The TV and Streaming thread Series 3

[Bartimaeus]

It was pretty awesome to hear the Star Locket one used the way it was.

[HoonDing]

 

[LadyCrimson]

On 1/11/2021 at 7:36 PM, ShadySands said:

If I watch a movie on Netflix do I write about it in the streaming thread or the movie thread? 

In the near future we'll have a "Stuff I got dressed up for and watched in an actual theater" thread and the rest will go into a "Stuff I watched in my underwear while sitting on my couch" thread. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, LadyCrimson said:

In the near future we'll have a "Stuff I got dressed up for and watched in an actual theater" thread and the rest will go into a "Stuff I watched in my underwear while sitting on my couch" thread. 

Feels like we're leaving out folks who go theaters in their underwear.

[Raithe]

21 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I was entertained and it works great fullscreen on your phone while lying on the couch.

FAQ: Where was this first shown? A: Quibi, in 9 parts. That's why its filmed in this format.
Summary: Serialized remake of 'The Princess Bride' told in short chapters featuring celebrities at home during quarantine. (description from IMDB)
Cast:

  Reveal hidden contents

Rob Reiner, Thomas Lennon, Zazie Beetz, Stephen Merchant, Nicholas Braun, Oliver Lennon, Alice Oswalt, Javier Bardem, John Cho, Kaitlyn Dever, Roman Mars, Oscar Nunez, Retta, Brandon Routh, Leslie Bibb, Bryan Cranston, Courtney Ford, Angela Kinsey, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Shaquille O’Neal, Seth Rogan, Fred Savage, Finn Wolfhard, Andrew Bachelor, Brian Baumgartner, Sarah Cooper, Zoey Deutch, Ari Graynor, Sam Rockwell, Leo James Routh, Sarah Silverman, Annabelle Wallis, Rainn Wilson, Jose Andres, Dave Bautista, Neil Patrick Harris, Diego Luna, Chris Pine, Catherine Reitman, Paul Rudd, Jason Segal, Richard Speight Jr., Sophie Turner, Jack Black, David Burtka, Cary Elwes, Josh Gad, Dennis Haysbert, Joe Jonas, Logan Kim, Pedro Pascal, David Spade, Taika Waititi, Penelope Cruz, Giancarlo Esposito, Beanie Feldstein, Jennifer Garner, Nick Kroll, Natalie Morales, Percy, Mackenzie Davis, Tiffany Haddish, Lucas Hedges, Ernie Hudson, John Malkovich, Carl Reiner, Zoe Saldana, Keith L. Williams, Common, Don Johnson, Patton Oswalt, David Oyelowo, J.K. Simmons, Kimberly Van Der Beek, Tommy Dewey, Mckenna Grace, Jon Hamm, Hugh Jackman, Jenna Ortega, Andy Serkis, Charlize Theron, Keegan-Michael Key, B.J. Novak, Meredith Salenger, Elijah Wood, Craig Robinson, James Van Der Beek, Joey King, Robert Wuhl, and Adam Sandler

 

 

But did you realise the real kick in your pants aspect to that ending?

Carl Reiner filmed that three days before he passed.  While that's his son Rob Reiner playing the grandson in bed asking him to come around tomorrow.

"As you wish" was his last lines delivered on camera.

 

[Raithe]

12 hours ago, Lexx said:

So a few days ago I've watched some of them animal / nature documentaries (Our Planet) on Netflix, and I have to say ....

... man, I ducking hate american-style documentaries. If I am watching a documentary, I don't want to just hastily consume. I want to take in fancy landscapes and learn new interesting facts and stuff like that, but american-style documentaries are always super fast, they cut all the time and jump around in different places and make up weird animal stories that (let's be honest) we all know are just made up based on available footage. It's like whatever they are showing can never be longer than 15 seconds and then they assume the watcher became bored of it.

One episode was about desert / steppe and holy crap, they jumped the planet from left to right and it took most of my concentration to keep track of where exactly we currently are on earth. Felt like there was no red line, it just went from here to there and back again.

The visuals are epic and super fancy, but the dramatic cuts and fast pacing just completely kill it for me.

/rant over.

There is a reason David Attenborough is the king of the natural world documentary...

[ShadySands]

Lupin, I'm generally liking it a lot but we've stopped watching after the 4th episode. Will probably pick it up again when/if the second season comes out.

Spoiler

Who doesn't make a copy of a tape just in case? Especially if you're handing it off to someone else. And how did they edit it so fast?

