The Sofa (General Chat Thread)

PTH2009 wrote: »

Enjoyed the Brendan Grace specials on RTE

Never saw the man live but he was a legend and one of those clean comedians who would make a joke out of anything

One of this sons has a very strong American accent?? Did the family live there for a while ?

He was primarily based in the US since some of the kids were young enough to pickup an accent, probably 20 years ago. He performed for Sinatra and Davis in Dublin which opened US doors and was the making of him.

With Apple + going live next week I was reading there are close to 500 scripted shows airing in America now across Broadcast TV, Cable & Streaming

Well, the AppleTV stuff has received very mixed previews. The ones they have being advertising heavily. The Jennifer Aniston one is described as "Sorkin without the Sorkin". And it the trailers did seem to be going for the Sorkin-vibe. The Momoa one is apparently meh: He's good but apart from that it's very derivative. Thankfully the one I'm most interested in (But not enough to buy), the Alt-History Space Race one "For All Mankind" is the best (But still with some caveats).

Without a TV station or huge backlog (Like Disney+) it will be very difficult for Apple to compete with established services like Netflix and Amazon (And HBO and Hulu in the US). A half dozen shows? 4.5 - 6 hours a week? I know they have deals to make Tom Hank's next WW2 series but that's early days yet. Maybe 3 years or so from now it might be worth it.

pixelburp wrote: »

...... and with the best will in the world, Tom Hanks doing another WW2 drama isn't _that_ exciting IMO.

I must admit. I didn't even finish The Pacific. I did not find the characters, real or not, to be very engaging or likeable. I was looking forward to the airforce one though. But not enough to fork out almost half what I pay for Netflix.

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

I must admit. I didn't even finish The Pacific. I did not find the characters, real or not, to be very engaging or likeable. I was looking forward to the airforce one though. But not enough to fork out almost half what I pay for Netflix.

The series is a couple years away yet most likely and by then Apple might have her shows that appeal to you.

if not there is always the free trial period if you don't mind binging it. €4.99 isn't that much if it is a series you really want to see.

Really couldn't see him as Charlie

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Is anyone here watching Giri/Haji? It's becoming one of the best series of the year for me. Beautifully put together, mixing short and sharp action with a melancholic zen (yes it's Japanese themed).

Have it recorded. Good story, and looks great, with pretty good reviews. Been waiting for them to mount up, so will start watching soon.

The Black Oil wrote: »

Ah lads!

https://twitter.com/lieberrian/status/1197371405354057728

Saw this on twitter and thought the same ....except he’s on the sex offenders list in the states now

The man, not the muppet

How after an episode of a BBC shows airs does it get added iTunes UK store.

I know a few tears ago it was a week - is this still the case?

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Sky (Comcast) are set to open there own Flim & TV studio at Elstree by 2022 and are set to build 14 new sound stages along with other facilities there on 32 acres.


Netflix had announced that they were going to open 14 new sound stages at Pinewwood Shepperton

and

Disney had announced they had a deal with Pinewood at it's its other studio in Buckinghamshire.


The Streaming Wars are heating up.

There's also rumblings of the Paramount decree which stops studios from owning cinemas and theatres being overturned which will have massively negative consequences. Disney already put a lot of pressure on theatres to block book their movies, imagine if they owned their own chain.

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Is anyone here watching Giri/Haji? It's becoming one of the best series of the year for me. Beautifully put together, mixing short and sharp action with a melancholic zen (yes it's Japanese themed).

cdgalwegian wrote: »

Have it recorded. Good story, and looks great, with pretty good reviews. Been waiting for them to mount up, so will start watching soon.

Just finished watching it. The series is bookended by two fantastic episodes, but sags a little in between. I wasn't sure whether I would continue after the third one, thinking that the opening episode perhaps had flattered to deceive.
The opener was very stylish, with a tongue-in-cheek mishmash of styles, genres, action and humour; while the subsequent episodes lacked the style and verve of the opener, it settled into a complex plot with lots of humour- being slightly bonkers at times, but feeling a little weighed down- a little too slow at times.
This was all redeemed in the last episode; the best series finale I have seen in a long time. The rooftop scene was one I would normally see as just pretentious and silly, when out of nowhere, came a scene that was just amazing-an emotional knock-out, timed to coincide with plot threads elsewhere being tied up. A truly memorable finale.

mammychicken wrote: »

Can highly recommend Giri/Haji - so disappointed its finished!!

Really enjoyed it! Seemed to fly under the radar a bit but definitely worth a watch

It actually must have been very difficult for Disney to make that decision to not release merch initially. I mean no matter how many Non-Disclosure Agreements and secrecy clauses SOME manufacturer would have released an image.

Now I intentionally stayed away as much as possible from Mandalorian spoilers so maybe I was more successful than I thought but, as far as I can tell, nobody saw "baby Yoda" coming.

As for Netflix merch. Yeah, surely there is a market there. What with the resurgence of records and the time period Stranger Things was set, this would have been a prime avenue (Guardians of The Galaxy released the first soundtrack on TAPE!!! ).

I'm sure Netflix aren't short of a bob or two but the sharks are coming and 2 or 3 years from now they could be looking for extra revenue....