Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

iirc people now post Netflix takes mostly to the "But is it on Netflix? thread for non-Netflix services" thread. that said, it does seem particularly weak as a service this year. I think I've watched more Jeopardy than anything else

I'm three episodes into Sweet Tooth and it's pretty good so far. Quite a refreshing change from the usual post apocalyptic fare.

Lots of talk about Bo Burnham's Inside on the Eighth Grade thread, though not positive

Netflix is basically Crackle now, except they still have a lot of money so they're bringing you 1000x as much Crackle.

Lupin is among the best things they've done imo. And very much looking forward to the third season of Sex Education which is one of my favourite TV shows ever. It's a low hit rate admittedly but the hits are outstanding.

Not sure about Lupin. It's good fun but the stupidity of the finale detracted somewhat from my enjoyment and the twists were all fairly predictable this time around.

thought it was frequently dumb but very fun, we binged it in a day.

Ragnarok s2 was kind of a drag though. Lol @ their Loki basically just playing Scandinavian Tom Hiddleston.

Been watching older shows mostly - rewatching old seasons of Community, finally checking out Line of Duty, Trapped, Borgen etc.

Still scared to check out Inside - loved Eighth Grade but Bo Burnham's whole schtick seems exhausting. I also hate musical comedy.

Would definitely recommend ignoring 100% of Burnham’s specials then.

I watched twenty minutes of Inside and couldn't stand it anymore.

On Becoming a God in Central Florida has shown up on Irish Netflix. A more aggressively unpleasant drama series I have not seen since the super-depressing days of Breaking Bad. Stupid, desperate people doing stupid, desperate things, with a weird sort of baddie who appeared to have been modelled on Pierce's dad from Community. I watched it thinking it would get better (because it got good reviews in the US), but it got worse instead. Obviously Kirsten Dunst was solid gold as always, but that's about it. But what do I know, I don't even like Midnight Diner, which everyone else seems to love.

Had difficulty taking Lupin seriously when in the very first episode he manages to fake an identity well enough to trick the Louvre by...creating a fake wikipedia page.

tbf I don't think you should take Lupin seriously! I enjoyed S1 but haven't felt immediately compelled to watch the second; my Lupin hot take is that the kids' animated reboot of Carmen Sandiego is both better and pretty similar.

Well, "seriously" - I see it as a cool heist show and within that I would like my heists to be clever.

I'm also kind of meh on Lupin, but the last season of Carmen Sandiego that I watched was a real drag -- the first few seasons are pretty good, though.

Lupin feels a lot like Sherlock, where implausible details keep piling up, but it's still a fun experience.

I liked the first five episodes a lot but am kinda bogged down after episode 2 (7) of this current batch.

needs more heists

main dude is very charismatic though

he’s great in intouchables too

There's a good profile of him on the New Yorker's site. (I don't know if they're still on strike, thus making reading their articles Bad, but there it is anyway.)

BREAKING: We have averted a strike! After more than two and a half years of negotiations, @newyorkerunion, @p4kunion, and @ars_union are proud to announce that we have reached an agreement in principle on our first contracts. Here are some of our wins: pic.twitter.com/gBzOwbKpqI

— The New Yorker Union (@newyorkerunion) June 16, 2021

he’s great in intouchables too

he's fine but that is a cursed movie if I've ever seen one, horrible memories of watching it w/ right wing french acquaintance who delighted in its portrayal of black people and the disabled as Somehow Human Too?

yeah it doesn't bear a lot of scrutiny. he just has this way of sweeping all doubts away through his magnetism.

Story of my life.

Rewatching the first season of Black Summer as Season 2 has just dropped.

Forgotten how tense those first few episodes were

needs more heists

Yep. Part 1 was great fun, this one not as good but had its moments

On Becoming a God in Central Florida

this show was a mess in several ways but I still really liked it, I think? Dunst obv was the best thing about it but I also liked her coworker who got sucked up by the MLM. I dunno, I thought it was fun in general and was at least not a super tired retread of other shows. I'd have been happy with one more season.

I liked it fine, nothing more than that, and at the same time was glad it was not renewed.

Sometimes I think about how Netflix gave us the money and creative freedom to make those recaps but then also refused to turn off the automatic skip function on them and how that sort of perfectly sums up our working relationship with them on that show. https://t.co/ycyc9iWHmI

— Joe Barton (@JoeBarton_) June 21, 2021

We just finished On Becoming a God and I... dont know if I liked it? It just felt so sisyphean or something. Felt like a bit of an emotional chore to watch tbh.

Am almost done with Katla which is fantastic. Gorgeous score by one of the GusGus guys. Such a gloomy alien landscape shot so cinematically.

