Current Watching

[Femme Folle]

This Ken Burns 18-hour Vietnam documentary film is riveting. I'm not sure if everyone would have the same experience watching it, but for me, this was happening during my childhood. I remember these people (the politicians and the military brass, etc.), but I was largely unaware of a lot of things. I had friends whose older brothers were serving in Vietnam. One of them came home in a wheelchair. It's also interesting to me because my NPD pathological liar ex-husband used to tell people that he had flown helicopters in the war. Later, his brother would tell me that he never served. Watching this, I can tell you that he wouldn't have come home alive if he had.

Anyway, if you get a chance to watch it, I can't recommend it enough.

[Cal Alamein]

Ken Burns & co have created a masterpiece. Haven't missed a minute yet.

[Hot Pepsi]

I may. But I've read a fair bit about that war and seen a lot of the previous docs and not sure I can handle more. It's so infuriating on so many levels.

One criticism of American documentaries and films on the Vietnam War is that we tend to focus only on how much it messed up America and American soldiers and we don't talk much about Vietnam or the Vietnamese. Oliver Stone made a decent movie out of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip, but it bombed commercially and wasn't as well reviewed as Platoon or Born on the Fourth of July.

And even that story was a lot about Americans. She married an American and came here. In the film, her husband and his PTSD is a big subplot (not in the book/reality).

Part of that is simply that it wasn't as easy to get the stories of the Vietnamese as it was to find stories of Americans, both because of the language barrier and that it wasn't a very open country for a while. But I suspect all of that has changed somewhat.

[Femme Folle]

Reed, this is not like that. All sides are represented.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yes, I heard that. That's where I was going with all that but then lost my place and hit send.

[Patrick Thistle]

I watched the Netflix special "Jerry before Seinfeld". I know there isn't a lot of love for Seinfeld on this board but I enjoyed the special. Mainly his stand up and a few bio bits dropped in. Mrs Thistle liked his joke about close captioned films for the movie impaired where the subtitles explain the plot.

Also on Netflix we watched the first episode of The Good Place, which made us laugh enough to make us want to watch the rest of the series.

[Patrick Thistle]

Watched a couple more episodes of The Good Place and still enjoying it. The show was created by Michael Schur, who is one half of the duo who created Parks & Recreation and Brooklyn Nine Nine.

[San Bernardhinault]

I really enjoyed Season One of The Good Place. I thought it was pretty underrated and both quite charming and quite funny. And (no spoilers here) the end of the final episode of the season is a cracker.

[Patrick Thistle]

I have wondered if there will be a twist like actually it's purgatory and the idea is it helps people to become good. I guess I'll have to watch the rest of the show.

[hobbes]

Watched the first 2 eps of Star Trek Disco last night.
S'alright. Lots of nice space fighting.

[RobW]

Watched The Vietnam War on BBC 4 last night. BBC are showing back to episodes, but a truncated version (10 hours long), so if I want the full version i'll have to fork out £70 on the DVD, or at least wait until that price drops. Anyway, really fascinating doc, pity the Beeb are already shunting it from 9pm (as it was last night) to 10pm next Monday.

[Ginger Yellow]

PBS are airing it on their website. You may need to VPN it, I haven't tried.

[Moonlight shadow]

I have enjoyed "Tin Star" quite a lot, even with Tim Roth chewing scenery like a hungry hippo....

[Levin]

I'm only halfway through the first of the 10 hour BBC Vietnam but it strikes me as odd that he keeps cutting to US soldiers talking about their experiences when we're still on France. Are there no French veterans still alive? Did they not write anything down?

Edit: I'm being too hard. It's a series about the US war in Vietnam not a series about the Vietnamese struggle for independence.

[Hot Pepsi]

I watched the Netflix special "Jerry before Seinfeld". I know there isn't a lot of love for Seinfeld on this board but I enjoyed the special. Mainly his stand up and a few bio bits dropped in. Mrs Thistle liked his joke about close captioned films for the movie impaired where the subtitles explain the plot.

Also on Netflix we watched the first episode of The Good Place, which made us laugh enough to make us want to watch the rest of the series.

I really liked that too, even though it was all old material.

[Femme Folle]

Levin: Surely there's a French documentary maker who has made that film by now, no?

Tonight's episode (#8) was really hard to watch. It included the footage of the My Lai Massacre aftermath.

[hobbes]

Just watching The Good Place (as mentioned earlier on the thread.)

In episode 10 there is the best joke I've heard all year. It's about a BBC comedy and it rendered me insensible for a good 5 minutes.

[Eggchaser]

Catching up with the latest series of Grand Designs. Kevin the Fertility God is at it again.

[NickSTFU]

Tin Star. Long on style, short on substance (well, long on the white stuff).

It has Tim Roth, Christina Hendricks and Genevieve O'Reilly in it and apart from the first episode, nothing much has happened. Episode 4 was this week.

I suspect I'm the only person in the UK watching this. Certainly on OTF.

[Patrick Thistle]

I'm behind everyone else on The Good Place but you're making me keen to catch up

[hobbes]

It's worth it. I'm up to date on season 2 and it's still really funny.

[tracteurgarçon]

Because of this thread I've just watched the first two episodes of "The Good Place" and, whilst loving the concept, and Ted Danson, I'm not really enjoying it because of the main character, she's just so unloveable that I just don't care enough about what happens to her.

I find this an increasing problem with TV comedy shows, the main character is usually such an insufferable arsehole that I struggle to maintain any interest.

It's odd because classic sitcom characters have always been selfish, angry, self-obsessed idiots (Del Boy, Father Ted, Basil Fawlty, Steptoe, Blackadder, etc) but, I guess, they had something loveable to latch onto, not sure what's missing with modern characters or whether it's a problem with me?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Kristen Bell has had a solid audience since Veronica Mars., which includes me (for some reason.) She has limitations as an actor for sure, range being the main one. I agree that others could have done more with Eleanor than she does, but I think it's because she's not unloveable enough. She's OK in the flashback scenes where she's just a plain bitch, but doesn't do as well with conflictedness in the Good Place. Sadly she just ends up being kinda blandly cute.

[Crusoe]

Quite like the new Star Trek so far. Although it’s basically filler until the new Stranger Things is out.

[Lang Spoon]

Stranger Things was great. That’s all I’ve got.