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

There doesn't appear to be a dedicated thread for it and I don't care to start one, but Billy Crudup continues to be a great reason to keep watching the otherwise mediocre Morning Show. The scene where he cranks up "Kokomo" in the car to brace himself for dealing with his mother was chefskiss.gif

yes! he’s so goddamn great in Morning Show. Aniston & Witherspoon are pretty excellent in it as well, i have really enjoyed the series.

Crudup's retro futurist Apple show was so disappointing.

I’m one episode into Gyeongseong Creature and it is 100% “fuck yeah!”

I often wonder if it’s time for a dedicated Korean TV series thread, but feels unnecessarily Balkanizing. Everyone on this thread needs to at least watch My Name and the others we’ve mentioned upthread

Would appreciate a list of essential k shows. Dipped my feet here and there but never found something that clicked

Rented God Is A Bullet on Amazon for $2 last night and have rarely regretted anything more. Easily the worst movie I saw in 2023: 2 hours 35 minutes of misogyny, genuinely surprising levels of gore, and a Criminal Minds-level mentality re Satanic serial killing cults that apparently roll through our world with impunity, dragging young girls into sinister black vans and then doing Bad Things to them because... well, they're just eeeeevil, don't you see? The movie's just stupid: ineptly written, portentously acted, shot with exactly zero visual flair...just garbage from beginning to end. A must to avoid.

My top 3 Kdramas:

- Kingdom: Humans vs zombies historical action in a Kurosawa-esque haunted landscape
- Zombie Detective: guy wakes up as a zombie, starts working as a private detective and tries to solve his murder/how to live as a human, also it's funny
- Happiness: "Parasite with zombies" undersells it, also it's funny and there is romance

Also worth watching:
- Moving: some discussion above I think, poignant story of kids growing up with superpowers and intergenerational trauma, also some legit beautiful soundtrack moments and some pretty extreme violence (the final third with the North Koreans was kind of pointless imo)
- Alchemy of Souls Part 1: epic fantasy about magical warrior people, lots of YA feelings and romance, some parts are legit hilarious and the world building is cool (I thought Part 2 sucked though)
- Jirisan: slice of life workplace drama x natural disaster action x ghosts x murder mystery x majesty of nature x natural park legislation; probably less than the sum of its parts but there are so many parts
- The Worst of Evil: undercover cop infiltrates a gang in 1990s Seoul, trust and mistrust among MEN, looks amazing
- Six Flying Dragons: huge historical epic about the founding of the Joseon Dynasty, cool fight scenes and surprise political manoeuvres and betrayal and tragedy

reading through my blurbs I'm thinking a bit "I wouldn't take these recommendations" but idk these all left an impression on me

Haha thanks. I also have to navigate around a skeptical wife who will cringe at the mention of zombies or .extreme violence’. Jirisan sounds like a good start!

I really don't like zombies!

in Zombie Detective it's just a weird thing that happened to the protagonist (there might not be any other zombies in the show iirc)

i love this rant

“I beg you to WATCH THE MOVIE”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk-65JS8Qik

My favorite Korean show so far is Beyond Evil, which is a serial killer mystery with a fair amount of humor and some creepy moments.

The Worst Of Evil is in the queue here - can't wait!

Previously, but I suspect Elvis and I would both strongly rep for Stranger, which is an extremely slow boil type show, not without violence but mostly about the murkiness of the shifting alliances and rivalries among the police and prosecutor's office in Seoul, plus it features some fascinating interpersonal relationships. It helps if you are a patient viewer; one has to really recalibrate their expectations re pacing and what constitutes a major narrative event. It's so different from so many shows that I just find it completely absorbing. It does help that it has a pair of outstanding lead performances, including one from Bae Doona (better to see her in this kind of thing than in Rebel Moon.)

I've mentioned it before a couple times, I always have to discuss it because I feel it's probably overlooked compared to shows that are more easily digestible for audiences used to the swift and some might say overly accelerated pacing of so many streaming TV shows.

thanks for the reminder, I still need to watch Stranger

cosign re: Stranger, it’s also my favourite K-drama. Cho Seung Woo and Bae Doona as leads is just <3.

And seconding Kingdom, Moving, Beyond Evil, My Name. And while it’s overhyped and there’s no way the second season isn’t going to be a colossal disappointment, Squid Game is great too, imo.

Other K-dramas not mentioned yet which I also really liked:
- D.P.: follows a team of army officers tasked with chasing down deserters, but it’s really about bullying and male friendship and trauma in the military.
- All Of Us Are Dead: zombies again! But in high school. Very YA, and goes on a tad too long imo, but it’s a lot of fun and the zombie action sequences are incredible.
- Extracurricular: brutal, gritty drama about teenagers who turn to crime for money. Does a good job at tackling difficult topics like sex trafficking and suicide without being overly preachy or moralistic.

Reacher S2 is still fun but there's something off about it - the staging isn't as fluid, the dialogue is clunkier.

they don’t use his physicality as much in the fight scenes .. and yeah,i dunno if its the writing or that crew he has with him aren’t up to the task acting-wise. it does feel kinda stilted compared to last season

Oh no! I only just finished season one and was really looking forward to some high-quality reaching. Oh well.

