Hidden Gems of Netflix's Watch Instantly

I was completely underwhelmed by The Gray Man (unlike RRR). Too much over reliance on CGI, which I can't say it's downright horrible but it's very noticeable. Cardboard plot and characters doesn't help too.

hbi2k wrote:

I don't know if it's possible to translate the aesthetic of the Sandman comics to another medium, but I know that's not it. And the aesthetic is so much of what makes it special.

You should take a look at the movie Mirrormask. It was directed by Dave McKean, who did all the Sandman covers. The story isn't nearly as good as Sandman's but it's a visual treat.

Watched Boo, B*tch. Standard HS teen drama with a ghost. So if you want something you can follow while also being on your phone, this is it.

Vargen wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

I don't know if it's possible to translate the aesthetic of the Sandman comics to another medium, but I know that's not it. And the aesthetic is so much of what makes it special.

You should take a look at the movie Mirrormask. It was directed by Dave McKean, who did all the Sandman covers. The story isn't nearly as good as Sandman's but it's a visual treat.

Whoa! Nice to see I'm not the only person that dug that movie. I think I still have a DVD.

Finished the last two episodes of Stranger Things. It was great, but...

Spoiler:

I'm not really sold on the "it was Vecna all along" retcon. The Demogorgon didn't have any greater intelligence behind its actions than instinctually hunting for food. The only reason Will survived long enough to puke up the demodog slug and be taken over by the Mind Flayer was because he got rescued before suffering the same fate as poor Barbara. If invading Hawkins and then the rest of the earth was his goal from the start, he's an extremely poor planner and very impatient as there were much easier ways to do it than the ways he has tried so far. At the very least, focusing his efforts on the Russian side of the gate from Season 3 would have let him establish a major foothold before trying to take on Eleven & her plucky crew of sidekicks.

I'm invested, so I'm along for the ride wherever the show goes, but I do really miss the perfection of the first season.

slazev wrote:

I was completely underwhelmed by The Gray Man (unlike RRR). Too much over reliance on CGI, which I can't say it's downright horrible but it's very noticeable. Cardboard plot and characters doesn't help too.

agree with all of that but there was still some entertainment value in it. Gosling/Evans/de Armas were all very good despite the lack of plot and poor cgi.

Stengah wrote:

Finished the last two episodes of Stranger Things. It was great, but...

Spoiler:

I'm not really sold on the "it was Vecna all along" retcon. The Demogorgon didn't have any greater intelligence behind its actions than instinctually hunting for food. The only reason Will survived long enough to puke up the demodog slug and be taken over by the Mind Flayer was because he got rescued before suffering the same fate as poor Barbara. If invading Hawkins and then the rest of the earth was his goal from the start, he's an extremely poor planner and very impatient as there were much easier ways to do it than the ways he has tried so far. At the very least, focusing his efforts on the Russian side of the gate from Season 3 would have let him establish a major foothold before trying to take on Eleven & her plucky crew of sidekicks.

I'm invested, so I'm along for the ride wherever the show goes, but I do really miss the perfection of the first season.

The perfection of the first season is what we viewers get when producers and writers have no idea if they're going to be recommissioned.

Unfortunately, Stranger Things is becoming increasingly important to Neflix - perhaps too important.

When asked what may have stopped subscriptions dropping even more, Netflix’s chief executive Reed Hastings admitted: ‘If there was a single thing, we might say Stranger Things.’

I do not think that bodes well for anyone, except for the cast of the show who will soon be wearing some exquisitely and expensively bejeweled golden handcuffs. (Though I suspect that Milly Bobby Brown may have other plans now that she's producing her own show(s). And the cast is 'ageing out' pretty quickly too.)

But I agree with you

Spoiler:

That the Vecna retcon was clumsily done.

The bit that annoyed me most was the 'resurrection' of Dr Brenner. Sure, we don't see his mutilated corpse in Season 1. But we do see the beast leap on him. And we are shown elsewhere that the Demogorgon kills everything that it successfully attacks.

However, we are asked to believe that, in Brenner's case, the Demogorgon really only knocks him down, like some over-exuberant Great Dane bowling over the family's youngest child.

But, for me, the bigger problem with retcons is that they betray the viewer's trust. What else can we not believe because we haven't been shown it explicitly?

I too was largely unmoved by 'The Gray Man'. It was a generic sub-Bond action 'thriller'. Better than some; worse than others.

One thing did stand out to me though: the extent to which very-big-budget film is drawing on the language and structure of very-big-budget action video games. Historically, it has been the other way round.

The Gray Man looked, sounded, was structured and played out like a video game. The Berlin(?) action sequence, for example, could have been the main action sequence in an Uncharted game.

