Definitely feels like a theater film. Going this weekend I hope.

As someone who has never had anything to do with Dune, sell me on it.

Regardless of how great the book/story is, bad adaptation, special effects, acting etc. will kill it (e.g. Lynch movie). I'm cautiously optimistic but will wait for early reviews.

(The TV series adaption was pretty good IMO).

Best I can tell you about the book, it's consistently in the top-25 of best Sci-Fi books written (so it's you if you don't like the story or the writing style). The first in the series is the best. The others got too weird for me. Herbert's son continued writing but they are okay at best (but provide a great deal of background which is great).

Sandworms, funky drug called Spice, Sardaukar, sexy Witches with mind control, sadistic Barons, native women with pretty blue eyes (and knives) etc. Traitors, faithful servants etc ... what's not to like!

The new version won't have this



But it does have Aquaman, Thanos, Poe Dameron, Drax, and that scientist from Thor in it.

The best way I can put it is it's a great sci-fi story with political intrigue, religion, determinism, and some pretty cool themes. Terrific worldbuilding and characters.

It's sci-fi where the sci-fi part isn't the most important aspect. Kind of like how Game of Thrones is a fantasy show but that's not the crux of it.

The novel is terrific although hasn't aged as well since newer standards in the genre have hurt it. But this is just a movie and has gotten great reviews so far. I think it's worth investing a couple hours for.

Great post RM

I stopped 3 minutes in to come here and say, HOLY SHIT! I'M IN! HEART IS IN THE THROAT! BIG DUNE FAN BY THE WAY!

The first book of the Dune series is a masterpiece. Second book is just okay, not great. Third book, which I'm partway through, is a lot better, but isn't at the level of the first one, which is no shame.

Didn't even realize Curb Your Enthusiasm was coming back. Pretty good first episode with Albert Brooks. She plopped.

The episode in Schitts creek where Patrick comes out to his parents was amazingly well done. One of the best 30 minutes of TV I have watched.

Anyone watch Yellowstone? I thought this first 2 hours was a huge letdown after the way the last season ended.

Really looking forward to the Wheel of Time show. I look forward to it more and more with every clip they drop. It is not going to be an exact retelling of the books and it looks like quite a bit may be changed, but it still looks damn good.

The new Dexter season started too, I haven't found the time to watch it yet.

My 81-year old father was excited to watch it, parts of it were filmed near him and he chatted up some of the crew during his dog walks. He has no clue what the show is about. I tried to explain to him, but it may have been more fun if I didn't.

Edit: Will watch Yellowstone shortly too. I am bracing for a slower pace, that's kind of how that show goes sometimes. I just need to be in the right mindset. The Yellowstone prequal set in the late 1800s looks intriguing too.

My wife and I were in the town where they filmed the new season of Dexter a few weeks ago. A lot of stores had Dexter-themed shirts and souvenirs.

Have we talked about comedians on Netflix? I'm a big fan of Nate Bargatze. Great delivery. Clean, family-friendly humor. I'd recommend starting with S1E1 of The Standups. He leads off that series and has a great half-hour set. The rest of the series isn't worth it, IMO. After that, he's got a couple of specials. The Tennessee Kid is one. I think there's another one but I don't remember the name.

Also, Dmitri Martin has a smart, punchy observational humor. He's got a couple of specials on there. Both are good.

Lastly, I don't know if the humor translates to every American but British comedian James Acaster's Repertoire was hilarious to me. You might want closed captioning. His accent, word velocity, and a little bit of a speech thing make it a little tough to hear but I think it's worth it.

We did. Really fun to have him back. The episode was good, obviously setting up the season, but Hall is amazing as always.

Been flipping through some youtube and watching eating/food shows. I'm glad I found them as we obviously won't be getting anymore Bourdain shows and Zimmern has been dropped by Travel/Discovery channel.

Some definitely matches Bizzare foods but non has matched the sedate, interview style of Bourdain.

Have you watched "Somebody Feed Phil" and "Taste The Nation"? I highly recommend "Somebody Feed Phil" especially.

Good to see there's another fan here. I have watched Phil but not Taste the Nation. Will have to check that one out.

Currently watching below. He's got a stupid bandana but he has interesting guests and eats interesting food. Currently watching him in Africa with Miss Nigeria.

Best Ever Food Review Show - YouTube

Also watching the Food Ranger for a more sedate personality. Mark Wiens is good also but his "after bite expression" bugs me.

