Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

While I suspect there is an AI that generates all these documentaries, the ZZ Top documentary is great.

i mean it was cool to see them relay the early history, but even as someone who will watch and enjoy most any rock doc I thought it was shit

watching this you'd thing they'd made three albums, it skipped from Tres Hobres directly to Elimiminator (?!) and literally almost a third of the movie was talking about "cartoon chatacters!"/MTV/beards

big missed opportunity imo + stupid animation trope

you'd *think*

I thought it was nuts the way it just ended, though to be fair, the ZZ Top story does sort of end with Eliminator. Which, also tbf, sort of codified ZZ Top in the minds of millions. Beards/cartoons/MTV might be silly, but that's literally the first and only thing most people think about ZZ Top. I'm also not sure what would have been gained by going into more detail of those late '70s records. I mean, I'm sure more good stories, but the secrets of "El Loco" will have to reman just that until someone writes a book. (Maybe someone has?)

I dunno, I thought it was entertaining, and I don't feel like I left it with any hanging questions, at least none that they would have addressed in a doc. For most people I imagine the early years are the most unknown aspect of ZZ Top, so it makes sense the doc should focus on that. (Plus the token two-minute detour into substance abuse and rehab.)

No, I don't have a problem with it ending with Elimnator, just that it glossed over like 75% of eveything prior to that. And I get that maybe there's not enough varety in those records to go into ay great detail, failing to make even a cursory tour is kinda wtf

also at a musical level the exploration was like a cm thin. "The blues," "the blues," "the blues but also energetic." e.g. if you're gonna do a talking heads style doc maybe have some people discussing what makes Billy Gibbons such a great guitarist, and a little less of Billy Bob Thornton

this is what makes p much all music docs so bad. the 808 and Coltrane ones were especially frustrating.

I'd love to hear what was going through their minds on Antenna, or Deguello. Such patchy records. The highs among the highest they ever reached, the lows utterly forgettable. And a few roads not taken - Manic Mechanic? Probably for the best.

I really enjoyed the ZZ Top documentary bc it gave you a feel for them as a band. I didnt mind so much that it only hit the highlights; it was just a cool kinda sweet reinforcement of why I love em and what a national treasure they are

Kingdom is back!

perfect timing

I like I Am Not OK With This. It's short and snappy.

It's in the same universe/creator as The End of the F***ing World and is pretty dense with music too.

On season 2 ep 4 and just wanted to say that Kingdom is just an absolutely beautiful show. so many memorable shots (though a lot less variety of hats this time around).

Tiger king is completely absurd, veering from character study, to cult exposé, to murder mystery, just in the first three episodes.

Just watched the first two eps and....yikes

I’m not okay with this was really good. Is end of the fucking world coming back? I mean the show and not the actual
Event which obv is here

Tiger king is completely absurd, veering from character study, to cult exposé, to murder mystery, just in the first three episodes.

I tried to watch it, because the reviews all said it was an unbelievable story, but I can't watch those guys dragging tigers around on chains and keeping them in tiny pens and the backs of vans and all that other stuff. It just makes me miserable.

I’m not okay with this was really good.

It really was - breezed through the whole season yesterday. More teen genre shows should strive to be 25-min long per episode imo. i mean this isn't really all that different in plot to say, Sabrina (teen girl discovers powers, hijinks and romantic complications ensue) but it was much less of a drag to get through cause it was so short and hit all its story beats so cleanly.

yeah, shows and movie are overly long for absolutely no reason. I really appreciated how tight I'M Not Okay WIth This is.

Netflix is to blame, but HBO is getting bad at making 10 episode seasons when they could fit it in five or six. Looking at you, The Outsider

breezed through the whole season yesterday

really appreciated how tight I'M Not Okay WIth This is.

the book is about half an hour's read so it sounds like they really padded it out for TV :)

I started I Am Not Okay With This today & love it so much. Esp enjoying that the two leads are Bev & Stan from “It” - they are so excellent

My wife pointed out that it's the exact midpoint between Sex Education & Sabrina.

i just really enjoy when teen stuff is handled well & isn’t fetishizing how great it is/was etc

Loved it but prob not quite as much as End of the Fucking World. The plot made me go back and read Daniel Clowes' The Death Ray.

I tried to watch it, because the reviews all said it was an unbelievable story, but I can't watch those guys dragging tigers around on chains and keeping them in tiny pens and the backs of vans and all that other stuff. It just makes me miserable.

― trishyb, Sunday, March 22, 2020 6:02 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yes, it's really horrifying, and it kinda hammers home that there are no good guys in the story.

We're struggling for stuff to watch as a family. Or I should say, there's so much out there there's really something for everyone, and watching as a family just kind of imposes unnecessary complications and compromises. But the thing that bugs me the most is when I find out about a well-regarded show for or about teens (like I Am Not Okay With This) and it inevitably is trying to be edgy, or at least really focused on sex, drugs and drinking. And I know someone out there is immediately going to say "well, duh, that's what teens do," but those are exactly the things teens have reportedly been doing *less* of for the past several years. No doubt these shows are all being made by people who were teens 20 years ago and whose only exposure to teenagers are the Hollywood kids they cast. I dunno, maybe I'll just suggest it to my kids and ask them what they think afterwards. God knows they've probably seen it already.

