Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

i watched some of the first ep and got the strong feeling that the script was written as a comedy - it's full of jokes - but was shot and directed as a straight TV mystery. which, you know, is a choice - you could argue that SUCCESSION (2018-) is essentially veep or the thick of it just executed as a prestige drama - but succession allows the comedic beats to land, lets us just roll in the deliciousness of it, where with this, it's like, these carefully written jokes are just buried

Yeah, I like Kristen Bell and she carries the whole thing almost single handedly but I didn't get the point of the whole thing. It's not really funny, it's not really scary/mystery. Seems like they tried and miss their goal.

Just watched Downfall, the documentary about Boeing and the 737 MAX crashes. A bit slow to start but by the end a powerful and damning indictment of Boeing, and of shareholder value theory. Spoiler alert, you will be screaming that the executives should be in jail for corporate manslaughter and, well, they aren't.

Started the second season of Kid Cosmic. The classic Marvel tribute vibe is stronger than ever, with some clear references to Galactus and Thanos in there.

Finished Archive 81. Meh.

Archive 81 felt like there was one element too many in it for me, although I couldn't tell you which one I'd drop.

― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Tuesday, 25 January 2022 10:28 (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would have dropped the 1920s storyline entirely and gone full cthulhu at the end; I knew the climax was probably going to be disappointing but running around a dream version of various irl locations was not exciting or scary. It peaked halfway through with the people/monsters reaching out of TV screens.

Agree one hundred percent.

We just finished watching All Of Us Are Dead. It was maybe too long overall, but my god, the choreography and the stunt work and the fluid movement of some of those young people. Holy crap. If you wanted to get boys to go to dancing lessons, it would be a great thing to show them. "It's not all the Nutcracker! You could get cast in something like this!"

Johnny Hallyday doc series available! Pretty weirdly done, a lot of ominous woosh music that makes it seem like the subject is the Third Reich or True Crime (wife says this is quite common in French docs), but some amazing footage in there.

Getting really into Another Life only to see that nf has axed it

It was pretty awful tbh

More upset Archive 81 isn't getting another season

Classic World Cinema on Netflix UK:

The collected works of Egyptian director Youssef Chahine.

A lot of Bollywood stuff starting from the 60's.

1955's "Seagulls Die In The Harbour", a Belgian social realist film.

Tons and tons of Swedish films, ranging from the silent era to the 70's (at least), put there due to a partnership with the Swedish Film Institute.

It's kinda hilarious that this stuff is on there while even the most basic French, Italian, Japanese, etc. arthouse canon isn't but hey, it's cool nonetheless. The service clearly doesn't give a fuck tho, you really have to go hunting.

Old Enough on Netflix is so adorable! Give young children (2,3,4 years old) a chore and then follow them as they do it.

Man, really wish Netflix provided normal subtitles as well as closed captioned ones for their foreign language shows.

I don't need to know that [♪ cool closing theme playing] has started thanks

I dunno, ♪Ominous music plays♪ always makes me laugh.

I feel the same, and extend the sentiment to non-foreign language subtitles, too. I use them since I sometimes have trouble deciphering dialog, so don’t need sound cues. I’m glad there are more options now for those that need them, but wish we could choose. I do appreciate when subtitles will state the artist and song name when the soundtrack kicks in, though.

I watched Operation: Mincemeat because I'd read the book, and my recommendation is to read the book. Movie does have Kelly Macdonald though which is not a trivial point in its favor.

I started watching Stay Close and I don't quite get what this show is trying to be

Neflix: no more expensive vanity projects, we need to trim the fat, we're cancelling a bunch of stuff, we're going to have a bunch of layoffs, etc.

(a week or two passes)

Netflix: releases new trailers for Guillermo del Toro anthology, Tim Burton Addams Family series, The Sandman, Resident Evil ...

not sure I see the contradiction? Idk what the del Toro thing is, but the other three are adaptations of existing properties (possibly adaptations of adaptations for two of them), they're hardly The Irishman. And I know the Sandman thing has been in the works for years so most of the money is likely spent

yes these will have all been commissioned 1+ years ago

Oh, I know. It's just funny to see the juxtaposition of cutbacks and cancellations with the announcement of several high profile new shows, a couple courtesy auteurs, and, in the specific case of "Sandman," following the epic failure of the similarly long-simmering comics adaptation "Y: The Last Man" elsewhere. Didn't they cancel "Glow" in the middle of filming the third season? Netflix not necessarily slave to the sunk cost fallacy.

What else did you expect though? No new shows?

