What's good on Amazon Prime Video

Oh, sorry! Got mixed up.

Yes, I already own the DVD, but I'm still excited to see Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise on here.

Just added: Connie Plank – The Potential of Noise. Documentary about the krautrock producer made by his son. It's good, for the most part.

I noticed there's a load of the usually pretty good Classic Albums documentaries on Prime. Not sure if they're all there but there's lots

i watched a documentary the other night about the banana and American imperialism in Latin America. Pretty decent intro, though I'd really like to see something more in depth that isn't some smug Michael Moore or whoever-type expose.

Watched the first episode of GOOD OMENS tonight and holy fuck was it bad. My tolerance for whimsy is low at the best of times, and this was about as Not For Me as it's possible for a thing to be, and that was before Queen showed up on the soundtrack. I don't really blame Neil Gaiman, though, 'cause I liked American Gods (book, not show), and while I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, the Wikipedia plot summary of one of his novels (the first in a 40-book series, for fuck's sake) made me want to tear my eyes out.

The trailer and even just the thumbnail looked so bad I couldn’t even bother giving the pilot a few minutes

i quite like it

but the special effects are so unforgivably terrible ... ie vfx in s1 eccelstone new-Who level crappy — and whatever the fuck they did to Tennant’s lizardy demon eyes (contacts or digital i cant quite tell ) looks hideous.

It's contacts in every shot, even when he's wearing sunglasses, but enhanced with cgi in the scenes where it looks aggressively stupid

that was before Queen showed up on the soundtrack

This is a reference to a very good running joke in the book, that has been left out of the series altogether.

oh man this is making me sad as I was super looking forward to this, although i think the book is way overrated.

sic what did you think of it? overall?

Watched the first episode of GOOD OMENS tonight and holy fuck was it bad. My tolerance for whimsy is low at the best of times, and this was about as Not For Me as it's possible for a thing to be, and that was before Queen showed up on the soundtrack. I don't really blame Neil Gaiman, though, 'cause I liked American Gods (book, not show), and while I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, the Wikipedia plot summary of one of his novels (the first in a 40-book series, for fuck's sake) made me want to tear my eyes out.

Your objections make sense in that, as I understand it, due to Pratchett's passing they wanted to incorporate as many of the elements that he brought to the novel as possible.

(I haven't watched it and probably won't tbh)

A someone who read the book as a teenager I didn’t dislike it but it wasn’t great either. It’s a bit heavy handed and too faithful as the book to the extent that Frances McDermont/God is explaining jokes that only really work written down. They also don’t really do much to build the characters of the ‘Them’. The book portrays them as a sort of a just William/Famous Five gang of kids living in an sentimental old world England that was already long gone in 1990, but conjoined up by Damian’s imagination field by these books . They almost seem incidental to the story. By contrast a lot of the rest of the series could do with some heavy editing. Too faithful to the book.

I don’t think we’ve talked about the Marvelous Mrs Maisel which is good fun.

(This Sunday in Melbourne was great weather for binge watching TV)

Maisel talk moved to the Maisel thread in January 2018

sic what did you think of it? overall?

it's not good but it's watchable. definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read the book. I liked the 3rd episode best, which was almost entirely new material, and with Sheen and Tennant throughout.

Adam and his pals (who are 100% William and the Outlaws, with the serial numbers faintly liquid-papered over, in the book) are so minimal a presence in the series that I wondered if they got cut down drastically because the boys or just Adam turned out to be such bad / not grasping the (very had to grasp) tone of the production. Weren't they basically the second group of protagonists in the prose version?

Everyone who isn't Crowley and Aziraphale gets short shrift tbf - not only have Newt and Anathema only met each other about 40 seconds before they bone, we've not had much longer to get to know either of them. McKean has lost his ability at British accents since Spinal Tap, even with a Scottish director, and is startlingly uncompelling as the second-most-seen character so soon after he pinned your eyes and emotions in Better Call Saul. Miranda Richardson is kinda wasted, but also doesn't have any of the earthiness of the book's character: it feels like she is very relievedly slipping into chastity at the end, rather than diverting Shadwell into appreciating pleasures of the flesh.

Frances McDormand's narration is so flat that one imagines they'd proudly announced the casting before she recorded, and couldn't go back. It's not just that she's reading or elucidating stuff from the book, it's that either she doesn't seem to get the jokes enough to play them deadpan, or the visuals are so frenetically busy underneath her that it undermines her casual delivery from what might otherwise play as deadpan.

Similar objections to sic esp re: Frances McDormand's narration. Pacing was all over the place - it felt like they were just rushing through the plot points of the book.

