Tag: Good Watch

Sophmore Slump Watch: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm @SachaBaronCohen @RudyGiuliani

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Borat 2 inspired me to start a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime. I’m glad it was free.

Okay, that was a bit rough, but it makes for a good tagline, so I offer no apologies. Borat 2 wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t as good as his first movie. Maybe I was expecting too much. The charm of the first movie was Borat acting crazy and watching the honest reactions of unaware citizens. Too many people recognize him, so that’s much more difficult. The movie is amusingly self-aware of that fact.

The other strength of the first movie was that Borat never learned his lesson. He started the movie screwed up and ended it that way. Not so here. In Borat 2, Borat returns to the “U S and A” but through circumstance is paired with his daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova). The movie makes a story out of their relationship, and that’s why I don’t think it was as good. It’s supposed to be a feel-good story, but if you focus on the story as serious, the premise is far too depressing for a comedy.

But that’s okay, as long as we get Cohen’s over-the-top comedy, right? Well, there was only one cringe-worthy moment for me, which was when Tutar speaks to the group of Women Republicans. There was also a funny moment, let’s just say, related to abortion, but it wasn’t embarrassing. It was just a misunderstanding. I can get that from any comedy. I did laugh out loud on occasion, but not enough. In fact, at one point, I walked away from the TV to put water on for pasta. I wouldn’t be able to do that while watching the first movie.

As a side note, the Giuliani thing is greatly exaggerated, probably on purpose. I suspect it was intentionally overblown in order to hype the movie. It seems to have worked.

I hope I have better luck with the Expanse, the Boys, the Man in the High Castle, and Good Omens. If there’s time, I’ll add in Jack Ryan and Bosch.

I really wanted a proper sequel for Borat. As always, YMMV.

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Good Watch: Challenger @Netflix #GoodWatch

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Certain moments in history define a decade, such as John F. Kennedy getting shot and 9-11. Almost everyone remembers where they were when these events happened, or at least when they heard about them.

In 1986, I was a high school senior. I had transferred from a private (Catholic) high school to a public one, Walter Johnson, for my senior year. (I had to pay for my high school tuition, and knowing that I had to pay for college, needed a financial break.) I entered 5th period Chemistry class, and the teacher said, “The Challenger vaporized on launch.”

“Wasn’t that the one with a teacher on it?” asked a more dimwitted classmate.

“Yep. I don’t see how anyone could have survived.”

In 6th period architectural drawing class, the teacher brought in a TV, and we watched the coverage. I remember exactly how I felt. Challenger on Netflix brought all of that back to me.

The four-episode limited series covers the country’s excitement over the space shuttle program generally, and the Challenger mission in particular. It was the first time an “ordinary” citizen, in this case a teacher, was going into space. The thought around the country was that this was the first step towards space travel becoming an ordinary event for ordinary people. Everyone was in for one hell of a rude awakening.

I enjoyed this show. As always, YMMV.

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Scary Watch: Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons @netflix #crime #prison #GoodWatch

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Holy shit! This is some scary stuff. Netflix’s series, Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons, is well-named series currently consisting of four four-episode seasons, with each episode about 45 minutes long. It doesn’t take long to get scary. They start with a prison in Honduras where the guards lock themselves out and leave discipline to the most dangerous of prisoners. They even arm them, and the “warden” is a convicted killer. The interview with the 19-year-old is heartbreaking, but not in the way you might think. He belongs there. Another guy claims he acted in self-defense but still says he wish he hadn’t killed the deceased. Prison is worth than death for him.

From there, it goes to a Polish prison that keeps prisoners in cells 23 hours a day, Mexico, and a couple of overcrowded prisons in the Philippines. That’s just season one. Season two moves on to an understaffed prison in the Ukraine, a prison in Papua New Guinea where constant food shortages create chaos, and an evangelical prison (!?!?) in Belize.

None of these prisons are in the United States, but the show nevertheless reminds me of three concerns I have. First, do whatever you can to stay out of prison. The notion of spending any time there is terrifying for most of us, and the rest of us are just naive. Second, some people truly belong there. I don’t want them roaming the streets and posing a threat to society, so lock them up and make it uncomfortable. Third, we can’t forget that even the hardest prisoners still retain their humanity, and prison often breaks them. I don’t want prison to be easy, but forgetting their humanity assures us that they’ll continue to be a threat once their time in prison is done. We can’t leave most of them in there forever, so I want them returning to society with the assumption that they have a chance to get their lives back on track. It’s a puzzle for which I don’t have the answer, and unfortunately, as with all other complicated problems we face, each of us tends to look at only one side of the story and refuse to budge when presented with criticism. When we pass that sentiment on to our elected representative, we assure that this puzzle will never be solved.

