Hidden Gems of HBO Max

bekkilyn wrote:

Decided to watch the new Wonder Woman since it's going away tomorrow or the next day.

I finally watched it last night for the same reason.

The only redeeming part of the movie was when they played Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" in the background of one scene.

BadKen wrote:

Oh if you haven’t seen Patty Jenkins’ first Wonder Woman, you need to get on that right away. It is sooooooo good. It makes WW84 look like a film school project. It’s on HBO Max, too.

Unfortunately, Wonder Woman (2017) does also have some mustache twirling villains.

Well some mustache twirling is better than others at least!

I've put both the Newsroom and the 2017 Wonder Woman on my watch list.

SallyNasty wrote:

Is The Alienist any good?

I just finished season 1 and thought it was great. I just started season 2 and something about the actor playing Dr. Kreizler has mannerisms that are giving me serious Bruce McCullough from The Kids In The Hall vibes (the show is in no way a comedy). It’s hard to not laugh at it but it seems to mellow out after a couple of episodes. Great show in my opinion.

'Harry Potter' Live-Action TV Series in Early Development at HBO Max (Exclusive)

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that executives at the WarnerMedia-backed streamer have engaged in multiple conversations with potential writers exploring various ideas that would bring the beloved property to television. Sources say broad ideas have been discussed as part of the early-stage exploratory meetings.

I doubt anyone is surprised, but here is it. Every streaming service is fighting for eyeballs right now and a HPCU would definitely put HBO Max on the map.

Euphoria special 2 was pretty good but not as good as the first special. The two actors in the first special were just better actors. Still this episode was great.

I just finished up the first season of Euphoria and the first special episode over the weekend. That first special episode was AMAZING! Best hour of TV I've seen in a long time. Hard to see anything topping it. I've always been a sucker for those very rare occasions when a single conversation is written that keeps me engaged and listening.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the second episode brings.

It Is a Good Day to Be a Babylon 5-Loving HBO Max Subscriber

Hey, you know that sweet remastered edition of the beloved ’90s sci-fi series Babylon 5 that came to Amazon and iTunes a few months ago? Well, the spruced-up titular space station has now docked over at HBO Max, too, meaning all 110 episodes of J. Michael Straczynski’s space opera-cum-political drama are finally available to stream without the $30-per-season price tag.

But before you start thanking the Centauri gods, this most likely isn’t the perfectly remastered Babylon 5 of your dreams. The series is its original 4:3 ratio, and not 16:9, even though the show was filmed for widescreen and released on DVD in widescreen. On the plus side, however, the show doesn’t look like crap anymore (as it did on those DVDs).

According to Engagdet, Warner Bros. actually scanned the original film negatives for all the live-action footage, so they’re finally in real HD. All the CG shots and effects have been algorithmically upscaled so they’re in HD as well, and the whole shebang has been cleaned up and color-corrected. You can see the massive improvement for yourself:

If you didn’t release this remastered edition existed, don’t feel bad. Warner Bros. released it on Amazon and iTunes last November with zero fanfare, possibly because the fans had been so irate over the DVDs. And if you don’t know Babylon 5 and wonder if it’s worth checking out, it pretty much drew the map for mature, sophisticated, serialized sci-fi TV shows designed for adult audiences; io9 has a handy, informative, and proselytizing guide at the ready.

On the one hand, great, on the other hand you'll be counting how many dead people you see per episode.

Now Mira Furlan has been added to the list.

Note that B5's pilot movie, The Gathering, is listed as Season 1 Episode 1 in the listing. That one isn't remastered as the original film was lost. It is the 1998 re-edit that they did for TNT, which was a big improvement over the original cut. Even so it's kinda slow; the first episode of the regular season, Midnight on the Firing Line, is probably a better place to jump in. It was written knowing that most people had probably missed the pilot movie. That one's listed as Season 1 Episode 2.

The acting is very uneven in Season 1. This was still in the era when actors weren't really familiar with fantasy and science fiction, so they often struggled to understand and act their characters. And, being low-budget, they couldn't afford big names, which compounded the problem.

They ended up settling into their roles really well, but S1 can sometimes be quite painful to watch, much like Star Trek: The Next Generation. Have patience. The show becomes splendid later on.

The original plot was sketched out for five seasons, and they thought they were cancelled in S4, so that season is a mad rush to finish the story. Then they got renewed after all, and S5 kinda drifts. It's still good, but meanders a lot.

That might have been the first seasonal SF show that was genuinely planned out ahead of time. It's still very uncommon.

Some of that had to do with Michael O'Hare being diagnosed with some sever mental illness halfway through the first season. It's why he left the show and J. Michael Straczynski never told anyone about it until years after his death at the actor's request.

