Hidden Gems of Netflix's Watch Instantly

halfwaywrong wrote:
halfwaywrong wrote:

My favourite comedy group, Aunty Donna, have a show coming to Netflix on Nov 11. I'm really looking forward to it, if a little cautiously optimistic.

I should probably mention that this is now up and available to watch. I've watched the first two episodes and they were brilliant.

I was a little worried that maybe the US involvement would ruin the Australian humour aspect of their work as often happens, but that hasn't happened at all. I'm not sure how it translates for non-Australians but hopefully it's not much of an issue.

I binged all the epis yesterday and they're all absolutely brilliant.

Anyone who liked Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave--and wanted more--will feel very at home with Aunty Donna.

I wasn't worried about how their comedy would translate after learning that Scott Aukerman's Comedy Bang! Bang! production company was behind it. Surreal comedy is Aukerman's jam.

If you have the time, halfway, I highly recommend that you check out Mark's Twitch broadcast from a couple of days ago. Apparently the rapper T-Pain is also a fan of Aunty Donna from their YouTube stuff and the two have struck a bit of an online friendship. Mark had a low key stream going on until someone in chat let him know that there was a WikiFeet entry for him. Mark then wanted everyone to vote and get him up to at least four stars. While this was happening T-Pain raids him and drops a couple thousand viewers on him who have no f'ing idea what's going on. Then T-Pain and Mark connected through Discord and the next hour is just pure improvised magic.

As long as they don't talk about having brekkie and visiting the bottle-o, I think we'll be fine.

OG_slinger wrote:
halfwaywrong wrote:
halfwaywrong wrote:

My favourite comedy group, Aunty Donna, have a show coming to Netflix on Nov 11. I'm really looking forward to it, if a little cautiously optimistic.

I should probably mention that this is now up and available to watch. I've watched the first two episodes and they were brilliant.

I was a little worried that maybe the US involvement would ruin the Australian humour aspect of their work as often happens, but that hasn't happened at all. I'm not sure how it translates for non-Australians but hopefully it's not much of an issue.

I binged all the epis yesterday and they're all absolutely brilliant.

It's basically a live-action version of Pop Team Epic, as far as I can tell. I laughed and rolled my eyes simultaneously.

Coldstream wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
halfwaywrong wrote:
halfwaywrong wrote:

My favourite comedy group, Aunty Donna, have a show coming to Netflix on Nov 11. I'm really looking forward to it, if a little cautiously optimistic.

I should probably mention that this is now up and available to watch. I've watched the first two episodes and they were brilliant.

I was a little worried that maybe the US involvement would ruin the Australian humour aspect of their work as often happens, but that hasn't happened at all. I'm not sure how it translates for non-Australians but hopefully it's not much of an issue.

I binged all the epis yesterday and they're all absolutely brilliant.

It's basically a live-action version of Pop Team Epic, as far as I can tell. I laughed and rolled my eyes simultaneously.

This show is f*cking bonkers. I love it but I can definitely see a lot of people not getting into it.

Well, Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood wins the awards for most ridiculous title and most ridiculous premise for 2020! Perfect accompaniment to all the 2020 drinking.

I’m also enjoying Aunty Donna’s big ol’ house of fun. I only started watching it because I got bored of endlessly exploring thumbnails of things I theoretically want to watch but wasn’t in the mood for and may never be in the mood for. Definitely my kind of slightly surreal humour.

We started Aunty Donna’s due to the mention here.
Have spent a lot of time on the show and on YouTube sketches.
Get in the Kiln cracks my husband up every time.
Very big thanks for the introduction!

Schitt's Creek was great. Funny, endearing, went out on its own terms after 6 seasons.

Finally had a night where the toddler was asleep early and the wife and I weren't exhausted so we watched Enola Holmes. Everyone is right, it was great!

I'm glad to see people enjoying Aunty Donna as much as I have been!

OG_slinger wrote:

If you have the time, halfway, I highly recommend that you check out Mark's Twitch broadcast from a couple of days ago. Apparently the rapper T-Pain is also a fan of Aunty Donna from their YouTube stuff and the two have struck a bit of an online friendship. Mark had a low key stream going on until someone in chat let him know that there was a WikiFeet entry for him. Mark then wanted everyone to vote and get him up to at least four stars. While this was happening T-Pain raids him and drops a couple thousand viewers on him who have no f'ing idea what's going on. Then T-Pain and Mark connected through Discord and the next hour is just pure improvised magic.

This sounds suitably bizarre, I'll have to make sure to watch.

I finished watching Blood of Zeus yesterday and it was pretty typical Greek mythology. I don't get the controversy but at the same point, you typically put up with Greek Mythology's short comings for the moral(s) the tragedy should be teaching. This one has mild rumblings about being a father and anger's destructive tendency to rot everything you love.

It didn't have much impact and the ending had some vague statuses of major characters. Hera, Apollo and Hermes were great. Poseidon had his moments but all the other non Zeus gods were briefly seen window dressing, sadly.

