Topic: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?

[6pairsofshoes]

I just came here after not being able to find a subtitled version of Beat, the German series put out by amazon.  My German just isn't good enough.  Scheiße.  I don't really want to mess with amazon prime video.  It looks good, but I've run out of ideas as to how else to access it.  I think it just came out last year.

Techno guy in clubland has to deal with police and murders.  So best of both worlds.  The soundtrack is good. 

Ha.  Found out my husband had subscribed to amazon prime for work and that I now have access to the videos with subtitles.  We watched the first one.  It looked ok so far.  Definitely in the British detective/mystery vein, but with TECHNO and plenty of drugs.

[6pairsofshoes]

Prime TV series recently viewed.
Suits.  Dull smartass lawyer show.   Too many self satisfied quips to view without a barf bag.

You are Wanted.  German thriller series about a guy whose computer accounts are hacked and the ensuing problems.  It might be good but the dubbed dialogue makes it sound like a bad Disney movie.  I could not keep it up.  Hard to take it seriously.  really. give me subtitles.  EDIT:  I did find a way to have the original German version with subtitles and it was only marginally better.  I was sort of bored, really.  It was hard to care about the actors.  Some of these programs are just all style no substance.  They're supposed to have you identify with the main characters and feel sympathetic, anxious for the outcome, but this show just didn't pull it off.

Beat.  Another German thriller.  Good so far.  Thank god for the subtitles.  Why they didn't just do this with the above is beyond me.  This is a thriller that has international smuggling of weapons and organ harvesting as a backdrop to a guy who is a nightclub promoter who gets enlisted to spy on bad guys by some mysterious international under the radar police type organization.  Do people really still snort that much coke?  Oh well.  It's entertaining and better than anything else listed on here.

Four More Shots.  Sex and the City Meets Bollywood.  It was too stupid.  I couldn't hack it.

Humans.  Good looking robot helpers get exploited by humans.  Sort of like Philip K D ick lite.  We've all seen Blade Runner.  Think of that as a family friendly tv series that explores ethical issues regarding androids and there you have it.  I think it's BBC Four leaps the Atlantic.

Sneaky Pete.  Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame has a lot to do with this.  Hustler gets out of prison and infiltrates a family that runs a bail bond business.  His brother has managed to get the two of them into debt.  Mean crime boss Cranston has threatened to injure the non prison brother unless ex con comes  up with a hundred grand in a week.   Will he manage it?  Stay tuned.  The main guy is familiar, Sneaky Pete (Giovanni Ribisi), has good pickpocket and card shark skills.  He was in Avatar and a few other choice roles.  An accomplished actor and cast.  I had trouble warming to it.  Probably some of the best production values of the lot, although Beat is good, too.

Other than lots of reruns there is not much else (besides the brilliant Man in the High Castle and the equally good The Expanse, which I just binge watched again) in the line up that makes me think we need to keep up the subscription for more than a couple months.

There's a documentary series about Lorena Bobbit, the woman whose abusive marriage finally drove her to castrate her husband.  It was a much publicized event about 20 years ago.  This is the back story of the traumas that drove her to it and also covers the recidivist abuser who apparently went on to abuse his two subsequent wives.  Some guys just need to be hunted down by someone like the Terminator from the future, apparently.  Lacking that, brutalized humanity responds in extreme ways some times.  Haven't seen that yet, but maybe before we pull the plug...

Do they have amazon prime video available in the UK?

[8ullfrog]

Did you like the cheesy 90's outer limits?

[6pairsofshoes]

No.  Not really very much.  I was sad to see that the much vaunted new series, Philip K D ick's Electric Dreams (another series available on Prime -- with more involvement by Bryan Cranston) is very much reminiscent of the recent Outer Limits.  But god, I loved the original Outer Limits.  I can remember as a child being fascinated with them "returning control of my television set" and some of the episodes really stuck with me. If memory serves, it came on after The Twilight Zone, another favorite.  There was a prevailing Cold War angst that drove those shows and made them so effective.  Maybe being in black and white with low budget sets was another.  They were spare with few special effects.

[8ullfrog]

well frak, I was going to suggest JUST the first season of SG-1, since they're mostly standalone episodes and don't require much investment as a viewer.

But yeah, 90's outer limits was cheesy as hell. I was watching one episode on that antenna sci fi channel comet, and the general from SG-1 was on it

[goldshirt*9]

England ATm stuffing all at rugby 

[6pairsofshoes]

Every now and then I find myself binge watching terrible programs and wondering why.  This one, "Hung," originally broadcast on HBO is about a high school athletic coach/history teacher who resorts to prostitution/gigolo status when his house is badly damaged by fire and he has no insurance.  He determines this is a good idea after attending one of those "how to become a millionaire" (let me run my hands through your pockets) seminars and realizes that his main asset that would be best capitalized is his well endowed organ of generation.

