Hidden Gems of Amazon Prime instant videos

MannishBoy wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

Chef is a fantastic film. Lots of feels. I was partway through when I considered posting about it but I thought I’d better finish watching incase it went sharply down hill. It only got better.

Now go watch The Chef Show over on Netflix. Jon Favreau and Roy Choi (who trained him for Chef) cook, interview other chef's, and occasionally bring in celebrities. Many in the MCU. Also a great show.

Yes, I must. It’s been on my list for ages but I’m freshly motivated.

Fredrik_S wrote:

Has anyone watched a show called "Lodge 49" on prime? Heard good things about it from elsewhere and apparently a wild Bruce Campbell appears in it.

It's very good but it's also pretty weird so while I'm bummed it got cancelled I can understand it. Don't want to spoil anything so I'll just say if it doesn't appeal to you in the first 3 episodes, it likely never will.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Fredrik_S wrote:

Has anyone watched a show called "Lodge 49" on prime? Heard good things about it from elsewhere and apparently a wild Bruce Campbell appears in it.

It's been on my pile for awhile, and hearing it described as "Cheers meets Twin Peaks" has definitely moved it way up near the top.

I would say there's a fair chunk of The Big Lebowski in there too. Recommended!

Bosch S7 was a slow burn. Which I suppose is part by design, and part why it became, as well as remained, my show. Once business picked up I was thoroughly intertwined with those characters and their journeys. The plot points. The payoffs. Well worth the time. Good finale for a fantastic show.

The Tomorrow War was fine. Standard action adventure. The in-universe explanations mostly held together and were right there. It's no more nor any less out there and check your critical thinking than a Sci-Fi Wars or a Super Marvel. Silly. Emotive. Fun. I laughed. I smiled. Good times.

An Honest Thief was also fine. Liam Neeson is good in a role for which he is familiar. I got in on the vigilante justice for those who abuse power. Standard fare.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

That Chris Pratt movie is quite possibly the dumbest f*cking thing I've ever watched.

The perfect summation. I am actually angry at myself for wasting those minutes of my life watching it. It is horrible.

IMAGE(https://media.tenor.com/images/34bdfc96230d6e7f266077222d6a67ed/tenor.gif)

A movie SallyN doesn't like?!

SallyNasty wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:

That Chris Pratt movie is quite possibly the dumbest f*cking thing I've ever watched.

The perfect summation. I am actually angry at myself for wasting those minutes of my life watching it. It is horrible.

You should try watching Breach (2020, 3/10* on IMDB), as I did this evening and regret investing the time. Bruce Willis, space ships, guns, and alien/zombies. Sounds like a winner, right? No. Nobody should inflict this upon themselves.

merphle wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:

That Chris Pratt movie is quite possibly the dumbest f*cking thing I've ever watched.

The perfect summation. I am actually angry at myself for wasting those minutes of my life watching it. It is horrible.

You should try watching Breach (2020, 3/10* on IMDB), as I did this evening and regret investing the time. Bruce Willis, space ships, guns, and alien/zombies. Sounds like a winner, right? No. Nobody should inflict this upon themselves.

Does Willis have legal bills to pay or something? He seems to be in a lot of movies at the moment, the ones I have seen, including Breach, have been utter garbage.

kborom wrote:

Does Willis have legal bills to pay or something? He seems to be in a lot of movies at the moment, the ones I have seen, including Breach, have been utter garbage.

I think he and Nic Cage are frantically taking any film that comes their way to remind people they still exist. It seems to be working for Nicholas Cage, there has definitely been a slight upturn in the quality and visibility of a lot of what he’s done lately. Problem is, Willis was never that good an actor. I don’t think it’ll work the same for him.

I skim watched Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance recently on Prime. Dreadful film, with poor dialogue delivered weirdly by Nicolas Cage, but stellar special effects for the Ghost Rider himself and anything he rides.

I’ve gone from thinking, ‘Oh, it has Bruce Willis in it? I’ll give it a go,’ to, ‘Well, that’s going to be crap.’

merphle wrote:

You should try watching Breach (2020, 3/10* on IMDB), as I did this evening and regret investing the time. Bruce Willis, space ships, guns, and alien/zombies. Sounds like a winner, right? No. Nobody should inflict this upon themselves.

It really was dreadfully dull.

RnRClown wrote:

The Tomorrow War was fine. Standard action adventure. The in-universe explanations mostly held together and were right there. It's no more nor any less out there and check your critical thinking than a Sci-Fi Wars or a Super Marvel. Silly. Emotive. Fun. I laughed. I smiled. Good times.

