What are you watching?

[Raleel]

it sort of astonishes me that we have a what are you listening to thread, and not another thread for watching or reading.

So, what are you watching?

currently working on the second season of american gods. i LOVE the show. i frankly don't care what folks think of it. it speaks to me very deeply in a way that virtually no tv does. introspective and insane at the same time. it forces me into thought that i don't partake of often, but always feel satisfied when I do.

 

[Dumarest]

I seldom watch TV or movies, but when I get a chance these are what I've been tuning in lately:

​

 

[TristramEvans]

 

[TristramEvans]

Just started second season of The Tick, so far, so good. Only complaints are the same ones I had the first season, and I overall enjoyed that enough to watch it twice.

 

[soltakss]

it sort of astonishes me that we have a what are you listening to thread, and not another thread for watching or reading.

I thought the TV Recommendations thread was that.

As mentioned there, currently watching and enjoying Series 3 of Resurrection: Ertugrul.

 

[urbwar]

After finishing Black Lightning Season 2, I'm catching up a little on the remake of Magnum P.I. It's not bad so far. Threw in an episode or two of Blue Bloods. I'm most likely going to watch Season 2 of the Gifted after Magnum. I like to take a break between supers shows, so I don't get superhero fatigue

 

[TheophilusCarter]

I admit, I've been using the TV and Movie Recommendation threads as "What I'm Watching" threads. Now that we have this one, I won't have to do that anymore. Right now:

Working my way through Doctor Who yet again. Just finished The Movie, about to dive into the first season of NuWho (Ninth Doctor).
Just started season one part two of Sabrina last night, love that show.
On regular TV, Riverdale and AP Bio. I really want to RPG a Riverdale / Sabrina crossover ...
Various bad horror movies. I like to play them in the background while I do other stuff, I find it very comforting ...

 

[dokel]

Various bad horror movies. I like to play them in the background while I do other stuff, I find it very comforting ...

I think it's because they're so formulaic. They typically do exactly what you expect them to do from start to finish and, yeah, that is somehow weirdly comforting. And, of course, demands only minimal attention

 

[TheophilusCarter]

I think it's because they're so formulaic. They typically do exactly what you expect them to do from start to finish and, yeah, that is somehow weirdly comforting. And, of course, demands only minimal attention

Ha, yeah, that sounds right. "Oh, that guy got killed? Kinda saw that coming ... "

 

[Simon Hogwood]

I've been on a bit of a King Kong binge recently. Friday I watched the 1970s remake with Jeff Bridges and was sort of astounded at how much of it was echoed in Kong: Skull Island (which I watched last night to double-check my impressions).

 

[Apparition]

WWE WrestleMania, all seven hours of it.

 

[Apparition]

WrestleMania was 7.5 hours last night, and ended about ten minutes early because one of the wrestlers in the main event shattered her hand. WWE really needs to shorten it.

 

[urbwar]

I'm watching a movie called Cartels. Segall is in it, but isn't the main character (that belongs to British actor Luke Goss). It's typical direct to video action movie film. Nothing great, but a good time killer

 

[Giganotosaurus]

I finished "Person of Interest" the other day.
I liked it and I'm glad it ended instead of going the way of so many good TV shows; Continuing indefinitely, turning into Ring Wraiths with their lives stretched thinner and thinner instead of dying in dignity.

 

[TristramEvans]

This is technically what I'm not watching, but...

I've made the decision to skip the new Hellboy film. I was anxious leading up to it, first with the casting issues, then when I saw the makeup the first time. Then the first trailer came out and it was just a really, really bad trailer. The tone was off completely. And the review embargo didn't instill any confidence, and now that reviews are coming out it seems to be getting almost universally panned.

The thing is, I love Hellboy. I've adored the comic since I discovered it in the 90s. I liked the Del Toro films, but I wasn't even against the idea of a reboot because while the previous films were good movies, they were not faithful adaptions. A few years ago I would have been first in line for any Hellboy film. But, well, I seem to be overloaded on disappointments in regard to film adaptions. I just don't feel like putting myself through that any more. I'm content with the comics (and a metric ton of miniatures from the boardgame Kickstarter).

 

[Ghost Whistler]

Having acquired the entirety of z nation on dvd I was disappointed to discover that my ps4 hates season 4 discs (at least the one i've tried thus far, i've only got to ep4). Even more annoyingly I shredded the bloody receipt. Sony will be the first to go when the apocalypse happens.

I love z nation. I got a bit tired when i first tried watching season 3, but having just finished it for the first time and starting season 4 I'm back on it. Great fun. Great cast. I love visiting with these characters.

