What's good on Amazon Prime Video

I really enjoyed the new film Frances Ferguson on Prime. Dry no-budget absurdist comedy about a bored young substitute teacher in Nebraska who gets caught hooking up with a student. The actress playing Fran is fabulous. Nick Offerman narrates. A Schubert scherzo on synth is the soundtrack.

Anyone catch The Vast Of Space yet? Super enjoyable movie about weeeeird goings-on in smalltown America in the late 50s, framed like an episode of The Outer Limits, great actors, dialogue, and lovely roaming steadicam shots from a dog's eye view.

So good I got the name wrong, 'The Vast Of Night' lol

Yes, watched it last week and thought it was excellent. Filmed on a micro budget too but with some amazing cinematography (and that one incredible tracking shot)

20 mins in, I was already wishing it was a TV series I was watching.

I mentioned it on the movies thread, possibly another thread as well. It's really well done, like a great student film prequel to "Close Encounters."

The Vast of Night is remarkably good

So talky! I understand they were going for a radio play feel, but it was exhausting. For people who feel like Mrs Maisel doesn't have enough dialogue.

I turned the subtitles on after a few minutes thinking I was in for a bit of a Sorkin-esque time but the dialogue slowed down and the snappiness ceased as the uncertainty ramped upwards.

Hm, ok. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

I mean, it's not exactly His Girl Friday speed. If anything I imagine many people will find too slow.

Yeah it was only the first 10 minutes or so doing the Sorkin walk and talk thing xp

some of the dialogue was hard to hear, I had to crank the volume

Knives Out and Knife + Heart just added to Prime. I really liked both movies..

Could be a theme? Next up Knife in the Water and Knife in the Head? Sling Blade?

Or not.

But did I mention Cutter's Way is on Prime?

I had a terrible time hearing a lot of the dialog in Midsommar on prime, and it sounds like I'm not the only one. Not sure if there's any kind of settings change I can make to help.

I've noticed poor syncing of sound with picture on some older movies on Prime that otherwise seemed to be good quality transfers. Just off by a split second, not enough to make them unwatchable for me.

I didn't have any sound problems watching Midsommar.

Oh hell yeah, I love Knife + Heart. Just in time for Pride, lol.

i have problems with dialogue in almost everything, I think it's because things don't downmix to stereo very well (all of these things are default surround now).

3 episodes in, and Prime's Utopia seems utterly banal and unnecessary compared to the Channel 4 original. I miss the quirky Tapia de Veer soundtrack, the beautiful cinematography, the feral Fiona O'Shaughnessy, the sociopathy of the original Arby and Lee. Really wish Prime licensed the original and financed a 3rd season (many threads to tie up there). Avoid.

Bad movie fans should check out Love on a Leash. Also on Tubi which is free with a few ads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5Pi82-G8c

Upload, the transhumanist romance satire series, was a lot better than I expected.

What looked like Altered Carbon meets The Good Place has enough of its own ideas to keep one engaged through a long binging session. The jabs at marketing, corporate life, and class divides are welcome, but its carried by fine acting.

Only just caught up with The Boys, wow is it bingeable. I can imagine it being a GoT level hit in two or three seasons time.

Homelander is instantly an all time great TV villain.

And Stormfront for that matter!

I need to watch this, I loved the first series. Glad to hear it’s still good though!

Yeah they haven't really put a foot wrong yet. I've even become quite fond of Karl Urban's accent!

They already announced a spin off to The Boys in addition to a season 3, it must be doing really well.

Only thing wrong with it is the dumb 1 episode per week dripfeed

Drip feed creates lasting buzz and free publicity. It'll be the way of most marquee/prestige streaming series going forward.

Amazon innovating its way back to....conventional television.

And yes, The Boys taught me I can enjoy superhero stories created by people who hate superheroes.

They already announced a spin off to The Boys in addition to a season 3, it must be doing really well.

The comic's first spin-off was a parody of "crossover events" and Bohemian Grove called Herogasm. Amazon should lean into this and have The Boys gangbang Bosch, Sneaky Pete, Jim From The Office, and Mrs Maisel on Jeffrey Epstein's island.

I think the spinoff is a prequel, "the college days."

Pffft, weak.

It's gonna be that silly arc about the G-Men.
I haven't watched this show yet, but all signs seem to point that it's an improvement on the book?

I'm mostly caught up on the second season and it's really picked up. Still darkly funny and satirical but much more intense and disturbing than the first season, plus the violence and other stuff still finds ways to be pretty shocking. Not often you see a character casually rip someone's face off.

I plowed through Upload bc the actual mountainside resort it's set at is nearby, and they made it appropriately fall-y and gorgeous in most of the scenes. Liked seeing that, liked the jabs at late-stage capitalism and the Koch brother, etc.

DO NOT LIKE: Underlying premise of "girlfriends are SO CONTROLLING amirite?" and the sexist, rapey friend character that attaches to the main guy and routinely says fucked up shit, and the AI bell hop who's "obsessed" with Nathan and it's supposed to be gross because it's obsessive but also because it's GAY, and probably 100 other stupid things the writers obviously didn't think were worth thinking about.

Just got the Boys finale, enjoyed the satisfying (if perhaps fan servicey) scene of the ladies kicking ten shades of shit out of Stormfront shouting "nazi bitch" at her.

Did NOT see the twist/ending coming, even though apparently it was a bit telegraphed last season?

The denouement, with the perpetrators exonerated and restored, is the biggest plot hole to date. To end on Homelander spraying the poor people of fake Manhattan reminded me of Larry Niven's Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.

spoilers! (but lol)

Ha apparently that scene was meant to be in S1, but Amazon said "oh god no thats too much". Good to know by S2 they were fiiiiine with it.

BTW thats not what I meant by the twist, though I guess he was twisting his...er.

I just watched the Booksellers doc and really liked it

i just started watching The Boys, only a few eps in but i like it!

Hang in there!

Yep Boys S2 was all around as good as the first season. I rmde at a lot of edgy, shock value shows, but I dunno, this hits the right notes for me

Also feel they wrote themselves into a corner with the AOC supe reveal.

We could watch a film on twitch some time if anyone's interested.

I like that idea

Channel Zero on Starzzz (I think?) is so great, have watched three of four seasons of this now and it’s very unnerving but beautifully shot. Not surprised to learn that the showrunner was in Hannibal, aesthetics are reminiscent in some ways. Candle Cove was the one I was most familiar with but think maybe No-End House is my favourite so far for the relentless slow-burn horror of it. But anyone watching should watch them all. And Candle Cove got the creepiness of both the original creepypasta and old children’s shows that haunt your nightmares in general otm.