Your recent entertainment pleasant surprises

Cafe Society
1

The entertainment does not have to be recent, just your experience of it.

What have you seen/heard recently that surpassed your expectations in a noticeable way? I have found several times that past year or so that I have been surprised(almost stunned) at some things that were a lot better than I expected. I always give things a fair shot, but am usually not surprised.

I see a lot of shows and movies, so please don’t assume I am easily surprised. I’ve just noted that I had a lot of surprised the past year or so. I have no idea why.

Mine:

Beauty and the Beast - live action. Uh, this was great. I saw the reviews, figured it would be decent. I was blown away. I turned to my wife more than once in the theater and said, “Uh, this is great!” She agreed and had equal expectations. I loved this more than the cartoon. Sacrilege, but true. Highly recommended.

The Dark Element - Annette Olzon is in this band(she’s formerly from Nightwish). I had zero hope for this being anything but another generic symphonic metal album. The album cover is really stupid, too.

Uh, it was the album of 2017 for me, maybe even the best album of the past couple years. Here is a sample track. If you like this one, it’s all up your alley. If not, forget it. :slight_smile:

**Pirates of the Caribbean 5 **- Wow, I was bracing myself for it being even worse than the fourth one, which was very disappointing. I was stunned how great this movie was. It’s clearly up there with the first one, or just a notch below if not equal. We bought it on Blu-ray the day of release. I don’t know why it wasn’t hailed as a return to form for the series, but we loved it.

Like Beauty in the Beast, I turned to my wife a few times in the theater and said, “Uh…I think I love this movie!” She felt the same. Helps to have a spouse with almost identical entertainment preferences.

**The Greatest Showman **- Really just expected a forgettable musical. I was so impressed. I’ve now seen it twice and think it is one of the best movie musicals I’ve seen and certainly the best written for the screen. I bought the soundtrack and my kids listen to it all the time; they haven’t even seen the movie yet!

Altered Carbon - Reviews were pretty mixed on this. I know Netflix was hoping for this to be a major “Game of Thrones” or at least “Stranger Things” level hit for them. I am actually only 8 episodes in(of 10), but I think it is the best original Netflix show and probably my favorite new show of the past year or so. I keep finding that while I initially put it on in the background, I am now super focused on it when I watch it. Love it.

I have some book ones as well, but I’ll have to come back later. Anyone else have some good surprises lately?

2

I have only this week started watching The Leftovers (have watched the first 16 out of 28 episodes.) I usually have no fucking idea what is going to happen from one episode to the next. (I say this in a good way.)

3

I envy you. Episode 18(International Assassin) is an all-time great in TV history.

Would love to watch that show again fresh. It was great! Loved it all the way to the end!

4

I recently watched On My Block on Netflix. Since I’m a Latino who grew up in suburban multi-cultural LA, this totally reminded me of days past. It was fun and witty although with some typical stereotypes. JpnGal liked it, too. But that ending, did NOT see that coming. Hoping for another season.

5

Taskmaster. A UK comedy show where comedians Greg Davies and Alex Horne set tasks for five other comedy celebs, some simple some fiendishly complicated, and then they are judged on their efforts and awarded points.

Sounds simple and a bit lame when described like that, so I didn’t watch it until recently, but I’m glad I then did because I immediately completely fell in love with it. Five series and a couple of specials have aired so far, two per year, and recently they announced at least four more are coming.

6

I think I’ve mentioned these guys here before, The Mastersons. I saw my man Steve Earle play last year and these guys not only opened the show, but were also part of Steve’s band The Dukes. They play both sets the whole tour.

7

I do not like DC movies. I think the last one I enjoyed was Michael Keaton’s Batman. But I loved Wonder Woman. I didn’t see it in the movies because I thought it would be like the TV show-- cheesy and with Steve in charge while good old secretary Diana hid her light under a bushel. But no, it was great.

8

I watched the concert version of Jesus Christ Superstar that aired Sunday night (well, duh…) The original orchestrations were used.

I’d forgotten how hard rocking the concept album was, and realized how damn good it is. Considering how young Andrew & Tim were when they wrote the musical, it holds up astonishing well.

9

I was pleasantly surprised to realise that the “TV Land” channel had some good original programming (not just classic reruns): in particular, I found Teachers and Nobodies to be really funny.

10

Foreign Stuff!!! (Hey, I’m ‘merkin - I didn’t know y’all could Televise)

All on Netflix:

  • Fauda - gritty Israeli - Palestinian drama.
  • Babylon Berlin - high-cost German production revolving around mysteries set in Weimar (post WW1) Berlin.
  • Money Heist/ Casa de Papel - OMFG what a fantastically silly crime romp. Love.
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I expected nothing from an outfit that hired American Idol contestants (and occasionally a weird giant clown) whom I don’t know or care about, to cover pop songs I dislike, that have been re-arranged anachronistically. Fortunately, I knew nothing about Postmodern Jukebox before I first heard them (I know they’ve been around for most of a decade-I’m slow), so now I get to enjoy them a lot.

12

I generally don’t like country music but I heard Kacey Musgraves on Colbert and she’s amazing. Her new album is really good! (I suppose it’s debatable whether it qualifies as country music at all.)

I’ve always liked John Hodgman’s weird absurdist books but his latest (Vacationland) is more of a memoir and, while it is still funny, it’s also shockingly poignant. Highly recommended.

13

“Three Billboards…” Watched it last night. Had high hopes for it anyway, but never expected it to be so funny. Loved it.

14

Robots is the only kids robots movie I really enjoyed. It’s stuffed with jokes in the foreground and background of every single frame and has a couple of the great visual setpieces in animated films.

For adults, Greg Pak’s little film festival favorite Robot Stories is like a great collection of short stories, moving, funny, thoughtful, and thought-provoking.

15

I went to see Game Night because my Girlfriend wanted to see it. I expected it to be awful at worst or meh at best. It wasn’t great but it was much better than I thought it would be. Worth checking out if you like Comedy with a splash of action.