But Is It on Netflix? - Streaming Video Service Thread: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube TV, AT+T Watch, Philo, Playstation Vue, HBO Max, HBO Now, Facebook Live and many more

I'm finally getting around to Ripley, and I have mixed feelings about it. I think it's actually not very good in a lot of ways:

- The performances have a distinct odour of not having been directed much if at all - the actors left to their own devices. Dialogue is flat, almost like rehearsal level. Many long pauses. The only real life and brio comes occasionally from Scott who is of course a huge ham, and his mischievousness is like a breath of fresh air when he decides to deploy it

- The editing, which is not something I usually notice, is just very lugubrious. There are scenes which are clearly written as comedy but which the editing undercuts. The scene with the postman and the stairs and the suitcases, for instance, when Ripley first arrives in town, which some brisk editing could have rendered quite funny, falls kind of flat, despite Scott's best efforts

- The dialogue is just not that interesting. Do they ever talk about anything? Maybe this is how certain rich people are. But like... do the characters have an inner life? Hard to say apart from Ripley, whose inner life is conveyed through some hugely telegraphed moments of abasement

But here's the thing... I keep watching it. Why? I think it's two things. 1, there is just an incredible power to a story of a bad person doing bad things and whether they'll get away with it or not. 2, the PHOTOGRAPHY, FUCKING HELL. I have never seen ANYTHING like this. It's overwhelming on a level of like 3-D Imax or something. The razor-sharp precision of every shot is breathtaking. The ripples on the water. The bricks of a wall. And certain shots quite deliberately ape still photography of the period, so you feel as though you're actually inside a Vivian Maier photograph. It's just wild. I keep watching mainly so I can luxuriate in it. And the leaden editing actually helps here - lets me soak in each shot a little more.

New streamer up: Kino Lorber finally launched its own service.

https://kinofilmcollection.com/

of course i want to pay for it but boy do i ignore my mubi and ovid and criterion....they get lonesome. feel like a lot of stuff floats around all three as well. and now four. but i am a sucker for such presentation. i am a born clicker.

Is Dark Matter canceled yet?

The SyFy show from about 7 years ago is, not the current Apple TV show. The former was a Canadian ensemble with some middling production value but a lot of fun and want afraid to push the plot.

Agree with you, Leee, s1 of altered carbon was very entertaining but I tried twice to get into s2 and just couldn’t.

Xps I never saw the tv show but I loved the Wayward Pines books

The other "what the fuck is happening" show on Apple we have now bailed is The Big Door Prize.

Only way this would be acceptable is if it's an adaptation of John Prine/Iris DeMent's "In Spite Of Ourselves."

xpost to Tracer Hand. I’ve come round to the view that it’s really good. The spaciousness of the photography relates nicely to the spaciousness of the dialogue and indeed the sense that people are thinking before they speak more generally. this creates a great feeling of the exterior photography relating directly to their interior spaces in a way i’m not sure i’ve seen done as effectively before.

the photography is marvellous, like you say. i love the way it’s able toe recognise the variable moods of the med. it’s not the sun sex and sybaritism of the classic view. it’s more the med that would swallow entire fleets of ships with its storms. “wind dark” indeed.

it’s also a series that necessarily loves to dwell on people’s faces, necessarily. and they’re all up to it. i think you’re harsh on Scott being a ham - i think he’s a tremendous actor, probably one of the best around! he can convey a lot with body shape and face.

two caveats. he walks like he’s poo’d himself (this is consistent across roles) and he’s too built/swole in the torso. maybe that’s just a necessary hazard of being a modern day male actor.

but no, love it basically. great work with italian statuary and art. done with absolute relish.

agree on Altered Carbon, S2 is the low end of "okay" whereas S1 was a vv good story. The problem was probably due to the first season following the first novel in the series closely, and the second going off on its own to extremely diminishing returns. I really liked Kinnaman in the lead role, Mackie less so but i don't think that was his fault, he would have been as good as Kinnaman in the role if written better. it wasn't a v good storyline, and i never bought Renee Elise Goldsberry as the charismatic irresistible leader of a resistance movement whom Takeshi Kovacs would follow across time and space and as he changed host bodies over and over.

S1 of AC was excellent like everyone’s saying. i don’t think i made it halfway through E1 of S2.

disney+ beach boys doc was ok-ish at best if you're being extremely generous, not for hardcore nerds and really should have been like a 3-parter at least to not be same old same old. present day brian shots from the ending looking very sad and not long for this world, he was at some premiere for the show today or this week i guess and it shocked me how he has declined a lot since that doc of him from a year or two ago where he was already not in a great place but dementia so that's how it goes

I saw him play a few years back on a bill with the original lineup of the zombies doing Odesy and oracle and he seemed really bad. And his wife just passed too so I’ve been thinking he’s not going to be around much longer. Saw the preview for that and figured I wouldn’t lean anything.

Concert was still fun. blondie Chaplin played with his and got to take some highlights and do sail on sailor.