Definitely a fellow fan. Love travel food shows, though the host makes a huge difference. Bourdain was definitely one of the best, and I think Phil might be right with him though in a very different way. On the other end, I can't stand Guy Fieri.

My wife and I have been watching the Emmy Award winning series "The Man in the High Castle" on Amazon Prime. The series is based on Philip K. Dick's novel of the same name. It's a compelling drama of what life might have been like if the Axis powers had won World War II.

The series starts in the year 1962. In the parallel universe, Germany and Japan have divided the United States into the Greater Nazi Reich in the east, with New York City as its regional capital, and the Japanese Pacific States to the west, with San Francisco as the capital. These territories are separated by a neutral zone that encompasses the Rocky Mountains.

Here's the trailer for Season 1:

"The Man in the High Castle - Official Trailer

Yeah, that series has been out for awhile. I did not like it and I am an alternate history buff.

I loved season 1, but it got progressively worse as it went on. The series ending was infuriating.

Looking forward to Wheel of Time & Witcher.

Also next Squid Games (not official yet) and The Kingdom next year hopefully.

Watched the Jungle Cruise. Dwayne Johnson is always entertaining but movie was kinda blah.

Wheel of Time first episodes drop at 7pm tonight.

TBH I wasn't impressed by the trailer. First review I read said it was just okay.

But looking forward to being drawn into a new world to escape this one.

I thought it was Friday.

Anyways I read the first 4 or 5 books a while back and I'll give the series a chance.

I'm seeing 12am eastern tomorrow/tonight.

Nov 19th is day. I hope it is 8pm tonight though!

Latest News - Wheel of Time TV Series News

This says 7pm ET tonight!

I've seen 2 kinds of reviews.

First, folks who didn't read the books, who are comparing it to GoT, they shit on it.

Folks who have read the books and don't compare it to GoT are loving it.

So, we'll see.

"Note that we don't have an official time announced by #PrimeVideo, but if we assume a midnight GMT drop, we are 24 hours away"

I still haven't found any official confirmation of EST or GMT.

Edit: Found this though


https://www.dualshockers.com/the-whe...ime-confirmed/

I got the time from a screen shot someone had with an Amazon rep. Not official-official, but likely correct.

Not sure if you get the British Top Gear, but if you do, I urge you to watch the last 20minutes or so of the 1st show of the new series

The film about the story of Eddie Kidd, the English Evel/Robbie Knievel, was beautiful, honestly made me tear up at the end.

Wot is live on Prime frenz.

So it's just the first few episodes and then released weekly?

I don't know what others think, but I kind of like the weekly release schedule for big shows. One thing that seems to hurt Netflix is you don't get to discuss their shows too much because everyone is at different points. Half the fun of shows like GoT is being able to talk about them each week.

Anyone else a fan of Apple TV? Really didn't give it a second thought but they have some really underrated shows. For All Mankind is solid. And I'm sort of digging Foundation. And while Ted Lasso isn't really my thing, I know a ton of people who loved the show.

I've had it for free for... well a while (a year became an addition 6 months randomly and then another 6 months got added because the PS5 had a promotion). Ted Lasso was fantastic (though second season was a bit worse). I just finished the first season of Foundation, and that's going to be it for me on that show - a strange show where one plot is amazing and the rest is like I'm watching a bad CW show (and seems to treat it's source material almost as badly as the I, Robot movie did... ok, maybe not that harsh).

I thought For All Mankind was good (though not great). Morning Show had one fantastic season and has followed it up with a meh.

Acapulco is a really fun show. Trying was excellent.

However, I still think Dickenson is the best show of the bunch. Quality has continued through all its 3 seasons.

I most likely will not be paying for this service aside from one month a year when I can binge future Ted Lasso seasons.

Watched first episode of Bebop Cowboy. It didn't grab me but will give it until episode 3 (or what I call the Wanda Vision test).

Tiger King has a short second season that dropped on Netflix as well.

I figure I should be able to tell by the preview whether it works or not. It's so stylized that if you don't capture that, then the series probably won't work - it'll be like a mediocre space western like (/braces for howling/) Firefly.

SI

Has anyone seen the documentary film "The City of Joel" on Amazon Prime?

I have questions.

I haven't seen the film, but I live in the county.