Ditto.

It was billed as a mindless action movie being carried by Chris Pratt's star power.

It was a mindless action movie. I got to sit back, turn my brain off and enjoy an action movie with only the barest of plot threads moving through the movie. I got exactly what I wanted out of it, and for me it was worth my time.

Tell Me Your Secrets is seriously good complex storytelling. It defied expectations and left us guessing a lot, but did in such a way that the story arc and characters provided answers in a natural, sensible manner. By the time the season ended, I felt like I had read a well written book.

I’ll give it a try.

I watched the film Hostile after seeing it recommended on Flick Connections. I’d seen the thumbnail before but it had all the hallmarks of one of those zero budget, zero people who can act movies Amazon seems to enjoy cluttering the place up with. Actually, it’s extremely well directed with a very engaging story. Not a movie that will live with me for a long time (although certain aspects are haunting) but definitely worth watching.

The History of Time Travel. Watch it. Love it. It's a clever documentary. Low-budget, but it didn't need one. Absolutely recommended for anyone with an interest in the subject, and required for fans of Primer.

Spoiler:

"Documentary".

I don’t know when it was added, but it looks like the best worst show ever made, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, is back on US Amazon after a long absence.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/t4b23BgS/739f253d8408c72cb59003d972e722de.png)

So, I'm probably late to the party here but i started watching The Magicians (on Prime here in the UK) a couple of days back and have immediately binge watched the first 2 seasons.

Ostensibly it's about a group of college age kids learning to be magicians (really) and their interactions with a mythical (but real) Narnia world called Fillory. All wholesome and somewhat twee sounding at face value, but it overlays it with lashings of sex, drugs, blood, more sex (gender indiscriminate sex to boot) psychopathic gods and evil people and every other fantasy trope you can think of. It also uses some very hard triggers in the name of plot progression - at the end of the first season one of the central characters is violently sexually assaulted and raped by a malevolent entity. It hides what's coming very well so when it hits it's like a nuclear bomb going off in a child's water balloon fight, so everything said below must be taken in that context.

When it's working it does it by having a very recognisable plot and by focusing of the group of very flawed characters becoming - sort of - friends while they all try to work out their issues. In fact it's so aggressively not about a "chosen one" that the lead character at the start is essentially there for comic relief half the time thanks to his general drippiness and mediocre magical talents. The rest of the characters and their flaws are well drawn and while the don't always hit, they don't often miss either. All the little details in it make up the world too - how magic works, and the subversion of the Narnia like world is also really quite well handled (the talking animals are rude, aggressive and don't take sh*t from anyone, most of the people living there really don't like the idea that weird earthlings are destined to rule over them, plus the air has 0.02% opium in it to make everyone like being there more as they are off their tits most of the time) It also took me a couple of episodes to catch on to the idea they are all supposed to be university aged kids as they are all played by actors so clearly in their 30s - despite the whole thing being set in a magic university when they are on earth.

As for that trigger - it wasn't gratuitous and it does serve the plot, and to the show's credit it spends all of that characters arch in the second season addressing it and the aftermath in what they do and what happens to them, but ultimately it just wasn't necessary. There are enough bad things happening to that character for them to do the things they do and act they way they do without having to have it happen, and it sits in the rest of this slightly quirky, whimsical if gratuitous fantasy show very uncomfortably at times, but neither does the show try to pack it away or neatly wrap it up with zero consequences in an episode or two.

Yes, all that detracts - a lot - and your ability to get on with the rest of the show is going to depend on how forgiving you are willing to be about, but at the end of the second season they are still working with it as that characters central arch and clearly will continue to do so in the next season (I hope).

It's so off beat that it's worth the watch - or at least, has been for me so far - but I also totally get why some people wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

It's on Netflix over here and has been discussed several times in the thread. Been on my list for years at this point but getting close to trying it.

I’m watching Race to Dakar with Charlie Boorman. I enjoyed the A long way across/down/up series with Charlie and Ewan McGregor. This series is more stressful. I know they hype up the drama on these TV series but I get the feeling this one didn’t need any hyping up. Charlie has taken on a lot and you can see the race takes incredible skill and will power. It’s great tellie though.

ruhk wrote:

I don’t know when it was added, but it looks like the best worst show ever made, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, is back on US Amazon after a long absence.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/t4b23BgS/739f253d8408c72cb59003d972e722de.png)

I know what I'm doing this weekend.

