Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

The second half of Black Summer was pretty terrible and I retract my earlier praise.

It turned into watching someone play a video game.

Yep, I was thinking of that from your earlier comment when I came to the final few action scenes especially.

Guava Island was awful. No ideas, directionless, every scene wildly extended (even at 55 minutes total length). Also, jfc, it has Rhianna in it and she doesn't sing or dance in what is, purportedly, a musical. I kinda hated Donald Glover by the time it was over,

i guess it's not awful in that it is nicely shot etc. and has decent-to-good acting.

hiro murai directed right? can't be all bad.

"I Think You Should Leave" is great! I only laughed a couple of times. Once during the instagram caption sketch. I know that sounds strange but there's a certain way comedy can be where I find it truly compelling and admiorable but don't actually laugh. I never laughed when I watched Curb Your Enthusiasm either.

https://giphy.com/gifs/curbyourenthusiasm-l1J9tzBoKCooFidZ6

I think I've forgot how to ILX. That should have been a picture of Leon saying "What?" to Larry.

Street Food, by producers of Chef’s Table, is super meta comfort food. First nine episodes, ~ 30 minutes each, detail street food culture - and its demise - in different Asian cities.

Some of the episodes (Ho Chi Minh City) go for low-hanging fruit (banh mi, pho), but profiles on the owners are compassionate and well-photographed.

i really loved i think you should leave. highlight for me was probably the tim heidecker sketch. "the colgate comedy hour" etc.

The pacing and editing on the Street Food episode I watched (Bangkok) made me want to tear my hair out.
Really digging the Aynsley Harriott street food series, though.

I Think You Should Leave is wonderful but it's about 70 minutes total!

I've watched the first two episodes of Street Food and the "perseverance in the face of tragedy" stories are putting me off my crab omelette. I watch that stuff to get away from personal tragedy tbh. But the food is interesting and I'll definitely watch the rest of the series.

The second half of Black Summer was pretty terrible and I retract my earlier praise.

That's too bad because the first three episodes, all I've watched so far, are unusually good for this kind of thing

Oh, I was planning on watching Osaka and then Taiwan to gauge Street Food first (knowing maybe I won't be interested in everything).

I guess I should just blast through I Think You Should Leave. First episode veered wildly from very funny to...not so much. Yes yes, I know, it gets better.

Went to screening last night of the first two episodes of Tuca & Bertie, the new animated Netflix show by Lisa Hanawalt (bojack horseman), which I think goes up this week? It fucking rules. Lisa owns the visuals of bojack but this show is all hers and it’s just great. So playful and funny and weird and felt.

looking forward to unbridled hanawalt weirdness

fri
day
night

putting I Think You Should Leave's "Friday Night" song here because it's been running through my head on a loop pic.twitter.com/XwhXyuhwVk

— Gregory Mammal-Friend 🐀 (@cat_beltane) May 1, 2019

"Special" is s cute little series! short 15ish eps

It’s really in his cue zone

xp

wait i assumed "friday night" was an actual song, was it just made up for this show????

YES i thought it was a real song too!!!!

like i figured it was a katy perry track

"3 stacks on the radio" was the giveaway line for me

TUCA AND BERTIE is fun

Just watched the first couple episodes and I'm liking it

Was looking forward to that, but thought it was kinda “meh” based on the two eps I saw.

"Special" is s cute little series! short 15ish eps

btw you're basically a scab if you watch episodes this short on Netflix

(17 mins is a good shape for a sketch show though imo, I can watch I Think You Should Leave while eating and then get on with something.)

About 4 eps into "Dead to Me" - the Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini comedy about grief, and it's pretty good so far? Funny and sad and messy and rage-filled in the best way.

wait why are you a scab? sitcoms are only 22 min

i haven’t watched SPECIAL because that dude was one of thought. catalog’s worst

I thought I would be meh about it, but I really enjoyed Someone Great. I thought I would hate the overly millennial banter but there were some pretty funny one liners.