Things like that really take me out of the whole thing

[Amentep]

 

 

[BruceVC]

19 minutes ago, Amentep said:

 

 

Nightmare Wakes looks excellent, a pity we dont get Shudder in SA 

[Bartimaeus]

@majestic Is there like...any official information on how the Sailor Guardians' powers work? I always assumed that their powers only worked when they transformed, hence why they always need to, and hence why they can never really do anything special when untransformed...but I just saw Minako jump up roughly 15 feet into the air from the ground into a second story balcony untransformed which is the first I can recall a non-transformed character doing something like that, so what the heck was that? She just an NBA player or something? Also, I wish Minako would get more episodes focused on her, she'd have made just as good of a protagonist as Usagi.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

@majestic Is there like...any official information on how the Sailor Guardians' powers work? I always assumed that their powers only worked when they transformed, hence why they always need to, and hence why they can never really do anything special when untransformed...but I just saw Minako jump up roughly 15 feet into the air from the ground into a second story balcony untransformed which is the first I can recall a non-transformed character doing something like that, so what the heck was that? She just an NBA player or something? Also, I wish Minako would get more episodes focused on her, she'd have made just as good of a protagonist as Usagi.

No, not really, but some of them have special abilities outside of their tranformations. Minako is sometimes shown to be really athletic*, Rei is psychic, Makoto is superhumanly strong even when not transformed into Sailor Jupiter and Ami is super smart. It's just Usagi that is completely useless, but she's kind of the team's Ma-Ti, right? The heart of the gang, and the only reason they're all friends. Well and for some reason only Sailor Moon's attacks can actually destroy enemies (with some exceptions), so there Ma-Ti, take that.

Sailor Moon S gives the other girls really good spotlight episodes (Makoto's is best though, I think, such a sweet episode and it showcases just how much character growth is really hidden under the silly veneer of the show - that episode has Makoto talking to Usagi about her problems and Usagi not being a complete moron about it, just imagine that happen during season one), so there's something to look forward to for you then.

Oh and yeah, Minako** and Usagi being sort of similar is one of the nice touches of Sailor Moon. While technically it's Mamoru that represents Earth (albeit not directly), it makes sense for Moon and Venus to be similar. Earth and Venus are called the twin planets or a reason.

Oh and that episode with Minako trying to help her friends was a riot. There was something super hilarious about Minako and Chibi-Usa being the worst nurses in history.

*Mini-Spoiler: It's volleyball, not basketball. The anime even references Attack No. 1 at some point and there's a chance that the name Sailor V is a reference to Sain wa V!, a volleyball manga that Naoko Takeuchi maybe read during her childhood. The timeframe would fit, the name of Sailor V, her poses, her being a volleyball player and the immense popularity of women's volleyball at the time. Not sure if that was ever officiall "confirmed" or not, but it seems reasonable enough.

**I think the manga has Minako pretending to be Princess Serenity for a while, until Usagi gets her memories back. The inconsistencies can also be kind of explained because Sailor V was written before Sailor Moon and Naoko Takeuchi created Sailor Moon supposedly because a planned anime adptation for Sailor V was requested to have a larger cast. Not sure if that really went down like that, but Sailor V was integrated into Sailor Moon and V turned into Venus.

[Bartimaeus]

That nurse episode was the episode I last watched, and it was indeed awesome, and also the last few episodes in general have been a nice breath of fresh air compared to the Chibi-Usa-dominated episodes that have been constant for a while. Chibi-Usa is perfectly good as a supporting character, but some of the episodes where she is the main character have been a bit less enjoyable than the others - her personality just isn't the best for seeing events through her eyes.

Now that you mention it, all four other Sailor Guardians do have their special talents even untransformed (Rei being the most obvious with psychic/anti-witchcraft[?] stuff). It was still kind of shocking to see Minako literally just effortlessly jump straight to a second floor, though. Also, her being the OG explains why Minako seemed to have like a...competing-yet-unmentioned backstory to Usagi (given that she was active as a Sailor Guardian before Usagi ever was, plus she had Artemis all along who was giving commands/information to Luna and Usagi throughout the first season).

[majestic]

So, there's an Artemis focused episode left, one that focuses on Ami and a catalyst episode that kicks off the final arc of R. Looking forward to reading what you think of the end of R. And that Ami episode, because I love that one. I mean, yeah, I love pretty much everything that deals with Ami, even the bad ones, so that's not saying much. I just adore her.

I kind of "made up" with Chibi-Usa during the rewatch if that makes sense. The first time around I hated her so much for being an additional wedge between Mamoru and Usagi, making fun of Usagi because he broke up with her. Usagi sure can be annoying, she's silly, klutzy and can be really dense, but she sure never deserved any of that.

Eh, that reminds me, what did you think about Usagi trying to slap Chibi-Usa when she almost got all the other Guardians killed? I remember we discussed that episode at school when it aired, mostly whether or not it was grossly out of character for her to try and slap her silly.

