2025 Rolling Streaming Media Thread

movies, television, cable, games, videos, podcasts, music, ANYTHING streaming on ANY streaming platform.

i just want to know what people are seeing/watching/hearing and what they think. and i want to go to one place. in a casual way. so sue me!

but no DVDs or movies you see when you go to THE CINEMA. that way the SERIOUS film people can have their own fun. there is a film sub-baord. make it a thing again!

if you think something should have its own thread, start one! its a free countr....oh wait. if enough people love it or hate it they can talk about it there.

and there you have it.

i just wish i had remembered that the Roku Sports channel was showing the X Games all weekend. I love the X Games! oh well. i'll watch the reruns.

also, Go Eagles.

okay, i'm going back to Chopped. the one chef who had cooked for Kissinger and Lucian Freud had one whole finger of her glove filled with blood and she was still cooking. Ewwwww!

I watched the four episodes of The Pitt that are currently available on Max and they were OK, but I don't know if I'm gonna remember to watch the next one when it pops up on Thursday. ER + 24 = not as genius an idea as its creators thought.

I actually think The Pitt is getting richer as it goes - which is not what my expectation was. There were definitely moments in the first couple episodes that felt like clumsy track-laying (eg, when will the victims of the school shooting show up?). But now onto episode 4 I’m getting more comfortable with the characters and I think Noah Wylie is really holding it down.

Noah Wyle should have kept going with The Librarians

I watched a couple of the documentary shorts that were nominated for Oscars. Two that I watched by coincidence made a *perfect* double feature and a highly recommend watching them back to back in this order:

First, THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA, on Netflix - about the first woman to play in the NY Philharmonic starting back in the 60s, on the occasion of her retirement after 50+ years. She is so humble and knows her role as a bassist in the orchestra.

Its made all the more compelling if you then switch over to YouTube to watch INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART, about a second grader in a Tokyo school who *desperately* wants to be in her school band as a percussionist. She is so adorable and the doc is very compelling, especially for something as mundane as small children doing a school assembly performance.

Watching both docs takes less than an hour and they both make the other richer and more inspiring. A real highlight of my day.

thought about watching Gladiator 2 on Paramount+ but then i make the mistake of watching the whole trailer and it all just looks so phony baloney with the cgi and everyone's face is all digitally smoothed and colored...bleh. i kept thinking that one guy was harry pooper. the young guy. i have no idea who he is. he looks like harry pooper. the only people i even recognize are denzel and the mandalorian. i had no idea who pedro pascal was until he was seemingly everywhere and world famous. i guess after mandalorian. i didn't even know he was in game of thrones until the other day. i didn't watch narcos. maybe he got famous from that. he must have switched agents at some point because he was in stuff for years and years before narcos.

He got famous for the Last of Us.

really? that seems so recent. i thought it was star wars people who made him famous. i did not love the last of us. it did make me watch the walking dead again though. with maria and cyrus. that was fun. until negan shows up then i stopped.

Will def watch that Japanese short, thanks.

I liked Chopped best when I used to watch it at the gym with the sound off, much more relaxing without their dumb music cues.

Pascal was def famous before The Last of Us. I first heard of him when he was on The Mandalorian -- never saw it bc I don't care about Star Wars, but it seemed like a big deal at the time. But he was also on Game of Thrones before that.

Which you already said! (I was skimming too fast.)

Pascal attracted attention for being on Game of Thrones, then he was on Narcos on Netflix. Then the Star Wars thing was sold as "starring that guy from Game of Thrones and Narcos!" And by The Last of Us, people knew his name.

Watched Alien Romulus. It’s well-made but doesn’t really add anything new to the franchise. Just feels like a rehash.

he's not young. his credits start in 1999. talk about working it. good for him. he seems nice. not that exciting to me but a lot of leading men now seem generic to me. hollywood leading men. maybe its easier to CGI someone if they have a really normal face. at least he has an interesting backstory what with his family being a part of the Castilian-Basque aristocracy in Chile. and then...tragedy struck...

"Two years before Pascal's birth, the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet, leading to the country becoming a military dictatorship.[12] Both of Pascal's parents were listed as enemies of the state by the Pinochet regime and the family eventually fled Chile when he was nine months old,[12] after seeking refuge in the Venezuelan embassy in Santiago for six months."

x-post

I haven't watched Romulus. I'd probably like it. I don't care if its a lesser Alien movie. They all kinda are after the first three. Phil Tippett, the director of one of the greatest American movies of the 21st century, Mad God, did the stop motion rat in Alien: Romulus. HOW WAS THE RAT, PGWP?

The rat was nice.

It’s definitely not a disappointing movie - it’s exciting and tense and all that. You’ll like it if you like Alien movies.