5 episodes into Dead to Me and also really enjoying it. It is somehow managing to subvert every emotional direction I think it is going to go in. And Linda Cardellini is just the best.

wait why are you a scab? sitcoms are only 22 min

it's another way Netflix rorts writers, along with no residuals and cancelling shows after 3 seasons - pay rates are basically set at "web video" levels, not "tv episode" levels, when they're that short

I thought I would be meh about it, but I really enjoyed Someone Great. I thought I would hate the overly millennial banter but there were some pretty funny one liners.

I liked it too. also really good soundtrack, if a little too on the nose at times (Lorde's "Supercut" literally soundtracking a supercut of the main character's relationship was eye-rolly, and I love that song!).

it's another way Netflix rorts writers, along with no residuals and cancelling shows after 3 seasons - pay rates are basically set at "web video" levels, not "tv episode" levels, when they're that short

I had no idea. Jesus, there is absolutely nothing that can just be enjoyed any more. (Also, if you have some links to some articles about this, I would like to read those. I'm having trouble finding anything other than a list of short shows.

I wish i liked I Think You Should Leave more. I only found maybe 3 or 4 sketches genuinely hilarious across the whole run.

Will Forte on the plane was hilarious.

it's another way Netflix rorts writers, along with no residuals and cancelling shows after 3 seasons - pay rates are basically set at "web video" levels, not "tv episode" levels, when they're that short

I had no idea. Jesus, there is absolutely nothing that can just be enjoyed any more.

well, the good news is there was no way of ethically watching Netflix-owned content on Netflix streaming in the first place 😬

(renting or buying their stuff on DVD is OK, getting DVDs from the library if you're in the UK is probably OK and value-neutral in the US, watching on a foreign broadcaster's catch-up service or on TV if you're a ratings household is A+)

(Also, if you have some links to some articles about this, I would like to read those.

no, I've seen writers bitching about it over the last six months based on job listings and gigs they haven't taken and pitch meetings and whatnot. I guess there's not enough of a mass of these shows yet, and there is plenty enough other WGA-related news to write about rn, for it to be exposé-ready.

but! checking WGA minimums, it looks like part of the problem is that there simply aren't rules yet: "Initial compensation for an original new media program is fully negotiable between the writer and the Company. Contact the Guild Contracts Department for details."

if you're writing web videos that are an adjunct to a comedy/variety series, though, 15 minutes pays $470 plus 13 x $235 = $3525. A one-off fifteen-minute script for non-prime-time TV pays $8554, plus residuals and rewrite fees. A weekly show of 6-8 weeks (like Special or I Think You Should Leave) would pay $9295 a week plus residuals.

I made it through 3 episodes of I Think You Should Leave. Instagram sketch was by far the funniest thing and it's like, legendarily funny, like, one of the funniest sketches I've ever seen on TV; it's so good it makes everything else on the show pretty bleh by comparison, except for Baby of the Year, which was also pretty good, though in a Mr. Show way.

Dead to Me: we watched this all in one go and I kept drifting off during the last three episodes but it's extremely good, both Christina Applegate and Lina Cardinelli deserve emmy nominations for it.

the instagram sketch is definitely the long term stand out in my mind too, so much so that I am embedding here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xS9Y_mjTjc

however i do not know the ethics of embedding this here as it is on the Netflix channel. SIC SAVE ME!

"no coffin please just wet wet mud"

Oh we're doing this? :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkOguZfNJUo

it's another way Netflix rorts writers, along with no residuals and cancelling shows after 3 seasons - pay rates are basically set at "web video" levels, not "tv episode" levels, when they're that short

it could be this is true i have no expertise in this area except to note that a) Netflix has green lit plenty of 30m + 60m length shows and b) 15m programming has been done to tremendous affect before (adult swim uses this format a lot) and there are great reasons to use it that have nothing to do with trying to screw writer.

I said I totally endorse it creatively

I finished all of I Think You Should Leave. There were a few good sketches but overall not my thing. A friend's gf was in one of the worst segments and I felt really bad.