1. Does Kiryas Joel have its own separate govt.? I did not see any mention of it

2. There is a sign outside of Kiryas Joel that seems to dictate how someone should be dressed, groomed etc. in order to enter that area. Is that mandated by law or is that something that is basically an ask to be respectful to the community?

3. Finally,MY GOODNESS! How does that whole situation work? Just watching the documentary was uncomfortable.

We're just getting around to Loki and, through episode 4, this has some serious Doctor Who vibes

SI

It's a gigantic source of tension in the county. The leaders have made some deals with the surrounding communities that they have not upheld. They do insist on people following the religious laws of their community, but they can't enforce most of it legally. They can and do, though, make life difficult for anyone not a part of their community.

They game the system and get a lot of welfare and they play games with loans and mortgages. My first landlord here was from the community and he never paid the mortgage or property taxes and eventually the house I was renting was sold by the bank.

After watching all 6 eps of Loki, it has a really Whovian feel, particularly the Russell T. Davies seasons

SI

Really enjoying The Great on Hulu. Season 2 just came out so we're rushing to finish Season 1. It's created by the guy co-wrote the Favourite, and it's a similar style to that - historical period piece fiction (18th Century Russia), but the dialogue is written like it's a modern British comedy. Nicholas Hoult is in both and he's just perfect for that style. Good drama too that hits you just when you let your guard down from the comedy and vulgarity and general over-the-top insanity.

Watched ep1 of Mumbai Diaries. Best I can tell so far, it's a combination ER and retelling of the terrorism event in 2008.

Not sure I like it enough to finish it. Will watch ep2 because I am enjoying seeing another culture/way of life (and waiting for The Witcher). I'm sure it's exaggerated but still provide hints of Indian life.

"This is Science. Enjoy !"



And yes, it's a very good show :)

About halfway through season 1 of Hannah. Not earth shattering but enjoyable. Kind of a Jason Bourne meets an angst ridden teenage girl.

Finally finished the first season of Cobra Kai.

If you have any interest in animated shows, I can't recommend Arcane on Netflix enough. It's a great show with amazing animation. It's probably the new high-water mark for animation - just edging out of Into The Spider-Verse.

The show is based on the League of Legends video game. I have never played any League of Legends game and know absolutely nothing about The League or any of its Legends. Still, the show is great. There are a ton of cool characters, the plot's good, the action scenes are fantastic.

Highly recommend it.

I can confirm that Arcane is really good. I'd put it up there with Into the Spiderverse, which I didn't expect to like either. I'm not usually a fan of the animated stuff like this, but it's definitely worth checking out.

I thought the Witcher Netflix anime was solid as well FWIW. If you liked the show or the games and want Vesemir's origin story it's well done.

I very much agree with the Witcher Neflix anime. Really enjoyed it.

Since we're on topic, the Castelvania anime series was, also, fantastic.

Anyone seen Travelers on Netflix? Concept interests me but never really heard much about it.

The first season is really good and each subsequent season gets worse.

Get Back on Disney+ is an excellent documentary in three parts done by Peter Jackson. Those guys were so insanely talented. John Lennon was killed when I was 11, and I only know him from his songs. Seeing him create makes me sad for what we lost.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

I just saw that the complete series of The Mole is on Netflix. It was my favorite reality series that was like a puzzle game with spy elements. If you haven't watched, give it a shot.

We've watched the first hour so far. Hoping to watch the rest since I'll have some downtime following surgery today. First impression is what I've always thought - Paul was the true genius of the bunch. I saw a review that totally hit it right - it's like watching 6 marriages breakup at once.

I hit the play something button on Netflix and the limited series True Story. It stars Kevin Hart and Wesley Snipes.

Hart Plays a Kevin Hart type Comedian and Snipes is his brother. Hart has a show in his hometown, Philly, then hooks up with his brother. It goes down hill from there. Lots of twists and turns. I really like it.

Do yourselves a favor and watch Hanna on Amazon. Really fun show.

Episode 1 of Season 6 of The Expanse appears to be available already.

Been watching "Lost in Space". It's somewhat enjoyable because I like sci-fi and there are some good story lines.

However, I hate how there seems to be 2-3-4 crises in every episode and do not like how Dr. Smith is portrayed. It would be great if they just had a boring episode about how daily life is with minor/humorous/thought provoking minor tangent.

So kinda love it/hate it relationship to fill up my time.

