Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Hmm. Interested, but the book that comes from is not great.

David Thewlis going full Emo Philips in that preview.

Has anyone else watched Cursed?

Done the first episode and not sure I can take another 9 episodes of bad acting and sub-Merlin production values

it's really bad. i couldn't get past like the first 10 minutes.

re: the kaufman trailer, love the way the dog shaking noise goes on long after the dog has gone from view and the scene has changed. very unnerving.

Enjoyed Speed Cubers a lot. I really felt for Max's parents - they've put so much into supporting him.

Yeah, I liked Speed Cubers too. I appreciate that there may be an awareness of the camera to play to slightly, but thought that Feliks seemed such a genuinely lovely and super balanced guy! I appreciated that the documentary was kept short too, it felt just about right when dealing with the focused subject of just the two players.

Thanks for the tip upthread ledge.

you're welcome! those evenings spent scrolling through every list on the netflix home screen aren't completely a waste of time. maybe 95% waste.

I thought the Speed Cubers doc was nice enough but surprised it didn't get into just a brief history of the cube, the 80s craze, explaining organized competetion, etc...it seemed like there was a beat about 20 or 30 minutes in where they could have done that and deepened interest a little.

Despite the title, I thought it came across as more of a documentary on autism based around cubing, rather than a documentary about cubing per se. Though a bit more information on the cubing scene could have been interesting. As someone involved briefly in boardgame competitions years ago, the types of competitions seemed instantly recognisable,

I think you could see that Feliks was having a growing realisation of how lucky he was to be balanced and be able to develop a finance career/move town/develop a wider life.

*types of competitors

He kinda went down in my estimation after he talked about going into finance. (In other words I learned about him, grew to like him, and cancelled him all in the space of 40 minutes. Wild times!)

new Charlie Kaufman!

this isn't really fair but I read the wiki synopsis of the book and between that and the 135-minute runtime I'll be shocked if this movie doesn't turn out to be completely insufferable, especially at 135 mins

I love mentioning runtimes apparently

if a grindhouse ex machina sounds like it might be your cup of tea then watch upgrade. "grindhouse" is overdoing it a bit obv, netflix production values but it's fairly violent, one v brutal moment.

Is that the one with fake Tom Hardy turning into a killer cyborg? If so, it's enjoyable.

Upgrade isn't a Netflix production. it's just a two year old low budget sci fi that Netflix are now showing xp

And yes, it's pretty enjoyable.

ok, i thought it looked pretty netflix but i guess that's just standard modern low budget style, probably there's no such thing as a netflix look. and yes, low budget tom hardy!

No there definitely is; like, well produced, but flat. Not too dark, not too bright or saturated.

upgrade is a blumhouse joint and you're describing their look/casting pretty well

I would say Blumhouse has a more digital "inky" house style with slashes of neon; think The Purge series or the recent Fantasy Island.

Karate Kid

Out of the bloke who did Upgrade's previous films, six had grossed over $100 million on $1-10 million budgets - he won't be resorting to Netflix unless cinemas go away altogether. (Upgrade "only" made about six times its $3MM budget; his Invisible Man this year pulled in $130 million on a $7MM budget in two weeks, before the pandemic shut down movie theaters - it reopened in his home country last month).

My son and I just getting to the end of the first season of Trollhunters.

What's the correct viewing order - do we jump into season two next or should we start on 3 Below?

you're supposed to watch them backward. and not only in backward order, but each episode backward as well. only then will the truth about Trollhunters be revealed.

Finally watching Narcos: Mexico. It’s a wee bit corny but v watchable & who doesnt love Michael Peña right

(ttrue story of Kiki Camerena 4-part docuseries “The Last Narc” is on Amazon Prime, highly recommended companion viewing if you want to chainsmoke & never sleep again).

thinking of watching this bob lazar ufo thing, is this a bad idea? n.b. i want to believe.

love on the spectrum is (maybe surprisingly?) great

Found it too painful to get through even one episode.