I've given up on TNG. I am glad it exists and am grateul for what it's done for a beloved SF franchise, but I've moved on from it

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Having acquired the entirety of z nation on dvd I was disappointed to discover that my ps4 hates season 4 discs (at least the one i've tried thus far, i've only got to ep4). Even more annoyingly I shredded the bloody receipt. Sony will be the first to go when the apocalypse happens.

I love z nation. I got a bit tired when i first tried watching season 3, but having just finished it for the first time and starting season 4 I'm back on it. Great fun. Great cast. I love visiting with these characters.

Z Nation is great! I like how it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's good bloody fun.

 

[Baulderstone]

I haven't been watching much lately, to be honest.

The only current TV I am watching right now is season 3 of Documentary Now, a comedy show where every episode is a parody of a famous documentary. The season started really strong with Batshit Valley, about a cult that takes over a small town in the early '80s, with Luke Wilson as the cult leader and Michael Keaton as the head of the FBI cult investigation department. After that, they did Waiting for the Artist with Cate Blanchett as performance artist. Then came Original Cast Album: Co-op, a parody of a documentary about the Sondheim musical Company. All of these were the show at its best, funny, clever, and having real feeling for the characters.

The last two episodes have been a bit of a dip: Searching for Mr. Larson: A Love Letter from the Far Side, about a loser looking to find out what happened to Gary Larson, and Long Gone, a parody of the Chet Baker documentary Lets Get Lost. They both have the same quality of production as the earlier episodes, but the whole joke of both of them is that the main character in both is an enormous asshole, setting that up in the opening moments, and having nothing more to do then show us them being an asshole for half an hour. The episodes aren't terrible, but they aren't good by the standards of the show itself.

I'm one episode behind at the moment, so I am hoping it brings things back to the quality at the beginning of the season.

I watch It: Chapter One, and I enjoyed that. I read the book back when I was around the age of the characters when they were kids, so even though I have never read it again, it has loomed fairly large in my mind. I think its as good a job as you can do of squeezing such a massive book into two movies. In the book, you really felt like you went through a full childhood summer in the kids' lives, but it feels more like a hectic week in the movie. Ideally, this would have been best as a limited-run cable series, but this was still a good adaptation.

There is also a loss of texture by moving the kids from the '50s to the late '80s. The book has a real specificity of time and place, like King's Stand by Me. It made an era I didn't live in feel alive to me. The movie did a passable job of 1988, but it didn't really make me feel it in the way that Stranger Things evoked the early '80s for me. Maybe it's just that the late '80s just aren't as flavorful an era, and the movie does deserve credit for not attempting to overdo it by making it into a cartoon of the '80s.

More importantly, Pennywise is great in this version. While Tim Curry's performance was really entertaining, I feel the movie does a better job of getting the complete otherworldliness of the character. Pennywise is just one of the masks being worn by an alien outer god. The movie nails that.

We'll be resuming the Farscape reviews on the Bedrock Podcast very soon too. Looking forward to getting back to it.

 

[Ghost Whistler]

That's why i watch it!

 

[Ghost Whistler]

Thoughts on Dark Matter?

 

[Edgewise]

I watch It: Chapter One, and I enjoyed that.

With regret I say that it didn't work for me. Things just moved way too fast, and it was insufficiently frightening. I think they were going more for visual spectacle than horror.

Two weeks ago I finished up the second season of Mob Psycho 100, and I'm still re-watching the finale. The second season was actually better than the first, which is a triumph. Favorite anime of all time.

Waiting for the last season of Game of Thrones to kick off this weekend, since I'm apparently contractually obliged to finish this death march. I'm pretty confident that GRRM grew bored of the series over ten years ago, and the TV show took a real dive over the last season and a half.

Otherwise, I'm not currently watching much. There's too much other media competing for my attention: Sekiro, of course, but also my usual steady diet of youtube and gaming content. I'm looking forward to upcoming seasons of Expanse, and most of all, Stranger Things. I plan to binge the entire season of ST when it comes out on the fourth of July. This year, screw the fireworks.

 

[Baulderstone]

With regret I say that it didn't work for me. Things just moved way too fast, and it was insufficiently frightening. I think they were going more for visual spectacle than horror

That's fair. As someone that hasn't read the book since the '80s, I'll admit that part of the pleasure of the movie was bring memories of the book back to the surface. It's hard for me to judge the movie objectively. And as I said above, I agree with you on the feeling that things moved to fast. While it was essential to cut things, maybe it could have used montages to convey more time passing.

My most obscure nitpick was that it bugged me that they gave the "Beep-beep, Richie!" line to Pennywise. In the book, it was Beverly's line for when Richie took a joke too far. It felt weird to me to keep the line but give it to Pennywise. Maybe it bugged me because so much of the interaction between the kids had to be cut for the movie, so putting the line in out of context was just a reminder of that.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Thoughts on Dark Matter?

