Hidden Gems of Hulu and Hulu+

AcidCat wrote:

New season of What We Do In The Shadows is up - well the first two episodes, will be weekly on Thursday.

The season started strong. The second episode in particular adds a new twist to vampire mythology that I thought was genius.

I just finished watching Loving Vincent. It's a very beautifully animated film about the death of Vincent van Gogh.

I had a hard time with the premise, though, which is built around this question of why Van Gogh commit suicide when six weeks before he'd told a friend he was doing well and people who saw him said he seemed normal. Surely he was murdered!

That's not a very compelling mystery to me, I guess. Person with depression swings from doing great to suicidal is, like, an average Tuesday. (Source: I have severe clinical depression.)

Aniara is another interesting scifi watch.

karmajay wrote:

Aniara is another interesting scifi watch.

Spoiler:
A ship carrying settlers to a new home on Mars after Earth is rendered uninhabitable is knocked off-course, causing the passengers to consider their place in the universe.

Sign me up. Thanks!

This feels exactly like the show my wife and I want to binge right now. It looks really fun.

I've been watching Adam McKay's Vice with Christian Bale and Amy Adams as Dick and Lynne Cheney. There are some strong performances in there (and amazing prosthetics work) but my favorite might be Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush.

The Big Short was the first Adam McKay movie I saw, and it spawned a whole legion of comedic docu-drama imitators. I always forget that he's also the writer and director of seemingly a million forgettable Will Farrell comedies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights.

Oh my god! This week's What We do in the Shadows is so good. Matt Berry is on the top of his game, and the new character is shocking.

Edit:

Spoiler:

Mark Hamill!!!!!!!!!!

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Oh my god! This week's What We do in the Shadows is so good. Matt Berry is on the top of his game, and the new character is shocking.

Edit:

Spoiler:

Mark Hamill!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler:

Tim the Vampire!!!!!!!!!!

My wife and I watched The Lodge a couple of nights ago, and while we liked it, it was definitely not an uplifting movie. If you're in the mood for something dark and twisted, you might want to check it out.

The Great is really, well, great.

Huzzah!

Jayhawker wrote:

The Great is really, well, great.

Huzzah!

Yes!

I am about halfway through The Great now, and all I can say is, like Jaywalker, "huzzah!"

I am watching it slowly to savor it. The writing is delicious, sure. The acting is wonderful, too - just on the border between serious and over-the-top. But the thing that really keeps me enthralled is the costumes and set design. They can only be described as "lavish." I imagine that not even Peter III's place in St Petersburg was as lavish.

I haven't seen a serio-comic series this good in a long time.

BadKen wrote:

I haven't seen a serio-comic series this good in a long time.

Indeed!

We finished it up last night. The tension and dark comedy ramp up as events unfold. It was also really worth watching a simple 30 minute bio on Catherine the Great, which we did after the first episode. The telling is not ultra accurate by any means, but they absolutely use real events and controversies from her life in pretty cool ways. All we really knew was the basics, that she overthrew her husband and became a great leader. But holy crap is her story interesting.

Probably the second best series we have binged in the quarantine. Elle Fanning is just fantastic. Huzzah!

Here’s a pretty great article on her and the show in Elle.

How Elle Fanning Found Her Voice With The Great

Palace intrigue, canopy bed sex, tiny corsets and ballooning skirts—what more could you ask of a period drama? For screenwriter Tony McNamara and actress Elle Fanning, quite a lot, actually. He already elevated the genre beyond Masterpiece Theater chintz with his Oscar-nominated script The Favourite. For his treatment of Russian empress Catherine the Great, who famously unseated her husband Peter III with a coup in 1762, McNamara recruited Fanning as star and executive producer. “I love being terrified by a role,” she tells ELLE.com, her chirpy American twang a contrast from Catherine’s polished British cadence (disregard the fact that the sovereign was technically German). “If it's a

challenge or I feel a pressure, it's probably the right choice.”

Like its spiritual cousin, Apple TV+'s Dickinson, Hulu's The Great is a risky endeavor. The 10-part series parleys in the anachronistic, marrying history with ribald dialogue, farcical fictions, and a decidedly modern cadence. McNamara molds Catherine and Peter (Nicholas Hoult, unselfconsciously brilliant as the insecure ruler) into a clash of wits; he is a toddler-like philistine driving the country into decay, spending his days hunting, fighting, smashing glasses of newly drained of vodka, and “eating p*ssy” (his favorite phrase, second only to “huzzah!”). Catherine, idealistic but level-headed, refuses to be yoked by the expectations of her dim husband, wielding her intellect like a knife and surrounding herself with a brain trust possessing the urgent desire—though not always the organization or the guts—to save her adopted country. "[With] shows about women, I think people want a 'strong female character!' I'm allergic to that,” Fanning says. “Catherine doesn't always have the right answer. Sometimes she's not the strongest or bravest person in the room. These characters like Killing Eve or Fleabag or Russian Doll—they make mistakes. Those are the characters I want to see. I wanted to make sure Catherine fit into that."

he is a toddler-like philistine driving the country into decay, spending his days hunting, fighting, smashing glasses of newly drained of vodka, and “eating p*ssy” (his favorite phrase, second only to “huzzah!”)

