Here's the IMDB page for The Souvenir (distributed by A24). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6920356/

IMDB users give the score as 6.6, and the user reviews are stuffed full of people who hate it. The critic reviews are almost entirely positive though.

Here's the Cherry Picks page for The Souvenir. https://www.thecherrypicks.com/films/souvenir

They use reviews from "female-identifying and non-binary film critics", and as a result the film gets good reviews.

I find the reviews surfaced by Cherry Picks to be more thoughtful, more considered, and more useful to me than those surfaced by IMDB or MetaCritic (even though they all pull critic reviews from many of the same sources).

I've found some great films via Cherry Picks.

Channel 4 describe the programme "Series that captures the work of police, probation, prison, prosecution and parole".

Here's a link to the first episode: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/crime-and-punishment/on-demand/64655-001

Crime and punishment is a documentary series that looks inside prison to tell the stories of the criminal justice system from the viewpoint of those involved.

The first episode spends some time talking about the unjust "Imprisonment for Public Protection"[1] sentences (these are no longer given by the courts but there are thousands of prisoners still imprisoned on them), how they went wrong, and the awful effect they have upon prisoners. It's a difficult watch. It shows how severely the mental health of prisoners is when they're on this type of sentence, including their serious self harm.

Episode two talks about pressure inside prisons and how that results in "riots", about how prisoners use the only power they have available to them.

I like the programme because it avoids judgmentalism. The prisoners are not reduced to the bad guys; the officers are not simplified to the good guys. You hear a little bit about some of the offences committed by the prisoners

Here's a Twitter thread from someone working in the English NHS. She works in forensic services as a psychologist. https://twitter.com/SarahE_Davidson/status/1173707912981700608

I guess Channel 4 On Demand have geo-blocking. I don't know if it's available on other services, or on torrent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_for_public_protection

This is a British cookery show. They take a bunch of people who cook for a living but who have basic skills. These people are paired with a chef who has four Michelin stars and eighteen restaurants. They visit different restaurants around Europe to have competitions to cook that restaurant's own food.

Things I enjoy about it: it does a good job of showing that people who have somewhat fucked up lives will always find a place in cheffing. They could have stayed in the UK but they decided to go around Europe.[1] There's a couple of incidents of poor behaviour being corrected (some of the women chefs are ignored and spoken over by some men, the women stand up for themselves and get an apology).

Things I don't like: there's some cheffy bollocks around the pressure and discipline of a brigade; it's still a reality-show competition and that introduces some artificiallity; they send people home each week and I always hate that aspect of programmes.

It's available on Pirate Bay.

Here are some reviews which I think are fair.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jul/30/the-chefs-brigade-review-a-cookery-challenge-worthy-of-willy-wonka

https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/the-chefs-brigade-bbc2-episode-1-review-jason-atherton/

[1] I can't describe how pathologically awful Brexit has been for the UK. :-(

Mythbusters is back, but in a tweaked format.

Adam Savage fronts with a team of six young people. Jamie, Kari, Tory, and Grant are absent, only appearing in video flashbacks to the previous show.

Mythbusters with kids could have been horrific, but they've managed to make this entertaining and informative. They've increased the amount of STEM stuff. We see people doing a bit of math while planning something out. The kids are smart, and the show allows them to be smart while also being children. Adam is a great fit, being a big kid himself but also filling the role of a pseudo parent and giving friendly advice (often around safety, such as the tag strap used to manoeuvre huge steel plates).

The old show had a some problems. They'd have too many pre-break "what's coming next" and post-break "here's what happened before", and they'd chop up the myths being tested into tiny little bits. They still do that, but not nearly as much.

It's a fun, entertaining watch, and it's safe for families to watch together.

Years and Years is a British political near-future soft SF programme. Being British it's one short series - 6 episodes, 1 hour per episode. Mainstream broadcast SF isn't going to push all the boundaries, but this has some neat ideas. The political stuff feels realistic enough to work.

Emma Thompson is always impressive and she does excellent work here as a populist, fascist, politician. Jessica Hynes plays Edith with suitable intensity.

Here are a bunch of links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8694364/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[spoilers] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/years-and-years-1220415

[spoilers] https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/years-and-years-review-emma-thompson-hbo-1203243714/

[spoilers] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/14/years-and-years-review-a-glorious-near-future-drama-from-russell-t-davies

This series has recently been ported to PS4, Xbox One and PC. I never owned a DS but the concept of this game (being a lawyer) was always interesting to me. So I took a chance and currently I'm really enjoying playing through it.

