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'Gommorah' on HBO is simply fantastic. Its about to Mafia in Naples Italy. Reminds me of 'The Wire' and 'The Sopranos', but the mobsters are much more vicious. The New York Times gives it fantastic reviews. Its dubbed into English well.
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Resident Alien, one of the best shows on TV right now imo.
The Watch, not the best version of the Terry Pratchett's characters, but good enough for me.
The Blacklist, this one is winding down but I'm still on the edge of my seat every time.
Wayne, kind of quirky and funny in a dark way, maybe tries too hard to be edgy idk.
Angel, it's funny that I have watched all of Buffy but never seen Angel.
Sanford & Son
YOU BIG DUMMY
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caprizio2049
I had not heard of this programme, and when I googled it I discovered it to be an American version of the London-based comedy Steptoe & Son, but I can't for the life of me imagine how this transferred to the US. S&S was a big hit in the UK in the 1960s -and I am old enough to remember when a 'Rag and Bone' man with a horse and cart did his rounds where I grew up- so these people were very real at the time. But it was a very strange programme - a comedy about two men living together, one of whom is crotchety and crude, the other convinced he can do better and is, or should be, a magnet to women. Men with unfulfilled sexual and romantic lives are fairly common in English comedy, even when there is no hint of bi-or homosexuality, just a profound inadequacy which merges with their daily lives, and as I write this, I now realize the Irish comedy, Father Ted, has similar themes, with the added kick it being about Catholic priests in rural Ireland. But is Sanford and Sons also vulgar, as was Steptoe & Son?
Sanford and Son was definitely wholesome Family Television . With a black family.1972-1977
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_and_Son
Def one of the best musical only TV theme songs - Fred, Lamont, Grady & Aunt Esther were great on that show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsE9aglVu4U
A new series of documenaries by Adam Curtis -Can't Get You Out of My Head- is now showing on the BBC iPlayer. I have not seen it, but last night watched the four-part series, The Mayfair Set, first shown on the BBC in 1999, and now on YouTube. It tells the story of the founder of the SAS, David Stirling, and the men he associated with at the Clermont Club in Mayfair -the asset strippers Jim Slater, James Goldsmith and 'Tiny' Rowland. It shows how these men broke into the ossified corporations and the safe but moribund City of London Stock Exchange to make share-owning appealing to individuals. They did it by identifyng corporations or companies that had failed to modernize, were over-staffed and under-performing. They bought shares, took control of the company, then stripped it of its worst assets, or more commonly, the expensive component known as wages, then reaped the profits as the share price soared. In the end, it was share dealing that became 'market activity' but was not in concrete terms, a business that created jobs, indeed, the only new business that was formed was the brokerage firms that were only concerned with shares- at the same time as this was happening, for example, Shell and BP created a new petroleum business in the North Sea that not only returned handsome profits to its shareholders, but created jobs and new assets, and just as Slater, Goldsmith and Rowland took their pirate business into the US and Africa, so in time, the Pension Funds they manipulated took back control of their assets and in time, Slater went bankrupt, and Goldsmith a little bit mad. It was an episode of some importance in the context of Reagan and Thatcher as Curtis argues it marked the moment when Governments lost control of theire economies. But as the section on Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky shows, it was often illegal too so that in time, the 'Corporate' giants took back control of the market. Four fascinating films -the first film on Stirling is weakest, and fails to take the story of the first war in the Yemen beyond 1965 when it can be argued the gains Saudi Arabia made were lost. It also fails to put neo-Liberalism and market economics into a broader context by referring back to people such as Hayek and von Mises and the Mont Pelerin Society. It never mentions the UK entering the Common Market/EEC, and places more emphasis on the Thatcher Government lifting Exchange Controls rather than mentioning the Big Bang as an additional factor in the creation of more liberal global markets.
But a compelling set of films of its time, with a comical entry at the end by Mohammed Fayed, and earlier, a reminder with regard to Milken, Drexel Burnham and Ivan Boesky, that Rudolph Giuliani Jr used to be a crusading lawyer.