This isn't a revelation to long-time gamers, of course. But it is remarkable. Only 20 years ago, Grand Theft Auto was channeling 80s tv and movies.

I was struck by the same thought when watching the latest Bond movie, 'No Time To Die'.

Towards the end

Spoiler:

There's a sequence where Bond is fights his way up a stairwell, using small arms. Once the action commences, the music changes and becomes more urgent; eventually matching the intensity as the action is on screen. Then Bond dispatches the last baddie and... the music subsides as in an Uncharted game and we - the viewer - know that we/Bond is safe. And free to explore unhindered.

We watched The Gray Man last night. It was 80% of a decent brain-turned-off action spectacular. Then a particular trope made it fall completely flat.

Spoiler:

He's facing off against Asshole McBadguy (nice job, Chris Evans - it was believable!) when he's told to line AMcB up for a sniper shot. "No! I've got him. You get the girl (who is way over here with me) to safety!"

What could've been over in seconds instead transitions into typical hypermasculine posturing by dropping guns to settle things by dirty-rules wrasslin' in a fountain. I get that they wanted to demonstrate his 'immunity to pain' and use McBadguy as a physical representation of his daddy issues. This, however, brought it into ultradumb territory for me. The time would have been better spent dealing with the much more nefarious threat who sent McBadguy in the first place.

My dad and I also watched The Gray Man yesterday; I thought it was fine/serviceable.

I then asked if he would be up for watching a foreign film with English subtitles. He never watches those kinds of movies so I figured he'd immediately say "no", but when I showed him the Netflix page for RRR (and slyly let it just kinda immediately start playing, as Netflix is wont to do), he rolled with it. It was my second time watching RRR, so I explained a bit of the story to pique his interest - stuff that would be shown in detail later - but otherwise I let it just run. And he loved it. Gorgeous cinematography (especially visible in 4k), a fantastic story, and of course a view into the historic British-ruled India which goes largely un-talked about.

Also watching grey man in sections. Some of the edits are a little too fast paced to keep up with but on the whole enjoying it.

I am enjoying the Resident Evil series.
I think they spend too much time going back and forth with flashbacks. I want the background information but I find it jarring more times than not when they interrupt big chase scenes to have quiet interpersonal moments from 10 years ago.

The one bummer of reducing those is I really like the actor playing young Billie. If they cut the flashbacks, I won't enjoy more of her and she needs more screen time.

I know I'm late to the party here but RRR was fantastic. I haven't enjoyed a movie this much in a long time.

Watched the first episode of Resident Evil and liked parts of it and hated other parts. I was left thinking I should have picked a better show but on the other hand the last show I watched was sure thing for me.

Anyway I don't think they should have used the resident evil name. This show is way different from the games. It has zombies and zombie animals, but nothing else is resident evil. I also don't like the constant flashbacks. The flashbacks aren't bad but I think the story would work better if they just told the story in order.

What I did like were the actors. One of my favorite actors is playing Wesker and since he is black it is making the racists mad, bonus. I can understand people not liking him for this part or just how the character is being played but you can't deny he is a good actor. This Wesker is nothing like the one in the game. They should have just made him a higher up in the company. Then make it so this is just a outbreak happening somewhere else so it wouldn't contradict anything in the games. But anyway I love this guy in everything he does.

Oh yeah, there are 2 weak links in Resident Evil, the head of Umbrella isn't great, and the young Jade is okay but it maybe her writing isn't as compelling as older Jade. But everyone else is great!

Wow, that's rated NC-17.

Resident Evil ep 2

So I liked the episode but hated one thing about it. They bring up a guy multiple times that has the exact same name as bigtime character from the games. The problem is they just share the same name and have nothing to do with each other. Not talking about Wesker a new character.
[spoiler]
Barry you almost became a Jill sandwich guy from resident evil one and revelations.
[spoiler]

So one of the main character is trying to meet this guy and after the big build up turns out not to be him. Clearly no one that has anything to do with the tv show has played the game. It is like they went out of their way to disappoint fans. Granted it is a common name but he became icon after making his catch phrase line.

Other than that it was good episode. The situation with Billie Eilish is getting interesting. I think I see where they are going with her. Well there are two possibilities.

Spoiler:

She will either be the cause of the outbreak and be a mutant monster or will be a super hero like the main lady in most of the movies.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

What I did like were the actors. One of my favorite actors is playing Wesker.

I brushed off this new RE series, thinking "What on God's Green Earth could possibly compel me to watch a Resident Evil show?" And then I saw a write-up about how Lance Reddick was playing Wesker, and even

Spoiler:

multiple Weskers, including briefly OG Wesker in full dumbass Matrix knockoff costume,

, and that was the thing on God's Green Earth that would compel me.