The format is episodes with manual saving so you can play in short chunks. It's mostly a puzzle game with some exploration built in. The story is well crafted and clever imo. I strongly recommend you play without a guide to get the best experience.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/787480/Phoenix_Wright_Ace_Attorney_Trilogy__123/

I don't have a lot to say yet; I'm on episode 9 so far. That series has been on my watchlist forever, so the moment I saw it pop up on Netflix I jumped on it.

It's as awesome as described. Moreso. It's funny and quirky. Despite watching two 12-year-olds hang out, it doesn't feel like a kids' series at all (the humour is quite adult, similar level as Futurama). It knows when to make fun of itself. It's pushing all my buttons and I'm having a lot of fun watching it.

My biggest laugh so far has been Mabel's "Scout's Honor" shirt. In my head I was waiting for the punchline and loved seeing the delivery.

Solid recommendation so far. And the theme song is so fucking catchy.

I finally got around to sinking some decent time into it over the last couple of days. I'm addicted. It's fun to go up against so many competitors and watch as people get knocked out of the competition over time. Not to mention, it's frickin' Tetris so of course it's great! I'm really looking forward to the special event that Nintendo's running this weekend. You can earn an old-school Gameboy theme!

My previous recommendations:

• Person of Interest
• Psych

So, I just finished binging all five seasons, and I think I can safely recommend this series to an audience that enjoys adult humor and series that juggle between the very funny and very serious.

BoJack Horseman is a series that starts slow and doesn't really seem to truly find itself until Season 3. I personally didn't enjoy the first half of Season 1 at all (got very bored). The second half of Season 1 got me to keep watching purely on the humor and the gags, which pretty consistently increase in quality as the show continues.

I especially got drawn in on all the "animal" gags. The series at some point early on becomes very comfortable going all out on visual&storytelling gags based on the animal playing them (BJH is an otherwise-normal universe where a significant part of the population is half-animal half-human). The humor is pretty high quality, I would easily compare it to the humor in Arrested Development (early seasons).
It is a series that makes fun of itself, without relying too much on gimmicks or breaking the fourth wall too much. With that said, Seasons 3 and 4 introduce more experimental episodes (including an entirely mute one, similar to the excellent Hush from Buffy, as well as another that only consists of a beautiful entire 22 minute monologue). None of them bored me. I was always extremely impressed with the execution and the quality.

What really gets me to recommend this series is its later seasons. Seasons 3 and 4 are of exceptionally high quality and the show becomes… very dark. But not without losing its humor. BoJack Horseman made me cry three times. I'm not talking about tearing up, I'm talking about the full waterworks like I've done only a couple of times in my entire adult life.
It's a show that punches you in the gut not by having grand romantic storylines; not by having heroic moments with epic music; not sympathetically by having manly characters tear up; not even by killing off beloved characters like Game of Thrones. It's a show that hits you because it's too fucking real.

In many ways, I would say that I enjoyed BJH for similar reasons that I enjoyed early GoT: It's unforgiving to its characters. But I don't want this to put anyone off from watching; it's a unique series to which I have a very hard time finding parallels. Its humor sits between Arrested Development, Futurama and Rick & Morty and is very much its own thing. Very reminiscent of Adult Swim.

BoJack Horseman is available on Netflix. Come for the gags, stay for your own reasons.

• Wikipedia
• IMDb
• TVMaze

Supernatural is one of those TV shows that had some fantastic early seasons. I really miss them.
As a show I feel it kinda turned way too much into fan service in its later seasons. It stayed decent (good, even), but lost a lot of its quality.
Every season there's a bigger, badder fish and things get more and more absurd. One of the things that kind of annoyed me the most about it is that characters dying has zero impact, as they come back into the show whenever convenient using whatever silly way the writers deem worthy. (That series is the polar opposite of Game of Thrones in that regard…)

Season 5 introduced the Four Horsemen. I remember Death's intro as being possibly the most memorable moment of the entire show. Re-watching them now, the introductions of all four were seriously chilling. Thought I'd share them here.

• War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I4nFgMuciU
• Famine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQSnVPzV4_k
• Pestilence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E2aQKYEsUw&t=33s
• And best of all, Death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EcsBgxXDqc

I'll recommend Supernatural if you like a good mix of horror-comedy without too much comedy. You may like it if you liked: Psych, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel.

Apollo 11 is a limited IMAX only engagement, at least for now, and I don't know how long it'll be in theaters. But while it is, I implore everyone to go see it.This movie left me speechless, and not just in the sense of the footage being so incredible as to leave me without words, though that's certainly a factor. It's restored footage and audio of the Apollo 11 mission, for anyone that doesn't know, and it covers the launch, moon landing, and re-entry.