I did like the kids though - thought the parts where Adam comes into his powers were better here than they were in the book. It's been a while since I read it but iirc Adam just weirds his friends out a bit before he comes round. Here he actually gets to be a bit more terrifying.

Sheen and Tennant were great, everyone else was underutilised/miscast. And as with all things Gaiman, the whole thing was all just entirely too pleased with itself.

Young teen me is surprised no one has green-lit that Piers Anthony immortality series yet.

I watched the first ep, and it was much better than I expected. Will watch the rest.

while I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, the Wikipedia plot summary of one of his novels (the first in a 40-book series, for fuck's sake) made me want to tear my eyes out.

lol this is pretty much my experience except swap out Wikipedia summary for having someone describe the novel to me at length while I nod politely and desperately look for an exit (this has happened to me multiple times in my life with different people, so apparently pratchett fans are the type of people who do this) (I did try to read something by him once, it was bad)

Yeah the trailer is terrible and it definitely looks awful and cheap !

It was okay. Tennant was great, Sheen was good (I probably would have thought he was great if his portrayal had matched the mental image I had from the book, which was a significantly older character), I kind of liked the Horsemen.

Jon Hamm was also pretty funny but that's not a surprise.

Yeah I thought it was ok. Tennant, Sheen and Hamm were all good. Whitehall ok. Any others with big parts pretty poor esp McKean who was dreadful.

The first episode, or even just the opening sequences were nearly enough to put me off totally - the stench of cod Douglas Adams was overwhelming and threatened to come back every time the Frances McDormand v/o struck up.

Has anyone watched "Higher Power"? Looks like a b-grade alt-superhuman movie, very vaguely like "Rupture", in that putting someone through stress unlocks latent ability. Not having Amazon Prime, if someone rates it average or better, I'd track it down elsewhere. Am thinking Google Play for "Forest of Lost Souls", so would look for "Higher Power" there, also.

^"Forest of Lost Souls" is great. It's on both Prime and Hulu.

Searching at justwatch.com, I see that "Higher Power" is on Hulu but would cost $4.99 for members to watch on Prime. Not my thing anyway.

Hulu would be your best deal to see both films. The $5.99/month plan works great for watching just movies. That's less than Google Play for just the two, and Hulu's ads only interrupt their TV shows/series.

Thanks for the input! Been planning on dropping HBO, which - aside from GoT, John Oliver, and the periodic special or movie - hasn't been an excellent value for the money.

So could replace it with Hulu, meant to say.

I've been watching Long Strange Trip, the Amazon original Dead documentary. It's definitely a cut above the standard issue streaming doc-in-a-box and is done in a style that suits is subject matter very well.

Any others with big parts pretty poor esp McKean who was dreadful.

About a minute into his first appearance, I said to myself "McKean was cast and directed to give this ridiculous performance because Shadwell is not supposed to come across as a credible human being" and then he stopped bothering me.

xp to alpaca: the main story element of 'this week tonight' is on their youtube channel every week fwiw

Good Omens is not as bad as I expected but I feel like actors other than Sheen and Tennant would have made it better.

It just occurred to me that the Queen gag was the one thing from the book that they DIDN'T signpost and repeat three times to make sure everyone watching got it

thanks for the post about the 'classic albums' series being on here. got those queued up for background viewing during work .

Here are links to specific threads for some Amazon Originals shows:

— Bosch: "If you can smoke and drink while doing it, it's not a sport" - a thread for BOSCH
— Sneaky Pete: Sneaky Pete on Amazon Prime
— Homecoming: Homecoming, a good show on Amazon Prime
— The Man in the High Castle: Search is Broken so I Don't Know if there's already a Man in the High Castle TV show thread
— The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
— Transparent: Transparent - Jill Solloway television series on Amazon
— The Expanse: (Amazon picked this up for season 4 and beyond): Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

One of the episodes of Good Omens has the intro 25 minutes in. That's just not on.

Watched The Posse yesterday. It's a western from 1975 starring and directed by Kirk Douglas. Bruce Dern is in it as well. Not a typical western - kind of weird little film tbh.

I guess it's just called Posse.

thanks, Spottie!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXyXyJtbhg

Watched this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannie_Caulder cuz the cast is amazeballs (well, except for Culp). Unfortunately it sucked.