World’s toughest race: Eco-challenge Fiji. Is extremely good. I’m invested in many of the teams and willing them on.

Jolt was an ok action movie.

Well I finished The Magicians - the first 4 seasons anyway, the 5th no longer appears to be available on streaming services in the UK - and despite everything it handles badly in a completely rather tone deaf manner, I have to confess that it's one of the best things I've seen in a very long time.

That's largely down to two factors - the cast of extremely likeable and charismatic characters and actors, and the fact that when it wants to go off and do it's own thing, it goes off and does it's own thing with absolutely no thought to convention - or even sanity - and just does it. I've not really seen that in a series since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which it clearly takes some many cues from, but like buffy it does actually manage to pull it off where so many other series fall flat on their faces.

It even manages that trickiest of problems, the death of a major cast member with pathos, imagination and intelligence to create something genuinely moving. I've not felt that invested in a group of characters in a TV show since I finished watching the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and I would say any series that can get me to do that is doing something fundamental very well indeed.

Yes I can see that there are many things in it that a lot of people would never get past and for a long time I watching in a somewhat neutral state of mind, so the recommendation I give it must be with that in mind, but it might just be that rarest of TV series I actually get around to watching through again once the 5th season is available again.

On episode ten of World’s toughest race: Eco-challenge Fiji. It’s a phenomenal show. So many heroic and inspiring men and women. It’s a brutal race. I can’t believe people put themselves through all that pain but it obviously means everything to so many of them.

I felt the exact same way about Are You Hot?: The Search for America's Sexiest People.

Higgledy wrote:

On episode ten of World’s toughest race: Eco-challenge Fiji. It’s a phenomenal show. So many heroic and inspiring men and women. It’s a brutal race, one I can’t believe people put themselves through all that pain but it obviously means everything to so many of them.

Yes, it was so good. They were supposed to be shooting the 2021 race in Patagonia. Either in March (which I guess didn’t happen because of coronavirus) or November (still hoping). There Twitter feed has gone quiet so I don’t know what is going on.

I’d pounce on any new series but they have to be responsible. Fingers crossed they can get back to running the race every year soon.

Higgledy wrote:

I’d pounce on any new series but they have to be responsible. Fingers crossed they can get back to running the race every year soon.

Agreed. I thought you all were talking about a new I hadn’t seen.

Boss Level is yet another film with a "groundhog day" central theme to it which Amazon have been pumping out of late, although usually as a Rom Com. This time it's a very violent one. Frank Grillo (of Captain America fame) plays an ex special forces guy forced to relive the same day over and over while an army of assassins is out for his blood (and, to the films credit, typically very successfully - it's just he gets another go the day after). It's up to him to figure out why, and what he needs to do about. Could it be he needs to save the world?

It's a really curious watch - it's neither as funny as it needs to be for a action comedy, nor as funny as it thinks it is. The actions sequences are fine, often played for laughs (which is quite something when many involve decapitation, being run over, car crashed and some other rather gruesome ends) has some very off kilter jokes in it, and yet still gives Grillo time to connect with his estranged offspring. His ex is a genius level scientist (played by Naomi Watts of all people) in one of the films more wildly optimistic contrivances, and she's in the employ of a dastardly Mel Gibson. Yes, seriously. Michelle Yeoh also manages to crop up in a short lived Cameo.

Despite all these short comings and misfires, it actually sort of works so long as you take it at face value. Grillo is clearly having a blast which is sort of it's saving grace, and when it comes to the offspring it finds a bit of heart and an emotional centre to everything going on. Regardless of what you think about him as an individual, Gibson's rather effective in his role, however Watts is painfully miscast and clearly just there for the pay check & to remind people she still exists, but overall that really doesn't matter.

Another Amazon popcorn movie - if you think about it at all it'll immediately unravel, but with a few beers and the right mind set, you'll certainly be entertained.

I should also mention that after a short Hiatus, season 5 of The Magicians cropped back up on Prime last week, so I finished off watching it. It's a curious show that can handle the exit of main character so deftly with the right amount of pathos, while also not allowing it to completely dominate proceedings. It did wobble badly by introducing some very undercooked villains a few episodes in who were largely unnecessary, but it had a sweet, deserved and all together fitting ending. It felt like a show happy in it's own skin, and more than happy to leave things where they were at the end.

I love all things Groundhog Day, so I may try Boss Level!

Finally caught John Wick 3 thanks to Peacock, but presumably that's a different thread.