It's so easy for historical events to be looked back on and be seen as just that: events. Like a natural disaster or the existence of a waterfall or a canyon, so many battles, inventions, and human triumphs are stripped of humanity, remembered only as things that happened, not things people did. Apollo 11 has staggering to witness footage, yes, but it weaves that footage together with the human moments wonderfully. The scenes of the launch countdown or the lander making its descent are intercut and splitscreened with the footage of the NASA control centers, with names of all the teams, as audio of their conversations with the astronauts and recaps of what has happened and is going to play over the incredibly restored launch footage. Cuts to the crowd overlooking the Apollo 11 launch are also common in the beginning.

This is not an educational video, one to be seen for great understanding of the finer details of the mission. Apollo 11 instead acts as history in motion, with a perspective to the individuals and the event simultaneously. It's about the people that accomplished the amazing things you see. A display of the triumph of human spirit over the perceived rules of the world and the desire for understanding out world and breaking the limits that we thought were imposed on us. And yet, we as the viewers have a perspective that the people who actually accomplished the great things we see never did. The splitscreening helps to assign human beings to the awe inspiring footage in front of the viewer, yes, but at the same time it offers 2 entirely separated perspectives framed as one, one that the human beings being assigned to the footage never truly experienced in the moment. We have an intimate view of the control center with a simultaneous omnipotent-esque view of the mission in all of its glory. The viewer as the omnipotent being is true of most films to some degree, but the way in which the movie frames its central event, small and big at the same time, really highlights an omnipresent view that even those who lived through the launch never experienced in real time. It's a film of contrast between the individuals and the accomplishment of the collective, but in its control center voiceovers and constant splitscreens, it's really a movie that bridges the two contrasts.

Basically, I loved it in ways that, despite my extensive best efforts, I find difficult to describe. This line sounds corny, I know, but you owe it to yourself to see it on the biggest screen that you can, and I implore everyone to try to make time for it and find a true IMAX showing, if possible. The visuals alone may not have been the biggest thing that awed me, but they were certainly a huge part of it. And for anyone that's also seen it, what'd you think? I'd love to see other perspectives on this doc.

Holy shit. Now that is what I call cinema. Somebody give Jonah Hill an Oscar already. The amount of times I felt a deep connection to his character is reaching uncomfortable. The only thing that felt like “too much” was Snorri, but luckily that didn't last long. Emma Stone was so human in this. Rome Kanda and Justin Theroux have amazing comedic moments.

Fucking 10/10. Absolute recommendation.

Previous recommendation on Tildes: Person of Interest

Light spoilers: Psych - S01E01 - Pilot

It's hard to convey how much I love Psych. It's one of those series that, like The Office, P&R, Community, Arrested Development etc develops its own community, through a very vivid style of comedy.

Psych goes back and forth across the series between light-hearted fun and serious episodes. The series follows Shawn, son of a retired police officer, who was taught by his father to be hyper-perceptive, and his best friend Gus. Shawn finds himself having to fake "Psychic powers" to justify his perceptiveness and ends up working for the police.

What makes the series so good is the top-notch chemistry between Shawn and Gus. Psych is one of my top "comfort" series because of this. It got me through my hardest times and it's my second-favourite full-rewatch series (first being The IT Crowd).

It's also littered with references poking fun at The Mentalist, another great TV series with a much more serious tone and a similar plot line (Fake psychic helps police force).

Psych's main flaw I would say is that it suffers from Flanderization. Over time, both Shawn and Gus become exaggerations of themselves. But as much as I wish they'd be more subtle about it sometimes, it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the series.

All in all, Psych is, in my opinion, USA Network's best work and the embodiment of their slogan "Characters welcome", with strong similarities to Monk, Suits and White Collar.

The Psych Movie, which follows the end of the series, is excellent as well. I recommend watching the series before, however. I also generally recommend watching the series starting from the beginning. My first encounter with Psych was with a Season 2 episode and turned me off for a while. There's a second movie currently being filmed. Hopefully it's good!

I watched this conversation between Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant today, and learned of Farrell’s film The Lobster, which features him and Rachel Weisz. I really enjoyed it, it is an absurdist, distopian, and surreal love story which tickled all of my favorite sensibilities. I highly recommend it.

Has anyone else seen this? Did you enjoy it? Do you have any other modern films to recommend along the same lines?

