The Official BBO Netflix Movie/Show Referral Thread

[y66]

"Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice". Wow. Available for rent on iTunes and Amazon.

[melbob]

The Wire on AmazonPrime

Ozark on Netflix

[y66]

Borgen is now streaming on Netflix. We watched it a few years ago on DVD. It got rave reviews in my household of 2.

[PassedOut]

Constance and I enjoyed Charlie Kaufman's Netflix film I'm Thinking of Ending Things, based on Iain Reid's novel.

[y66]

We watched seasons 2 and 3 of "The Leftovers" on HBO after I read a positive review. My wife's observation, which I mostly agree with, is that it would have made a good movie or 3-part series but was too uneven to hold her interest for 2 seasons. We both liked the last episode a lot.

[y66]

We watched "Bellingcat", the documentary, on Netflix. Very well done. Story here.

[y66]

We're watching The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. Two thumbs up in my household of two.

[Winstonm]

We're watching The Handmaid's Tale....oops, my bad....that's the U.S. Senate holding Barrett's hearings.

[y66]

I enjoyed Aaron Sorkin's "The Chicago Seven" on Netflix. The performances by Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rylance as William Kunstler and Frank Langella as Hoffman's "illegitimate father" are fun to watch as are the exchanges between the Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden characters.

 

From Joseph Berger's NYT story (2019) about the University of Texas at Austin's acquisition of Hoffman's papers:

 

Robert H. Abzug, a professor of history and American studies at the University of Texas, said he was particularly intrigued by documents that outlined the changes in Mr. Hoffman during his years at Brandeis.

 

He came to the school as a relatively conventional student, wearing a jacket and tie, winning spots on the tennis and wrestling teams, even becoming the tennis team’s captain. But two unconventional professors, Dr. Abzug said, exerted significant influence: Herbert Marcuse, a Marxist who advocated social revolutions, and Abraham Maslow, a psychologist who argued that fostering human growth and self-actualization was more important than repairing neuroses.

 

Drawing on their ideas during rising ferment among the young, Mr. Hoffman felt liberated and was able to “unleash his personality” and lead “the theatrics ring of the New Left,” Dr. Abzug said. An example in the collection is a poster featured during the 1968 Democratic convention protests picturing Mr. Hoffman with an obscenity scrawled on his forehead and the caption: “The system is falling apart by itself. We’re just here to give it a little push.”

 

Mr. Hoffman’s style, Dr. Abzug said, entertained young people drawn to the movements of the 1960s and helped break down a stodgy culture as quickly as the ideas of more serious-minded radicals like Tom Hayden.

 

“It would have been a different era without the yeast of the Yippies and his making fun of a culture that was about to be challenged,” Dr. Abzug said.

It would have been a different movie too.

[hrothgar]

Blumhouse is releasing a cross up between

 

Freaky Friday and

Friday the 13th

 

in a couple weeks

 

I think this looks incredibly amusing (in a stupid stupid stupid sort of way)

[barmar]

We're watching The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. Two thumbs up in my household of two.

I binged it over the weekend. Anya Taylor-Joy deserves an Emmy nomination, she was fantastic in an incredibly intense role.

 

The story itself is a bit incredulous.

[Elianna]

I binged it over the weekend. Anya Taylor-Joy deserves an Emmy nomination, she was fantastic in an incredibly intense role.

 

The story itself is a bit incredulous.

 

I agree that it is quite fantastical, but it's very engaging. What I found most surprising is how interesting they made the chess matches to audiences that aren't interested in chess. (Speaking for myself, I know how the pieces move. I could play a game following the rules. And that's it.) I don't know how the games were to anyone who knows anything about chess, but they supposedly had Kasparov as a technical consultant, so maybe the games are challenging, plus my guess is that they got the depictions of the Soviet System correct (even though all the players and events were fictional).

 

I wish that someone could do something similar with bridge. Maybe based on Sachar's book?

[Gerardo]

I agree that it is quite fantastical, but it's very engaging. What I found most surprising is how interesting they made the chess matches to audiences that aren't interested in chess. (Speaking for myself, I know how the pieces move. I could play a game following the rules. And that's it.) I don't know how the games were to anyone who knows anything about chess, but they supposedly had Kasparov as a technical consultant, so maybe the games are challenging, plus my guess is that they got the depictions of the Soviet System correct (even though all the players and events were fictional).

