Just finished Julia last night as well (HBO Max). Overall, I enjoyed it and Sarah Lancashire is, indeed, excellent as Julia Child. There were some clunky bits of writing and some sections where I thought the directors tried to get a little too cute/stylized. But there is a kind of homey/relaxing quality about it that makes for nice “just before bed” viewing.
Watched and enjoyed the hell out of Winning Time, on HBOmax, about the 1980 Los Angeles Lakers. Centered on the story of rookie Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah), new owner Jerry Buss (John C O’Reilly), and their championship run that year (spoiler), it is shot like they used 1970s-era film stock with 2022 editing and stedicam work. Not too sure Adrian Brody works, facially, like a young Pat Riley (and lol @ some of his wigs), but if you want to be guaranteed a ride on this series for a long time, that’s a role to get. Don’t be cast as Jack Mckinney!
Solomon Hughes does a fantastic job as Kareem, and shout-out to The Wire’s own Avon Barksdale, Wood Harris, playing Spencer Haywood.
Checking in on this thread after a while away.
Finally finished all fifteen seasons of Supernatural. Overall I liked it, but I’m saddened how the final season’s filming was interrupted by COVID, as I can’t help but wonder how much bigger in scope the final arc would have been if they could have filmed without restrictions. I keep feeling that television made between March 2020 and sometime earlier this year will look very odd and off-putting years from now. The season of Arrowverse shows affected by the shutdowns all didn’t so much end as simply stop, usually with a bunch of scenes featuring two or three actors standing in a room more than six feet away from each other.
Finished season eight of American Horror Story, which I love more and more as it weaves past seasons’ characters into new arcs and rewards longtime viewers. Apocalypse may be my favorite of all the seasons so far.
Disney+ recently added both NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues, neither of which I’ve actually ever seen. I started NYPD Blue and I’m stunned at what they were able to put on network teevee with regards to nudity back in 1993. I’m loving the show: it seems to straddle a middle ground between Law & Order and The Wire, and the performances are pretty stellar. Also, and I know this is totally superficial, but OMG Amy Brenneman had an almost unearthly beauty back in the day. I’m deeply smitten.
Watched all of The Offer thus far, but won’t renew Paramount+ on its strength. A few too many errors in fact: by Puzo own account his encounter with Sinatra was not as shown: Sinatra stayed seated with his eyes downcast at his plate as he yelled at Puzo (and he was especially offended by not so much as Johnny Fontaine but by his wife, obviously Ava Gardner, as a nymphomaniac straight out of a stag film). Also, Al Ruddy was never shot at, and the warning “That was a warning. Mickey Cohen never misses” was silly since his and Jack Dragna’s gang were famous for inept shootouts with each other.
The mob miniseries we want is one about Michael Franzese, who now holds forth on his own YouTube channel. In streaming service protocol, first there needs to be a ten-part documentary as a trial balloon, then bring in the actors for a multi-season drama.
I watched the first episode of Marvel’s Moon Knight, and then got distracted by other things for a while, and now am unsure whether it’s worth going back and rewatching. Thoughts?
(Warning: BIG block of text incoming):
I’ve also been posting reviews on Facebook of everything my wife and I have watched for the past 6 months or so, might as well reproduce them all here (grading scale: C is a perfectly competently made TV show. B is much better than average. A is one of the absolute cream of the crop, one of the very best of the year):
November 11, 2021:
Some recent Netflix reviews:
Inside Job is an animated series set in the deep state that runs all the conspiracy theories. It reminds me in tone a bit of Rick and Morty. It’s consistently entertaining, and gets better over the course of the theory. Solid B.