My first draft of this post was written after having watched the first season, and it included a statement that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish it. I’m currently halfway through season 3 and will watch all of season 4. I think I actually got hardened to the imagery after a while. Considering what these prisoners go through, and thus what they may be hardened to, the thought of their release is scary.

This is a very tough watch, but it gives you a lot of food for thought. As always, YMMV.

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Neat Watch: Brave New World @peacockTV #GoodWatch

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NBC Peacock offered their original series, Brave New World, free of charge last weekend. I liked it a lot. The episodes are between 40-50 minutes long, and there are nine of them. From the Peacock website:

In a utopia whose perfection hinges upon control of monogamy and privacy, members of the collective begin to question the rules, putting their regimented society on a collision course with forbidden love and revolution.

In a sense, it was a horror movie for me, but I don’t expect everyone to feel that way. This is probably best described as science-fiction, though it’s also referred to as Utopian or Dystopian. I think of it as trying to achieve the same sort of vibe as Westworld. It’s a different story, and they carve their own path, so I’m not accusing them of doing anything wrong. Among the show’s stars are three actors with whom I’m familiar: Alden Ehrenreich, Hannah John-Kamen, and Demi Moore.

There’s a scene near the end of episode 4 that really hits me. I’m not sure if this is the intention, but it basically says (to me) that you don’t need soma (their mood-improving drug) because there’s music in the world. I doubt that was the precise intent, especially in light of a scene in episode 5, but that’s at least close (or part of) what they’re trying to say.

Is it good? Yes. I liked it a lot and will watch subsequent seasons. However, there’s too much good stuff on Peacock, as well as the other streaming services for which I’m already paying, for me to add another bill. I’ll probably join for a month and spend a weekend watching season 2 and a couple of other shows.

Unfortunately, if you want to watch it now, you’ll have to subscribe to Peacock’s pay service. As always, YMMV.

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Neat Watch: High Score @netflix #VideoGame #GoodWatch

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Netflix has a new limited series called High Score. It’s the story of video games, and it’s fascinating. It’s 6, 40-minute (or so) episodes, and it gives you a great sense of how much video games have evolved. For example, I played the stand-up games in the arcade. Almost 20 years later, I was working on the patents that made Final Fantasy possible. Only 2-1/2 episodes in, and they’ve already covered all that ground. I constantly asked, “Where do they have to go from here?” Every episode, they showed an innovation that changed everything. As a result, you see just how far along video game technology and culture have come in about 40 years.

Even for someone who doesn’t play video games anymore, this was a neat show. As always, YMMV.

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Heavy Watch: Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak @netflix #science #virus #flu #COVID-19 #pandemic #PickleRick #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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I do not want to discuss politics on this blog (or the GSLLC twitter stream), so I always do my best to avoid it. I will fail miserably tonight.

Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak is streaming on Netflix, and it’s a good look at the work that the relevant health workers and scientists do to keep the next, big, contagious disease at bay. This involves both the natural and political forces that work against vaccines and other forms of treatment. It’s a limited series of six episodes, each of which is less than an hour.

Much of the episodes discusses influenza (i.e., “the flu”). During the debates over SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19, I hear many people reference the flu, asking, “How is this any different than the flu? Why don’t we make a big deal out of the flu?” Forgetting the medical differences between those viruses, the key takeaway from the discussions on the flu is that we really should be making a bigger deal out of the flu, if for no other reason that it will help us develop better strategies against even more serious diseases. However, the flu is certainly worth wiping from the face of the planet. It’s bad enough on its own.

I’m a science guy, but for what it’s worth, I thought this was an important show. As always, YMMV.

Pickle Rick!
Pickle Rick! (Seriously, if you don’t like masks, make them fun.)

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Good Watch: Fear City: New York vs the Mafia @CurtisSliwa @netflix #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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Fear City: New York vs the Mafia is a 3-episode, limited-run series on Netflix. Each episode approaches one hour, so it’s a relatively quick watch. There’s nothing deceptive about its format; it’s a show about the mob in New York, but this show is from the perspective of those that fought back, including legal academia, law enforcement, and private citizens such as the Guardian Angels.

You either find these stories interesting or you don’t. FWIW, I find them interesting, and this show had my attention throughout. As always, YMMV.

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“Ummm, what?” Watch: Norsemen @netflix #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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Season 3 of Norsemen just hit Netflix. Here’s the good news. Though produced in Norway, it’s in English. Also, there are only six, 30-minute episodes, meaning it’s a waste of only three hours of your time. You wouldn’t know this if I weren’t a completionist that has to finish what he started.