I'll be turning off Youtube TV after Superbowl. I'll be turning on Disney Plus later this month. May also turn on Paramount to catch up on ST: Discovery

Is there a single website where I can do this without having to remember the myriad of login and passwords?

2nd season of the Witcher now on Netflix

The Unforgivable was pretty good on Netflix. Not sure why the reviews were bad. Sandra Bullock is incredible in it and I'll watch anything with Vincent D'onofrio. A bit melodramatic and I agree with some people who thought this would work better as a miniseries (which I guess it was at one time in the UK).

The Alpinist about solo climber Marc-Andre Leclerc is great if you like that kind of story about the limits of human achievement.

On my watchlist, and a documentary along the same lines is 14 Peaks. About Nepalese mountain climber Nirmal Purja and his team, trying to climb the 14 peaks in the world that are 8km+ in height in just 7 months.

I gave it only 3 out of 5 because it was way too short IMO. It would have been much better if it were a 5 or 6 episode long docu-series instead of a little more than 1.5 hour long documentary. I wanted to see far, far more of his climbs.

Watched 4 episodes of The Witcher past couple days. Great fun. Love the Ciri training stuff. Yennefer finding her new way is great too. I like the monsters killing and learning more of the Witcher family.

The Brotherhood scenes are boring. And the reappearance of you know who in ep 4 was totally underwhelming.

I am grateful but a little surprised that Netflix isn't doing 1 episode a week to garner and keep more interest over an 8 week period like WOT.

Finished The Witcher 8 episodes. Overall pretty happy with it and really looking forward to s3. I like how Ciri is taking more center/equal stage now.

Hawkeye series was fun. I really like how Disney is churning out these mini-series.

Saw this in the theater a few months back. Absolute madman, I love movies like this. Made what the Free Solo guy does look like a leisurely walk around the park.

It was a fun little romp - agreed with being happy that Disney is churning these out every couple months. We'll subscribe for a couple months, cancel, and then pick back up a half year later and catch up. This is the perfect cadence for that.

It's not great but fun tv comfort junk food. Hawkeye is the grounding presence in the MCU so it was more down to earth than, say, Loki or Wandavision. But he's also the positive one who just goes around with an understated "why me" expression on his face the whole time so it's never going to get too dark (except with Ronin). New York at Christmastime is always a good character. Spent a lot of time setting up new Hawkeye, new Black Widow, Echo, and potentially a new/old villain. The tracksuit mafia were fun, generic thugs who got some development: the Imagine Dragons/Maroon 5 thing was hilarious, I love the "I found her, I found Kate Bishop" after she fell through the roof. There were things that were a bit absurd or clunky, even within the standard set in an MCU series - like they spent a lot of time with Clint doing the Terminator "Human Casualties 0.0" thing early on in the series but then they totally killed a couple dozen Bros in the final scene. I would definitely watch a Yelena and Kate series - get it done, Kevin Feige. Maya seemed kindof bland but I guess Echo is already greenlit for next year.

Dumb aside: I wish they had thrown in a joke in the post-credit scene. Someone on Reddit had the suggestion of it being Scott Lang sitting there in the audience, gleefully nodding and saying "that's exactly how it happened!" and Hope being like "you weren't even there dad" and Paul Rudd arguing for a minute before giving in and then looking all glum.

SI

The mountains must have looked great on a big screen. The peak in Patagonia was damned impressive even on my TV.

I haven't finished the season yet, but I think S2 captures the feel of the books and games better than season 1. Everyone wants to compare shows like this to GoT and I don't know if we'll ever see anything as good as the first 4 season of that show, but this is a very good show in its own right even if it doesn't quite reach that tier.

Henry Cavill has Geralt nailed and I think the casting overall has been outstanding.

Halfway through season 2 and agree that it feels much more like the game and books. Cavill really is perfect as Geralt. Nice mix of being a serious drama and a fun action fantasy show.

Would add that they really stepped up their game with the music.

F1 Drive to Survive is excellent. almost done with season 1 and looking forward to the next two seasons

Cobra Kai out on Dec 31.

I don't feel as motivated to watch s4. The John Kreese bad guy has dragged on. But will give it a shot.

Ozark out Jan 21. That's high up on my list to watch.

Ready for football season to be over so I can drop Youtube TV and swap it for HBO and Apple TV.

Anyone watch Book of Boba Fett yet?