The Forgotten Battle is a WW2 movie set in the Netherlands during some of the last battles while the allies were driving out the Nazis. It tells the stories of a British paratrooper, a young Dutch woman and a Dutchman who joined the German army and is now occupying his own homeland. It’s grim and not easy to watch, but very gripping and incredibly authentic-seeming. It’s not a true story, but is set during real events. It’s more characters and intrigue than battles and explosions, although there’s a bit of military action. A-
-I watched the first episode and a half of The Defeated, which is a detective show set in occupied Berlin shortly after the end of the war. I wanted to like it but… it just didn’t grab me at all. For all that they clearly put a lot of effort into sets and stuff, it just never felt remotely real. I’d love to see a show or movie really try to get into the psyche of someone who lived through the rise of naziism, and then all the way to the bitter end of the fall of Berlin. That could be fascinating. But I never felt like any of the German characters were even trying to represent that. Sure there were a lot of bombed buildings, but everything that happened just felt like “here’s a plot thing happening for the sake of a plot thing”. DNF
-And most curiously, (my wife) and I just watched the absolutely bugnuts crazy Shadow, a wuxia movie that got VERY good reviews (95%+ on the tomato meter), but which we spent most of the time just being utterly confounded by. It has this crazy tonal whiplash where the script is just all-over-the-place nutso, seeming genuinely like a parody of a martial arts movie (guys fighting with umbrellas, scuba tanks made out of bamboo, a married couple one of whom is an impostor hate-fucking each other, but instead of sex it’s a zither duet). But aside from the script it’s just dead-ass serious, with very grim and serious acting and cinematography and everything. They were making a VERY important movie, you can tell. Weird, weird shit; but we watched the whole thing. C+, overall? Very hard to grade.
November 28, 2021:
(my wife) and I got AppleTV+ with the intent of bingeing everything we’re interested on it then cancelling it ASAP. So, we’ve been watching Ted Lasso, which I’d heard AMAZING things about. It’s good… but not as good as I’d hoped. I think it might actually be the rare show that is better not binged, because its patented feel-good upbeat optimism risks turning into treacle when you watch too many in a row (that often being two). That said, it’s very funny, well written, and affecting, with lots of memorable characters. (I do wish there was a bit more soccer, given that it’s about a soccer coach). Grade: B
I also just finished bingeing the two seasons (so far) of For All Mankind, a drama set in an alternate history where the soviets beat the US to the moon, kicking off a more-intense space race. It’s a fun mixing of sci-fi what-ifs with the cultural shifts from the 60s to the 70s to the 80s, with fictional characters interact with real people. Particularly good is Shantel VanSanten as Karen Baldwin, who starts off as the stereotypical Astronaut’s wife, defining herself entirely by her husband’s success, with a home in the suburbs and a kid and the full on American dream… and then has to deal with the crumbling of that life, and that archetype, around her. My main complaint about it is that the last two episodes of the second season really kind of got away from the writers, with implausibility piled on implausibilty for the sake of action. Up until then, I would have given it a solid B, but that drags it down to a B-.
Finally, we’re four episodes into The Wheel of Time on Amazon. It’s very hard for me to be objective about it, because I love the book series so much (despite its flaws). I think I agree with the general consensus, which is that it started a bit slow, but has been getting better as it goes. It probably started as a C-, but has already gotten to a C+, and hopefully trending upwards. Don’t go into it expecting Game of Thrones. It’s an entirely different kind of show, much more grand fantasy good vs. evil. And, frankly, so far, it’s not as good as GoT started out. But I think there’s the potential for greatness.
January 10, 2022:
Another episode of “Alex reviews recent TV shows” starts with two treats for musical-lovers. Schmigadoon on Apple TV is parody/homage in which two mundane people get trapped in a musical, realize that they’re in a musical, and hilarity results. It’s got wonderful performances and is just the right length (six episodes). Watch the trailer, if it looks like you’ll like it, you’ll like it. (Definitely better than the somewhat tepid reviews, imho). And on Netflix is the movie Tick, Tick Boom, starring Andrew Garfield as Jonathon Larson, the tragic creator of Rent. It’s very clearly proto-Rent in a lot of ways, concerned with staying-authentic and being-young-and-not-selling-out, with the shadow of death-sentence-AIDS hanging over everything. It would be decent-to-good, except that despite being the worst Spiderman, and despite apparently not being a singer before this role, Andrew Garfield is absolutely amazing in the lead. You just can’t take your eyes off of him. So, anyone who has really been itching for a parody of Sunday in the Park with George, you are in luck, because there are TWO of them coming your way. They each earn a solid B.
