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[hepcat]

I enjoyed Mowgli as well. It had its flaws, but I enjoyed what one reviewer referred to as the moral contradictions on display in both the animal and human world. It wasn’t a tale rooted in the assured viewpoint of colonialism, like the source material. It pretty much removes that context and replaces it with a simple reverence for compassion, although not compassion born of weakness and subservience.

The hunter was the only character I felt they short shrifted, as he ended up being poorly fleshed out. Even though he ultimately proved to be the turning point for Mowgli in his search to belong.

Critics seem to be rather meh on it, but I enjoyed it a great deal, as I said.

[Rumpy]

Oh yeah, the moral contradictions is one thing they really excelled at with it, I think moreso than the Disney movie, and that's partly how they made everything feel quite wild and savage, and exploring the human world which added contrast.

And this is proof of why critics and viewers don't always agree

[hepcat]

I can still see and understand the issues some of the critics have with it. I just didn’t let them stand in the way of my enjoying it.

[stessier]

Anyone else watching Norm MacDonald has a Show? As with all things Norm it is uneven but sometimes it is hilarious. And some top notch guests.

I have to disagree. I could only make it through the first two. They were a horrible, disjointed, and unfunny mess.

[msteelers]

Anyone else watching Norm MacDonald has a Show? As with all things Norm it is uneven but sometimes it is hilarious. And some top notch guests.

I have to disagree. I could only make it through the first two. They were a horrible, disjointed, and unfunny mess.

Which is Norm's style. Most people will probably not like it, but I thought it was hilarious. As Jaymann said, it's uneven at times, but overall I enjoyed what I saw. I think I'm only 3 episodes in though. My TV watching time is almost nonexistent at the moment.

In other news, a holiday version of Nailed It is out.

[hepcat]

Why hasn’t anyone told me that the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is this entertaining? Or that the great Michelle Gomez is in it?

[Isgrimnur]

The wife and I are three episodes in. good to see Bronson Pinchot taking a break from his audiobook work to give us a performance as the principal.

[hepcat]

Holy crap, that’s Balki???

[Isgrimnur]

Yes

[YellowKing]

Wow, didn't even recognize him. Looked like a perfect stranger.

[Zaxxon]

I see what you did there...

[YellowKing]

I hesitated to even post it, but ultimately someone had to.

[hepcat]

Just finished season 1 of Sabrina and it has to be one of my favorite new shows of the year. It is not what I was expecting, that’s for sure. If you enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, this is the closest you’re going to get to those shows. Thankfully, season 2 is only about 4 months away.

[YellowKing]

Halfway through THE INNOCENT MAN and really enjoying it so far. It's a true-crime doc based on a non-fiction John Grisham novel about the murders of two women in a small town in Oklahoma. While it still has some of the familiar trappings of the genre, it feels less sensationalistic than other recent docs I've watched.

[Zaxxon]

Also, I feel the need to point out that Travelers S3 is now out.

[hepcat]

Bird Box? More like TURD Box, know what I'm sayin' ? Huh, huh?

...sorry, I couldn't stop myself. I'm a truly broken man.

Bird Box wasn't horrible...but it was pretty meh. At least to me.

[Pyperkub]

Mrs Kub and I enjoyed Dumplin' as a light, feel good growing up story.

[stessier]

Derby Derry Girls was very entertaining.

Edit because of autocorrect.

[msteelers]

I really enjoyed Bird Box. If you like A Quiet Place then I think you would enjoy this one too.

[$iljanus]

The new and I think final season of Voltron is on and I'm gonna miss it when I finally finish it up.

The Bodyguard from the BBC is worth checking out and it's a short self contained season.

Haven't watched the standalone Black Mirror episode yet but the interactive features are intriguing.

[MonkeyFinger]

That would be "Bandersnatch" which I went through last night and saw two different endings. Gonna need to try again soon, it would seem.

[McNutt]

I was expecting Bird Box to suck and it didn't. I give credit to Bullock and Malkovich for keeping me entertained. It wasn't great. Watchable though.

Spoiler:

Sometimes the lack of a reveal works, such as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Here, not so much. I don't necessarily need to see something, but I need to understand more about this. Did Hell open up? Is this some alien attack? Ghosts? It left a little too much for me to guess at for my tastes.

[Pyperkub]

Just finished season 1 of Sabrina and it has to be one of my favorite new shows of the year. It is not what I was expecting, that’s for sure. If you enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, this is the closest you’re going to get to those shows. Thankfully, season 2 is only about 4 months away.

The thing missing from it which Buffy had is humor. Like most Netflix F/SF shows, it takes itself too seriously.

