But Is It on Netflix? - Streaming Video Service Thread: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube TV, AT+T Watch, Philo, Playstation Vue, HBO Max, HBO Now, Facebook Live and many more

Watching a Hulu doc about an app called HQ Trivia—which was apparently a big deal for a few years, and yet which neither my wife or I (both fairly plugged-in) had ever heard of; to the extent we wondered if this was some kind of “spoof” doc about a nonexistent thing.

Ha, I watched that. I also had never heard of HQ but my partner had. Decent documentary for something that completely passed me by at the time.

HQ: the free trivia quiz live tv show app with real cash prizes that is not dystopian at all

i watched the first episode of Copenhagen Cowboy by NWR on Netflix. don't know if i will continue. it was fine and looked cool as usual but i just really hate anything brothel/sex slave. i always get some of that in any crime shows i watch but they are just one episode. i just wasn't cut out to work vice. its too depressing. i re-watched Once Upon A Time In China on Criterion the other night and had forgotten about the part where the 13th aunt gets kidnapped to be sold as a sex slave and even that disturbed me. and yet for some reason i really liked that movie Sucker Punch? humans are contradictory. NWR also has that brutal horror director attitude even though he makes action/dramas. maybe he should just make horror movies. i still watch horror but i mostly look for movies now without tons of torture/degradation/etc. life is hard enough. even the revenge action/horror movies a la I Spit On Your Grave or whatever now seem like they are 65 minutes of torture and 25 minutes of revenge. (and yes i did just watch High Tension and Martyrs recently but those are different somehow. more fucked up in a dream-like way.)

I'm A Virgo is so refreshingly weird and funny and sweet and I feel like I haven't heard anybody talking about it

Creamerie is so good. Hope they get another season. It's basically Y: the Last Man but in New Zealand and good.

can I bitch about Amazon Prime's "freevee" here? It's great they have a free tier with ads, fine. But I don't think you should have to watch the ads if you are alrady paying for Prime. I suffered through the Tower records documentary (All Things Must Pass) last night (it is great) but just cuts randomly away for interminable weird ads mid-sentence. Tried to watch Spaced a few weeks ago and the editing for ads was so terrible it was unwatchable.

and they seem to be pushing stuff on Freevee really hard. Like it's a huge amount of their content now.

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that Amazon is using Freevee to make more ad revenue. The old Freevee backdoor sneakaround gambit. It's textbook Amazon.

I watched the Big 4 on Netflix and it was insane and cool. and nuts. I would watch it again.

I honestly liked watching Jury Duty on FreeVee because the rhythms of pre-streaming TV commercial breaks are like, a part of my firmware, and it did a nice job approximating them in length, frequency, and variety of ads. Just needed some promo of other Amazon Originals or exclusive new releases, and a ten-second teaser for the 11:00 news.

I accidentally started watching Kids In The Hall on freevee instead of prime once and all the ads were for like legos and other toys. Meaning the algorithm read "kids" and went "I know what to do here!".

I've either streamed or, prior to that, watched DVD sets for so many years now that the FTA vibe with loud, constant ad breaks is so vile to me now, I can't bear it. Like if I'm at my parents house and they have their usual habit of "turn tv on then immediately leave room" I'll turn it to a non-ads channel or turn it off. No one notices or cares. WHY DO THEY PUT IT ON.

Went the distance with Transatlantic, but even then I'm not sure if I can recommend it. Vaguely based on the true story of the group in Marseilles that helped European intellectuals and artist emigrate out during WWII, its weirdly paced and clumsily shifts from slapstick comedy to serious WWII drama seemingly at random. It's a mess, but everyone in the cast commits to it so it's oddly compelling. I was going to give up on it when suddenly a representative of not-IBM shows up in episode 3 and hangs around Marseilles, recruiting Americans with Vichy ties to come work for not-IBM because not-IBM wants to do all of the evil things we know the real-IBM did. It was one of those times where you think the series could go off in a better direction, but you know how it goes when what you want to happen is far better than what actually does.

the reboot of Takeshi's Castle on Prime, it's fun for the whole family! Two episodes in. Absolutely the most absurd thing out there now.

Season two of Good Omens has a character own a record store in central London and everyone comment how quixotic this is as no one buys vinyl anymore. Also very weird sound mixing.

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that Amazon is using Freevee to make more ad revenue.

not so much a limb as part of the main trunk that is visible and accessible to all...

Heartstopper unexpectedly destroyed me last year; I'll watch the second season tonight.

Res Dogs, WWDITS and Only Murders all at once, good times

otm

almost forgot about Only Murders!

I've been working my way through S1 of Only Murders, might be a bit too slow for me, I was expecting more laffs.

Do you like your Beats?

It took about half the first season to click for me.

i think it has a very cozy vibe
it’s not a laugh-a-minute show though
just warmly funny along the way

Watching S3E1 now, it’s hilarious…!

Finished Jury Duty, and my outstanding question is if it was a union production? Because it seemed like the actors may have been working hours beyond a standard workday.

Considering the presence of SAG actors, I assume it was a union production.

I recall one of the articles linked above goes into details such as the cast needing to pretend to eat lunch in front of Ronald (because they secretly ate earlier), which struck me as odd but was probably to comply with union rules.

