I never saw the previews for it, but I know of the show. I just assumed it was some show that rubbed religion in your face the entire time and wasn’t really interested. But (and this was well after it ended), I gave the first episode a shot and was hooked. Watched the whole series in about 2 weeks and started it over again.
Another one, Hot Tub Time Machine. As it turns out it’s a really, really stupid name for a movie that turned out to be really really good.
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring. I was sure I’d be bored, but my husband really wanted me to see it. It’s probably my third favorite movie of all time.
Amélie. I wouldn’t say I had a low opinion going in so much as a disinterest in ever watching it. I was aware of the film and had a vague idea it was some kind of rom-com type thing. Then one night I was scrolling through Netflix and it was on the “ending soon” list and on a whim I clicked on it. It isn’t on my all time faves list but I enjoyed it way more than I would have guessed.
Castlevania on Netflix has a lot of strikes against it.
But my roommate at the time wanted to check ot out. And holy shit, it’s surprising good.
Same here. What made me avoid it originally was that it was produced by the CBC, which (IMHO), doesn’t do sitcoms well. But boredom over the last year, and recommendations from friends, drove me to it, and I was pleasantly surprised. Chris Elliott is perfect in his role as a small-town doofus who occasionally has a good idea, and Eugene Levy is the steady anchor around whom all the craziness occurs. A great show, funny and entertaining.
On the off chance you didn’t catch how the Schitt’s Creek pun was continued throughout the rest of the series, keep in mind the rest of the names in the show:
Roland (rolling in) Schitt
Jocelyn (jostling) Schitt
Mutt (dog) Schitt
Horace (horse) Schitt
Roland Moira (rolling in more?) Schitt.
One of the interesting things is that, it’s actually a pretty family friendly show*, so there’s an odd crossover between kids that get a kick out of being able to say ‘shit’ around their parents and kids who’s parents won’t let them do that (I heard of a few kids that had to call it ‘Stuff’s Creek’.
*For the most part. Sure there’s some sex here and there, a small bit of drug use, but, in general, I think most parents are would be okay with their tween kids watching it. No, it’s not a show you’d see on Nickelodeon, but it’s also not that much more adult than something like Modern Family or The Office.
I’ll probably get flamed for this, but: Cop Rock. When it was on, I happened to be semi-commuting to a location once a week and wound up in a hotel room every Tuesday (?) night, and started watching it. This was before DVRs, of course–almost before VCRs. So it was live or nothin’! Then I got my wife watching it, too. Then, of course, it was cancelled, because we were the only people in the country watching. The songs were good, and it was no worse in concept than any other musical–folks bursting into random song.
This was actually made into a Broadway show, a few years back. Philippa Soo (who was the first Eliza Hamilton) played the title role. It didn’t last terribly long - but my husband especially really enjoyed it (the day after we saw, and he hated, Book of Mormon).
Just thought of another one. Workaholics. I only found it because it was on right before something else (South Park, maybe?) so I’d always catch the last few minutes of it before the next show started. Those last few minutes grew on me and eventually I started watching it. Turns out it’s really good.
I don’t recall seeing Anders in anything else, but Blake and Adam pop up in other shows (and Adam does standup) and I don’t really care for either of them, but they were perfect for the show.
Jillian shows up all over the place, including the limo driver on Bob’s Burgers and I see Alice from time to time, most recently as Mindy St. Claire on The Good Place.
I’ve read the comics. It’s my second favorite series. (Next to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, which Lucifer is a spin-off of,) About the only thing the two have in common is, The Devil is in it and the first episode of the TV show.
But despite that I love the TV show. Netflix just dropped 8 new episodes which I am catching up on this week.
See also: The Janitor on Scrubs claiming to have appeared in the film The Fugitive and turning out to be telling the truth (in that the same actor, Neil Flynn, did have a bit part in the film).
Yeah, the descriptions of The Good Place really do not do it justice. It is like televisual crack - once you start you can’t stop watching.
I liked Cop Rock a lot. IMO the concept and performances were great, but because the songs stopped the action it caused the plots to draaaaaag. If they’d managed to keep the story moving during the songs it would have been much better.
Dumb and Dumber. I think there are still people who have a negative idea of this film and refuse to see it, like I had at the time, and there’s no doubt that there’s plenty of crude humour in it, but it is also completely hilarious, sweet, clever, and just a delight. I ended up watching it first on cable, and was captivated.
a lot of the first gen or two of cartoon networks original shows …
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I actually had not seen any trailers or anything at all about it except for a poster when my kids and I went to watch another movie. They said they wanted to go and I agree thinking it would be like any other “kids” movie, that is, mostly for kids with a little thrown in for adults to enjoy. Then, within like the first few minutes of the film it became one of my favorites I had seen that year, but now one of my favorite films of all time.
Daredevil (TV series). I only decided to watch this because I heard Vincent D’Onofrio was in it. Having disliked the movie, I did not expect much since that featured Michael Clarke Duncan and still was not great. Afterward, it made me put much faith in the Netflix Marvel Outings even though there were some definite misses among them.
//i\\Another one for Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse. I expected it to be hopefully as good as Thor 3, but not likely be anything near as good as Deadpool 2, my favourite one. It’s now my favourite Marvel movie. Brought back all the memories of what I loved about Spiderman as a kid, and I’d long since lost.
That reminds me of another one for me. Deadpool. Other than a few of the Batman movies, I’ve never been into the superhero/comic book based movies. But I happened to catch Deadpool on TV one day and loved it. However, even I knew it was different than the rest of the comic book based movies, essentially being more of a comedy.
Unrelated, but reminds me of something funny. A friend of mind used to randomly mutter “urm french fried potaters urm”. And every time he do it I’d tell him if he’s going to keep quoting the movie, he should at least go and watch it. Well, after about the 100th time I said that, he replied 'I was going to watch it the other day, then I found out it’s some old sci-fi movie"
Did you get it?
Did you?
It took me a few seconds to figure out what the hell he was talking about?
Figure it out yet?
He confused Blade Runner with Sling Blade.
I used a free movie ticket I had been holding on to to see Into the Spider-Verse while my wife was off visiting grandma with our son. I had heard good things, I was hyped to watch it. It exceeded every expectation I had, nestling itself among Disney and Pixar animation masterpieces.
For what it’s worth, Lucifer was published by Vertigo, part of DC.
Ignorance fought!
Back in 1989, there was one good movie I really wanted to see (probably Rain Man), but I got to the cinema too late. I didn’t want to go home, so I decided to see another one I thought was probably going to be absolute crap.
The movie was Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It was incredibly dumb, but I hadn’t laughed so hard since I saw the first Naked Gun movie.