 

I wish that someone could do something similar with bridge. Maybe based on Sachar's book?

 

The story is a stretch, and she rose very fast (win all games state champ at first try?).

There is a significant list of children/teenagers with outstanding results, so not THAT much of a stretch.

 

But the youngest World Champion was 22 when he got the title.

 

Of course, beating the World Champion in a game, while quite an achievement, doesn't make you World Champion.

The games in the show are replays of actual games.

The adjournement (by the way, killed by the rise of the computers as players and analyzers) scenes were spot on.

Players getting their rest while teams of people analyze the position and present their finding to the player.

The Soviets had the upper hand here, in quality and quantity.

The book is based on an early 1980s novel by Walter Tevis, so missed the rise of the computers.

 

I was interested in the show as a chess amateur patzer, but it was quite good in general. The protagonist was superb.

 

Small peeve: The mexican commentator naming the chess piece "caballero", which is a literal translation of "knight"

but does NOT apply here, correct translation being "caballo" (horse).

 

[y66]

"The Hour" is very good. Streaming at acorn.tv

[y66]

We watched the first episode of season 4 of "The Crown" last night. Josh O’Connor as Charles is very good, sniveling and all.

[thepossum]

Just watched American Factory. Would recommend but also suggest watching very sceptically. Hoping someone else has some views on it

[y66]

We just watched Bridge of Spies. Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance are so good. For rent.

 

We've been watching Spiral (Engrenages) Season 7. Gritty and stressed out as ever. The Escoffier, Roban and Karlson characters have become even more interesting. In French. On HMZ.

[Winstonm]

We just watched Bridge of Spies.

 

 

 

Would it help?

[y66]

Would it help?

It might.

[barmar]

I've been watching A Teacher on Hulu, but mainly because I've always liked Kate Mara (I quit House of Cards when they killed her off).

[y66]

From Manohla Dargis' review of Collective:

 

There’s no letup in the staggering documentary “Collective,” no moment when you can take an easy breath, assured that the terrible things you’ve been watching onscreen are finally over. The story begins with a tragedy in Romania that consumed the country and toppled the government. The villains and heroes involved — the bureaucrats and doctors, journalists and politicians — seem too much like Hollywood types to be true. But the story and its outrages are real, from the venal pharmaceutical company owner to the whistle-blowers who had all the receipts.

 

The original tragedy started the night of Oct. 30, 2015. A metal band, Goodbye to Gravity, was performing in a popular Bucharest club called Colectiv when somebody set off some pyrotechnics. Cellphone video shot that night shows just how fast the fire spread after sparks hit the club’s soundproofing material. Flames engulfed the ceiling, and smoke filled the club, which was in the basement of an old factory and had no fire exits. The immediate death toll was 27, with many more injured. Four months after the fire, the death toll had risen to 64. Among the many anguished questions: Why were victims with seemingly manageable injuries dying?

Some documentaries reassure you that the world is better when they’re over (inequity has been exposed); others insist it could be better (call the number in the credits to see how). “Collective” offers no such palliatives. Instead, it sketches out an honest, affecting, somewhat old-fashioned utopian example of what it takes to make the world better, or at least a little less awful. The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice. But as “Collective” lays out with anguished detail and a profound, moving sense of decency, it takes stubborn, angry people — journalists, politicians, artists, activists — to hammer at that arc until it starts bending, maybe, in the right direction.

Very well done. Available for rent but not on netflix.

[barmar]

In 2003 a similar incident occurred at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island. In this case 100 people died and 230 were injured. This was the second deadliest nightclub fire in US history, the worst was the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire.

[Winstonm]

We binged Ozark on Netflix. Quite a headspinner and hard to stop watching.

 

If you are over 65, I highly suggest "The Kaminsky Method" on Netflix - Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin are in rare form.

[Gerardo]

Similarly in Argentina in 2004: República Cromañón nightclub fire

[y66]

Shameless plug for my favorite cops: ‘Spiral’ Review: A Peerless Policier Takes On Its Final Case

 

France’s answer to “The Wire” and “Law & Order” begins its final season on MHz Choice.