What's good on Amazon Prime Video

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.”

They're really pushing that "Hunters" show, which looks like "The Boys" with, um, Nazis.

reviews suggest it suffers from "Amazon syndrome" which has affected everything they've produced except Catastrophe: it's... okay?

Catastrophe not produced by Amazon, they just bought US transmission rights & then co-funded later seasons (it's produced by mega-agency Avalon for Channel 4)

what exactly is Amazon syndrome / what are the symptoms? I associate Netflix syndrome w/ general mediocrity, poor pacing, and trend-hopping.

otm about netflix. amazon seems like it hasnt set any type of standard yet.

Netflix seem to be just about churning out new content these days (most of which is mediocre).

Saw a few articles after BoJack's finale about how it would have been very unlikely to get a second season if it had debuted now rather than five years ago

i consider amazon originals to consistently be subpar to netflix originals... which are mostly subpar to Hulu/HBO i guess

this is Bosch slander

I’d rate Man in the High Castle over 90% of what I’ve watched on Netflix

both companies are shady about what qualifies as “original content” and like to blur the line by badging things as original to their service when they’re really just exclusive in one region, though. Fleabag wasn’t amazon’s, You wasn’t Netflix’s (and some people were very o_O when they figured out the latter aired on Lifetime of all places)

i tried to watch bosch but it was too stupid. and i was hoping it would be kind of stupid

Does Man in the H Cast.get better? I watched all of the first season and it was fine at first, had a dip and then??? I didn't feel like continuuing. I was really meh about the three leads that I recall were supposed to be a love triangle?

I’m not sure what the origin story of Undone is - it’s on amazon - but it’s up with netflix’s best stuff (Russian doll, and the first seasons of glow and american vandal imo)

It's been a while, but I think we made it through ... 2 episodes of "High Castle?" 3? Then we kind of looked at each other and said, you know, why are we watching this? Same thing with "Handmaid's Tale," tbh.

I got through two episodes of High Castle and then binged through the rest by reading their Wikipedia summaries instead. Good time saver. Was good on atmosphere but v. dull leads.

the ad for hunters had me laughing.

pacino in his very arch, late period style:

"it's not murder...

it's mitzvah"

I’m not sure what the origin story of Undone is

It's an Amazon commission - notable that for their first animated series they went for a cosign from the creator of Netflix's first animated series.

Man In The High Castle was a big disappointment after the pilot episode, they should have just made it a two hour movie

might have been one of those “gets good mid second season” shows tbh

they do kill Frank eventually and keep him offscreen enough before they do lol

The shows I watch or have watched on Amazon are all really high quality imo --- Man In High Castle, Expanse, Red Oak, even the dumb Jack Ryan show is watchable (the dumbness is kind of inherent to Tom Clancy imo)

Goliath, as I seem to be saying into the void, is fucking incredible

I liked the first season of Goliath a lot, the second started strong but was awful by the end, and couldn't make it through the premiere of the third.

Yeah, I'm having trouble finishing the second season. First season was aces.

many xps but yes: undone is also quite good.

S2 of Goliath is absolutely nauseating but also brilliant imo

S3 gets the balance between gonzo batshit and, like, “serious drama” a bit righter but it’s still pulp at heart. I missed the daughter a lot but she gets an extremely satisfying payoff.

Does Man in the H Cast.get better?

No. The show runner left midway through the first season, the second season had no exec producer, and the new one brought in for the third didn't have a clue.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/man-high-castle-renewed-taps-new-showrunner-season-3-960304

It gets worse: PKD's daughter was sexually harassed by Amazon's programming chief.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/amazon-tv-producer-goes-public-harassment-claim-top-exec-roy-price-1048060

yikes

I thought it ended... ok-ish, but the rudderless nature of the middle was clear

I really didn't like hunters (the how I met your mother guy hamming it up saying corny as fuck lines = not a good time, macabre fictional holocaust scenarios also not my favourite thing), and only saw about half of it, but the ending was wild and al overacts delightfully

I liked the first season of Goliath a lot, the second started strong but was awful by the end, and couldn't make it through the premiere of the third.

idk if we talked about this already but this was my EXACT trajectory.

third season was fucking great. i guess you really have to like ultra-pulp maybe.

Tracer's enthusiasm is infectious and I agree about season 3

I watched the first ep of Hunters & wow this show is def Not For Me™️

Pacino as the headlining Jewish Person while Saul Rubinek is a minor costar feels so fucking wrong on so many levels.
Also kind of surprised that Rubinek would be on board? idk. the tone of this thing was my biggest problem. that and wtf shit like concentration camp human chess

i understand it from Pacino being a huge draw but still i am very O_o about the whole thing

yeah it looked fuckin’ gross so i skipped it

my parents highly recommended it to me but i couldn't bring myself to watch it glad veggrrl who ime generally has impeccable tv taste has validated my laziness

yeah Mordy i would approach w extreme caution

Anyone seen Tales From The Loop yet? I was surprised to learn it had been made into a TV series.

I’m still watching me some Maisel but I still have the same problems w/it, that it’s trying to force comedy through tone and not content. The show looks incredible and generally is “likable” but it’s kind of astonishing at how there’s nothing particularly hilarious going on, it’s just this constant banter that’s supposed to make you feel like something hilarious is going on. It’s a shame bc i certainly prefer it in theory over yet another “people doing very bad things and caught in a vise-like plot” show.

xp
We watched the first episode last night. Very slow and pretty. Not sure if I liked it enough to go back for ep 2. Probably will at some point since I'm a shut-in now.

Anyone seen Tales From The Loop yet? I was surprised to learn it had been made into a TV series.

No but I am intrigued by the fact that Shane Carruth apparently makes an appearance

best thing on Prime for me continues to be The Expanse (on the tail end of S3 now), which is just phenomenal. My platonic ideal of a sci-fi show (great plot, plenty of mystery, little in the way of soap opera level bad TV acting, zero new agey bullshit the likes of which sank BSG).

I watched the first ep of Hunters & wow this show is def Not For Me™️

Pacino as the headlining Jewish Person while Saul Rubinek is a minor costar feels so fucking wrong on so many levels.
Also kind of surprised that Rubinek would be on board? idk. the tone of this thing was my biggest problem. that and wtf shit like concentration camp human chess

i understand it from Pacino being a huge draw but still i am very O_o about the whole thing

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, April 8, 2020 10:23 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I ended up watching about half of this, including the finale, because my gf watched it and I just thought it was horrendous.

watched the first two episodes of ZeroZeroZero and so far it's just OK. very nicely shot but so far I don't give a shit about any of the characters. not sure if I want to carry on with it but I probably will eventually out of sheer boredom.

if ppl forgot abt like i did the series finale of transparent, i recommend it; also the lil peep doc

hunters seems vile i would never

I just watched Dragged Across Concrete and need a shower. Zahler makes me feel grubby as all hell. (This will stay with me and I need to pick apart why - for good and ill.)

stay with ZeroZeroZero! The characters develop imo but most of what they do is not get in the way of a show about systems. It's very well done I think, and yeah, it looks and sounds great esp. by shit streaming-original standards

I just watched Dragged Across Concrete and need a shower. Zahler makes me feel grubby as all hell. (This will stay with me and I need to pick apart why - for good and ill.)

I watched Brawl in Cell Block 99 and washed my hands of that dude for good. He hasn't got the visual or storytelling chops for me to put up with his not-even-really-winking chud politics.

agreed.

I like both of those movies a lot :/

I even started a thread about him

the degenerate nu-pulp movies of S. Craig Zahler