Has anybody watched This Little Show of Mine, the (frustratingly hard to Google) comedy starring, written, and directed by Ellyn Daniels? I watched the first two episodes on Prime* and enjoyed them, but I can't tell if I'm biased because it's set in & filmed in the city where I live.

*I think it's on Apple TV too, and you can watch the first episode on YouTube

I liked that William Gao in the first season of Heartstopper had a haircut that made him look like the Little Dutch Girl.

Second season of Heartstopper feels a bit padded to me so far--I've read the graphic novels, and it seems like they're trying to stretch the story out to make space for more seasons--but its still a delight.

Mrs Davis was so good for the first few episodes and then I just drastically lost interest. I tried a couple more times and nope. The stakes just evaporated for me. Buncha stuff about Jesus and a fake pope, and some shoes... Am I just not hip enough for this show? What kept me trying was Betty Gilpin, who is just an extraordinary actress. Such a pleasure to watch her do her thing. She finds about 10 extra moments in every scene.

I really enjoyed the first few episodes of this too (some interesting ideas floating about about AI and religion) but the wackiness got a bit excessive after a while.

i found the same too, it sort of wears out its wacky welcome after a while, though i think i got behind which didn’t help my mood— the vibe works better if you do a few of episodes back to back i think

i dunno about binging the whole thing tho, that feels like “you took too much maan” scenario lol

i feel like reservation dogs is making a case to be discussed as one of the greatest shows of all time (for me at least)

Second season of Heartstopper feels a bit padded to me so far--I've read the graphic novels, and it seems like they're trying to stretch the story out to make space for more seasons--but its still a delight.

― niall horanburger (cryptosicko)

I didn't mind the expansions, especially the limning of Isaac's asexuality.

I was a little worried early on that the focus was going to stay on Nick's halting coming out(s), but I ended up liking the overall shape of the season and, echoing Alfred, the attention paid to the whole cast.

I also liked that by the end of the season Nick emerged as the group's kindest, most empathetic, and wisest member, and that that could be attributed to both his inherent nature and to the support the others gave him, allowing him to avoid some of the more brutal treatment the others received when navigating things more on their own.

Not to long ago in this thread I mentioned how I really liked the first season of Invasion, and most folks here who chimed in took the opposite stance.

I rewatched it over the weekend in anticipation of the new season starting next week (I think it's been two years between seasons??). And while there are a few plot quibbles here and there, I still think it holds up really well. I really like how slow it is--[spoilers if you're only now starting to watch it] the fakeout protagonist of the first episode, the sheer number of episodes showing people dealing with a crisis without ever understanding the cause, and not even showing the aliens in any kind of explicit way until the sixth episode. I just really loved that a show with this simple of a premise turned out to be essentially a slow burn show.

The quasi-supernatural elements weren't as strong. There's a scene in the first or second episode where Aneesha's son starts screaming because he hears voices in his head saying "Wagu" over and over again. But no one else has this experience. And even as we learn of the telepathic connection that Caspar has with the aliens, the plot never returns to Aneesha's son possibly having a similar connection. And then in the penultimate episode where Caspar realizes he can communicate with them, all he says is... stop. And lastly I was a little confused by the reveal of Mitsuki still in the space station near the end, and the questioning of whether or not she was somehow an imposter the aliens had devised. Admittedly I was not fully paying attention... but this seemed both too far-fetched to really be her, and too far-fetched that the aliens were that sophisticated linguistically. Anyway its pleasures far outweighed its flaws in my opinion. I'm excited for the new season and I truly have no idea where it's going to go.

oops that was all supposed to be hidden text

Third and final season of Top Boy is coming soon (early September, I think).

This musical sub-plot of Only Murders in the Building is pretty tiresome.

I really liked the first two episodes – it felt like they found a fresh spin on the whole concept – but I sort of tuned out in Ep. 3... (also, Selena's character feels weirdly undefined or "what do we do with her this time around?")

i liked that gal gadot spy movie on netflix. lots of fun. and a flying gal gadot. its really really long. i mean it felt like it was 4 hours long but it couldn't have been. it never ends. but i liked it anyway! silly. fun. gal gadot. did i mention gal gadot?

Heart of Stone. Plot makes zero sense but, yeah, flying Gal Gadot.

it's a weird movie!

It absolutely smacked of trying to set up a franchise with the premise being entirely Flying Gal Gadot. It was incredibly silly and I've almost entirely forgotten the plot already (I watched it last weekend)

I also liked that by the end of the season Nick emerged as the group's kindest, most empathetic, and wisest member, and that that could be attributed to both his inherent nature and to the support the others gave him, allowing him to avoid some of the more brutal treatment the others received when navigating things more on their own.
― rob, Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Kit Connor is one of the few actors of any age working who can play sweetness.

Heart of Stone: first half is a lot better than the second half. The second half drags, gets incredibly silly, and left me feeling embarrassed for all concerned in this sorry film.

I'm actually mad about the second half because there was a brief window when, for as silly as Heart Of Stone is, it actually seemed that it could have been a good movie.

So wait, she has superpowers(?)

No superpowers, but she has a variety of plot devices and gadgets at her disposal which launch her into and keep her involved in increasingly ludicrous and often airborne stunts.

Flying Gal Gadot was maybe the worst thing about Wonder Woman 1984, against stiff competition