lot more somber than THE DARK KNGHT, which is probably the one that I'd be most likely to revisit independently of the three, and that might be why some people are letdown by the finale. However, watching all three films in short span really made this one increase in my regard for it. So good. GRADE: A-

On a side note, I need to get better at going through my backlog of movies. My copy of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES DVD was still sealed from when I first bought when it was initially released almost 12 years ago in December of 2012. When I got it, I planned on doing a full rewatch of the trilogy and just never got around to it until now. I know that time flies, but twelve years to watch a film is ridiculous...

[dannyboy121070]

I also finished up revisiting Nolan's DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY last night with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. I actually started it the night prior and was just too tired to finish it so started it all over yesterday with renewed energy and I'm glad that I did. I was worried that I wasn't going to like this one and I think that I actually like it a lot more than the first time that I saw it in the theaters. As a trilogy-capper, it works as both a culmination of plot threads from the previous two films and actually feels much more like a sequel to BEGINS than THE DARK KNIGHT. I also really enjoyed Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle and I think that she nails my idea of her character from the comic books and her chemistry with Bale is great. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's arc also worked a lot better for me this time around. The film isn't as much "fun" and lot more somber than THE DARK KNGHT, which is probably the one that I'd be most likely to revisit independently of the three, and that might be why some people are letdown by the finale. However, watching all three films in short span really made this one increase in my regard for it. So good. GRADE: A-

On a side note, I need to get better at going through my backlog of movies. My copy of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES DVD was still sealed from when I first bought when it was initially released almost 12 years ago in December of 2012. When I got it, I planned on doing a full rewatch of the trilogy and just never got around to it until now. I know that time flies, but twelve years to watch a film is ridiculous...

I broke my ankle in 2005, and my co-workers all chipped in and got me a $500.00 B&N gift card, so I could occupy myself while I was out of work. I bought $500.00 worth of DVDs, and most of them are still sealed and unwatched, so....I get it.

[Sock Monkey]

I broke my ankle in 2005, and my co-workers all chipped in and got me a $500.00 B&N gift card, so I could occupy myself while I was out of work. I bought $500.00 worth of DVDs, and most of them are still sealed and unwatched, so....I get it.

I'm trying to make a concerted effort to get through the rest of backlog now. Some stuff has been lingering for awhile, partly due to our move a couple years back and the complete disarray that my movie collection is still in and part is due to them being odds and ends--foreign dramas picked up way back when Blockbuster was going out of business; offbeat horror movies, usually 70s and earlier that I find that I need to be in a particular mood to enjoy; or movies that I picked up to be part of a retrospective, like the Romero BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAWN set that I plan on watching when I do a full watch of all his work--and for that reason I almost never turn to them for a casual watch. I just need to make it happen because I'm tired of them staring at me from the To Watch shelf in the closet.

I also just realized that I posted both movie reviews in the NETFLIX TELEVISION section. I just searched your post on INFESTED and assumed it was in the movie section and just kept posting!