So we get lots of female frontal nudity as he services clients, but as is the case with American television, no male frontal nudity, because although his sex organ is reputedly substantial, we are not privileged to get a look and must rely on the testimony of satisfied customers.  There are secondary plots involving: ex wife (whom he still longs for), his twin adolescent kids (their interesting problems with love interests and identity issues), her second husband (prosperous & well meaning but dull), and his two warring female pimps, along with people asking for free samples and other business pitfalls.

The main character is played by Thos. Jane.  I began watching the show because I was curious about the earlier work of the actor, who plays a key role in the SyFy Series, The Expanse.  This is about as far from that role as one can get without playing a cannibalistic serial killer.  I can't say I recommend it but I am curious to see what actors are reduced to in their quest to find better roles.

[8ullfrog]

I feel like there's someone in Hollywood who really doesn't like Thomas Jane. He's a fantastic actor, but he's never been allowed to be a huge action star.

Also reminds me that Jason Statham is always fated to be a co-star, when his martial arts and all around physicality are INSANE.

While filming expendables 2, the brakes on his stunt truck failed, launching the truck into the ocean. He calmly exited the vehicle and swam to safety, as he was SPECIFICALLY TRAINED for this eventuality.


The Italian Job is in no way a good movie, but I loved the scene where Seth Green dubbed in his dialogue.

Aw crap, this is the TV section. er, at least you don't have to watch broadcast advertising?

[6pairsofshoes]

I looked him up on Wikipedia and am surprised at how many movies I've seen in which he played supporting roles, including Boogie Nights.  He is apparently a comic book author and founded his own publishing company, Raw Studios.  I haven't seen him in his superhero films, but he's also portrayed Mickey Mantle (the character in Hung had a promising baseball career until an injury laid him low).

He is an adept thespian, and I'm impressed at the range represented by his characters in The Expanse and Hung.  I swear to God, in Boogie Nights, he's all but unrecognizable.  That film really bristles with talent.  It stands up to multiple viewings. 

[8ullfrog]

There is a Punisher short called "Laundry Day" that is far superior to the film he starred in.

The punisher sequels are NEVER worth watching, do not hurt your brain by bothering. The role was recast for the Netflix show, so Thomas Jane probably won't be playing Frank Castle again.

[6pairsofshoes]

I watched a short on youtube called Dirty Laundry, about 10 min. in length.  He adequately demonstrated the principle that glass has a greater compressive strength than steel with his use of a bottle of Jack Daniels in his acts of retribution.

[8ullfrog]

that's the one, it's been a few years since I watched it. I wonder if the distillery paid for that inclusion? Those square bottles are pretty tough actually.

[6pairsofshoes]

Stephen King's "Under The Dome."  Filmed in stupidvision. 
The brother in law from Breaking Bad gets to be a main bad guy.  His son is a real psycho.
Chester's Mill mysteriously covered by a dome, impenetrable.  People hurt by its sudden appearance, everyone running around saying "WTF?"  The soundtrack features a large horn section making sure you can't ever relax, because "This is SERIOUS and MYSTERIOUS and creepy."  OK.  Enough.  I get it.  If I were a CGI person, I'd love to work on this because you get to do domes and lots of explosions and crashes.  Flames and smoke FTW!!!

I threw up my hands in the middle of the 3rd episode and decided to read the New York Times instead.

On the other hand, the four part Lorena Bobbit documentary was really well done and a pleasure to watch.

[8ullfrog]

I vaguely remember complaining about that one in realtime! The money shot of the whole series is the damn bisected cow.

They kept coming up with stupid reasons to keep them in the dome. One thing I found offensive is that it's a ripoff of a far better R.L. Stine serial, which means Stine probably stole it too.

Specifically, town wakes up, no power, and they can't leave town. The stine story didn't use a dome, they just couldn't leave. It wasn't like silent hill either.

So the town bands together, blah blah blah it was dumbed down for kids.

Anyway, spoiler is it's an Ant Farm. But the Ants are in the place of the humans! I've never been able to track this down, but it was a chiller thriller book club magazine.

I have seen the alien zoo concept a couple times, most recently in guardians of the galaxy. They saved Laika!

[6pairsofshoes]

Luis Buñuel's Exterminating Angel is more entertaining.  A group of people at a cocktail party, each too polite to leave.  This goes on for days.  It's black comedy at its finest.  No need for CGI, no domes, just absurd humor.

I'll have to check the Stine story you mentioned.

I'm back at the 3rd season of The Man in the High Castle.  The costumes and the sets are just fabulous.  The flags, the hair and makeup.  What a brilliant show.  It departs significantly from the novel, but it's still fine.