Amazon Prime Film/TV Series Recommendations

Little fires everywhere is well worth a watch

Big little lies vibe

johnny_ultimate

Watched The Vast of Night - a really interesting if somewhat messy indie sci-fi. Lots to like - great and unusual 50s setting; some very imaginative, sweeping camerawork and smart long takes; an admirably slow-burn mystery. It is an imperfect beast - despite the short length, some stretches seem overlong, and the visuals are inconsistent. Not entirely sold on the ending either. But it is a very distinctive and engaging debut feature at its best, so keen to see what director Andrew Patterson does next.

gmisk

I just noticed that top secret is on Amazon prime!
Still brilliantly funny right up there with airplane

Fysh

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Watched The Vast of Night - a really interesting if somewhat messy indie sci-fi. Lots to like - great and unusual 50s setting; some very imaginative, sweeping camerawork and smart long takes; an admirably slow-burn mystery. It is an imperfect beast - despite the short length, some stretches seem overlong, and the visuals are inconsistent. Not entirely sold on the ending either. But it is a very distinctive and engaging debut feature at its best, so keen to see what director Andrew Patterson does next.

Thanls for recommending this, I watched it tonight and really liked it; the script was strong and the two leads had good chemistry. Plus, for the kind of story it tells it makes smart choices for pacing and to avoid feeling stale.

All in all, a pleasant surprise and definitely a director to watch in future.

gmisk

Fysh wrote: »

Thanls for recommending this, I watched it tonight and really liked it; the script was strong and the two leads had good chemistry. Plus, for the kind of story it tells it makes smart choices for pacing and to avoid feeling stale.

All in all, a pleasant surprise and definitely a director to watch in future.

Totally agree.
A gem of a film they seemed to do an awful lot with a small budget.

It is a very good small film and should be viewed in those terms. It does what it does well but should be compared to a small hearty meal rather than a lavish feast.

brevity

I came into give it a bit of a plug too. I liked it and got really stuck into it but the start was a bit meh for me - I liked the scene with the old lady though. Also, I don’t know if it was my tv (spent a while messing with settings) or intentional but the picture quality wasn’t for me.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/the-vast-of-night-is-a-masterclass-in-small-budget-sci-fi/

pixelburp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Watched The Vast of Night - a really interesting if somewhat messy indie sci-fi. Lots to like - great and unusual 50s setting; some very imaginative, sweeping camerawork and smart long takes; an admirably slow-burn mystery. It is an imperfect beast - despite the short length, some stretches seem overlong, and the visuals are inconsistent. Not entirely sold on the ending either. But it is a very distinctive and engaging debut feature at its best, so keen to see what director Andrew Patterson does next.

One to watch, but definitely also one to watch with caveats in the back of your head. I found the frequent fades to elongated black infuriating, while the film seemed to just forget or drop the snappy, rapidfire dialogue in favour of exposition. The director needs to refine his craft a little, cos as much as it looked like a "real film", it was still quite a shonky, slapdash production.

I read Patterson and his crew convinced a small town to basically volunteer itself to be 1950s'ified, from locales to the people. Would explain why I spotted more than one extra glancing at the camera.

I see the Alex Rider series has dropped, I'm not expecting much but I'll give it a go because I enjoyed the books when I was younger. Basically James Bond Jnr.

Dating amber is very sweet. A really lovely watch

Has anyone watched Hanna? It's a series based on the Saoirse Ronan film from a few years back. I watched the first episode and I'm not sure what to make of it. It's filmed beautifully, lots of snowy woods and epic landscape shots, but the acting is kinda iffy. I'll give it a few more episodes to see if it improves, but just wondering if anyone else has watched it?

ixoy

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Has anyone watched Hanna? It's a series based on the Saoirse Ronan film from a few years back. I watched the first episode and I'm not sure what to make of it. It's filmed beautifully, lots of snowy woods and epic landscape shots, but the acting is kinda iffy. I'll give it a few more episodes to see if it improves, but just wondering if anyone else has watched it?

Yeah, watched it all. It's... decent. I admit I was suckered in a bit by the cinematography as well as some good European location shooting (a proper budgeted series not set at all in the US!)
I actually think the acting gets better as Hanna begins to grow into being a teenager more - you'll see it more in the second episode.
Storyline itself isn't much but the father/daughter dynamic and pretty pictures make it worth it.

Second season is out in early July.

ixoy wrote: »

Yeah, watched it all. It's... decent. I admit I was suckered in a bit by the cinematography as well as some good European location shooting (a proper budgeted series not set at all in the US!)
I actually think the acting gets better as Hanna begins to grow into being a teenager more - you'll see it more in the second episode.
Storyline itself isn't much but the father/daughter dynamic and pretty pictures make it worth it.

Second season is out in early July.

I thought it was already out as it says 2 seasons but it's just some bonus thing. I'll stick with it for a while longer then.

recyclops

has anyone who has listened to homecoming compared it to the show, i found the podcast extremely interesting and the medium really suited it so interesting to hear opinions because i dont want it ruined

Rfrip wrote: »

Dating amber is very sweet. A really lovely watch

Watched it tonight. It's not what I was expecting from the trailer, but I really enjoyed it. It's nice to see a very specific part of Ireland on screen too. The Curragh is a mad looking landscape, you'd think people would make more use of it.

Finished the 3rd season of Startup - this is a great show, that gets better and better as it goes. Really interesting character arcs for all the central characters throughout the 3 seasons. Hopefully there is a 4th.

cian68

Watched 'Dating Amber' it was pretty neat hearing Le Galaxie and Pillow Queens in a movie. Although it's set in the 90s I think the current music was a good choice

The Tick is very entertaining, Peter Serafinowic is great.

cdgalwegian

FunLover18 wrote: »

The Tick is very entertaining, Peter Serafinowic is great.

It does start off entertaining, and Peter Serafinowicz is very good in it. It's quirkiness for me was its initial draw, but I stopped at about episode 6. It just got too silly in (what I assumed was) its piss-take of the super-hero glut.

cdgalwegian wrote: »

It does start off entertaining, and Peter Serafinowicz is very good in it. It's quirkiness for me was its initial draw, but I stopped at about episode 6. It just got too silly in (what I assumed was) its piss-take of the super-hero glut.

Fair enough, I can see how it would become tiresome. I finished season 2 today, it's a shame it got cancelled.

Joedryan

Bosch

Lucas Hood

Joedryan wrote: »

Bosch

Enjoying it myself. On season 4 now.

Full_Circle_81

brevity wrote: »

I came into give it a bit of a plug too. I liked it and got really stuck into it but the start was a bit meh for me - I liked the scene with the old lady though. Also, I don’t know if it was my tv (spent a while messing with settings) or intentional but the picture quality wasn’t for me.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/the-vast-of-night-is-a-masterclass-in-small-budget-sci-fi/

I'm really glad someone else mentioned the picture quality of The Vast of Night, I thought it was just me! I even looked up a few reviews to see if this was intentional or not, but it seemed like the black levels were way off what most other movies are, as it appeared *extremely* washed out on my TV. Such a shame too, since the whole thing was set at night (but featured almost zero blacks). I think the fact that it was HDR only made things worse as well.....

anniewilkes

The Americans!

Tomboy was added yesterday. It's written/directed by Celine Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tomboy_2011

Just realised in the ‘Thriller Tv’ section there are loads of old gems hidden away. Even 21 Jump Street ðŸ˜…