I watched about half of Romulus and I don't even remember a rat. Maybe it showed up later.

i should watch it. i still haven't watched furiosa for some reason. now that its on netflix.

i would see some of these at the movies but the guy who bought the local theater is trumpy. its unfortunate. its good that someone took on the old heap of a movie house but on the other hand... i don't want to go there. they showed 2000 Mules there.

Pascal's real starmaking turn was being in a viral gif with Nic Cage IIRC

all of a sudden everyone knew his name. it seemed like it anyway. like olde-tyme hollywood. he probably got invited to a lot of swanky parties. does he have to hang out with george clooney now at Lake Como. with matt damon.

i'm watching american football right now and i like the ad where doja cat lurks around a taco bell.

i still haven't watched furiosa for some reason.

Very, verrrrry skippable. (But I am the only person on earth who hated Fury Road, so.)

oh i liked fury road. i like movies that never stop moving. that have forward motion.

i know its easy to make fun of tom brady but he is such a nothing broadcaster. he's no tony romo! he's so meepy.

Romulus is EXTREMELY disappointing; it’s a load of crap.

post malone/shane gillis beer ad is a big noooooooo. i never want to see shane gillis's grinning head.

but by what standard, james? is it even good as pulpy horror fun? cuz i'm fine with that.

my standards aren't very high anymore. but i do stop watching stuff a lot if it looks too dumb. it has to be pretty dumb or just low-budget filler that is boring. there is a lot of it out there. i want to watch good stuff.

i'm still watching the Eagles win but i'm also watching amy sedaris on david letterman. man, you don't see the likes of her anymore. unless its her. she would go full weird on national t.v. i'm also watching tom green on all the late night shows a long time ago. crazy. amy can make me laugh hard! not too many people can anymore. don rickles. her. some others.

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

I liked Furiosa better than Fury Road, it's 25% less '90s music video.

Furiosa is good - it's not as good as Fury Road, but then nothing is. But it does recognise that funny dumb Chris Hemsworth is the best Chris Hemsworth.

I’m on my little kick of watching things that were nominated (after watching almost no movies all year), and starting with the movies that are free to stream. Therefore I’m getting in those films nominated for best visual effects (Alien) and now costumes—Gladiator II, since most of the prestige films haven’t hit streaming yet.

I don’t think I ever saw the first Gladiator so I dont have the baggage of comparison. Nevertheless I had low expectations for the sequel but it was better than I expected it to be. I doubt I’ll think about it much but it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Romulus is not good fun, it's mostly incredibly awkward callbacks to better scenes from the earlier movies. It really is terrible, and in a really small, scuzzy way, not even terrible and preposterous on a grand stage like the two idiotic Scott Prometheus movies.

gotcha.

Many xps Pascal was a known actor before LoU, but after he became a subject of celebrity media, which is a different thing.

fun thing about Pascal is his friendship with Sarah Paulson, it's really sweet.

what are the good recentish spy shows other than slow horses? i finished binging it and wanted to continue in that vein. tried day of the jackal but it feels very slow and cheesy.

I think people are split here on The Agency? or maybe its just me who got bored of it. I really liked the first episodes and then it just dragged for me. didn't love the characters that didn't help.

I liked the first season of the Night Agent on Netflix. I've canceled my subscription but there's a second season now.

i liked that first season of The Night Agent on Netflix even though the lead guy is kind of a generic dud. it was still entertaining spy stuff. more action-y though. maybe more Tom Clancy territory.

great minds...uh...think alike! haha!

what are the good recentish spy shows other than slow horses?

I enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And just started Black Doves, which seems promising.

i saw that the Recruit has a new season starting on Netflix and i can't remember if i even watched the first one. i probably did. and forgot all about it.

i want to go back and watch old stuff. MI-5 and the like. loads of stuff i've never seen.

Berlin Station looks kinda cool but i think its one of those odd ones that isn't streaming on the stuff i have. mgm+ or apple+ or something.

Xpost recent spy shows. Black Doves was good. However if you missed The Americans, highly recommended to see that instead

The Diplomat is sort of a spy show. That one is good.

I thought The Agency was skillfully made, but every now and then I remembered it was about the US trying to maintain control over the world, which was a bummer. I wonder if I'd like the French original better.

thanks all. maybe i'll give black doves a shot. or maybe i'll rewatch the greatest spy tv show of all time (patriot)

We’re a subtitles on household too

Black Mirror S7 starts with the least subtle episode yet.

xpost Us also. Its for myriad reasons - the dynamic range BS is a big one, but also things like "theres 2 TVs going within earshot of each other in the same house" or "I'm eating and cant hear their mumbling over my chewing" or "Trayce is a deafy".

I really loved the first new Black Mirror ep. I didnt mention it here cos there's actually a thread for the show but it hasnt been updated in ages.

