What's good on Amazon Prime Video

Whit Stillman's pilot for The Cosmopolitans has disappeared from Prime. It was never issued on physical media, meaning it no longer exists anywhere except on the hard drives of those who managed to rip it. This makes me sad.

this is the case for 98% of all tv ever made tbf

hes redoing it or something - https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/whit-stillman-the-cosmopolitans.html

got the months free deal when i ordered xmas crap last week.
i have fucking loved the OTT insanity of "American Gods" season 1 this week.
so, yeah, anything else i should dive into while i have the option ?

fleabag?

man in the high castle
expanse
marvellous mrs maisel
red oaks

Fleabag is made by and on the BBC, forks!

Don’t know how much it applies in the UK mark, but the film library in the US is pretty remarkable - recent indie & arthouse, classics, 80s, b-movies & grindhouse.

(be warned that S2 of American Gods is made by different ppl and nobody likes it)

didn't know Mark e was britisher; in US as I'm sure you know, fleabag is amazon only

New season of The Expanse next Friday

Undone
Too Old To Die Young
Halt & Catch Fire
Lodge 49

Undone is good, though be warned that it's about processing grief and trauma from the loss of a family member; but if you like the ostentatious style of American Gods, Undone's use of rotoscoping (animating over the filmed actors) enables it to depict the lead's emotional state in visually dazzling, emotionally-affecting magic realism-ish ways

maybe fun to watch with the boys: Amazon made two series of the superhero comedy / not-quite-parody The Tick, of which you don't need to know anything about previous TV or comics iterations to watch from scratch. (The showrunner is the cartoonist who wrote and drew the original run of comics, though, if you do happen to know of it.)

The Tick is great!

yes cosine H&CF and Lodge 49. If you haven't seen The Americans it's there. The Bureau is ridiculous but fun. Mr Robot?

yeah the Tick is gr8

Mr Robot has a pretty great first few episodes then tanks incredibly quickly

it had so much potential

The Expanse is phenomenally good (trying to get through S3 before S4 drops) and Too Old To Die Young is really quite something, I admire it a lot.

I am on board with Mr Robot until the very end (easy to say at this point I guess, I think there are three episodes left) but yeah nobody else I know irl made it through Season 2.

I did cause I heard s3 was better; it was, but not by a big enough margin for me to not continue to be furious with it

The first 3 episode of Goliath S3 are as good as the show's ever been imo

ta for all suggestions folks.
i watched fleabag (uk = iplayer), and agree, it was bloody brilliant.
re prime - spotted Tick in the list, and thought it looked good fun, so that's next on the list.

I don't know when it happened, but Banshee seasons 3 and 4 are now free on Prime. I watched seasons 1 and 2 a long time ago and was unwilling to pay to see the rest, but now I know what I'll be watching the rest of this month.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:38 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just watched the first half of the pilot and this is...terrible? Like, unwatchably bad.

it is a great show KEEP WATCHING goddamn you

how many episodes until it's not dumb?

I was just settling into this display name, too

It’s in the so over the top it’s good category for me. Similar to Spartacus

wait what

I just watched the first half of the pilot and this is...terrible? Like, unwatchably bad.

Nah. Give it two or three full episodes and you'll be hooked, I think. For those who aren't familiar, Banshee is a fucking blast. It’s about a criminal fugitive posing as the sheriff of the town of Banshee, PA (the “real” new sheriff was killed on his way into town, before anyone got a look at him), battling the local gangsters (some of whom are Native American, while others are outcast Amish) and pulling jobs of his own. Every episode features at least two sex scenes and two fight scenes, and you’re never quite sure if a dialogue scene is gonna suddenly turn into one or the other. People bleed a lot on this show. It’s pornographic, and I say that in the best possible way.

the fight scenes have a great Billy Jack kinda 70’s vibe, it all feels like they’re really beating each other up

it’s v enjoyable

wait what

I never went back to it but yeah the appeal is its ottness surely, it’s like road house or something

I've seen the pilot and one later-season fight scene that was so OTT that Vox did a piece just about it. It was pretty silly but I see the appeal.

Yeah, here's the Vox article, and here's the fight they call out, which I just watched the other day and which left me literally breathless by the end. (Note that it begins with one character picking a severed ear from the previous episode's big fight scene out of the trash.) If this isn't your kind of thing, Banshee isn't for you. Period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUjE0NlS7vI

spartacus the movie?

or that dumb series? if it’s the dumb series then i agree

I've never seen Spartacus the TV show. Is it any good? It's on Netflix...

It gets to be great but it takes a little while to figure itself out. And you gotta be able to roll with the aesthetic.

The latter seasons are some of my favorite TV ever

also, iirc the only TV show of the last decade+ that literally had to recast its main role midstream

idk my impression was that Spartacus was as dumb as a naked box of hammers

which is good if thats yr thing

Yah the show.. which is a top 5 all time show for me

idk my impression was that Spartacus was as dumb as a naked box of hammers

it definitely starts out that way, but it develops a rhythm and emotional register that makes it totally unique imho

plus hot naked people

Something Wild is on Prime, and I’m really curious to see how it looks now vs. 1986.

On Prime Now That You Could Be Watching:

Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
Transit (2019)
Hale County This Morning This Evening (2018)
One Child Nation (2019)
Fast Color (2019)
Gloria Bell (2019)

Good list: thank you.

After the first 35 minutes of sappy Tollywood, the Telegu film Eega / Fly (2012) opens up into the most fun I've had watching a CGI-heavy action film in years.

can't recommend transit highly enough

it's very good!

Eega/fly was a lot of fun, but yeah, waiting for it to get going was tough.

Ash Is Purest White now up.

Midsommar is up too.

saw this post on twitter from Darren Hughes: “FYI, there's a bunch of '80s and '90s Taiwan stuff on Prime: The River, The Sandwich Man, Dust in the Wind, The Time to Live and The Time to Die, The Terrorizers, Growing Up.”