Next is Mythic Quest, which is basically Silicon Valley, but set at a game company. Curious if other game programmers have watched it, because they obviously did a fair bit of research and got some overall details right when it comes to the look/feel of the company and some of the job titles and so forth. But both the overall atmosphere of the workspace and the small, precise details are just WAY off compared to an actual game company, or at least the ones I’ve worked at. Nonetheless, it’s a very fun and funny show, with hilarious characters with big egos crashing into each other and saying funny mean things, etc. It’s got a bit more heart and soul than Silicon Valley did. Definitely worth a watch. B-
(My wife) and I watched the four-episode miniseries Landscapers on HBO. It’s a weird one… it’s basically three shows in one: (a) a very touching love story about two weirdos who find each other (played by the incredibly good Olivia Coleman and David Thewlis, absolutely masterful performances). (b) a police procedural mystery about cops trying to prove that the aforementioned couple are murderers (c) a fourth-wall-breaking meditation about escapism and films and television and unreliable narrators. It’s VERY well done, but it was definitely one of those shows where I was more impressed-by-how-well-done-it-was than actually having-a-great-time-can’t-wait-to-watch-more. Still, definitely worth watching. B+
Finally, I just binged all three seasons of the very buzz-y Succession on HBO, which is about a fictionalized Rupert Murdoch in ailing health and his truly awful children squabbling for control of his empire. It’s a weird show in that there is really no one to sympathize with. All the main characters are awful, but credit the writers and actors with having them be awful in distinct, unique and very very entertaining ways. And the actors are universally excellent, showing humanity and weakness even as their characters are being such total jackasses. Throw in a bit of opulence porn, some comically foul language (my favorite being referring to a Swedish tech bro as “Hans Christian Anderfuck”), and plot lines that click along and suck you in, and it’s a very watchable show. That said, it has a tendency to introduce and then drop plot elements when they’re no longer needed, and so far hasn’t really gone anywhere or made a point or anything, just asshole rich people circling around over and over. Still, very fun. B-
January 23:
Has anyone been watching the new show Abbott Elementary? It’s an Office-style mockumentary set in a Philadelphia elementary school. (My wife) and I enjoyed the first episode a lot, but thought episode 2 was nearly unwatchably bad.
(We did not watch any more of it)
January 30:
I watched the first two episodes of Euphoria on HBO and then gave up. It’s a weird show, no idea who the audience is. It’s trying to be super-gritty about all the sex and drugs that current high school students do, but seems like it’s aimed at their parents, but is it supposed to be a cautionary tale? None of the characters are likeable, and it’s all a little too artsy and full of itself. Anyhow, it probably says something that the only time I was really wincing and mentally yelling at the characters was not when they were making incredibly bad choices about what and who to put into their bodies, but when two of the main characters kept biking around… WITHOUT WEARING HELMETS. Please tell me the younger generation is not actually that stupid.
(Did not watch any more of it)
February 20:
I watched The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO. (I hasten to point out that it was written and produced by Mindy Kaling, so it’s not just smut). It’s a sitcom about four freshman college girls and their experiences looking for love, etc. And it’s… OK. It was perfectly competent and entertaining enough, but for the first 80% of the season it wasn’t the slightest bit surprising or challenging in any way. All the story beats played out exactly as you would expect, all the people you thought would end up being bad or good did so, yada yada yada. I mean, it still had jokes and stuff, and the leads are all very appealing, so it was perfectly watchable, but forgettable. It then improved markedly in the last few episodes, when things started actually paying off. I’m now definitely looking forward to season 2 if there is one. C, trending towards C+.
The best show I’ve watched in a long time is definitely The Peacemaker on HBO. It manages to somehow be a top-notch superhero action show, and a laugh-out-loud comedy, and also a really touching character study of someone trying against the odds to be a better person. It also has hands-down the best show intro ever. A-
If you’re in the mood for the TV-show equivalent of a fun, pulpy airplane novel, you could do a lot worse than Jack Reacher on Amazon. It’s your typical drifter-blows-into-town-and-gets-caught-up-in-mystery tale, but the drifter is a 6’5" former special ops investigator who is half Conan-the-Barbarian and half Sherlock Holmes. For most of the season, it’s surprisingly intelligent and well done, trying to tell a story about more than just the punching and mystery-solving. The last few episodes let it down, and it slides into generic action and people-make-dumb-decisions-as-the-plot-demands, but I’m definitely eager for more. C+
(My wife) and I have starting watching The Gilded Age on HBO, which is basically Downton-Abbey-in-19th-century-New-York, for better or worse. It’s basically as good as mid-series Downton, where it’s always watchable, and the acting is good, and the settings are opulent… but absolutely nothing ever happens that you couldn’t have guessed three episodes earlier. It’s comfort TV… but with an amazing cast, highlighted by Christine Baranski and Carrie Coon. C
We’ve also started watching (three seasons exist, we’re partway through season 1) Ghosts on HBO, a BBC import. It’s a sitcom about a bunch of dead people haunting a formerly-opulent British manor house, and a couple of Millenials move in, and one of them can talk to the ghosts, and hilarity ensues. It’s frequently funny and also pretty clever about how to take advantage of the premise, but (so far at least) nothing unmissable. C+
And finally, I’ve just started watching for the first time a show that is definitely on Mt. Rushmore of the modern geek canon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s fun, but much more of a kid’s show than I had realized. I can see why people like it, but I can’t see why people like it as much as they do. Still, it’s eminently watchable, with appealing characters and frequently-clever situations. Viewing it as a kid’s show with adult appeal (rather than adult-oriented animation like Bojack or Rick&Morty) I think it earns a solid B.
