Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

in the course of explaining "You" I ended up explaining the plot of Gossip Girl to a friend who had not seen it, revealing that I did watch the entire series

no shame

kinda with veg on "you" though i might muddle through at some point.
backlog of the moment includes some fifteen shows to try though, so maybe not

plus i never did Gossip Girl so i just find Penn Badgely’s character to be a deeply unpleasant birdfaced creep

He's supposed to be...

yeah that's the whole point. after all, he is gossip girl

my wife always watches these kinds of thrillers and usually i find them ridiculous, but this is so ludicrously and - maybe - knowingly ott that i found it amusing instead of stupid.

Penn was good in You. The women in the show all seemed such annoying. Still enjoyed it.

It's totally bad. But it was highly watchable for the absurdity. I watched all of Friends From College. The best part about it were the shots of the dining table and food in the opener. I would like a looping montage of that.

most of the women in the show were a little too young for me to find annoying by ilx rules

Paco was the worst. (ha!)

It was funny that he just showed up on Crazy Ex-GF too.

I quit after 3 episodes, I just found it unpleasant & weird, and well, dumb

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, January 21, 2019 2:49 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed and I also quit on the third episode.

plus i never did Gossip Girl so i just find Penn Badgely’s character to be a deeply unpleasant birdfaced creep

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, January 21, 2019 3:21 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol mh!

one of the most frustrating things about Netflix is that clicking on "Newly Added" doesn't actually show you stuff that's been newly added.

Sex Education was so good. I thought it handled a lot of iffy topics (abortion! coming out! consent! masturbation! parental neglect and abuse! same-sex relationships!) really deftly and amusingly without ever being preachy or descending into after-school special territory. Very well paced too.

The only thing that threw me was the school the kids went to - sort of weird to see British teens attending an American style high school, complete with lockers and letterman jackets.

Also Gillian Anderson... still a goddess.

read an interview with the creators where they said that stuff was supposed to be an homage to American high school movies

makes sense. still weird though.

it doesn't make sense, though.

As an American, I initially thought that the school was just really modernized and/or progressive using the lol "American" model. But yeah...

Co-sign on everything else. I finished it the other night and am already looking forward to the next season--although if this was it, they picked the perfect (and funniest) way to go out.

read an interview that they wanted to appeal to both uk and us audiences as well as homage classic american teen comedies, so it's a sort of intentional mish-mash of US and UK schools.

How does it compare to Big Mouth, which I have also not seen?

Only watched one episode of SE but I found it exploitive and kinda heartless. Bigmouth FTW.

we're 4 or so episodes into SE, don't find it heartless at all, one of those things where in an early episode you think a character is just a 2d bully but then as the season progresses you get more depth. Bigmouth is amazing though.

i'm with DJI all the way here.

Yeah, that is a weird take on SE. It's totally not exploitive.

well when the first episode starts with a fairly over the top sex scene between two ostensibly underage characters I can see how someone might think that

but I don't think that's representative of the show as a whole

comparing it to Big Mouth is misguided also

When it opens with the sex scene, I just thought "british tv."

That scene is actually pretty important in the larger scheme of things on the show, regarding the way it lays out the soon to be explored dysfunctions of the two characters in it.

Sorry, I really shouldn’t judge it based on one episode. Maybe I’ll try some more at some point. It just felt like a sexed-up Glee episode where everyone has this super transactional approach to sex. Plus, yeah, opening with an underage sex scene was pretty gratuitous.

I'm not done with the series but the whole thing is a healthier look at non-puritanical teenage sexuality and relationships.

Still with DJI! I guess at this point if you don't grab me with the first episode, there's just too much else to potentially watch for me to suffer through to "the good part".

Timely: I just saw a teaser for PEN 15, an upcoming HULU show that looks like a live-action Big Mouth.

It just felt like a sexed-up Glee episode where everyone has this super transactional approach to sex. Plus, yeah, opening with an underage sex scene was pretty gratuitous.

wow this is like a fundamental misreading of the show. The whole point is that all the characters learn that sex is more than just an exchange of bodily fluids - it's about knowing your own body, being emotionally present, being a considerate partner, and learning that what works for one person may not work for another. And also that it's OK to not want to have sex right away or to have less experience than everyone else.

The opening sex scene did feel gratuitous initially yeah but like c.grisso points out, it's a really jumping off point towards exploring the characters' hangups later on. None of the sex scenes on the show are gratuitous at all tbh - they're all depicted as a way for the characters to work through their sexual and relationship dysfunction.

In terms of portraying teenage sexuality, the lingering, male-gazey shots of Kiernan Shipka in a nightie on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina felt way more skeevy than anything shown on SE, even though those didn't involve any nudity at all.

I've never watched Big Mouth.

I’m to the point in life where I see young characters and think “young man/lady, that is a cool outfit, BUT”

if you like Nathan for You and black people, you'll probably also like like Trigger Warning with Killer Mike, or at least I did.

the title had me worried but I do want to check it out

I wasn't going to watch it but some people I know who work with transgender teens or with family relationships gave it big thumbs up.

Trigger Warning is apparently entirely soundtracked by Julius Eastman which is WILD and I'm very happy about it

"plus i never did Gossip Girl so i just find Penn Badgely’s character to be a deeply unpleasant birdfaced creep"

yeah well he's supposed to be?

I finished You off last night and I found it to be pretty successful; though it takes some detours (Paco, his mom) that I didn't quite get; that storyline I suppose is supposed to make him More likeable I suppose, so you wind up with this sort of 'likeable psychopath' and to a point, really, he'd only appeared to have killed deeply terrible people; but it does go well past that at the end which I was very surprised by so then what are we supposed to think? Also I assumed this was a one-and-done season but the ending set it up for a second series so I guess not.

Yes all the women in the show were totally annoying except for second girlfriend Karen (introducing her was a misstep though; it was totally confusing to me, where did she come from? which neighbor is she? what?)ec. Beck was terrible until the final episode.

Being married to a writer who went to an MFA program a lot of this was amusing just because it was so over the top ('your own personal Yaddo', etc).

i liked beck idk. possibly i’m annoying

karen is just paco’s mom’s friend iirc

beck did need a deeper mystery than “i’m ashamed of my dad bc he’s a nerd now”

also i disagree that peach salinger the heart of the show was annoying

I liked Beck as well, and found her rebellious agency in the finale quite affecting/effective even as I found some of the other contrivances repellent

Beck's voice reminds me so much of another actor and I can't figure out who.

also, Peter Gallagher's daughter is in this. Penn can't escape eyebrows!

we watched the black Jesus episode of Trigger Warning and it was ok, but idk it treads a weird line between being funny and earnest that is difficult to really nail.

I love Killer Mike ftr

I wasn't sure what the format of the show was but when scrolling past it I thought "well, couldn't be worse than his appearance on nra tv"

Only halfway through but Korean historical drama Kingdom is pretty gripping so far. Good if you like palace intrigue, class warfare, sword fights, stunning costumes and cinematography.

Oh, and it also has ZOMBIES.

palace intrigue, class warfare, sword fights, stunning costumes and cinematography.

Sounds great!

Oh, and it also has ZOMBIES.

Never mind.

Oooof this Sliding Doors episode of Kimmy Schmidt, painful to get through.