Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

tbh i got bored and wandered off of GLOW after 4 eps. any reason to keep going if i don't love it by now?

I just started watching FILINTA, a detective thriller set in istanbul the late ottoman empire. It probably isn't very good but I like its stylised look -- which is faintly steampunky without actually being steampunk and hence bad -- and the music is pretty.

netflix description says he's a detective, but he's more like a befezzed 1870s james bond working on behalf of the sultan (don't know enough abt turkey to pin down the date, and the stylisation makes it harder)

That sounds cool, and makes me think that Pamuk's 'My Name Is Red' could make a great mini-series.

I watched most of Hasan Minhaj's special last night, and it's good as long as I keep telling myself to think of it as a one man show and not stand-up. At first it bothered me that it seemed to be going for applause rather than laughs but it's just a different thing, more like an hour and a half Moth story (with accompanying Powerpoint). Or like a Ted Talk with more jokes.

Exactly. It has some really funny bits but it's definitely something else.

Is this a new genre? Where is the line drawn? Mike Birbiglia and Chris Gethard both do it, although they're more in a storyteller mode whereas Minhaj isn't quite as experienced so it less gracefully veers from one man show/monologue to comedy.

I've enjoyed all three.

But there's a bit of that Moth showiness that I find really grating. Like after the laughter you pause for a second and then say "but the thing is..." and then say something really deep before the lights go down.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a Rory Scovel special up. He's not for everyone and it gets pretty subversive, but if you get on his wavelength it's the funniest stuff.

I really wanted to like Minhaj but the tone, which both of you describe really well, was just like kryptonite to me. It's all so UP FRONT and HERE'S MY DEAL and OH MY GOD.

tbf I don't like most standup, or The Moth, or Risk, or Spark True Stories, or TED Talks. Like, at all.

Yeah I recoiled a little from the polished sincerity of it (which sparked some self-examination, but some of those moments with the zoom-in on his serious face as the lights go down are just corny).

I blame millenials

#soinspiring

#sodamnrelatable

btw, someone from the Moth came to my office to do a team building workshop and I ended up standing in front of all the executives and creative teams and telling them the story, in my best attempt at a Moth monologue, of the tie I DJ'd with Peter Hook from New Order.

tie = "time"

ha. I saw P Hook DJ once at.. what was that club in the meatpacking district where you could still smoke after the ban? they had an upstairs? Gah what an awful memory I've got. Anyway he was DJing and I swear to god at one point we all heard a "Mixmag" audio sting and we were like... he is not just playing a Mixmag covermount CD, is he?? Sorry maybe i need to Moth that story up a little bit.

Peter Hook is a DJ FRAUD

Peter Hook is a DJ FRAUD

THAT'S IT!!!!!!!

loooooooooool

i'm turning into my dad, too many memories mixing together

he didn't do the mixmag scam the time I played after him (hiro ballroom), i think it was after that controversy, maybe he knew better by then.

was he very enthusiastic?

I enjoyed teh documentary on the original GLOW. wouldn't mind catching a few of the pisodes to see what it was really like.

Is the tv series a one off or is it going to pick up again from where it left off? Ha sit been picked up for a 2nd season already.

i really like the idea of story nights and spoken word but the stories are often so trite and annoying. like yeah your dad had an accordion, fucking great.

I assume GLOW is going to be multi-year, it ended with some unresolved stuff and given how much good press it's getting I would be pretty shocked if it wasn't renewed.

I really enjoyed the first season too. It just has a great tone, not afraid to go to some serious places but always maintains a light touch. Allison Brie really carries the show too, or maybe I just have a weakness for cheesy Russian accents and jokes.

Interesting to see that that Alison Brie Russian character was based on a real one from the original series, or at least the wrestling persona was. Ninotchka who was blonde but put on the whole russian domination schtick.

Peter Hook was very enthusiastic. The gist of the story was that I spent his entire set trying to figure out what to open with and as he was playing very "eclectically" I kept recalibrating and freaking out "how am I going to keep the party going" and right near the end he calls me over and says "listen, when I'm done, do you mind waiting a few minutes for the applause before you start?". The joke being that it didn't matter what I played, and also that usually you don't leave space for applause before the next DJ". The joke was on me anyway because everyone was there to just dance to the guy from New Order and soon as he was done I waited the necessary time, opened with Yaz, was thanked by two girls and then watched everybody else leave.