April 16:
OK, time for some more of… TV REVIEWS WITH ALEX!!!
First, two updates from my last set of reviews:
(My wife) and I gave up on The Gilded Age on HBO. It’s well acted and gorgeous to look at but, basically, just empty and unsurprising. There’s way too much good TV on right now to waste our time on late-season-Downton-Abbey-wannabe.
And I have now finished both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra (currently both on Netflix). I liked them both a lot, although they aren’t pantheon-level great. I’d probably give then B+ and B, respectively. Lengthier thoughts here: https://www.reddit.com/…/1st_time_viewer_of_atla_and…/
On to new shows:
Beforeingners on HBO is a subtitled import from Norway with a fascinating sci-fi premise… people from different time periods in the past (late 1800s, Norse era and stone age) start randomly showing up in large numbers. How does society try to integrate them? How do they deal with modern life? It’s set 5-ish years after the arrivals begin, with the main plotline involving the growing friendship between a modern cop and his partner, the (female) first Norse-era-arrivee to join the squad, with all the political implications you would imagine that having. They’re working together to solve a set of crimes, but the main appeal of the show is just the interesting setting and premise and all the neat little details of world-building. The second season is still fun and worth watching, although it goes slightly off the rails into crazy all-over-the-place town. B
The Tourist on HBO also starts with an interesting, if not nearly as novel, premise… guy wakes up from a car crash in tiny-outback-ville Australia with total amnesia, obviously (to the viewer) involved in something suspicious. What’s his backstory? How will he figure it out? Etc. Nothing super-groundbreaking here, but two big points in its favor: (a) his main ally is a somewhat mousey female junior cop, whose dysfunctional relationship with her husband is low-key devastating. She’s the definite series MVP. (b) Lots of twists and turns and revelations and so forth… but it never drags. Definitely one of those short series that is just the right length. (My wife) pointed out that it’s very reminiscent of Fargo (the show). B-
Then we watched the very buzz-y Our Flag Means Death, also on HBO. It started out decently strong, but we got bored and gave up after about 6 episodes. It felt like one movie’s worth of premise and jokes stretched out over what seemed like an interminable number of episodes. Just not enough there. Not enough funny.
Now we’re most of the way through The Outlaws on Amazon Prime. Premise: a group of English people who have committed various crimes are doing community service, when some of them stumble upon a surprise, and crime-show-stuff ensues. Oh, did I mention that two of them are played by Stephen Merchant and Christopher Walken? Although actually the heart of the show is the really amazing performance by Rhianne Baretto as Rani, apparently the cliched south-asian straight-A student oxford-bound overachiever… except that she rebels against her parents by shoplifting, and then befriends a fellow outlaw who is very much not what her parents have in mind for her. A really remarkable performance. Note that the first episode is pretty high paced, but then the next few slow down a LOT as we get to know the (very interesting) characters. But there’s still plenty of interesting stuff happening. B+
And finally, I’m enjoying Winning Time: The Rise of the LA Lakers on HBO way more than I expected to. It’s a clever, fourth-wall-breaking fictionalization of Jerry Buss (brilliantly played by John C Reilly) basically willed into existence the famous showtime lakers of the early 80s, with all sorts of fascinating real life characters showing up. I don’t think Magic Johnson’s love life is quite as interesting as the show does, but the rest of the story is incredibly watchable. (And there’s very very little actual basketball, so don’t worry if you you think that might be a sticking point.) (Note that episode 1 is the best one, and then episode 2 is probably the worst, but after that it settles into a solidly entertaining rhythm). B-
May 7:
For those of you who are deeply into the power of musical theater, particularly with respect to young people, I can not more highly recommend the HBO documentary Those You’ve Known, which follows the production of the 15th anniversary concert production of Spring Awakening, with all the now middle-aged adults reflecting on what it was like to be in this show as very-young-adults. Plus we get to see much (but not) of the production of what is (my wife) and my favorite musical of the past few decades.