I don't know how representative I am, but I didn't really like stuff about teens when I was one (I remember thinking My So-Called Life was entirely risible). It was only when I was out of high school that I started to like some of that stuff

There might be something to that. I think a lot of shows get a lot of credit for coming close, because by definition this stuff runs on a lag: by the time it airs the teens and trends that inspired it have moved on or shifted, if only a little, and teens can smell inaccuracy a mile away. "Freaks & Geeks" remains one of the few shows I thought got things right that my kids also appreciated.

I was 15? when my so called life came out and I remember watching the first episode it at my bf's house with all his friends and it was a little too spot on for the time I thought.

I Am Not Ok W/ This I thought was more in that Heathers vein and not like, this is what teens do nowadays.

F&G is definitely a high-water mark. The other teen-focused stuff I like is usually refracted through another adult genre so realism doesn't really matter and the melodrama isn't the only thing going on (e.g., Buffy, Veronica Mars; Sex Education to a degree too, though I would never watch that with my parents in the room).

Stuff I liked watching with my parents: various UK comedies, the Simpsons, my mom got into X-Files with me, and lots of oscarbaity movies that were a good gateway to developing my own taste in film while transitioning out of "kid's movies."

Tbf I don't remember MSL well enough to explain why I hated it--for all I know I felt owned by it

I am total contrarian on this I know, but I never got F&G. It was fine. It was a bit of work to get through for me because it felt really really slow and I didn't like most of the characters/casting. Would always rate Buffy, VM, Se all of the other shows listed above it.

for anyone in the UK here's a list of films on Netflix and Prime that are a bit more buried under algorithms.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/100-great-films-streaming-netflix-amazon-prime?fbclid=IwAR2Ms_2cw2a8SDK0lBI6BreEAm8sEYJYSfyCdNwwSHbPWvXZMY8TWLtk7Ok

xps to Josh. Don't know how old your kids are but if you've got Prime then Gortimer Gibbons is a fantastic family show.

Also my daughter has been watching Atypical on Netflix and the bits I've seen seem really good (but does have quite a few sexual references)

My kids, even the 15 year old, love Gortimer Gibbons. Also some Disney show right now called ... Dear Future President? My older one really liked the One Day at a Time remake.

FWIW, they can't get into Buffy (I wish) and I dunno about Veronica Mars (though Kristin Bell might entice them). Both of those, but specifically Buffy, are not about teens, really. They are about teen issues refracted through an adult lens, imo, or at least a more adult frame of reference.

teens like shows about adults and adults like shows about teens

otm, I think!

Freaks & Geeks, fwiw too, is the only of these types of shows where I've heard multiple generations react to it the same way. I have a friend in his early '50s who says it nails 1981 midwest. I'm in my '40s and it nails my east coast high school experience. And my kids appreciated the themes and complexities of the relationships, too. While I can't believe someone would dislike the cast/casting, which imo is dead-on (and single handedly launched several major careers), I guess I can see how someone would call it "slow," because I think it's pretty realistic, and real life is "slow." It's not "The Flaming Lips are playing the Peach Pit!" or "Half of Riverdale is in some sort of a cult!" It's "my friend and I are fighting because he wants to watch Dallas and I don't."

lol I haven't thought of the Peach Pit in decades

yeah it's really weird, because I know the cast has had big careers after but I just wasn't into them at all. It was fine. I went to hs in virginia in the 90s.

oh yeah +1 for atypical. I really enjoyed it.

I think the daughter on atypical is playing Ted's? daughter in the new bill and ted movie.

Oh, shit, Atypical is the one about the teen with autism? I think we watched maaaaaybe the first episode of that a year ago and absolutely hated it.

No doubt these shows are all being made by people who were teens 20 years ago and whose only exposure to teenagers are the Hollywood kids they cast.

Chuck Forsman doesn't cast the English TV shows based on his American books.

I'm not entirely sure what you are talking about; this show is American, I thought. I'm not familiar with the comic book author, but looked him up, and indeed, he was a teen ... 20 years ago. fwiw.

as a family we're all enjoying Tiger King

I'm not entirely sure what you are talking about; this show is American, I thought.

The previous Forsman adaptation was made for an English TV channel, in England, starring English actors in their 20s, by the same English producer / director of I Am Not Okay With This. His short films prior to End Of The Fucking World were made in England. Casting the adaptation of I Am Not Okay With This would probably have been the first time in his life he was around "Hollywood teenagers."

Forsman was a teen 20 years ago, and the teens in various of his works do seem to be inspired by his own experiences, but both he and his partner have worked as lecturers and tutors for college-aged kids in the last decade.

Interesting. Anyway, I was talking about this new show, which I have heard from multiple places is a show that shows teens being teens. And I commented how teens being teens in these shows often reflects literally none of the teens I know or live with, nor do they reflect what studies repeatedly show contemporary teens are or are not doing, and I hypothesized it's because all the creators were basing their stories on their teenage years 20 years earlier. I predict in 20 years someone will make a show about teenage boys hanging out in their rooms and playing online games.

Also this is a fictional story (about teenagers with psychic powers). Movies that have relatable adults engaging in identifiable behaviour don’t necessarily show them flossing and making coffee and checking their facebook wall multiple times per day of story time, even if that’s a major part of how your suburban neighbours’ lives play out as you observe them.

this is fiction? is that why nobody poops?

ffs, this whole thread needs to go into quarantine now.