The first film is here, the next three in the YouTube sidebar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayfair_Set
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...out-of-my-head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtgEXlWDpuY
I just finished watching the last episode of Your Honor.
What a load of crap.
Gomorrah looks good,but I hate the bother of the English subtitles'
Looks interesting. I came to know a group of retired and active SAS expats beginning in 1999 that hung out at the Nana Hotel in Bangkok. They had many tails to tell about David Stirling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stirling
I'm watching Riverdale, Black Lightning, Nancy Drew, Charmed, Batwoman, Altered Carbon Season 2, Star Trek Discovery, Snowpiercer
The Stand
M-O-O-N
The 2008 film which is the basis of the tv series, is brutal but compelling.Quote:
Originally Posted by dc_guy_75
The closest I came to people like that was on a uiversty course which included a Marine who had been involved in the Dhofar rebellion in Oman. The SAS were involved there, but ultimately the success of the war was down to troops that were sent there from Jordan and Iran. The SAS loves to wrap itself in myths, helped by the cult of anonymity they insist upon, but they are just a unit of 007's except that instead of saving the world from mad dictators are more likely to prop one up if he or she emerged in the UK (as is alleged of a plot to overthrow the govt of Harold Wilson), and are good for sabotage actions -wars are not won by acts of sabotage alone. According to the record, Stirling was 6 foot 6.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
And this is what? Dr Who? Does anyone here watch such crap?Quote:
Originally Posted by holzz
Agreed. The whole premise was full of deus ex machina red herring plot twists that make you suspend all disbeliefQuote:
Originally Posted by bruce_willy
That show is truly and utterly insane. Probably the last good mindfuck I had since the OA. The subtitles for me weren't a problem, maybe I watched a better subbed version, I dont have netflix.Quote:
Originally Posted by njjohn
On another note i've been watching Attack on Titan, i don't know if ppl on here are into anime.
On Netflix the dialog audio was overdubbed in English not subtitled. I think I would have preferred subtitles.Quote:
Originally Posted by decastro
Farrow v. Allen. Woody Allen king of the groomers.
No fan of Allen, but Mia Farrow as a mother begs many questions, and anyway, why has Allen never been charged or found guity of anything -lack of evidence? For an alternative view, try this-Quote:
Originally Posted by Torris
"HBO Doc About Woody Allen & Mia Farrow Ignores Mia’s 3 Dead Kids, Her Child Molester Brother, Other Family Tragedies” was the headline on one US showbiz site, above its review of the four-part documentary, Allen v Farrow, about the continuing battle between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, now entering its fourth decade. But this review was very much an outlier. In the vast main, reaction to the strongly anti-Allen series has been overwhelmingly positive, with Buzzfeed describing it as a “nuanced reckoning” and Entertainment Weekly comparing it to the recent documentaries about Michael Jackson and Jeffrey Epstein. This reaction is more of a reflection of the public’s feelings towards Allen – particularly in the US – than of the documentary, which sets itself up as an investigation but much more resembles PR, as biased and partial as a political candidate’s advert vilifying an opponent in election season."
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...t-omit-so-much
On BBC 1 I was disappointed in Bloodlines, a cop drama set in Northern Ireland with the Troubles as its backstory. Then the second episode 'took the lid off' as they say in drama circles, but I still find James Nesbitt overwrought.
On ITV, Unforgotten is now in its fourth, possibly last series, as another dead body from the past brings together four people with apparently different backgrounds who all have two things in common -their early careers and the dead body that turned up years later, much to their surprise and concern...this is a well-written series with the outstanding Nicola Walker, though by now it does have a formula, of the kind we await with keen anticipation the return of Line of Duty in a fortnights time.
Brooklyn 99- I am looking for better tv shows but this one helps me when I feel like shit so I've been binge watching it lately. If you don't want to pay attention to a plot line, want an easy laugh, and enjoy likeable characters, give it a shot.