The hero is decent but is overshadowed by one of his under underutilized sidekicks. The other side kicks had potential but were underdeveloped on top of lack of usage.

If you are okay with gore but think anime nudity is dumb (which it pretty much is) then pay no attention to the nudity label. Because the only thing I can think of regarding nudity is one of the monsters is wearing monster pasties? The gore is very real with lots of impaling and extreme dismemberment.

I'd give it a B considering rose colored anime glasses.

I enjoyed Tolkien last night. I started watching it thinking I would enjoy it but then soured because I was in the mood for more mindless frivolity. But I kept watching because as my wife put it, the Brits are so damn charming. And true enough, I bought in to the geeking out over language and it even moved me in plenty of parts.

I have always liked Nicholas Hoult but this movie puts him into the "I'll watch anything he does" category. And Lily Collins is so very, very easy on the eyes and quite competent to boot. Hoult's friend Jeff in the movie was fantastic as well. (and Jakoby and Colm Meane stole scenes in their bit parts as expected)

I sat down last night with His House, knowing absolutely nothing about it, and oh boy did it deliver. One of the better horror movies I've seen in the last few years, no doubt. The acting is superb. It subverts expectations and it's creepy on so many layers that I don't know which was worst. Highly, highly, recommended.

I also watched Doom Annihilation last night. (see mindless frivolity from my prior post)
TBH, I was expecting a lot worse. It was actually mostly competent. The effects were on par with higher end but non Blizzard or Square video game cinematics. (cheap but not stilted for the most part) The dialogue mostly moved the plot along with a lot of throw away banter and one liners.

Fredrik_S wrote:

I sat down last night with His House, knowing absolutely nothing about it, and oh boy did it deliver. One of the better horror movies I've seen in the last few years, no doubt. The acting is superb. It subverts expectations and it's creepy on so many layers that I don't know which was worst. Highly, highly, recommended.

Interesting. I'll give it a go. Thanks.

I thought His House was predictable and by the numbers all of the way through. Be careful about getting your hopes up.

My wife and I really enjoyed His House. Now, we are halfway through To the Lake, and we are having great fun with it as well.

Into the Night and To the Lake are fun shows. Throw in The Rain and you have a good run of apocalyptic shows.

Oh and you need to watch Kim's Convenience. You'll see a Mandalorian cross over event.

We are the Champions is pretty damn great. 4 episodes in or so. Watching the Yo Yo one now.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

We are the Champions is pretty damn great. 4 episodes in or so. Watching the Yo Yo one now.

I’ve only watched the cheese one so far but it was excellent

Finished The Queen's Gambit with the GF. I definitely love it and so does the GF, we do wish it was more clear about the Borgov games what the boards looked like. But overall, it's an great watch with some enjoyable camera work.

Knock Knock is terrible! As much as I love Keanu Reeves, it was so uncomfortable to watch that I quit about a third of the way through. My wife suffered through it and said it didn't get better and reading the synopsis afterward, I definitely agree.

Spoiler:

Of course they f*cking took the dog, grrrrrrr!

If that is what you are looking for, watch Hard Candy instead. It is another uncomfortable movie that f*cks you up in a much better way. That movie is barely worth the discomfort but at least the point isn't tacked on and is supported nearly too late but much better.

Hey guys, I just finished a show that's pretty good. Anybody heard of Breaking Bad?

I know I'm a bit late. One of these days I might watch The Americans, which is also on my list of stuff I'll probably really like but just haven't gotten to.

(Also, is El Camino good? Probably watch it later this week.)

My Octopus Teacher was really good!

I enjoyed El Camino. It’s not strictly necessary, but I liked the added closure it gave to everything.

We watched Yes, God, Yes this weekend, a coming of age sex comedy featuring church youth group shenanigans and 2001-era AOL shenanigans. Brought back a lot of mixed memories for my wife and I but a lot of laughs as well. Also under 90 minutes, so it didn’t overstay its welcome.

El Camino is more Breaking Bad. It doesn't give us any new revelations about the characters or story. It doesn't really change anything about what you probably imagined happened to Jesse after his final scene in the show proper. But it's two more hours in that world, with (some of) those characters, with that visual storytelling and energy.

If that's what you want, it satisfies.

On getting to something late we started watching Community on Netflix, 6 episodes in and its hilarious, we are both loving it, so I am hoping it holds up for the length of the show.

The fourth season (which lacked showrunner Dan Harmon) is pretty rough. It gets better after he comes back in the fifth season, and then gets bad again in the final season that no one watched because it was sent to die on Yahoo's obscure streaming service.

hbi2k wrote:

The fourth season (which lacked showrunner Dan Harmon) is pretty rough. It gets better after he comes back in the fifth season, and then gets bad again in the final season that no one watched because it was sent to die on Yahoo's obscure streaming service.

Pretty much agree. I remember watching season 4, and having discussions, maybe here? Finally having 1 or 2 episodes that were as good as the first 3 seasons. But the vibe was just so off.

All the cast switching at the end didn't help either.

But even the bad seasons are better than most comedy the last decade.