The TV series? I really liked it. So much potential killed dead by execs that decided to back Killjoys instead.

Not that Killjoys isn't fun, mind you.

 

[Apparition]

Dark Matter was fun but killed mid-cliffhanger by Syfy Channel executives because they didn't like that they didn't outright own the show even though it was one of their most watched programs. Which makes me concerned about Krypton. At least last season, it was one of the Syfy Channel's top rated shows, but it's fully owned by WarnerMedia.

 

[Edgewise]

That seems to be an issue with SyFy - isn't that why they scuttled The Expanse?

 

[Stevethulhu]

That seems to be an issue with SyFy - isn't that why they scuttled The Expanse?

It might be. They prefer Sharknadoes to original science fiction there.

 

[Ghost Whistler]

mid cliffhanger? probably not worth buying the dvd's

 

[Voros]

That's fair. As someone that hasn't read the book since the '80s, I'll admit that part of the pleasure of the movie was bring memories of the book back to the surface. It's hard for me to judge the movie objectively. And as I said above, I agree with you on the feeling that things moved to fast. While it was essential to cut things, maybe it could have used montages to convey more time passing.

My most obscure nitpick was that it bugged me that they gave the "Beep-beep, Richie!" line to Pennywise. In the book, it was Beverly's line for when Richie took a joke too far. It felt weird to me to keep the line but give it to Pennywise. Maybe it bugged me because so much of the interaction between the kids had to be cut for the movie, so putting the line in out of context was just a reminder of that.

I'd agree that its biggest flaw is that it is nowhere near as horrorific as the book, which is one of the roughest books King has ever written, but I guess that's the price to pay for making it PG-13. No doubt that helped tremendously at the box office but it did defang the film considerably.

I was also disapointed that they made Ben the town historian instead of Mike as in the book. I agree moving things to the 80s weakens it a bit, also because in the book It takes the form of so many of that era's Monsters when attacking the kids (crawling eye, teenage werewolf, frankenstein's monster).

But what made it all work for me was the terrific and pitch perfect kids in cast. The actors playing Beverly and Ben are very good. And they really look like kids! The ending when they all say goodbye to each other and the last shot were really good, I wish the rest of the film had more time for moments like that instead of tired jump scares. Certainly a huge improvement over King's bizarre and infamous kiddie orgy.

 

[Ghost Whistler]

 

[Ghost Whistler]

The TV series? I really liked it. So much potential killed dead by execs that decided to back Killjoys instead.

Not that Killjoys isn't fun, mind you.

It IS fun, but I'm not rreally digging the metaplot. I would have liked to see more of them just doing their bounty hunting thing. Plus the guy playing Davin is really not good. But overall I do like it.

 

[TristramEvans]

 

[Voros]

squee

 

[soltakss]

Time to roll out my Dark Crystal story, again ...

When Dark Crystal came out, we all went to see it, being RPGers and big fantasy fans. So, the hall is full of kids and a single row of long-haired RPGers in heavy metal T-Shirts, all in their late teens/early twenties. The lights go down and a hush falls over the kiddies, as lightning strikes and a lone hooded figure slowly makes its way up to a blasted tree. He looks up as lightning strikes again, revealing his face beneath the hood. "They're Fucking Muppets", shouts Andrew, who hadn't seen any of the trailers. We all sniggered, as the tuts of disapapproving mothers rang through the room. When this had all died down, a little voice piped up "Mummy, what does fucking mean?" ...

 

[Bunch]

We watched Sharp Edges. This did not appeal to me but you do things like this to appease the wife.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Had to watch "Remember the Titans" for a leadership class.
I won't say it was a bad movie, but I had no idea what was going on for most of it.
There were significant portions were the only way I could tell something good was happening was by whether the music was Good things are happening music or not.
I blame my utter lack of football knowledge.

 

[Edgewise]

Gonna watch my government-mandated episode of Game of Thrones tonight.

 

[Voros]

We watched Sharp Edges. This did not appeal to me but you do things like this to appease the wife.

Do you mean the Tonya Harding documentary? The film version of the story I, Tonya was excellent. Managed to deal with some very dark subject matter (domestic abuse) in a black comic manner and Margo Robbie was terrific.

 

[Bunch]

Do you mean the Tonya Harding documentary? The film version of the story I, Tonya was excellent. Managed to deal with some very dark subject matter (domestic abuse) in a black comic manner and Margo Robbie was terrific.

No not about Tonya Harding at all. A depressing story about child murder in the south with crappy parenting thrown in for added fun.

 

[TheophilusCarter]

Jane the Virgin is quite a bit better than I would have thought. I like how they tricked me into watching a telenovella ... Plus I have a massive crush on Yael Grobglas:

 

[Edgewise]

I finished up the second season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and I'd say it was a step-up from an already good first season.