But it was a depressing cold water slap, given it was a completely right-now plausible scenario. And also I love Ann Perkins Rashida.

Have any of you watched "Adolescence"? It's a 4-part miniseries that is pretty wrenching

Yep, and we've got a thread for it:
A thread for Adolescence (Netflix, 2025)

I really loved the first new Black Mirror ep.

I had the opposite reaction. For various reasons I thought it was extremely unlikely that these particular people would be so credulous, and also it was just exactly the kind of story I did not need to see right now.

I didn’t hate it like some of the earlier on the nose episodes (I haven’t seen most of 3-6), the pieces were all fine, it just didn’t say anything interesting about predatory capitalism.

Piling on the horrors (and lifting material from Idiocracy) is fair and real but it’s not much to watch.

Hoping there are more like the two I’ve seen from S6 - pre-Thatcher demonology and Black Mirror: Galaxy Quest.

Yellowjackets: 1st season was interesting, 2nd season was just okay, I’ve watched the first two episodes of the 3rd season so far and I don’t know if I want to commit to it

Handmaid’s Tale: I loved this show so much at the beginning and for several seasons it was pretty great. But we’re now in the 6th and final season and it feels like there will be a long denouement and it will be a disappointment. I will watch it though to see the outcome

Lockerbie: first episode is boring, not sure I will finish it

Nobody Wants This: first episode is too cutesy by far, but maybe I’m in a mood for that

Somebody Somewhere: This is an ostensibly cringey comedy about small-town characters in rural Kansas, but the characters are so great that you want to watch them forever. This show is a balm for me right now, I'm glad there are 3 seasons of it

I also just finished Somebody Somewhere and loved it! Such a sweet and funny show, wonderful characters. 3 seasons was not enough!

Definitely skip Lockerbie. 1st episode is the best episode and it goes down from there

Yellowjackets s3 is definitely rocky, just as s2 was. It mostly stayed compelling enough for me to keep with it but if you’re hoping it will return to the excellence of s1, it won’t.

Agreed on Handmaid’s Tale. I’m in it to the end but it’s diminished from its early brilliance.

Somebody Somewhere is a goddamned treasure

Handmaid’s Tale took several turns and the initial premise turning into what it is now is a thought exercise we maybe didn’t need played out?

I guess L&O: Criminal Intent falls into this bucket now that it’s just a Peacock show. It’s a goofy L&O spinoff where Stabler gets to go undercover and actually hit people outside of an interrogation room or shady arrest. The supporting cast carried it (halfway) before, but the first streaming-only season is just ehhh in the first two episodes. The writing, premise, and casting is cheaper

Finding Eureka very enjoyable not quite halfway through S1. What if you made an entire series out of the X-Files comic episodes?

Somebody Somewhere is fantastic.

Yellowjackets is pretty dumb but fun.

Handmaids Tale...I don't know why we still watch it. They're working hard to have people making bad decisions so we can get to the point where Luke gets killed so she can end up with Nick. That's my guess at least.

I had no idea Handmaid's Tale had more than two seasons!

I must resurface mentions of COMMON SIDE EFFECTS which has become my new favorite thing on tv this month.

I finally got around to watching it. Good show, though I couldn't help but keep comparing it to Scavengers' Reign, which was more imaginative and wild. We got some of that in this show here and there, but I wanted more. apparently this show is gonna get another season, so maybe they'll ramp it up

It’s so different from Scavenger’s Reign - it’s not going to reach that level because it’s not trying to. (On the other hand, SR could never be as funny)

Wouldn't mind if HBO stopped showing me ads for Paul American.

We are three episodes into North of North and we are finding it charming. The main character’s daughter is delightful.

Niko Stratis wrote a great piece about Reacher & memories on their newsletter this week

https://www.anxietyshark.ca/reacher/?ref=anxiety-shark-newsletter

Just finished Slow Horses season 1 and it's great! It took a while to get going but the spy stuff was nice and twisty without being too hard to follow and the jokes are real lols, definitely going to try to get through all the seasons now.

Come join us! Slow Horses

I am currently feeling very overwhelmed by trying to keep up with TV shows right now.

Watching Last of Us, Friends and Neighbors, Handmaid's Tale, MobLand, The Studio, Survivor, Top Chef, Dope Thief, Dr Who, and Righteous Gemstones... which seems like a lot but when you just need to watch one ep per week it's not so bad. But a few of these shows premiered with multiple episodes and/or I didn't start them right away so it took a lot of time to catch up. I also did a big catch-up on Hacks--I never got around to s3 so I watched all of it over the last week and am now caught up to the current episode of s4. I also watched the first episode of Dying for Sex but can't figure out when/how to watch the rest, even though I liked it.

And now Andor is here in 3-episode batches. It's too much and I don't want to give any of it up!