It's still a really good show, but it would be better with more of a sense of humor too.

[hepcat]

True, it was sorely missing the Whedon touch when it comes to sly humor, but it had just about everything else.

[JCC]

I am only about mid-way through the first season - but I find the assertion that the show needs humor ridiculous. Michelle Gomez makes me laugh in virtually every scene she is in. Both of Sabrina's Aunts are dead funny. Richard Coyle likewise is rocking it with both intentional and unintentional comedy in nearly every scene. I laugh at Sabrina (in a good way) a ton.

[Paingod]

Spoiler:

Sometimes the lack of a reveal works, such as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Here, not so much. I don't necessarily need to see something, but I need to understand more about this. Did Hell open up? Is this some alien attack? Ghosts? It left a little too much for me to guess at for my tastes.

My biggest gripe, too.

Spoiler:

My best guess was demonic forces pushing through to reality, but to what end - I don't know. Maybe some sort of Cthulhu action? Lovecrafted loved to use insanity and mystery, but always revealed something of his monsters.

[hepcat]

I am only about mid-way through the first season - but I find the assertion that the show needs humor ridiculous. Michelle Gomez makes me laugh in virtually every scene she is in. Both of Sabrina's Aunts are dead funny. Richard Coyle likewise is rocking it with both intentional and unintentional comedy in nearly every scene. I laugh at Sabrina (in a good way) a ton.

But I think that humor is derived more from the way those two master comedic actors deliver a straight line. Not the actual lines they're uttering. I could watch Gomez read the phone book and chuckle, she's that damn good.

[Pyperkub]

I am only about mid-way through the first season - but I find the assertion that the show needs humor ridiculous. Michelle Gomez makes me laugh in virtually every scene she is in. Both of Sabrina's Aunts are dead funny. Richard Coyle likewise is rocking it with both intentional and unintentional comedy in nearly every scene. I laugh at Sabrina (in a good way) a ton.

Not in the way that Spike/Drusilla & Xander were however. They get a few bits here and there, but it doesn't run through the show as much as I'd like. It's much more of a horror show with some snarky asides than a teen comic with some horror.

On the other hand, those characters didn't really develop (or even appear, for Spike & Drusilla) in Buffy until season 2, so...

My favorite initial bit from season 2, when the show truly became the Buffy we came to love - when Spike kills the "Anointed One" and calls him the Annoying One. That still completely cracks me up when I remember it.

[hepcat]

I wish they'd release Buffy and Angel in high def. But I'm not even sure they can. At least not without a significant cost for the upgrade.

[Lordnine]

Bird Box

Spoiler:

Sometimes the lack of a reveal works, such as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Here, not so much. I don't necessarily need to see something, but I need to understand more about this. Did Hell open up? Is this some alien attack? Ghosts? It left a little too much for me to guess at for my tastes.

My biggest gripe, too.

Spoiler:

My best guess was demonic forces pushing through to reality, but to what end - I don't know. Maybe some sort of Cthulhu action? Lovecrafted loved to use insanity and mystery, but always revealed something of his monsters.

Spoiler:

I got a definite Lovecraft vibe to the monsters so I didn’t mind the lack of a true reveal. Just seeing the Great Old Ones was supposed to be enough to drive most people insane so it seemed right in line with that. You do see the drawings of the one insane person in the house. Many of which have the Cthulhu vibe to them.

In the novel the creatures are never clearly described but it is hinted that they appear different to each person who looks at them. This is another Lovecraft trope, even if you do see the monster; you can’t comprehend how it actually looks because it is so far beyond your understanding of reality. The other thing that is interesting is that the monsters in the book are not actually hostile to us. They barely even notice we are here. There is something extra creepy about that.

[Jaymann]

Spoiler:

Sometimes the lack of a reveal works, such as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Here, not so much. I don't necessarily need to see something, but I need to understand more about this. Did Hell open up? Is this some alien attack? Ghosts? It left a little too much for me to guess at for my tastes.

My biggest gripe, too.

Spoiler:

My best guess was demonic forces pushing through to reality, but to what end - I don't know. Maybe some sort of Cthulhu action? Lovecrafted loved to use insanity and mystery, but always revealed something of his monsters.

My only gripe was:

Spoiler:

Two young (blindfolded) children surviving a dump into the rapids.

[Paingod]

Spoiler:

Sometimes the lack of a reveal works, such as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Here, not so much. I don't necessarily need to see something, but I need to understand more about this. Did Hell open up? Is this some alien attack? Ghosts? It left a little too much for me to guess at for my tastes.

My biggest gripe, too.

