Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Tried to cure a small bout of insomnia last night with "Don't Fuck With Cats"... man, that is some fucked up shit. Do not recommend.

Why? What's it like?

It's a 3ep true crime series about internet obsessed types trying to track down a guy who posts videos of him killing cats(++) online.

Yeah I watched the preview thinking it was something lighter and yeah, no thanks.

i saw the splash and assumed that was what it was about and so didn't watch it. i would watch a video of that man being killed tho

ugh, nope, not what I was hoping for

Yeah, I watched the preview and then had to look up who it was about. I don't know how I missed the news about that guy.

Couple of "Witcher" reviews I've read have been "Cats"-level negative.

There is a Top Boy thread on its own but Top Boy (everyone compares to The Wire) is really good. I didn't know it was a netflix reboot from a Channel 4 show so I ended up starting with season 3 and then 1, 2. Just finished it.

xp

weirdly pleased about this because i'm sick of the eternal internet gamer circle jerk to The Witcher

I think it's a dumb game so am likewise heartened.

it is sorta weird to be pleased that a tv adaptation of a video game is bad bc you didn't like the [critically acclaimed] game it was based on, but i liked witcher 3 so what do i need

know

Watched the first episode and not sure why it would get Cats level reviews. Bit of a Vikings/Last Kingdom vibe but with added monsters & magic - big, gory hand to hand battles and court politics & intrigue (and a few cheesy/bad monologues)

Maybe it goes tits up in subsequent episodes

a tv adaptation of a video game is bad bc you didn't like the [critically acclaimed] game it was based on

I've actually since seen a few more balanced reviews. One big complaint is how, at least at the start, it goes full GoT in the boobs and blood department.

i am aware but the ppl i was responding to were talking about the game

2020: in which people on the internet complain about a streaming episodic series based on a game based on a book being too derivative

Another game adaptation which shows how terrible game writing is.

My calculus isn't hard:

1. Ressentiment over game loved by other people.
2. Henry Cavill is IIRC kind of a garbage human (not that I followed every twist and turn of his utterances so I may be missing context).

does this have more or fewer boobs than his previous pulp tv show, The Tudors?

presumably more blood, although they got up to beheadings on that one

wait is the witcher series specifically based on the game's interpretation of the books and not just the books?

I think just the books, but absolutely influenced by games because it’s the pre-existing visual narrative adaptation

Two episodes in and no boobs in sight but more beheadings than you could shake a stick at xps

Wait, I could have sworn one review I read said the boobs were front loaded in the first episode, and that there were seven (!) naked ladies! Yeah, the catty EW review (F) is where I read that:

Anyhow, the pilot also features two rough-and-tumble princesses (Freya Allan, Emma Appleton), a wizard (Lars Mikkelsen), and totally gratuitous full-frontal female nudity. There are seven naked women in the first episode alone, Darren. Seven! I… think I’ve seen enough?

https://ew.com/tv-reviews/2019/12/20/netflix-the-witcher-review

Im not sure how groovypanda missed it but yes, that scene was very "we can be hbo too!" To its credit it was more backgrounded than in similar scenes on GoT, but still completely gratuitous

I'm two eps in and liking it ok, but it seems they're trying to get through a lot of plot in a short amount of time. I would want it to move slower, thus far

Actually yeah I remember now. That was early on in the first episode and I was half watching as finishing off some work stuff.

There's also a very bad sex scene in the first episode but both actors are fully clothed.

so it IS based on the game then

Finished Don't Fuck With Cats last night despite it being utterly worthless

Hated it not because I was squeamish or "triggered" but as a piece of journalism or as a documentary with ostensible artistic merit, either way a failure

All the nuance, sensitivity, and sense of context of a CBS News special but since it's on Netflix, it's getting way more attention than it deserves

I don't do a lot of true crime but is a lot of it as glib as this was? Jesus fuck

TIL there is a remake of Jacob's Lader

so apparently if you have a modern TV and install Netflix as an app, it stops 17 seconds into the credits of a movie and shows literally ten minutes of ads for Netflix-made TV shows, and doesn't go back to the credits afterwards? is there some kind of hidden setting you can change to make it finish the film?

are the credits not still there in a little "picture in picture" window? you should be able to navigate to it with your directional keys on your remote and hit enter

nope, it started playing a trailer for The Witcher, with three little windows inset of The Witcher and 6 Underground and something else

the default assumption in the apps is definitely that people do not watch credits and that you are going to immediately watch something else. I think the idea is that the ads are suggestions for what you watch next — it’s not an interruption, it’s the assumption you are done with the movie so there’s no reason it’d just back to credits since it’a not a commercial break

I haven’t seen that behavior but I have seen a little
timer pop up as credits roll and if you don’t click quickly then it jumps from movie viewing to promo mode

I'm not that bothered by a default assumption (assuming that someone at Netflix audits each movie to make sure there are no scenes mid- or post-credits, or bloopers*, or images of any kind, or text jokes, or deliberate use of music or w/e). But it should be possible to tell the app that you do want to watch the whole flick.

* except if it's Being There, in which case the blooper should absolutely be excised

there is definitely someone at Netflix auditing every movie for every tiny microgenre, as well as for that sort of thing (which is how "skip credits" at the beginning of TV shows on Netflix works so well - someone is actually keying in timecodes of this stuff)

(which is how "skip credits" at the beginning of TV shows on Netflix works so well - someone is actually keying in timecodes of this stuff)

nah, I've seen that on Big Mouth

you've seen what on Big Mouth?

"skip credits"

regardless of whether it's the usual credits or a bespoke one that ties in to themes or events of the episode

Right. all I'm saying is that your assumption is correct - someone at Netflix is auditing all of that and adding metadata about when credits begin and end to every movie and tv episode.

if a character is introduced in the opening credits and repeatedly speaks in them, then reappears through the post-credits part of the episode, imo it is pretty poor auditing to offer a button to skip the credits

if an animated show has drawn a 30-second sequence specifically for one episode, imo offering a "skip this sequence" button might as well be offered at any point in the episode as from 1:30 to 2:00

gotcha. yeah I've only ever seen it done when the credits are just literally the same thing every time.

xp but I WANTED to skip Coach Steve singing "Changes"!

btw Bigmouth S3 is, imo, a significant step up, "Do The Thing" and the cell phone episode were great

but I WANTED to skip Coach Steve singing "Changes"!

ha ha :D

I love that show but Coach Steve is a truly disturbing individual lol

Amazon do the skip closing credits thing but in a much more infuriating way as it'll automatically start the next episode within about 3 seconds of the credits starting running.

I've also noticed that if you're watching two episodes in a row on Netflix, the next episode will start after the 'previously on' section but at least will usually play all the closing credits before switching. I think these features also vary from device to device and pretty sure there's an auto play option in your account settings that you can uncheck if you don't want it to do it

Yes the Netflix app on the amazon fire stick attached to my tv no longer gives me the option to watch closing credits. You can either watch trailers while the credits play in the left top corner or go back to browse main menu only.

It does the same on the all4 app but the picture in picture credits box is even smaller. Incredibly frustrating. The shot playing under the closing credits to the last ep of Catastrophe were pretty crucial but you couldn’t see them.