Season 1 of Babylon 5 tends to land a lot better for people who go back and re-watch it. There's a lot of setup and foreshadowing that I certainly didn't notice the first time through. But then I had no idea there was any kind of arc because TV didn't do that back then, so I wasn't looking for such things. I wonder if B5 S1 might work better for a modern audience that's used to arcs. Except it might move too slowly for them, as it was written to ease in the Star Trek viewers who were used to stand-alone episodes.

I must say, the abrupt switch of station CO at the start of season 2 plays a lot different to me now that I've lived through 2017 and seen where that went...

The first season is dry and there's a few episodes where you wonder what the hell the writers were thinking (e.g. the boxing episode), but it's nowhere near as bad the first season of TNG. But I agree the show really takes off in season 2 and 2x09 The Coming of Shadows is a jaw-dropper that hooks you and the show never lets go. It almost lets go in season 5, but fortunately the second half of then final season returns to greatness.

I'm about 66 episodes into B:TAS and I'm amazed by how much I don't remember from when it first aired back when in I was in middle school. Like the "See No Evil" episode starring Family Ties actor Michael Gross as an Invisible Man-sque criminal, Watchmen's Jean Smart as his ex-wife (I completely forgot she already was involved in DC so long ago), and of all people Elizabeth Moss as their daughter.

Pretty sure I haven't commented on this show previously, so: everyone should watch Search Party. Dark but hysterical. Can be a little frustrating, but the sooner you realize none of these people are going to make good decisions, the easier it is to enjoy.

Those rumours about a Batman: The Animated Series revival are looking more likely by the day.

Djinn wrote:

Those rumours about a Batman: The Animated Series revival are looking more likely by the day.

I might be finished with B:TAS by then.

Holy crap, I only just now realized that seeing all those DC Universe shows listed on Max meant I should go check for Season 3 of Young Justice... I know what I'll be watching next...

Hey, maybe I'll finally finish it now.

(I won't.)

Watched the first episode of The Flight Attendant and thought it was great. I didn't know anything about the show except a actress I like was in it. Now I come to find a number of actors I like are in the show. The first episode kind of reminds me of I May destroy You which is a great show.

Djinn wrote:

Those rumours about a Batman: The Animated Series revival are looking more likely by the day.

Hamill has said he's not doing the Joker anymore. WIthout him, Conroy, and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn), it's just not B:TAS.

Malor wrote:
Djinn wrote:

Those rumours about a Batman: The Animated Series revival are looking more likely by the day.

Hamill has said he's not doing the Joker anymore. WIthout him, Conroy, and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn), it's just not B:TAS.

Star Wars, Marvel, and Star Trek comments.

Spoiler:

He also said his time with Star Wars was done. And Tatiana Maslany said she wasn't She-Hulk, and Benedict Cumberbatch was totally not going to be Khan.

I don't trust what actors and studios say

The new Studio Ghibli film, "Earwig and the Witch" is in theaters as of yesterday, and is scheduled to release on HBO Max tomorrow. It's getting panned pretty harshly by reviewers, but I'll still give it a go this weekend.

I am going to give it a try. Nothing to lose since I subscribe to HBO Max.

I’ll give the Ghibli a look-see. The junior Miyazaki just doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi.

Earwig and the Witch was entertaining, but not well put together. I don’t know enough about filmmaking to speak to where they might have gone wrong, but it might be the editing. Since it’s an animated film, the problem may go back to the original storyboarding. Also, you can’t end a film that way. So awkward.

What they got right:
English voice work
Visual style
Dialogue
Story

They barely missed the mark. It’s like recording a song demo on guitar and vocals and bringing it to your band. The demo can be great, but until you get the drums and bass added in it’s not complete. Once you add those final elements, it’s a real song. There’s something like that missing from the movie.

Oh and I bet they wanted to name it Earwig and the Angry Witch but that’s too close to another movie with 70s rock music in it.

I was browsing HBO Max tonight and saw that they've added Pushing Daisies to their service. I know there's a number of people who look on this show very fondly so I thought it deserved a mention.

I also found Head of the Class was recently added. Not the greatest 80s sitcom, but one I look upon fondly. Starring Howard Hesseman (best known as Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP) as a teacher who teaches a group of gifted student in New York. While looking up the cast online, I discovered that HBO Max is working on a reboot of the show, which explains its appearance on the service.

Tscott wrote:

I also found Head of the Class was recently added. Not the greatest 80s sitcom, but one I look upon fondly. Starring Howard Hesseman (best known as Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP) as a teacher who teaches a group of gifted student in New York. While looking up the cast online, I discovered that HBO Max is working on a reboot of the show, which explains its appearance on the service.

That was, oddly, one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. Which is really weird considering I was four when it started.