Topical.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
he is a toddler-like philistine driving the country into decay, spending his days hunting, fighting, smashing glasses of newly drained of vodka, and “eating p*ssy” (his favorite phrase, second only to “huzzah!”)

Topical.

Honestly, there are moments that feel very topical, but they do not lean into it. Peter’s story just happens to lend itself if you want to compare.

But, this is not aimed to be a metaphor for anything or one in particular. It’s a story worth telling, and interesting enough to make Teresa and I seek out info on the true events.

All I know is that the next time I boot up Civ, I’m taking Catherine.

Oh, I wasn't trying to suggest that it was a message series or trying to be commentary on current events. Just a perverse, ignorant leader who is a creature of pure, childish id is... Well, it's a very familiar situation.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Oh, I wasn't trying to suggest that it was a message series or trying to be commentary on current events. Just a perverse, ignorant leader who is a creature of pure, childish id is... Well, it's a very familiar situation. :P

Didn’t really think you were. But I did want to make sure that people understand that this wasn’t that, since I assume many avoid current events in their entertainment.

There is even a smallpox outbreak storyline, and that had to be written well before the current events. There is a lot of rhyming going on, though.

Misery; In my mind probably the second best Stephen King film of all time is on Hulu. Watching it now.

jrralls wrote:

Misery; In my mind probably the second best Stephen King film of all time is on Hulu. Watching it now.

You will owe it to yourself to watch season 2 of Castle Rock, which is primarily an Annie Wilkes story. While season one sets up some of the story, it is mostly self-contained. By the end, it does spoil some of season 1, but if you are more into Misery, then season 2 is a lot better.

It’s all great, though. And Lizzy Kaplan is flipping amazing as younger Wilkes.

Jayhawker wrote:
jrralls wrote:

Misery; In my mind probably the second best Stephen King film of all time is on Hulu. Watching it now.

You will owe it to yourself to watch season 2 of Castle Rock, which is primarily an Annie Wilkes story. While season one sets up some of the story, it is mostly self-contained. By the end, it does spoil some of season 1, but if you are more into Misery, then season 2 is a lot better.

It’s all great, though. And Lizzy Kaplan is flipping amazing as younger Wilkes.

100%.

Finished Devs today. I wish they had spent a few episodes exploring the ending, rather than leave it for the wrap-up. That was more interesting than the overall plot turned out to be. I guess I was just hoping they'd gone further into the weird implications of the tech they developed. The initial resolution seemed obvious to me long before they actually got there.

Still, it looked really cool, and I enjoyed it. Definitely worth checking out.

Finished series one of Killing Eve. Superb in every way. Writing (of course), acting, locations, editing, production design, camera work, directing... I can’t think of a single aspect of the production that is lacking. It isn’t often that the editing of a TV series noticeably affects the quality, but the editing of Killing Eve is tight, kinetic without overdoing it, and it really helps the story. The editing duties were distributed among five different people for the eight episodes, but the result still shows consistent quality throughout.

A lot of folks called it the best series of 2018, and now I know why.

Waller-Bridge did not write series two, so I approach it with a tiny bit of trepidation. The critics and audience nearly all loved it though, so I don’t think I need to worry about anything.

I just finished Killing Eve S1 too. I think the only thing that bugged me was

Spoiler:

In the 2nd or 3rd episode, Eve's work partner who's name I forget suddenly gets an interesting backstory and personal relationships and seems really interesting and relatable, so that it's more impactful when they murder him. It all came out of nowhere and so fast that they're just screaming at you "we're going to kill this guy soon and we need you to feel sad about that" no attempt to build him up at all in previous episodes

Its a small thing, and it happens all the time. a-la Venture Bros.
"Look at you, red shirt, you don't even have a nametag!"
vs
"That's just pathos, so we feel bad about your inevitable demise!"

Season finale of What We do in the Shadows was spectacular.

If abrupt. Could used 10 more minutes at least!

polypusher wrote:

If abrupt. Could used 10 more minutes at least!

Totally. Although... I guess it's a good way to lead in to a new season now that I think about it. There was some resolution and it wasn't really a cliffhanger.

I love how they doubled down on the Guillermo Buillermo joke. So stupid. So funny.

Spaceship Earth is an amazing documentary about Biosphere 2. I had no idea how colorful the story was.

My wife and I finished the second season of Castle Rock, and while we enjoyed it a lot more than the first one, which we never finished, we thought we would have liked this one better if the whole

Spoiler:

cult subplot

hadn't been there, because we found the show to be excellent when it was super focused on Annie, her daughter, and their story. Everything else, we could have done without.

Also, we are six episodes into The Great, and we are loving every minute of it. Thanks to everyone who recommended it!

Huzzah!