Evil is starting its final season on Paramount Plus. It’s completely incoherent and sometimes campy fun (a priest has sex with a demon!), sometimes has a moderately spooky MOTW episode but they didn’t really commit to one path enough to actually be good.

show is completely unhinged now it’s so wild

not that it was ever uh hinged

haha we just started that. every time they refer to god as "he" it makes me want to vomit, and the whitewashing of Catholicism is super offensive, but it's definitely trashy fun.

Just started watching the Korean show AGENCY on Netflix, which after one episode seems like a cross between Mad Men and Succession, as a highly ambitious and superficially cold creative director tries to navigate the more male-dominated world of her ad agency, and climb the ladder to the top. Thumbs up so far.

Anyone still watching The Sympathizer? Haven’t really been seeing anyone talk about it here or elsewhere, which is a bummer because I thought it was pretty great overall. Some weird swings in tone, but that was true of the book as well.

I also thought RDJ was the weak link in this - liked the idea of him as the various aspects of Western evil personified, but the ridiculousness of his performance was very The Nutty Professor-esque. Found it very distracting everytime he was onscreen.

finished season one of Bosch. will probably continue. his face is a marvel. sometimes he will make ten weird expressions in a row in five seconds and its kinda like watching a dog try to think. i actually can't think of another show that has so many long shots of someone just thinking.

S1 of Bosch is the weakest of the first several seasons. Well worth hitting next

Also more talk here including nice depiction of the different faces of Bosch

"If you can smoke and drink while doing it, it's not a sport" - a thread for BOSCH

i don't think i need a thread but thanks. i have so many murder shows to keep track of. i watch different ones on PBS, Acorn, Brit Box, MHz. i started Beck on MHz. i have to stop starting new ones. they are like murder candy. i have enjoyed watching Tracker, Elsbeth, and Will Trent as they come on every week. like the old days!

i really like The Nordic Murders on PBS. set on the island of Usedom in Pomerania next to Poland. they speak German there. i'd never heard of the place before. i go all over with t.v.! i can't afford to really go. they are constantly going over to Poland to bug the Polish cops on that show.

Anyone still watching The Sympathizer

i couldn't get through the first episode, something about it just felt off.

I was wary of Baby Reindeer but finally decided to watch (partly incentivized by the fact that the series is much shorter than I’d originally thought). Anyway, should have trusted my initial instincts. I find this show deeply unpleasant.

I've just started it too.

the Nordic Murders has been one of the bbc4 things on Saturday night, two series broadcast so far with some major cast turnover between them. enjoyed it though.

(imdb has it as 1 season spanning 7 years - it was one episode a year at the start)

agree re: the Beach Boys doc. There's some cool footage in there but it's very superficial; suppose that's what you get when it's shorter than 2 hours.

yeah i was bored silly by it, i ended up watching Love & Mercy on prime instead

i want the Beach Boys doc series thats 9 hours of Pet Sounds session footage like Get Back. Where’s THAT doc

OTMFM

i'd like to see non-edited raw footage of that beach gathering at the end, i wonder how awkward and weird it was

History of rock in 500 songs (my new hero) posted a review of The Beach Boys doc. Not very complimentary. Seems to much prefer Endless Harmony.

man, you guys really want me to listen to that 500 songs podcast. how much are they paying the ILX street team?

i've never listened to a podcast. unless marc maron on youtube counts. i guess that counts.

You can burn them to discs and think of them as spoken word albums

I sped-read the transcript of the "Dark Star" episode, ain't got time to listen to no four hour podcast.

I'm watching A Man in Full now. It's only six episodes and I've watched 4.5 of them so far.

Daniels lays it on thick, which is distracting. But I'm finding the sum to be just barely better than all the parts, so I'm going with it.

When you get to the very last episode you may find yourself thinking, as I did, "Wow, he [David E. Kelley] really made this whole thing just so he could do that, didn't he?"

Haha, ok stand by. Will report back later tonight or tomorrow.

Yoooooooooo more Lady Parts!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uZ0OWGen1w

Oh now THAT is great

When you get to the very last episode you may find yourself thinking, as I did, "Wow, he [David E. Kelley] really made this whole thing just so he could do _that_, didn't he?"

History of rock in 500 songs (my new hero) posted a review of The Beach Boys doc.

for anyone else who scrolled for weeks on the 500 Songs site and then found his own site has had all content taken down, this is probably this public post on his patreon

Season 2 of Pachinko coming in August!

ok I am sold on Evil, what a batshit crazy show, the silent monastery episode really sold me

S3 Finale of Hacks brings it. Can't wait for S4.

did anyone watch Palm Royale? I'm about half-way through it. I like it, though it isn't 'funny' and 10 episodes seems long; the production and costume design is amazing. Mostly impressed with how good an actor Ricky Martin is.

I keep confusing it with Acapulco

when i put on Paramount+ i can't help but think: who would be bored enough to watch A Gentleman in Moscow? and then i kinda feel bad for Ewan McGregor. but who knows? maybe its great. i will never know...

The movie Godzilla Minus One, which got pretty good reviews, is on Netflix now. Might check that out this weekend.

It’s terrific

yes highly recommend!