You’re not wrong. And John Cena deserves a pile of awards for adding an amazing amount of emotional complexity to a character in a show about alien invasions, gratuitous violence, neo-Nazis, more gratuitous violence, and a spectacular amount of genital-based humor. And even more gratuitous violence.
Did you remember to watch the after-credits scenes?
Meanwhile I’ve started Undone S2, which is much like S1. The whole “I want to go back and fix the mistakes in the past” angle to a dysfunctional family drama (where the most dysfunctional member may be the most honest one) is something I find gripping even as I see the literal and metaphorical car crashes coming. And the use of rotoscoping really works to tell the story.
Also watching: The Pentaverate. It’s Mike Myers being Mike Myers. Do you like Mike Myers? Did you find the Austin Powers films funny? Do you like an endless stream of absolutely puerile jokes delivered in a deadpan style? Then you will probably like this. As I do. If you don’t find Mike Myers funny, you very definitely will not like this.
Plus there’s an absolutely cracking joke in the first episode (during the “Initiato” scene"), and Jeremy Irons’ opening credits voiceovers are fun.
Hey, @MaxTheVool, thanks! Just caught up on Yellowstone myself, looking for a new series and, viola!, there you are!
Since we’ve already talked about The Thing About Pam, I’ll mention the other housewife homicide show, Candy. It’s worth it just for the 1970s wood paneled kitsch but you also get a fantastic portrayal of the victim by Melanie Lynskey and a bit of comic relief by Justin Timberlake and Jason Ritter as cops (they’re married to series stars Jessica Biel and Melanie Lynskey, respectively).
It shouldn’t be good yet I gobbled it up.
We’re watching regularly. It’s gotten a huge amount of buzz, as being the best new show this season, and the star/creator has been making all the talk show rounds. I’m not sure it’s quite as good as the critics are telling us - I think they really want it to be good because it seems like it should be important. But it’s…enjoyable.
We watched the first episode of “Night Sky.” For anyone who’s gone further with this, does it get any less depressing? We barely made it through the first episode, it was such a downer.
The two leads are supposed to be early 70-ish. (My wife and I are both going to be 70 this month.) They seem to have been told to act like they’re in their 80s. They don’t act like me, my wife, or anyone we know in that age group. JK Simmons is a favorite actor, and he’s a vigorous man of 67 in real life. Note to young writers and directors: People in their 70s are not universally addle-headed, stubborn and crotchety. I know it’s just a story, and they’re just characters in a story, but they didn’t have to make them so stereotypically “old” to make the story work.
Perhaps it’s our impending milestone birthdays that caused us both to react this way. That said, is it worth continuing with this series? Does it get any better?
I found it tedious and the characters stereotypes of reality.
Re: Abbott Elementary - It’s uneven. At its worst, yeah, it’s predictable and cliched and tries way too hard. But at its best, it’s utterly charming. Those early episodes were fairly clunky; I’d say it’s finding its voice more and more as it goes on.
And Lisa Ann Walter is one of my favorite people. I’ll watch anything she’s in.
Yeah, I was confused a lot, but they tied enough of it up that I really loved it. I was devastated when it was cancelled.
O.k. people are loving The Peacemaker. Is it recommended for someone who has probably less than zero interest in comic book hero shows?
Very hard to say. My guess is probably not, but… it’s so damn good you might like it anyhow?
It follows on from the events of the film The Suicide Squad (the 2021 film, not the earlier one). If you like that, you’ll like the show. If you don’t, then you probably won’t, as it relies on the same extremely dark and violent humor.
No “the”.
And now I think I have the theme stong stuck in my head.
thanks to pluto tv having single show channels I’ve been watching a lot of shows I used to … like bingeing MST3K
I’ve watched 7 of the 8 episodes of the first season. I think it might have made a good 90 minute movie, but they streeeeetched it out. I’ll watch the eighth episode tonight, but don’t see the need for a second season.
I agree they make the couple seem like they are in their 80s/90s rather than their 70s. It continues to add depressing stuff.