An area that I don't think has been mentioned where Amazon Prime is pretty strong is Italian genre films of the 60s, 70s & 80s. Spaghetti Westerns, Euro-crime, Giallo, etc. Unless you go searching for it and follow links to related titles, directors or actors, you might never know it's there. Amazon's website is the best way to explore, as opposed to the Prime Video app. A few examples:

Search for Spaghetti Western. Just a fraction of what Amazon suggests:

Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!
Django, Prepare A Coffin
Django Meets Sartana!
(The original Django film is no longer available for some reason. None of the sequels come close, but these three are the best of the 10 or so on Prime.)
I am Sartana...Your Angel Of Death
If You Meet Sartana... Pray for Your Death
Sartana's Here, Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin
$100,000 For A Killing
A Fistful of Dollars
God Made Them, I Kill Them
God Said to Cain
A Man Called Blade
Day of Anger
Companeros
Dead Men Don't Count
Man, Pride & Vengeance

Sure, they ain't all classics. Many don't belong in a discussion of "what's good", but just seeing the lurid cover art by the dozen should make your pulse race. A search for Euro Crime leads to, for starters:

The Italian Connection
Caliber 9
The Boss
Blood & Diamonds
Execution Squad
Hired Gun
Killer Cop
How to Kill a Judge
Property Is No Longer a Theft
Shoot First, Die Later

Search for Giallo. Some of what shows up:

Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye
Eye In The Labyrinth
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key
Weekend Murders
The Black Belly of the Tarantula
The Bloodstained Butterfly
The Blood Spattered Bride
Blood and Black Lace
Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion
Don't Torture a Duckling
The Black Cat
City of the Living Dead
Short Night of Glass Dolls
Death Laid an Egg
The Cat O' Nine Tails
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
Killer Is On The Phone
Opera
Deep Red
Phenomena

Beware that many versions have terrible dubbed English and no option for Italian with subtitles. I'm no expert, but I think that's what comes with the territory. It's more tolerable with the better movies. With the crappier ones, it can add to the charm. Or not.

Whenever you find an old movie on Prime from before about 1990, from anywhere, not just Italy, you should proceed with caution. I've gotten excited to find old classics that turn out to be unwatchable, shoddy transfers. As a rule, when the cover thumbnail is a generic dark box the video quality is shit.

oh damn, i didn't realize so much of that giallo put out in recent times by Arrow was on Prime in the US. Awesome! i wanna watch all of that.

yes! i have been filling my watchlist with all this stuff and absolutely going to town.

it is also a goldmine for the works of folks like joseph merhi, richard pepin, and the like.

the church is missing from that giallo list, it's on prime and it's spectacular

Whenever I stumble upon a cache of stuff I like that I didn't know was there I add it to my watchlist. But then I end up with 300+ things in my watchlist, which is so many that I can't tell when something vanishes. Until I look for it, and it turns out to be the one thing I want to see and it's not there.

A bunch of the movies being listed lately (like Hannie Caulder) are available on Prime and Hulu both, for people without one or the other.

thank you, punning display! I have several of those giallo already in my watchlist but had no clue about how to search for them

I haven't had Prime very long, but my impression is that stuff like this cycles in and out of free status without much predictability

Whenever I stumble upon a cache of stuff I like that I didn't know was there I add it to my watchlist. But then I end up with 300+ things in my watchlist, which is so many that I can't tell when something vanishes. Until I look for it, and it turns out to be the one thing I want to see and it's not there.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, June 5, 2019 12:36 PM

Or it's still there but now it's $3.99 to watch, not free with Prime anymore. Hate that.

The easiest way I've found to keep tabs on that is to periodically open my watchlist on my computer and scroll down, looking for videos where the diagonal Prime stripe on the upper left corner is gone. Then as you click 'Remove', loudly curse "Fuck Amazon!" or your swear word of choice. When you mouse over, it will sometimes give the date when a title will be leaving Prime soon, but this is completely unreliable.

It sucks that Amazon doesn't support multiple watchlists, or changing the order of videos in your watchlist, or even viewing it as text only. One method I've tried for keeping a list of movies I don't want to forget about but I don't want bloating my watchlist: I save a browser bookmark of the video's Prime page (first deleting the "Amazon.com: Watch" text before each title). Then, I can freely organize the bookmarks into folders as I please. However, there are no thumbnails and no indication whether a title has been dropped, so it's usefulness is limited.

I'd watch more movies if it didn't cut into the time I could spend farting around with lists.

Good Omens is outrageously clumsy but I’m enjoying watching it. The voiceover is the pits though, yes.

I wish Tennant had waited a decade to do Who. He’s a lot more interesting to watch now.

Whenever you find an old movie on Prime from before about 1990, from anywhere, not just Italy, you should proceed with caution. I've gotten excited to find old classics that turn out to be unwatchable, shoddy transfers.

Yeah, Prime has some really terrible transfers, particularly of horror movies. Shudder is really good for that stuff though, and is pretty cheap for a year's sub. They don't seem to be trawling the transfer bargain bin (can such a thing exist? It seems like it does) like Amazon is.

I think that was where I saw a version of "City Lights" that didn't even have Chaplin's score