Schitt's Creek- At first I had trouble getting into it but then I enjoyed it. I don't think I liked it as much as most people. May sound vague but it's lauded enough you can look up its premise.
Cobra Kai-A follow up on Karate Kid something like 30 plus years later. I watched the first two seasons. I think they've made a third but I haven't watched it. I was born in the 80s so Ralph Macchio and Karate Kid was fun when I was a kid. It's kind of a good premise if you're nostalgic for that era as it combines 80s nostalgia with soap opera-like drama. I don't think I really want to watch the third season.....get it a bodybag.....yeah.
The Circle, Channel 4 (UK).
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-circle
I watch this programme, even though I don't like any of the people on it. It is like snooping on the neighbours, but must be relevant to contemporary life as it could be a group of HungAngels posters marooned in an apartment block, able to communicate by text messaging, but never knowing if the person they are talking is real. The ultimate prize is £100,000 which goes to whoever survives through guile, cunning, maybe even personaity. I wonder what would happen if they had a transgendered person, or someone pretending to be transgendered?
Line of Duty (Jed Mercurio, BBC, Series 6, 2021)
I am a fan, and am not disappointed by the deceptively slow pace of the show so far. It has referred back to previous series through its characters and other links, which suggests to me this is going to be the last. There are some real life links too. In the links between corrupt officers and a paedophile ring in previous series (3), photoshopped images showed Jimmy Savile with one of LoD's former police officers. There was a reference last night to the as yet unsolved murder in 1987 of Private Investigator Daniel Morgan, who was found in the car park of a London pub with an axe sticking out of his head, while the focus in LoD on the murder of the journalist Gail Vella is linked to the real life murder of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose maiden name was...Vella.
Outlander on Netflix - Believe it for not there's a scene of a new mother on horseback who says she's bursting. One assumes she needs to pee but then cuts to a scene of her milking her breasts into a cup. Never though I'd see that short of porn. In the first half of season 1. Episode 5 or so if memory serves.
[QUOTE=Stavros;1960948]No fan of Allen, but Mia Farrow as a mother begs many questions, and anyway, why has Allen never been charged or found guity of anything -lack of evidence? For an alternative view, try this-
Allen’s celebrity and PR prowess was incredibly powerful. The DA’s in CT and NY refused to indict. In the New York case it was pure corruption to deny justice to Dylan Farrow on behalf of a favorite son of the Big Apple. The original NY investigator, who had won accommodations, was fired for insubordination when he spoke out on the cover up. That man’s supervisor quit in disgust over the politics of it all.
In CT the University psychologists who said Dylan was coached. Yet they destroyed their interview notes which other child psychologists who investigate these issues says NEVER happens.
In the end it took the #MeToo movement to settle the issue and now Allen has to release his movies overseas bc he is a pariah in America.
City on a Hill featuring a coked up Bahston FBI agent, Kevin Bacon. Best role of his since JFK
[QUOTE=Torris;1963366]Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I am not defending either in this case, but the evidence so far suggests nobody is immune, so your claim that Allen is or was somehow 'untouchable' does not ring true. If he was that way inclined, should there be more allegations, other than the question of the relatonship in the film Manhattan? And what does that prove, if anything? He has not been charged, or found guilty of a crime, those are the facts.