So, I've watched it all. It's not especially good in the exact way nearly everything in the Content Era isn't especially good. Things pick up significantly with the wonderful opening scene of episode 7, which isn't exactly a good sign. At the same time, so many of the criticisms I've heard and seen levied are so...kinda vapid and empty I feel like defending the show a little (I've been lucky enough not to encounter anyone Female Doggoing about race, but I have no doubt they're out there). Things like "I can't keep watching because character X is unlikable" for silly reasons, a bunch of white guys in their 30s braying about how kids don't talk like that, that sort of thing. A refrain of "this element is stupid!" but...why, exactly?

So, do I recommend it? No, but it's better than The Walking Dead.

Yeah Lance is fantastic in everything.

Oh that thing in Fringe... Whew.

I really enjoyed the first season of Locke & Key. Lots of neat ideas and an interesting plot. Certainly nothing award-winning, but enjoyable fluff.

The second season was less enjoyable for me. Comparatively few new additions to the team's repertoire, and it kinda just felt like a rehash of the first season.

I sincerely hope that the series ends strong.

2nd season veered strongly away from the comic. That might be part of it.

Changing the actor for the main bad guy wasn't a good move.

Resident Evil ep 3

Good episode. They introduce some monsters from the game. One was spot on and the other was different but it could have been a different variant of the same creature.

The one thing I didn't like about the monsters is that they were quickly killing everybody but when it came to the hero it just paused long enough for her to run away. Yeah it is a common thing but it is still dumb.

About halfway through Resident Evil and I have no major complaints so far. I've only ever played the first two games, so I don't really have a connection to the lore for any of the changes to bother me. I'm taking it as an alternate universe, just like the movies were.

Spoiler:

My only issue so far is that the pre-End timeline with the reporter seems off, and far too compressed. When Jade contacts him, he seemed to have already talked to the worker's wife and knew knew about the animal bite causing the infection. Then in a later episode they show him recording the interview with the wife, and they both act like it's the first time they've talked about it. It's also where she tells him about the animal bite as if he didn't already know about it, and expects that he won't believe her. At first I thought it was meant to be a flashback, but she gave him the info about the original Raccoon City, which wasn't mentioned at all on his blog when Jade found it, and if he was publishing a blog to expose the Tijuana incident, it's unlikely he'd hold off on also trying to expose the Raccoon City incident, especially with all the documentation he got from the worker's wife.

As for being compressed, he talked to Jade at ~60 hours left on Billie's countdown, he then talked to the worker's wife and gets the Raccoon City info, he researches Albert enough to know he's legally dead and does a thorough enough search to know that there's no record of the girls existing. At some point during that, the worker's wife disappears and he looks for her hard enough to actually know that she's vanished and wasn't just out shopping or gone to stay with friends or family after the death of her husband, then he flies from Tijuana to South Africa, drives to NRC, and somehow aquires a cupcake delivery van and matching uniform, all within 55ish from when he first talked with Jade. The sequence of events doesn't really bug me (except for the interview with the worker's wife coming after the reporter talked to Jade), but they feel like they were originally meant to be spread out over a much longer timespan and got smooshed together in editing.

Rise of the TMNT: The Movie Is an Exhilarating Showing for One of the Ninja Turtles' Best Incarnations

Netflix's movie continuation to the 2018 series is a kinetic, gorgeous, and surprisingly self-serious example of Rise at its very best.

2 more episodes into Resident Evil.

Spoiler:

They make the reporter's timeline problem even worse by saying he's been a thorn in Umbrella's side for years.

Adult Jade was made to hold the idiot ball bad in episode six. Just about every decision she makes is the wrong one, and way too stupid for the character she's been so far to be making

Spoiler:

Adult Jade was made to hold the idiot ball bad in episode six. Just about every decision she makes is the wrong one, and way too stupid for the character she's been so far to be making

That really put me off.
The title of the episode I guess was a clue but are we not supposed to root for that character? Because it worked, too well. Also, obvious circumstances gonna be obvious from the getgo...

After watching and thoroughly enjoying RRR I decided to check out Baahubali 1 and 2 which is the same director and they are really great as well. The first one has a bit of a problem with how he portrays women, but apparently he got a lot of flack for it and in the second half makes up for it. The first one sets everything up and the second delivers on awesome action and set pieces.

Highly recommended if you enjoyed RRR as its more of the same completely out there fight scenes, excellent songs and dance routines, and some awesomely crazy and wild ideas.

What I love about these movies is that they are so joyous and filled with emotion. Ham acting or not everyone puts 100% into their roles and just goes for it. I always step away from them filled with joy.

Oh, and netflix has multiple versions of them. Find the Tamil version as it seems to be the one not dubbed.