Yes. Less fun than Mandalorian, more of a serious tone. Wife didn’t like it as much but I enjoyed it.

It’s being released weekly so that sucks.

Hopefully it gets better.

Cobra Kai Season 4 wasn't as good as the first three, but I still snarfed the whole thing in a day.

Book of Boba Fett's first episode was mediocre, but it's an establishing episode so I'll be patient.

Hawkeye Season 1 though was great. I also finally watched Black Widow and really liked that, too.

Finished Cobra Kai s4.

It was dragging on so skipped a couple episodes to get to the last 2. I think the novelty and interest is gone for me.

Just watched the Harry Potter 20 year reunion special. Amazing stuff. Really well done. I found myself getting emotional a few times.

I'll get to this eventually but sort of felt this way halfway through season 3. Then again, the show has far exceeded my expectations so it's not a big deal.

Watched the first show of The Tourist on BBC, which is co produced by HBO, but have no idea what that means for US TV, Short version, based on the first episode, if you have it, watch it!

It will be distributed by HBO Max at some point in the next few months (as generally happens when HBO co produces British shows), but we don't have a date yet.

Just finished Witcher S2. Very well done.. the production budget obviously was increased this year.

Recently finished S2 of The Witcher. It's not that there isn't stuff to like but it seems like they are turning the property into yet another action or superhero show to win viewers. The problem with that approach is that Sapkowski's books are not some kind of non-stop action story and Witchers, despite their nature, are not really superheroes. That results in a disconnect with the source material where the show has to make up the majority of the story themselves to film the action they want (maybe 20% of the second season was somewhat from the books - the rest was the show's creation entirely).

I will also say that a large part of the books revolve around the political structure and the war on the Continent. They are trying to show some of that; however, given that it clearly isn't their focus they aren't laying the groundwork for viewers to really grasp or care about that side of things.

At this point it is probably more accurate to say the TV show is just inspired by the books and not really an adaptation. They will no doubt still find a way to get through at least some of the major plot points of the books. But along the way because they are making so much up to get their action and having to cram it all into 8 episodes they are going to end up having to do writing gymnastics. I think it is going to show in the quality of the show. Along the way this is probably also going to result in them missing some of the bigger, core emotional beats of the story (which has already happened).

I will no doubt continue watching it all the way through but a part of me will always be sad that it could have been....something more.

I did think the first season of Witcher was far stronger.

I was having this discussion with a friend - the whole 'hero loses their power' trope is one of my most hated tropes in all of storytelling. It's just ... you KNOW they'll be back at some point, and just get annoyed by it.

Neither me nor the kid ever managed to make ourselves finish the first season.

It looked very right, they got stuff right ...it just felt a little bit "off" somehow.

Sounds like that may have escalated :/

Ted Lasso is great!

Everything with Geralt fighting monsters and being a grouchy badass rules. All the other stuff sucks.

We enjoyed season 2 of the Witcher but yeah, hard to deny they crammed as many tropes into the second half of the season as they possibly could. The grand finale feels like it could have come straight from any superhero movie in the last 20 odd years, just replace the setting and protagonists.

Not being familiar with the books there’s enough lore from the games to keep me happy though. I was very excited to know who the big bad was before the final reveal (although probably pretty obvious to anyone who had half a brain to be fair)

I had a friend say that the quality/tone of the first season of The Witcher reminded him of the old Xena/Hercules series. I don't get the same campy feeling from the second season, for better or worse.

Season one had more monster of the week episodes which are fun. I believe this season only had one or two episodes that I'd classify that way.

I’m almost through the first season and just told my wife the same thing. It’s Xena/Hercules with higher caliber actors and a much better budget.

s1 was great.

s2 not so much.

Whereas every s1 episode was great, s2 had some I didn't enjoy that much and FF through (e.g. the Coach Beard episode).

The Coach Beard episode was horrendous and I don't like where they go with Nate. Still the best show on TV IMO.

We just finished season 2 of The Morning Show. Excellent. Started Cobra Kai last night. Eh, it was ok. They are kind of repeating themes at this point and it feels a bit stale IMO.

I am looking forward to starting 1883 but the wife wanted to do Cobra Kai first.

Ted Lasso Season 1 is all-time-great TV.
Ted Lasso Season 2 is garbage.

Whoever wrote season 2 never watched season 1. I have not finished season 2 and I doubt I will.

Or they just decided to take it into a different direction. I loved it.