[Bartimaeus]

I watched the Artemis one. I've been noticing that the poor thing's just been getting dunked on and ignored a lot this season, but that episode took it to a whole new level, . In regards to Ami and her episode...that's kind of funny - although I still like her, she's definitely the Sailor Guardian I like the least (Minako and Usagi are definitely my two favorites, but both Rei and Matoko are awesome as well, which leaves poor Ami...suffering in comparison). The episode central to her earlier in the season (S2E16. A Guardian's Friendship: Goodbye, Ami) was the first...and still the only episode I did not care for. Naturally, Ami is the Sailor Guardian I identify the most with - which is usually a bad sign for likability for me, . So yeah, don't necessarily expect me to love that episode, haha.

I actually have less of a problem with Chibi-Usa this season than I do Mamoru. Man, that boy has just been like a dark and depressing deadweight on the show since this arc started. It's been brutal with him. Hoping it resolves itself sometime soon (although his character will sadly probably never be quite what it was in S1 and the Makai Tree arc in S2 - he used to be such an oddly sharp yet ridiculous and comical character, and that seems to have gone completely away in favor of him just being like a serious and brooding anti-hero instead).

As for Usagi slapping Chibi-Usa...didn't seem that out-of-character to me, actually. Didn't Usagi spank the hell out of her in an earlier episode? Usagi's an emotionally unstable teenaged dummy that doesn't know to deal with children and upon a few occasions has resorted to physical violence (or threats of) to try to discipline/control them (I'm decently sure there were a couple of occasions even in S1 involving her threatening other children), and her job requiring her to be a fighter really probably only feeds into that - pretty sure she would've done it even more often if Mamoru and the other Sailor Guardians weren't there most of the time!

Edited January 21, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[ShadySands]

Surviving Death. I liked the first episode about near death experiences but then lost interest with the 2-parter about mediums.

 

 

[majestic]

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I watched the Artemis one. I've been noticing that the poor thing's just been getting dunked on and ignored a lot this season, but that episode took it to a whole new level, . In regards to Ami and her episode...that's kind of funny - although I still like her, she's definitely the Sailor Guardian I like the least (Minako and Usagi are definitely my two favorites, but both Rei and Matoko are awesome as well, which leaves poor Ami...suffering in comparison). The episode central to her earlier in the season (S2E16. A Guardian's Friendship: Goodbye, Ami) was the first...and still the only episode I did not care for. Naturally, Ami is the Sailor Guardian I identify the most with - which is usually a bad sign for likability for me, . So yeah, don't necessarily expect me to love that episode, haha.

Usagi gets a super hilarious payoff for all the abuse heaped on her by Rei and Luna (and the others to a lesser extent) in that epsiode too, so even if you don't care too much for Ami it might still work for you.

Relatability is a huge reason why I'm so fond of Ami, i.e. the exact opposite of your reaction to her.

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I actually have less of a problem with Chibi-Usa this season than I do Mamoru. Man, that boy has just been like a dark and depressing deadweight on the show since this arc started. It's been brutal with him. Hoping it resolves itself sometime soon (although his character will sadly probably never be quite what it was in S1 and the Makai Tree arc in S2 - he used to be such an oddly sharp yet ridiculous and comical character, and that seems to have gone completely away in favor of him just being like a serious and brooding anti-hero instead).

Yeah, that wasn't handled too well. We're supposed to understand that he does all that to help Usagi, but in the end why pick the worst possible way to go about it? It does get a bit better once R is resolved.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

As for Usagi slapping Chibi-Usa...didn't seem that out-of-character to me, actually. Didn't Usagi spank the hell out of her in an earlier episode? Usagi's an emotionally unstable teenaged dummy that doesn't know to deal with children and upon a few occasions has resorted to physical violence (or threats of) to try to discipline/control them (I'm decently sure there were a couple of occasions even in S1 involving her threatening other children), and her job requiring her to be a fighter really probably only feeds into that - pretty sure she would've done it even more often if Mamoru and the other Sailor Guardians weren't there most of the time!

I thought the entire situation to be understandable. Chibi-Usa's been annoying the entire time she was there, was constantly teasing Usagi, who had the proverbial rug pulled from under her when it comes to her relationship, and to top it all off Chibi-Usa was directly at fault for her friends getting into a situation that they might not get out of alive. Usagi is at the verge of losing everything she really cares about at this point. Who would not want to give into to anger at this point and simply lash out?