Spoiler:

My best guess was demonic forces pushing through to reality, but to what end - I don't know. Maybe some sort of Cthulhu action? Lovecrafted loved to use insanity and mystery, but always revealed something of his monsters.

My only gripe was:

Spoiler:

Two young (blindfolded) children surviving a dump into the rapids.

I didn't want to gripe that.

Spoiler:

I don't think I could have watched it if the kids drowned.

[McNutt]

There was one scene that almost affected me:

Spoiler:

The mother knew that one of the kids was going to have to look. It had to be done. The little girl knew it and she could tell that the mom was going to pick her and she had almost accepted that. I was ready for that heartbreaking decision to be made and then, it wasn't. "Nobody's going to look." Arghhh! That was the easy way out and it was a letdown. Sophie actually made her famous choice and that scene still haunts me because there was no easy way out.

There's another example of this in The Guns of Navarone. The team discovers that the hot girl is actually working for the Germans. Maybe she had no choice, but she had to be killed and Gregory Peck knew it. As he was brining himself to shoot her, another team member shoots her. That scene would have been so much better if Peck had to do the dirty deed.

[Rumpy]

So, watching Narcos: Mexico and I'm not finding it nearly as engaging as the original series. It feels extremely watered down from the original Narcos format, almost like it was originally going to be an unrelated series , given the Narcos billing late in the game. One of the things I loved about the original series was its pseudo-doc format with the narration giving us an entertaining historical play-by-play. There's not much of that going on in the new series, more like it has been done as an afterthought rather than much planning put into it as part of the story, which is why it makes me feel like it was likely an unrelated series at some point.

[hepcat]

It's all about Don Neto. Just relax and let him work his magic.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I watched Bird Box last night and was pretty underwhelmed. I'm not sure why they didn't stick more closely to the book; instead, the plot (especially the set-up) is rushed through and adds a bunch of pointless characters. Also, why all the running (and tripping)? As long as the blindfolds are on, they should be ok, right? I give it a generous 4/8 tentacles.

[YellowKing]

I've been hooked on "Slobby's World," which is about Slobby Robby, a guy who runs an 80s-90s retro shop in Long Beach.

I started watching it because I love 80s pop culture, and I thought it would be fun to see some of the old stuff he was selling, etc. But then I got hooked when they started delving into markets I never knew existed like collecting vintage Polos or turning Gucci belts into necklaces.

This guy goes to flea markets, buys crap for $5, flips it for $150 in his shop. If you like people with WAY too much money buying stupid shit, it's captivating.

[stessier]

Derby Girls was very entertaining.

I was re-reading and noticed auto-correct sucks. It's Derry Girls.

[gameoverman]

I watched Bird Box last night and was pretty underwhelmed. I'm not sure why they didn't stick more closely to the book; instead, the plot (especially the set-up) is rushed through and adds a bunch of pointless characters. Also, why all the running (and tripping)? As long as the blindfolds are on, they should be ok, right? I give it a generous 4/8 tentacles.

I had 3, well 4, issues with this movie. One is a problem I see a lot, that is flashing back to an earlier time. If I see two characters at the start, then the movie fades to black with a title card saying "6 months earlier" then I know those two people will survive whatever happened back then AND no one else who is with them will. So a movie like that needs the flashback events to be so interesting, so compelling, that it doesn't matter that the audience already knows who survives. Bird Box fails there. I didn't like that the rules of the story changed. If the movie makes a point of showing XYZ happens when you look, that movie can't later say 'except sometimes it doesn't' without ruining the whole thing. A third thing I didn't like is if you can't see the thing, how do you know they aren't already inside the building? How do you know that by opening a door the thing didn't walk/float/fly in? We, the audience, just have to assume there are off limits areas, like vampires can't come in without being invited?

Lastly, and this might just be me who feels this way, if I had to do everything blindfolded I'd frickin' crawl! It's safer to crawl around until you get to the spot you need to be then you can stand up again. If you are walking and trip blindfolded you can seriously fark yourself up. I like end of the world stories but this one just feels poorly thought out. A Quiet Place feels like it has Lord of the Rings level world building when compared to Bird Box.

[msteelers]

A third thing I didn't like is if you can't see the thing, how do you know they aren't already inside the building? How do you know that by opening a door the thing didn't walk/float/fly in? We, the audience, just have to assume there are off limits areas, like vampires can't come in without being invited?

I don't think it's that so much as it's a calculated risk by the survivors. The audience isn't assuming anything, the characters have to take a calculated risk that the creatures aren't inside the home. Whenever they entered a new area, wasn't it only one character that took off their blindfold to look before telling the others it was safe?