[QUOTE=Stavros;1963421]You obviously haven’t watched the four episodes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Torris
[QUOTE=Torris;1963540]No, because I don't subscribe to streaming companies. I wonder why there are four rather than one, and I note you seem to dismiss the article by Lucy Mangan that I linked before which does at least raise questons about Mia Farrow and her intentions. I don't know the truth of this, and for what it's worth Mia Farrow comes across as a strident champion of her own views and is as repulsive as Woody Allen, whose films I have considered over-rated for most of his career. I don't think he can be compared to Michael Jackson, so this all really turns on an allegation that has never been proven and probably never will be. I sometimes think this is just a very public, and a very bitter argument between two people whose relationship fell apart and whose acrimony we are supposed to find 'interesting'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Westworld, Season 1 (2016)
This elaborate extension of the feature film is an interesting take on the philosophical issues in FH Bradley 's Appearance and Reality, while one of the main characters having said in one episode 'we are the Gods here', in another quotes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It is an odd thing to quote as elsewhere he says one aim of the Park called Westworld is to enable humans to act out their violent fantasies without guilt or real damage -all the 'Hosts' that are killed can be patched up and returned to the park-whereas the original intention behind Frankenstein was to clone a human being, not a monster. Indeed, the assumption that if free to act outside of any law or moral, people will pursue either sexual gratification or violence is a thin plot line, just as the 'Sentient' Robot is the stuff of numerous films and TV series, with rebelllion being a popular theme, so in this sense there is nothing original in Westworld. For that reason, and because it took me five episodes before I could take any interest, but never in the characters, I won't be watching the succeeding seasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_and_Reality
The Queen’s Gambit (2020)
I know nothing about chess, and have not read the book from which this series was made. I enjoyed it even though most of it is predictable, though it sort of deals with addiction which was a problem for the author of the book. I was hoping for more clarity on how Beth becomes an orphan but other than that it was a friend’s Netflix account so it cost me nothing other than my time.
Mare of Eastown (HBO, 2021)
Life in Pennsylvania is grim, and not even Kate Winslet with her RADA-via-Hollywood accent can rescue this miserable slice of American pie from the predictable sequences, the unpredictable reveal at the end, the vacuous music, or the creepy feeling that if one girl had not become so demanding, indeed, threatening, the main story line might never have happened. That the women to blame are either rescued or not by so flawed a woman as Mare does not suggest 'women' in America, dare I say the 'biological majority' -?- are having the best of times. As for the Roman Catholic Church with its cult of Mary, one is inclined to sing- 'so long Marianne, don't come back to us again...'.
I watched the whole thing in one session. And I do like Kate Winslet, and I will never forget the sight of her nude, voluptuous body 'dripping' in Holy Smoke (1999 and much under-rated along with her early work), but she can do better than this.
Vigil (World Productions, for the BBC, 2021)
Recruitment levels to the Royal Navy just, well, sank like a stone.
Zero Days: Nuclear Cyber Sabotage (2017)
This documentary by Alex Gibney was broadcast on BBC Four in the excellent Storyville series. It is a disturbing account of the use of internet worms to sabotage Iran's nuclear development programme. It worked so well that even though Iran suspected Israel and the US as being responsible they had no proof because the 'Stuxnet' worm was all but invisible -but then the Israelis went in on their own, and now the whole world knows what Stuxnet is or was and more worryingly, realizes that there are software programmes that can shut down power grids, railways, broadcasting, the internet.....what 'we' used against 'them' they can now use against us.
This is the link in the UK-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...cyber-sabotage
Just started watching the first season of "The Cleaner "
IMHO ,very witty and well done comedy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cl...ish_TV_series)
The Tower (ITV)
Dire, the only word I can find to describe this. And another Lesbian detective, as in Vigil. Makes no difference when the plot and the script are this bad.
https://www.itv.com/hub/the-tower/10...SAAEgKQwvD_BwE
Impeachment: American Crime Story (2021)
I watched the first episode and part of the second, when I decided that if such horrible people are going to parade their insecurities and shit-eating proclivities on screen, they can do it without me. Imagine some people may actually pay to watch this! So Bill lied about having sex with that woman, who cares? Was it a threat to national security? Were the Russians involved? And the woman, who has a producer credit in this, had already had an affair with a married man before 'falling' for Bill. Much as I like Sarah Poulson, and she does a good job, I assume, of portraying what a grasping, resentful scheming monster Linda Tripp was, I just don't need to know more.
One dreads the thought of a 'drama' featuring Cry-Baby Trump, how many series will that need? And will they get Britney Spears to play Ivana Marie?
Spend the money on some real drama, and real crimes, if that is the brief.
Apple's "Invasion", "Titans" and "Doom Patrol" (HBO Max).....