It's such a human reaction to want to slap Chibi-Usa silly at this point that I thought it was a really nice touch. I mean, obviously it's a good thing that Tuxedo Kamen was there to stop her (and as well he should, being older, more mature and much more grounded than Usagi - plus at fault for her emotional distress as well, silly bastard), but it makes the characters more relatable to have flaws and problems that other teenagers would also have.

[InsaneCommander]

On 1/19/2021 at 7:46 PM, ShadySands said:

Lupin, I'm generally liking it a lot but we've stopped watching after the 4th episode. Will probably pick it up again when/if the second season comes out.

  Hide contents

Who doesn't make a copy of a tape just in case? Especially if you're handing it off to someone else. And how did they edit it so fast?

Things like that really take me out of the whole thing

Spoiler

They should have immediately posted it in the internet, instead of reaching 2 million people that watched that tv program.

 

[ShadySands]

Exactly.

If the writers wanted the plan to fail you'd think that they could have easily come up with a better way than our genius is now a complete idiot for plot reasons.

Edited January 21, 2021 by ShadySands

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I've been binging the Boondocks and it's almost embarrassing to pick up on stuff I didn't really get when I was a kid. Overall I think it's aged pretty well, some characters feel like they could seamlessly fit in our world today.

I'm officially in the Obsidian Forums Sailor Moon watch group. Only one episode in right now but it's fun.

I don't think I've been watching live action series much lately. Maybe I'll give Lupin a spin.

[Hurlshort]

Outside The Wire - Military thriller with robots and a cyborg. Bit of a Heart of Darkness feel to it. Good action, good acting, and a solid pace made it an enjoyable watch. Nothing groundbreaking, but fairly fun.

[Lexx]

Is this the Sailor Moon forums now?

[Malcador]

14 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Is this the Sailor Moon forums now?

Surprised no anime thread here.

[Bartimaeus]

56 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Is this the Sailor Moon forums now?

[majestic]

Speaking of Sailor Moon, I've tried to find a German BD sample to see how the quality is, but I only stumbled upon a screencap from German TV Station SIXX that was uploaded to YouTube - alas only at 720p (SIXX transmits 1080i, I think, so that was the uploader's fault). Still, that video certianly looked way better than the DVDs, even if the video went through a screencap and a downscaling.

It is a bit of  a stretch to assume that the source used at SIXX is the same that's on the Blu Ray remaster. However that they used the Japanese intro and not the original German one means that this is indeed at least based on the Japanese remaster.

Here's the video, it's the Season 1 finale:

 

Boy is it weird to hear the dub again after 110 episodes of Japanese original with subtitles. Rei is SO much meaner to Usagi in the German dub than she is in the original. I mean she constantly ribs on Usagi, but the German Rei is downright insulting and mean every time.

And of course I watched the entire thing. Seeing it for the third time didn't help. That finale is one hell of a gut punch.

Edited January 22, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

Speaking of Sailor Moon, I've tried to find a German BD sample to see how the quality is, but I only stumbled upon a screencap from German TV Station SIXX that was uploaded to YouTube - alas only at 720p (SIXX transmits 1080i, I think, so that was the uploader's fault). Still, that video certianly looked way better than the DVDs, even if the video went through a screencap and a downscaling.

It is a bit of  a stretch to assume that the source used at SIXX is the same that's on the Blu Ray remaster. However that they used the Japanese intro and not the original German one means that this is indeed at least based on the Japanese remaster.

Here's the video, it's the Season 1 finale:

  Reveal hidden contents

Boy is it weird to hear the dub again after 110 episodes of Japanese original with subtitles. Rei is SO much meaner to Usagi in the German dub than she is in the original. I mean she constantly ribs on Usagi, but the German Rei is downright insulting and mean every time.

And of course I watched the entire thing. Seeing it for the third time didn't help. That finale is one hell of a gut punch.

I'm really not seeing what you're seeing - the level of detail looks quite bad. It is a YouTube video, but here're two screenshots upscaled (so you can easily compare them them at equal resolution via tab-switching).

Yours:

Mine:

Alternatively, yours upscaled via the same video renderer (MadVR) as mine:

Spoiler

Looks better than YouTube's native video renderer, but still not as good as the DVD.

To me, it's not even close, the level of detail on the DVD is undeniably superior (it seems obvious to me even from the smaller previews on here, but if you open up each image and look at them full size, it becomes even more apparent). The BD has been very poorly upscaled and blurred to all hell, and so many of the small details have been lost completely (some of that may, again, be because it's a YouTube video, but these are the same things the experts were saying, and I'd say they were right on the money) . Additionally, I often times prefer watching DVDs at their native resolution for the intended level of visual clarity since I'm usually (although not always) watching on a computer monitor anyways, which you can't do with bad 1080p upscales.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Bartimaeus