I am slogging my way through Invasion s1 and it is taking aaaaages

We made it to the end of S2, but that's it for us and Invasion. So boring. Do not care about any of the characters at all. Still annoyed about Sam Neill going all out on promoting it and then getting invaded ten minutes in.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I would like a moratorium on 'end of the world' shows/movies for a while, it's all becoming a bit much

I was thinking similar yesterday while husband was watching the Monarch show on Apple+ (which seems fine, I guess, but definitely needs less family drama and more monsters). A lot of our TV-watching time -- more his than mine, admittedly -- is taken up with watching dirt-streaked people with torches climbing around in rubble.

The first couple of episodes of the new Percy Jackson on Disney are very enjoyable family viewing (my son loved it). Quite a bit of world building exposition but plenty of action too. The two main kids are excellent so far and Jason Mantzoukas is always fun to watch.

i watched Bloodhounds and Song of the Bandits on Netflix recently and liked them both. Korean action shows. if you like action. but also lots of, you know, sadness and sad flashbacks of sad past events. both are really good cliffhangers.

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lmao

It's true that S2 of Schmigadoon not quite as good as S1. The Miss Hannigan analog at the orphanage had one of the worst Oliver Twist accents I've ever heard and tbh Alan Cummings' wasn't much better. That whole plotline was just eh. The big dance number with the kids was extremely paltry compared to the showstopper from S1. But the narrator is just ridiculously gratifying to watch. And Cecily Strong was maybe even better this time. What an actress. She just knocked it out with "It's My Turn Now". Or whatever that song was called. The plot was wildly silly. In S1 it all kinda made emotional sense but this... I think for two episodes we even forgot that Josh is being hunted by the cops. Oh and I wanted every scene with the hippies to end immediately. So yeah maybe not great. But I couldn't imagine not wanting to see it.

I started watching The Crowded Room on AppleTV last night, got annoyed two episodes in and spoiled it for myself and now I'm glad I saved myself another 6 hours.

The new Reacher is just kind of *grim*. The storyline is grim, the violence feels showy & ugly and Reacher's psychopathic intensity feels forced. In the first season, the slow build of the relationships helped to mitigate some of this, whereas in S2 it's all backloaded and told through flashbacks. Still here for it, though.

Yeah, but what about when Robert Patrick said he didn't know who Sarah Connor was? HILARITY.

it was actually really stupid. but Reacher has better one-liners this season. he's a regular comedian.

and i like when his old team makes fun of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhv7bgmz64

I've canceled my Netflix and Hulu subscriptions, but added Max (which I used to have through Hulu) through Amazon Prime. Just watched Leave the World Behind, which was OK though I would have appreciated fewer swooping, rotating drone shots.

It's on Netflix, how did you watch it(?)

My Netflix subscription doesn't run out until February 1. So I'm watching a couple of things in the meantime.

Lamb is on Prime. It's super goofy watching a toddler with a lamb's head:

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1200,h_600,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F006dac31-63e5-4298-8b3e-6061c022a7da_540x304.webp

slightly less goofy, the line in the last Reacher episode: "next time, get a hotel"

i watched the holdovers on peacock and it was kinda boring and not funny and i couldn't believe how much paul giamatti looked and acted like a cartoon character and there were moments where i thought it was trying to be a parody of inspirational movies but then i kept realizing that it was supposed to be taken seriously. i struggled to finish it. i might have fast forwarded through the last 20 minutes to get the weepy goodbyes out of the way. i could see it being a homage to forgotten t.v. movies of the 80s. except it would have been paul dooley, lance kerwin, and conchata farrell in the 80s. also that one dumb kid's fake long hair was really distracting. they need to start doing AI on fake hair in movies.

aw! i really liked it

It really looked horrible and I couldn't believe how many people seemed to be falling for it. Maybe they didn't go to East Coast US prep schools in the 80s and thus didn't know how shitty those kids (and their teachers) actually were. I spent two years in a Catholic boys' school in NJ and it wasn't anything to be nostalgic about. One of the priests got murdered some years later — he'd left the priesthood and moved to Las Vegas and a guy he'd molested as a teenager walked up to his front door, rang the bell, and when he answered, shot him. Make that into a movie.

Kinda tough to sell that to the Christmas audience

Maybe they didn't go to East Coast US prep schools in the 80s and thus didn't know how shitty those kids

you'd be surprised a lot of Americans actually didn't go to East Coast prep schools in the 80s

I liked it. (shrug emoji)

PS I went to an East Coast prep school in the '80s.

i liked that it was a quiet unshowy xmas movie about grief & love & unlikeable ppl who had stories to tell, and i love paul giamatti always & unreservedly

its not like i’m building a shrine to prep schools & shitty rich kids by liking it ffs

also i was feeling very bummed this christmas season and it had a vibe that just kinda made me feel a bit less bummed

FIVE STARS

IN YR FACE

I thought it was great and the shitty nature of the kids and the teachers is explicit in the movie.

Kinda tough to sell that to the Christmas audience

No place like home for the holidays.

Just watched the trailer for 3 Body Problem and one thing I'll say is that choral covers of Radiohead songs make me roll me eyes.

I'm glad you liked it, VegemiteGrrl!! I can see why people like it. I didn't hate it. I just didn't feel anything. It felt flat to me. One episode of Reservation Dogs (take your pick of many) has uplifted me/inspired me/cheered me more. and made me laugh way more. about the very same themes too.

The Offer was a total Hollywood fairy tale but very entertaining and a great cast

i should have hated The Offer but it was so ridiculously smoothbrained that I weirdly loved it (but cannot defend it in any way)

Right? I must have posted about it in this thread... such fun trashola

(the portrayal of Rob't Evans was truly awesome)

I want a spinoff where my chubby bois Frances and Mario solve crimes together