I hadn't heard much news from Dragon Prince and half expected it to be another Netflix casualty but a season 4 teaser just dropped so yay!

It's been so long since the last season my enthusiasm dwindled a bit, but I'll definitely give S4 a watch, maybe after a recap

My daughter is a mad fan and as I understand it, it was renewed up until season six?

Add another one to the trend: Netflix is releasing a fictionalized account of the Thai flooded cave soccer team rescue story ... a year after the excellent documentary "The Rescue," which itself came only a couple of years after the story dominated the news in real time.

Mo is great.

And after Prime did a fictionalised movie of same.

Seriously? Wow. So the Thai cave rescue happened in 2018. There was a (great) documentary released about it in 2020, a Ron Howard (?!) movie version of it on Amazon now, and a fictionalized series coming to Netflix this year? Jeepers, why not just give it its own channel.

Is Mo a remake of Man Like Mobeen?

Not at all

Reading the wikipedia entry for Man like Mobeen, no it's not a remake. But now I want to track down and watch Man Like Mobeen! Thanks!

it’s great

me and mk2 properly loved Mo.
best thing i have seen on netflix in a long time.
we then watched his recent standup special on netflix, and the two are very connected.
basically, watch the series, then the special.
a lot of it makes a lot more sense if you have seen the series.

I need to finish Mo but after six episodes i feel like it's been jamming too much storyline into too short a period of time, like it's afraid it won't get renewed so it has to tell all these plots right NOW rather than giving the audience room to breathe. it's making for some tonal dissonance where I'm meant to care simultaneously and at the same level of engagement for Mo's addiction to lean and his issues with his sister and his family being threatened by a gangster and his job insecurity, all being treated with varying levels of seriousness? The pace for the first two episodes was great but it's spinning out a bit now.

That said, still very much worth watching. Great acting, solid writing, stories I've never seen before. Mo's code-switching alone is worth the price of entry.

forks : i totally agree re storyline squash, as i had exactly the same concerns.
but just watch to the end of S1.
cant say any more than that.

"Code-switching." is a good description. Especially going to the flashbacks about how he developed that (because that's likely what really has happened) is very fascinating. My wife normally has to have close captioning on because of hearing difficulties, but you really need it for this show. The slipping seamlessly between English, Spanish and Arabic can be dizzying.

I've watched the first four episodes and I too love it, although the episodes are a little short at 21 minutes. I'd prefer it if they were bang on half an hour. I feel like maybe it wouldn't seem so squashed then.

Also I've watched the first hour of that Persuasion film and my god, it's worse than I thought it would be. I can see what it's going for with the modern language (characters talking about finding themselves and stuff) and the jokes about ghosting and playlists, but it's nowhere near competent enough to pull it off.

Never Have I Ever keeps sneaking out seasons at a consistent pace. This new one was the weakest so far because they try to give every character a storyline or two, and the cast is pretty huge by this point, so the stories feel rushed and more sketched out than detailed. The show is still pretty funny tho, particularly the scenes with Devi's family. There was one sequence in episode 2 that made me laugh harder than anything I've seen this year

I liked this season more than last. Last one had moments where Devi was so unlikable. I thought this season handled the other characters well. Even Trent was fleshed out.

Yes they did improve that aspect of her but I thought she was still pretty unlikable this season. feel like that's her thing

feels ironic that netflix, the originator of the "box set drop", has kill bill vol. 1 but... not vol 2? c'mon

oh and like…. none of the japanese is subtitled unless you turn on english subtitles, in which case you also get all the english subtitled as well, and the music cues etc. I don’t remember how it was in the cinema? was the japanese subtitled or not? feels like somebody fucked up. if the japanese isn’t supposed to be subtitled then it shouldn’t appear even when the subtitles are turned on, i’d have thought

That seems to happen a lot on streaming. Kind of an all or nothing model. For example, it happened with the Comanche version of "Prey," where if you wanted Comanche with English subtitles you had to settle for full closed captioning. "Thunder rumbles." "Music plays." "Footsteps." Etc.

i have now googled and yes the cinema release had subtitles for the japanese parts. thanks netflix i hate it!

Yep subtitles are fucked on a lot of Netflix films imo. Think I watched Sicario with (CC) subs on but the Spanish parts just had no subtitles whatsoever. Then watching it normally they had English subs in the Spanish bits.

kind of surprised tarantino hasn’t raised a stink about it but maybe there’s not a lot he can do.

Good chance he doesn't even know

He probably hates subtitles in general because they cover up the feet.

Wow at the finale of Midnight Mass in that I had no idea there's likely to be a season 2 as Flanagan's shows are usually one offs