Enjoyed both seasons of Wolf Hall ( preferred S1 over 2 ). It made me want to rewatch The Hollow Crown, for some reason.

Watched the first ep of Your Friends and Neighbors. Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet … very good start

I'm kind of liking S6, the final season, of The Handmaid's Tale. The revenge of women against an evil patriarchy is something I have time for. I think the three year hiatus worked for it. The first two episodes of S2 of The Last of Us is also pretty good I think, better than the beginning of the first season even, it also benefitted from a hiatus.

I haven't continued yet with Hacks, but it ended on a really high note in S3 so I'm expecting at least slight disappointment. I will still probably enjoy what they do next though.

I'm going to rewatch the first season of Wolf Hall from 10 years ago before I start this season, and am looking forward to it

The Studio starts out as a very 'The Player'-level satire on the narcissism of Hollywood, but it is much less subtle and is super coked-out, with a really bad percussion soundtrack. It’s not something I want to continue with

After the first few eps of Hacks, I'm wishing the series were just about Jimmy & Kayla at this point. I'm not enjoying the Deborah/Ava storyline, or spending time with those characters...

I watched the first season of Andor and it was... OK. I've watched the first three episodes of season 2 and I'm out. The first two episodes are evenly divided between boring rich people having boring rich person angst and our hero trapped on a generic planet with two groups of squabbling idiots who have nothing to do with the larger story. Oh, and then we get a five-hour (or maybe it just felt that way) meeting of the Evil Bureaucracy, Special Extra-Evil Division!

Taps sign: An Ava In The House Of Vance: HACKS on MAX

Eh, I’ve said my piece… don’t want to “yuck anyone’s yum” over there (I hate that phrase, lol)

^^^ Agree. That's why I posted my thoughts here and not in the dedicated Andor thread, too.

Watched COMPANION last night on Max.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr_kX0D3DNA

It's basically a fun version of EX MACHINA, with some really surprising violence. Definitely recommended.

Oh cool, I wanted to check that out (lol at the Campbell's Soup font in that logo)

I am ending up lukewarm on YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. All the narration is driving me up the wall, and there just seems to be no stakes despite the premise. I can still envision it ratcheting up but I’d like them to get on with it

Narcos Mexico is better than what y’all have said in prior threads… idk … maybe part of it is the current political situation here in the US vs Season 2 of the show. I like that they gave a fictional Ricardo Salcedo a cameo.

not sure if there is a thread for it but THE STUDIO is really fantastic. First two episodes were hysterical, then it dipped a little, and now the last two eps have been just terrific. This week's episode about casting the Kool-Aid movie was fast and funny, with a very Seinfeld/Curb-esque kicker at the end.

Agreed... we've only got the final episode left to watch, and it's been a hugely entertaining series.

Netflix have added a new Asterix animation (The Big Fight) and it's really good. Lots of old jokes and some new ones to keep it fresh, plus some really great original sequences (the Getafix kids show, It's A Gaul World). Feels comforting and nostalgic but modern too.

The CGI looked pretty bad, surprised to hear this!

Anyone seen The Four Seasons on Netflix? It's a remake of the Alan Alda/Carol Burnett film--a better-than-average piece of Yacht Cinema, as I recall--updated with a gay couple. I'll be resubbing to Netflix at least long enough to watch the final season of Big Mouth, so I'm just wondering if this is worth my time.

It just came out today so i haven’t watched yet, but i plan to. Saw a couple middling/poor reviews of it though so i am tempering my expectations

Ah! Didn’t realize it was just released.

Sicario 2 is lol holy shit levels of fascist

it's so weird to me that they totally took the entire message of the first movie and threw it in the dumpster, even trying to make Brolin's character 'heroic'??? but entertaining i guess!

Watching THE INSIDER on Hulu and reveling as always in Michael Mann's ability to cast instantly recognizable character actors and basically tell them, "You'll be in five scenes, you will have exactly four words of dialogue, but you'll get three close-ups in fantastic lighting. Deal?"

That movie may be perfect.

Narrow Road To The Deep North is on Prime -highly recommend if yr so inclined

Stars Jacob Elordi & Ciaran Hinds, directed by Justin Kurzel (The Order, True History of the Kelly Gang, Snowtown) based on the novel by Richard Flanagan.
It looks fucking incredible, so beautifully filmed, they clearly threw a ton of money into this - and of course Prime just barfs it into their feed without any fanfare at all

Anyway, it’s quite good.

Years ago I bought that book for my wife and she loved it. I always meant to read it, but before the adaptation ... ?

Loved The Order so I’ll definitely give it a look.

i dont remember much of the book though i did for sure read it

is anybody else watching the batshit crazy show The Creamerie, on Netflix? it's like if Children Of Men was a sharply written comedy.