The show’s primary problem is that it tries to strike a compromise between drama and comedy. Many shows pull that off, but Norsemen fails at both. First, it wasn’t funny. I suppose that the jokes are funny in Norway, but there’s very little that garnered even a snicker from me. I could tell they were trying, though, but that somehow made it worse; cringe-worthy even. Second, it fails dramatically because the characters aren’t meant to be likable, but the attempts at humor prevent you from truly hating the bad ones (i.e., you don’t get any satisfaction from a bad guy receiving his comeuppance). There’s also some behavior that’s just plain weird. It’s hard to articulate why, but even though these characters are ancient Vikings from the other side of the Atlantic, cultural differences don’t explain it. They just do some stupid things that are not part of the comedic side of the story. Maybe if the show were funny, the stupid things would have a purpose.

I would suggest that you watch one or two episodes. If the drama and comedy don’t work for you in those one or two episodes, I guarantee it wouldn’t be any different throughout the show. The show doesn’t evolve in the slightest.

As always, YMMV.

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Clever Watch: Interrogation @petersarsgaard @Melinda_McGraw @vincentdonofrio @EricRoberts @CBSAllAccess #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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Almost everyone who subscribed to CBS All-Access did so for Star Trek. I have no data to support that assertion beyond myself as a single data point, and I don’t care. As Bill Maher likes to say, “I don’t know it for a fact; I just know it’s true.” I can’t say that I minded having access to CBS during the NFL season when I first subscribed — I hadn’t yet replaced SlingTV with the far superior Hulu Live — but if it weren’t for Star Trek, I wouldn’t have subscribed. It turns out, that was shortsighted. Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone turned out to be pretty decent, and I was able to stream some movies that weren’t available elsewhere in my suite of streaming services. But now I’ve found something really good.

Interrogation was fascinating. It’s story premise is trite: A woman is killed, her drug-addict son is blamed, and his father believes his son didn’t do it. It’s methodology is just as simple but not so trite. With the exception of the first and tenth episodes that bookend season one, the eight other episodes can be watched in whatever order you choose. Each episode takes place somewhere between 1982 and 2005. Thus, episode 3 takes place one year before the murder, and episode 7 takes place one year after the last episode with the big reveal.

Why do this? Because over those decades, the case went cold, and when the police reopen a cold case, they don’t necessarily view the evidence chronologically. If they don’t, you shouldn’t. One thing I didn’t like is that I was given no guidance as to how to watch the episodes, making my choices completely arbitrary. I’d have liked for them to say, “If you want [experience X], watch in order [ABC], but if you want [experience Y], watch in order [CAB].” I’m not sure they could have provided meaningful alternatives in that way, but it’s something to work on for next season. While I started by watching them chronologically, I eventually settled on watching them in episode order. That was far superior.

You may be thinking, “Don’t other films and shows do this sort of thing?” Yes, but I don’t often see the time jumps as important at all to the story, and sometimes I find it distracting, bringing down the movie. That is, it’s sometimes nothing more than a cheap gimmick. Not so with Interrogation, which was a puzzle, and the back and forth through time was part of that puzzle. It’s the same thing, but still different. I see this as an example of a show that does time jumps correctly and with a purpose. In my opinion, that’s rare.

I should also mention that it has a good cast, including some solid veterans you’re bound to recognize (e.g., David Strathairn, Peter Sarsgaard, Melinda McGraw, Eric Roberts, and Vincent D’Onofrio playing a cop of course 🙂 ).

I really like this show and hope for a season 2. As always, YMMV.

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Meh Watch: Unsolved Mysteries (I’m soooo sorry!) @netflix #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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I never saw a single episode of the original Unsolved Mysteries, but many in my social media stream seem to love it. They seem very happy that it’s back and feel this iteration lives up to the old show. For that reason, I didn’t really want to post something that rains on their parade. I’ve done that enough sporadically through this blog. (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of the worst movies ever.) That said, I felt I had to talk about this one in order to offer up a huge mea culpa.

Mea Cupla!

The whole time I’m watching these episodes, I’m bored as hell, and that’s not a good thing. These are unsolved mysteries, one of which took place in Baltimore, which is relatively close to where I grew up. Watching these episodes is a public service. If there’s any chance of me helping to solve one of these mysteries, I’m going to have to watch them. So I did. All of them. But I was bored. I sincerely hope many of you disagree.

Except for the UFO episode. That’s bullshit. As always, YMMV.

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