We just finished On Becoming a God and I... dont know if I liked it? It just felt so sisyphean or something. Felt like a bit of an emotional chore to watch tbh.

This description is why I feel quite turned off by a lot of TV at the moment. I feel like “the next season of [characters doing x] needs to ramped up emotionally and more hard to do” just means making it bloody miserable for everyone involved, including the viewer. The third season of Good Girls seems like a good example, where it just seemed like a horrible chore seeing how these women could get more miserable being involved in their situation. Obviously this has precedent, like the 6th season of Buffy, or most of Breaking Bad, but I feel like a lot of tv writers need to remember to lighten the fuck up occasionally atm.

yeah search party eventually became kind of unbearable and it was so funny and good before. everybody wants to do this badass breaking bad thing i feel like.

I was like that about a lot of the Sopranos when I finally got round to watching it last year. The rape and violence against women was just too much.

One episode of Becoming a God was enough for me.

Am I on drugs pic.twitter.com/W0yjxu8WTn

— Sibley The Best (@Goldfishwars) June 23, 2021

What the goddamn hell.

This was the tweet that made me laugh the hardest.

Cremaster 6 trailer has dropped. pic.twitter.com/nqT7ujOKSM

— Marc Masters (@Marcissist) June 23, 2021

I really, really disliked Katla - quite disappointing cause I loved Trapped from the same creator.

Katla had an intriguing premise and was beautifully shot, but took way too long to get to the point and when it finally did, it did so in a pretty bleak and ugly way. Spoilers, triggers ahead: was pretty disturbed by the multiple graphic scenes of suicide and filicide at the end. Unbelievable that that’s the resolution the show chose to take.

surprised that no one has mentioned This is Pop, the new Netflix music documentary miniseries

it aired earlier in Canada on CTV and so i've seen every ep and it's excellent - i'm not sure if there's anything really new in it for ilxors but there's still some great interviews and such

Not available in the US, for some goddamn reason.

it’s on Netflix US! i’m 4 eps in and enjoying it

all really interesting & good interviews. the Sweden episode was my fave so far

my faves are the Autotune and pop-country eps, also enjoyed the Britpop and Brill eps, all of them are great really

the protest music ep is fine but it's framed around a certain artist that, although not shocking, but still surprising in a "wow he's still around? and he's the frame for this ep? ok!" kind of way

Oh now I see it. Nvm, and thanks!

I really, really disliked Katla

That's too bad, was thinking of watching it based on the descrip.

New season of Black Summer is up -- if you don't watch zombie stuff, you don't need to start here, but I think this is exceedingly well-made zombie stuff that's more interesting than most

we watched first ep of s1 of Black Summer last night & i like it so far. (though: zombies are repelled by…doors? got it.)

though how are there 2 seasons already? i swear i never heard of it til like, last week lol

First season of Black Summer seems ages ago. Had to rewatch as forgotten lots about it. Quite short episodes though.

It's a spin off from Z Nation but there's no need to have watched that at all.

Yeah I remember enjoying Black Summer season 1 but can’t recall a single thing about it now other than being bemused that people on the show couldn’t wield an axe but were automatically adept at using guns lol. the characters in general were pretty thinly sketched?

Might catch up on season 2 later though - I’ve just started watching The Walking Dead (don’t worry, I know I’m in for lots of disappointment haha) and don’t know if I have room for another zombie show in my life.

For lack of a better word, it's.... stylish

in a way zombie shows are typically not

kind of minimalistic

it's the hurt locker of zombie shows I guess

i am a tiiiiiny but skeptical but only because i was burned by “Monsters” which looked so cool but & new but turned out to be scoot mcnairy being frantic & sweaty & looking off at the horizon for fucking ever and a day

anyway

i have my own personal crosses to bear

I've watched three of This Is Pop and really enjoyed it. The Boyz II Men and Auto-Tune ones are excellent. The Swedish one is good too, but the "lol so random!!!" forced humour attempts through it really grate - it's like they're afraid to afford capital-P Pop Music the same gravitas and respect as other styles.

Posting to the right thread now:

I tried the This Is Pop on the Brill Building and it felt like a total mess: the "in four songs" billing only very vaguely lived up to (they don't even explain what the Archies were), so much time spent on silly reconstructions. The focus on not exactly top shelf talents like Neil Sedaka and Andy Kim, which I guess you could spin as giving less critically lauded writers their due tho cynically I'd also say they probably couldn't get Carole King or Neil Diamond; at any rate if you're gonna go that way I'd have prefered full eps on them, this way it's just a weird mishmash that assumes you know a lot already. Linda Perry being a rockist bore. Are the other episodes like this too?