Now imagine me stretching the story out to a 10 minute monologue, hitting all of the moth-suggested narrative beats.

i really like the idea of story nights and spoken word but the stories are often so trite and annoying. like yeah your dad had an accordion, fucking great.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Wednesday, June 28, 2017 8:55 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You have inspired me to start going to these things and telling the most mundane stories imaginable with max gravitas. 'And that's when I knew...the bread was perfectly toasted.'

lol. "the old shoe i found may have belonged to my grandad, or maybe it didn't. what mattered was that i found it, and it was no longer lost, and that i had a grandad."

Okja dropped today.

Saw Okja in the theater a couple nights ago, it had funny moments, heartwarming moments, some fun action, a couple very hammy performances, and some very sad and shocking moments. Worth watching, but may not be the greatest ever, better than Snowpiercer.

i must confess i didn't make it through Snowpiercer

lol. "the old shoe i found may have belonged to my grandad, or maybe it didn't. what mattered was that i found it, and it was no longer lost, and that i had a grandad."

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Wednesday, June 28, 2017 10:43 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this reads like old "funny" Grantland posts

sounds like Deep Thoughts.

i watched a comedy special this morning. some white guy live in canada who does a faux-gangsta voice but it sounds like he could be a french language speaker maybe? his accent makes me think that. he says his dad is from the east coast though. he says bitch-ass a lot and bitch. and he does a very long bit about how his straight male friend buying him pants that fit for his birthday is gayer than having sex with a man. that kinda stuff. but it was pretty much ALL stand up comedy and not a monologue. i'd never heard of him.

watched GLOW and i like it ok but i'm a little surprised at how GLOWing lol reviews hav been. i like the performances and agree w/ evol j on the tone, but the writing itself is a little otp goofy. like the bad seasons of Weeds.

liked Maron more than i thought it would. is his IFC show worth the time?

The dialogue doesn't leave much room for ambiguity but I enjoyed it a lot regardless, it's a joyful and compelling milieu to spend time in. xp

I think it's by the same people who did OITNB and it's really like if you took just the most fun elements of that show and made that the whole thing. I'm sure though it's only a matter of time before we start seeing the thinkpieces about how Ruth is the least interesting character because she's the pretty white girl (tbf, maybe the best gag of the entire season was the Welfare Queen).

liked Maron more than i thought it would. is his IFC show worth the time?

― constitutional crises they fly at u face (will), Wednesday, June 28, 2017 2:58 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

While I liked the whole series, I'll concede that the first few seasons were more or less just dramatizations of stuff he talked about on WTF. If you're on the fence, I'd recommend the last two seasons, where he eventually relapses (immediately after getting his own show) and winds up living in a storage shed. It went out on a high note, for sure.

Maron's acting is actually decent in Glow compared to his own show

Critically acclaimed Brazilian film AQUARIUS is on Netflix atm. Might give it a watch the weekend

Glow is super fun. Alison Brie is basically playing Shelley Long, right? Up for that.

Nastiest p[art of the doc on the original series is showing where the accidents happened. Some really nasty stuff occurred.
Assume a lot would have been avoided if they had a proper wrestling ring set up instead of the ersatz version they used.

Interesting fact about Welfare Queen from GLOW: she's played by Kia Stevens, AKA Awesome Kong AKA Amazing Kong AKA Kharma, the only actual pro wrestler in the show not to be cast as an established pro wrestler. If I hadn't recognized her I would have guessed she was just an actor like the rest of them. She also once punched radio sleazeball/Hulk Hogan associate Bubba the Love Sponge for saying "fuck Haiti" after the earthquake there in 2010.

given how much good press it's getting I would be pretty shocked if it wasn't renewed

I think Netflix shows are given multi-season deals to start with, but who knows.

girlboss got canned after 1. they're more aggressive now.

yeah, they pulled the plug on a handful of things recently. GLOW seems to be pretty buzzy though, i'd say it's got a good chance of sticking around.

snowpiercer kinda sucked, love all the rest of Bong Joon-Ho's work tho so am a little scared to try okja given the advance "will make you not want to eat meat" press

imo Maron's character in GLOW is closer to actual Maron than the one he plays in the show. or it's at least a more honest version of aspects of his personality

the unsympathetic eye helps I think

Girlboss was a bit up itself wasn't it? Underlying message of entitlement. Couldn't find the character very sympathetic, like.

Girlboss was just sort of lame and badly written, and the lead miscast, I'm not sure it had anything to do with sympathy. Unsympathetic got duchovny seven seasons of the worst show ever made.

Maron is fantastic in Glow, but it's like a whole cast of scene-stealers. It's like the apex of a "oh yeah I recognise that one from that thing" kind of show. American Idol! Piz!