I started watching it (Okja) ehhhhhh sort of into it sort of not.....Maybe I'll try again when I'm less sleepy?
I loved it as well! Binged watched last week. I didn't even recognize Alison Brie at first. The entire show is great. Incredible soundtrack, great acting, and lots of LOL parts. Marc Maron is at his best in this series I think. I was also just pursuing Netflix and happen to see that the Documentary for GLOW is on it, so I watched it. Brought back lots of childhood memories and it is a pretty well done documentary. You can definitely see a lot of similarities between the original GLOW and the new series. Even though it is loosely based on GLOW, you can see where a lot of the Netflix show comes from. I'm already excited for season 2! MOUNTAIN FIJI! HO!
Godless was pretty amazing. It's a 7 part mini-series based in the old west. Jeff Daniels is at his very best and the rest of the cast does really well too. It's basically the classic western plot of outlaw turning hero to fight his old gang and save a woman. They take lots of detours though and erase the idea of women being helpless or evil just being evil and good just being good. The netflix format works great and basically turns this into a 7 hour movie which wouldn't really work any other way. No one would sit and watch a 7 hour film but with binge watching being so popular on netflix it actually makes sense to have 7 "episodes" and it actually ends so there will not be another season ever. Nice to really get the chance to know a bunch of characters instead of only having each one take up a few minutes of screen time.
@Waterbear I loved Godless. I also blazed through the Punisher in one day and I'm watching Dark (creepy German series) now. Now I absolutely loathe superhero movies so I had my doubts about Punisher but gave it a whirl because I like Jon Bernthal. No CGI-fest of superhero powers just a plain killing machine of Castle (Bernthal) getting revenge on corrupt goverment agents. Basically Shane from WD on steroids, although this time he doesn't have an achilles heel of someone else's wife and gets to give out his own brutal form of justice. Not for the faint of heart as it's pretty graphic. Dark is a bit of a gem and just when you think it's a creepy child abduction show they introduce time travel to 1986. Keeps my attention.
Dark is fantastic. The dubbing is a little off-putting (some of the voice acting is not quite there)... the option to watch the original German language with subs would have been great. But the show is good enough that I can live with that.
You've got to go back and watch Daredevil. Actually most of the marvel series on Netflix are pretty good, Jessica Jones is good too.
OK I was thinking there has to be an option for original German with subtitles but I guess not. Yeah it is a little weird, but the show is too good to let it spoil it.
I loved The Punisher too. Great take on what is often an out of place character in the comics. His comics had wonderful runs but when he was mixed with campy heroes like spider-man it always came off as just odd. Bernthal is easily one of my favorite actors and he did an amazing job as usual. The way he "punished" in the last episode was just utter brutality. Oh! And if you take the time to watch season 2 of The Daredevil about half of it is all about The Punisher and he does an equally amazing job there. It sets up his own show so it will all be backstory to you but all the parts with him were great.
The second season of Daredevil is what killed my interest for the Punisher series, which is the one I've mainly been looking forward to. This evening I just watched Bernthal pop up again in Wind River, and I don't know whether he's just unable to shake Shane from his style now, but whether he's spittin blood while kicking tail or giving loving fatherly advice, everything he does seems like parts of the same character. Some of my favorite actors are like that too and I'm not saying I don't like him in certain roles, he can act, but I can't stand him as Frank Castle. His pissed off rants come across more like whiny Anakin, or to be more exact, like motha friggin Shane. Best example, watch the rooftop dialogue with Daredevil, his movements included - just like Shanearang. That's fine for some roles, but it's nothing near the Punisher from the books. I can see how Bernthal's style can apply to a tough war vet with rage and upset over his family's deaths, but it's still a new take on the character. Not nearly as bad as their Iron Fist reimagining tho. Regardless of whether you liked the movie, the most faithful to the material so far has been Ray Stevenson in War Zone; his entire persona seemed pulled right from the pages. Classic Punisher answered with action and aside from his inner monologues, if he ever spoke about how he was feeling, it was usually short and always without much expression. Here they've added drama with dialogue reminiscent of all the superheroes other than the Punisher and he's become a parody of himself. His bottling up of his inner turmoil and trauma is what makes him the island of a one man war machine he is and if this series goes like I think it's already established, they're trying to move away from a guy who just wants to punish and eventually work through his issues enough where he's no longer walking the line between hero or villain. He'll become the hero and every 10 minutes there will be a "struggle" for him to revert to his old ways, which he never will... Bernthal probably is right for this role, and it's Netflix's take on the Punisher that I really don't like.
Friend of mine dragged me to it at the dollar show years back and I couldn't be more thankful; that flick has a strange perfection to it and I find myself more than once a year trying to steer sceptics its way! Over the top is a most overused phrase, but if ever you have the itch to see just the right level of exaggeration in your Cinema of the Ridiculous, you just can't do better than popping in Lexi Alexander's Punisher: War Zone. She rules, and so does her filmmaking. As long as I'm waxing about pitchurs that you can't currently stream, I'm big on her earlier film Green Street as well. Thanks for the excuse for a quick ramble, JP!
Started Dark due to the recs here and in the Horror Movies thread, and enjoyed the first episode. It reminded me a lot of both Jordskott and The Valley. And yes, it was in German with English subtitles.
I'll have to check Dark out. I admit I get skeptical when titles like this pop up now, but some of them are Really good. I enjoyed Jordskott a lot. Did anyone watch the original The Returned ? I believe it was French. Did they ever finish that series? I started the English remake on Netflix in hopes of getting an ending, but the show just didn't compare to the o.g.
I've watched two seasons of Australian show The Glitch which is at least interesting on Netflix. Anyone else?
I tend to be more willing to try non-american stuff like Dark these days. I think I'm mostly looking for something different so when a series is from some other part of the world it usually has some originality compared to what I generally watch. I saw the two seasons of Les Revenants and loved them both. Super creepy but somehow felt real at the same time. I don't think another season was ever planned though. The american version called The Returned was pretty awful. It was cancelled after one season but that was years ago so maybe they tried to bring it back? I have no idea at this point but it was awful compared to the french version anyway.
Two minor but personally significant takeaways from a full viewing of Dark, the latest public exercise in what I'll call the Cinema of Withholding: Handheld, swipe-activated globe lights are unquestionably sweet; and everything is better than Westworld.
Was anyone else disappointed by the end of Dark? Kinda fell apart for me with that last episode, which was disappointing because the couple of episodes prior were really riveting