Admittedly my bar was set very low, so this may not be saying much, but Upgrade was better than I expected.

there was various chat scattered around ILX when Upgrade came out, here's some:

upgrade is really good (i liked it so much i started a thread about it) but i would not call it a horror movie (though it has some horror elements for sure)

― na (NA), Wednesday, June 13, 2018 2:52 AM (two years ago)

Upgrade was quite entertaining. Reviewers that seemed to focus on movie being “dumb” giving most of its influences much more credit for intelligence than I would. Definitely kind of movie I could stand more of being made.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, September 12, 2018 11:02 PM (two years ago)

I agree. I didn't love it, not normally my kind of thing but it was a pretty solid b-movie with quite tight storytelling. Well constructed.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, September 15, 2018 7:27 AM (one year ago)

I was expecting Upgrade to be a half-decent SF spin on Death Wish; it turned out to be a smart and beautifully shot thriller with an SF angle. Highly recommended.

― grawlix (unperson), Sunday, September 23, 2018 9:41 AM (one year ago)

Considerably less smart on second viewing, but yes, this movie is a gem.

― oder doch?, Monday, September 24, 2018 9:32 PM (one year ago)

I just saw Upgrade. It was pretty good! Clever b-movie premise, great execution for what must have been a low budget. Reminded me a bit of the original Terminator, or maybe Robocop, if it was directed by David Cronenberg.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 19, 2018 4:45 PM (one year ago)

and a small, withered thread: "upgrade" (2018)

probably succumbed to the quotation mark-search bork-curse. just say 'no', folks.

The chat about it in this thread earlier in the week was all I'd seen. Not sure it warrants a standalone thread, I'd say it was ok, if you like that kind of film, but nothing special.

I Am Mother is a decent little SF as well.

lol I am just watching Upgrade now and rn Stem is to this guy what my 5yo is to me
"One second has passed"

So weird thing- the Tom Hardy lookalike lead in Upgrade is my college roommate’s ex-husband.

Tom Softy

That IS weird!
When he's doing all the 'stop hitting yourself' stuff I also get a Chris Pratt vibe.

There's a whole wormhole about Logan Marshall-Green and Tom Hardy being mistaken for one another.

tbf, ENBB's post might add to it!

(It doesn't really, I'm, just drunk.)

Watched recently:

The Babysitters Club

The Babysitters Club, along with Sweet Valley High, was much of my childhood reading material (before I got into my teens and graduated to more age-appropriate fare like Vampire Chronicles fic and Stephen King books).

This show was actually recommended to me by a fellow ilxor and it’s incredible. I’ve watched it twice over now. The updated material makes sense, the kids are very true to their book characters without coming across as cloying or irritating, and ofc my fave Claudia Kishi is INCREDIBLE.

Seriously, I’m not sure it’s possible to watch Claudia and Mean Janine without tearing up at least a little.

Strongly recommend, for a wholesome watch that’s not saccharine and does the things the books did well.

Selling Sunset

Currently watching this and it’s great. You could say trash - the clothes, the heels, the copious amount of plastic surgery - but if you don’t like looking at enormous tasteless houses and cringing at how awful the rich are, who even are you?

Obviously selling high priced property, all the women are tough, and watching how they work together and bump off each other is the best part of the show. (It’s not the damn owners, who never add anything to a single scene). I love Christine, even though (or because?) she’s awful, and Mary (even though she’s fooling herself). A good easy watch.

I need to get around to checking out BSC - I loved those books too and haven't heard a single bad thing about the series. And yessss Claudia Kishi, style queen and rare Asian character in 90s kid lit, was my hero growing up. <3

However good you think Claudia will be, she’s better. Also, her and Mimi? The cutest.

The Society & I Am Not Okay With This cancelled due to Covid-19 production issues.

https://deadline.com/2020/08/the-society-i-am-not-okay-with-this-canceled-netflix-covid-related-no-season-2-1203020036/

Dang, I liked I Am Not Okay With This a lot.

Is The Society s1 worth watching?

hope Netflix's no-residuals policy worked out for Chuck Forsman here

baby sitters club is indeed INCREDIBLE

We watched the first part of Babysitters Club - it was a bit slow at the start. So we flipped over to Teenage Bounty Hunters. That was quite the shift in tone & content.