Q: What are you watching (TV/Streaming/Movies) and want to recommend?

Oh no, this is a series show. It's called Three-Body. You can read more about it here:

They thanks for pointing out this series to me -- until your post, I wasn't aware of its existance.

* While I've watched plenty of movies from HK cinema since the 90s, the recent movies I've seen from China had hollywood blockbuster visual effects but just felt kind of hollow in terms of characters. This series felt a little different and I like it.

* I'm just a few episodes in and I'm surprised at how more technical the show feels; its almost like they expect their viewers to have a more technical background. Here's an example: in the netflix series, the shadowy org convinces a character that some force will cause the sky to blink. IIRC, in the Netflix series all the stars start blinking. In comparison, in the chinese series the shadow org tells the main character that the universe will blink. What he sees is a fluctuation in the cosmic microwave background radiation levels. Kind of interesting.

It has some k-drama or j-dorama elements.
You can watch it on Amazon Prime or on Viki (whatever this is)
 
* I'm just a few episodes in and I'm surprised at how more technical the show feels; its almost like they expect their viewers to have a more technical background.
Wow... that is EXACTLY what we thought too! I know I got lost several times, but I am no scientist either. My wife watched it to the end. I thought it was too "talk, talk, talk... action.... talk, talk, talk..." That's me, I'm a guy. I want to see someone getting shot, at least every 15 minutes! LOL
 
Today I watched Derek put a hemi engine in a Chevy C10. All that work and I keep asking myself "why"? He said he got the engine from a buddy for a song so, why not?! The remake of the driveshaft was almost the most expensive part the rebuild.

Still shaking my head....
 
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Today I wanted Derek put a hemi engine in a Chevy C10. All that work and I keep asking myself "why"? He said he got the engine from a buddy for a song so, why not?! The remake of the driveshaft was almost the most expensive part the rebuild.

Still shaking my head....

I’m still shaking my head over his LS rockers in place of LA mopar shaft rockers. Yeah you’re the first and nobody does it because it’s stupid lol.
 
He did it because it has not been done that much, if at all. And he has the money and resources to get it done right (at least it seems right). But at the same time, after the show, I did learn a lot about newer engines and computer controlled engines / transmissions, much as new cars are controlled. But to see it done with 3rd party equipment and make it work? Frack... "priceless".
 
Wow... that is EXACTLY what we thought too! I know I got lost several times, but I am no scientist either. My wife watched it to the end. I thought it was too "talk, talk, talk... action.... talk, talk, talk..." That's me, I'm a guy. I want to see someone getting shot, at least every 15 minutes! LOL
I finished this series and I'm trying to recall if I've ever watched a series that was almost exclusively driven by scene after scene of dialogue between two characters. The West Wing comes to mind -- but (despite multiple friends raving about it), I don't think I've watched an entire episode yet. Its like my neverending Netflix or Steam backlog.

Here's another series that I'd recommend: Netflix's new Terminator Zero 8-episode Anime series.
- The anime studio Production IG was famous for Ghost in the Shell and has a similar feel
- Unlike the prior Terminator movies/series in which changes in the past would effect events in the future, this series firmly establishes that by going back into the past, a character is starting a new branch of time vs affecting their own prior timeline. Its similar to how time travel is supposed to work in The Peripheral.
- By starting new branches, this story also establishes that this basic time war is almost a never-ending cycle: as long as the losing side retains the ability to send combatants back in time, noone side will ever win.
- Set in Japan, so no Arnold.
 
Wife is watching Suits all the way through for the first time. I watched it when it was new and liked it then. Can't get back into it now though. I forgot how much I hated Mike Ross' character. 99% of the nonsense in the plot is because of him.

Also annoying to see Meghan Markle in any sort of acting role now that all of her other nonsense has happened.
 
The first terminator was the only one in the franchise that handled the time travel explanation well;

Kyle Reese: “I didn’t build the fucking thing!”

The whole time travel aspect was always very unimportant fridge logic in the first two movies, it was just a convenient way to explain how a robot that looks human can exist and payoff to a twist ending.

Franchises are stupid. Star Wars is no better taking throwaway lines/cannon fodder characters and spawning terrible miniseries after miniseries over. I prefer to just treat everything after a second or third sequel as fan fiction. But that’s me, my imagination is a better writer than what I’ve seen
 
I've watched a good amount of crap recently on Netflix (Hit Man, American Assasin, Atlas, Land of Bad) -- all of which aren't memorable at all.... but I did come across this one gem from 2017 I hadn't heard of before

Logan Lucky is a "hillbilly heist" movie with some quirky characters starring a star wars guy (Adam Driver), a stripper (Channing Tatum), and James Bond (Daniel Craig). The casting is definitely over the top.
While it doesn't break any new ground for plot or cinematography, it did make me chortle several times (this long cut trailer has a lot of the quirkiness on display)

My kid is working his way through the Avatar animated series. I haven't watched it for years but I'm still impressed at how well this american-made anime was made.
 
I just finished Furies, a french short series about a woman who keeps the peace amongst the rival criminal orgs in Paris.
- Series in pretty, action is decent, but the story gets quite contrived as the episodes go on.
- What starts like a straightforward story becomes even more contrived... but not in a humourous way. The twists and turns reminded me of that old TV series Alias, or maybe 24.
- I liked the cinematography (Paris really us a beautiful city), but the story felt quite incredulous. Something decent to watch if you've already depleted your movie queue.

I'm now watching a different crime based series, The Gentleman, which turns out to be a reboot into a series of a movie also made by Guy Ritchie.
- I've only watched one episode so far and it's got all the hallmarks of a good Guy Ritchie film: a bit of violence, interesting characters, and some darkly humorous twists.
- I'm not sure if it will jump the shark into becoming a caricature of a show about the criminal underworld (like Furies), but its definitely worth watching.
 
Here's another random recommendation. This anime series is about a bunch of stereo typical dungeon crawlers (knight, thief, dwarf, and magic wielding elf woman) who realize that the only way to affordably get through a dungeon under their village... is to start eating monsters.

Its part D&D dungeon crawl and part cooking show (like Oishinbo). 24 eps @ 25-30min/ea
 
I've watched a bunch of crap recently (although I wouldn't called Delicious in Dungeon crap, it's surprisingly deep for such a silly premise -- unlike say Solar Opposites S05), but I decided to watch something a good deal more serious that I'd like to recommend



Beyond Utopia is a documentary about defectors from North Korea and the network of folks to helped them escape. Its clear that some of these "brokers" view these people as "product" to be paid for by South Korean donors but the documentation of their struggle and their reactions to seeing the outside world are pretty eyeopening.

Two things I'd like to highlight: its not just the kids reactions to having some snacks in a vietnamese safehouse that is surprising -- the reaction of the 80yr old grandma when she realizes that (what we from the US would call a little backwater) house in Vietnam far exceeds what they had in the DPRK, her plausable explanation as to why DPRK is so far behind developmentally is absolutely stunning.

In a related note, the story of one of the helpers and her defection as a child is also pretty incredible. She recounts it in this Ted Talk (and in a book I plan to read soon). Hyeonseo Lee recounts her journey from DPRK to S. Korea in this TED talk from 2013.


--
The stuff these folk go through really make my life's little inconveniences absolutely pale in comparison (broke a bolt attaching my rotor hat to my rotor in my Wilwood Big Brake kit I'm putting together.)
 
Re-watching the Chernobyl docudrama on HBO Max. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend it. I did a thesis on the disaster in undergrad. This series does the disaster justice. Very well done and accurate enough to the facts.

 

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