IMDB

Edit: it’s also a comedy, at least for two of us.

Hello Tildes, one common thread that I've noticed in a lot of the threads I've been browsing under ~hobbies and ~creative is that it seems like a lot of folks are looking for new hobbies and things to get into.

To that end one great hobby I've picked up somewhat recently is playing and collecting board games. To some of you, the term 'board game' likely inspires thoughts of old school board games like you may have played in your youth (Clue, Connect 4, Shoots N Ladders, Monopoly, Stratego) "Modern" board games can certainly still be as simple as some of those, but we are actually in a sort of second golden age for board games right now.

What I mean by the above statement is that quite recently (the last 5 years or so) Tabletop and board games have really become popular again, to the point where if you live in a major city there are most likely several places to buy games, and likely even a couple of places you can go to just hang out and play games that belong to the store. Between that, and the popularity of things like Wil Wheaton's TableTop on Youtube, both major game companies as well as small independent folks are creating more and arguably better games than ever in the past.

Now - to the actual subject of the post title. The games I'll list below vary from things most people have heard of or played (Cards Against Humanity) to somewhat obscure, but they should all be pretty easy to find, and very easy to pick up and get into. I'll try to include as much relevant information for each of them (Price, Number of players, Game type etc) and a brief description of what the game is like to play.

If anyone has any other suggestions to contribute please do - One of the best parts of the hobby is the community aspect and finding new games to play.

Let's start with something popular, but not quite ubiquitous yet -
Cards Against Humanity: (3-Unlimited(?) players, $25 Base game + Expansions, Play time Varies based on player count and house rules, ~1hr is a safe bet, but can be made shorter or longer by adjusting rules)
Cards against humanity is a NSFW card game described as 'a party game for horrible people' on the box, which is pretty accurate. Gameplay consists of one player (The judge) playing a black card from the top of a deck with a sentence on it such as "I drink to forget ______" after which the rest of the players will play a white card with things like "My ex-wife" or "Random Erections" or "A bigger, blacker dick" written on them. Once all of the players have played their white cards, they are shuffled, read aloud, and the "Judge" decides which of the white cards is their favorite, awarding a point to the player that played that white card. This is a great icebreaker game because it pretty much forces everyone to get outside of their comfort zone and get weird with it. There are many expansion packs, which are generally themed, but some are just general. These include more cards to keep things fresh after you've played through the originals too many times. - Note: Not recommended for Family Game Night.

Cthulu Dice (3-Unlimited(?) players, $11, Play time ~5-10 minutes):
Cthulu dice is what is called a "micro-game" it consists of just a single plastic (or metal, if you want to dent your table) die with some symbols on it. It's a variant of the old "put and take" game with a bit of a cthulu twist to it, this kind of game is great because it's simple, portable, can be taught to new players in minutes, and also makes a great drinking game. You can also add house rules or look up other variants to keep things fresh

Next up - Dixit (3-6 Players, $30 base game plus standalone expansions, Play time ~30-45 Minutes):
The gameplay of Dixit is somewhat similar to Cards Against Humanity with one player acting as a judge, but from there things get different and rather interesting. Whereas Cards Against Humanity has cards with absurd, obscure, or obscene sentences or words, Dixit has cards with pictures on them. The pictures are generally bizarre, surreal, and kind of whimsical art (Like these examples: https://i.imgur.com/VHtISAZ.png). The way the game is played is the "Judge" player will select a card from their hand and say a single word or phrase that describes something about the picture on the card (It could be a color, an object in the picture, the way the picture makes you feel, what the picture makes you think of, anything that makes sense really) and then plays the card face down. The other players then try to select a card from their hand that matches the judges phrase as best they can in order to fool the other players into picking their card instead of the judges. Once all players have played their face down cards, they are laid out and all players vote on which card they think is the original one played by the Judge, Points are handed out accordingly. Similar to Cards Against humanity, the expansions for this game are additional packs of cards, often following some loose theme to freshen up the game. Most of the expansions contain enough cards that they could be used to play the game standalone. This is a great game to play with people of any age or maturity, it can be as clean or as dirty as the people playing the game but is just generally always a good time.

For the next few games, the actual mechanics of gameplay can get pretty complex, and so rather than explain what the gameplay is like, I'll just link a relevant episode of TableTop for anyone who is interested enough to check them out.

Red Dragon Inn (2-4 Players, $35 Plus Expansions, Play time ~30-60 Minutes) Unfortunately, no TableTop of this one, I can expand if there's interest:
Red Dragon Inn is a game about what the adventurers from DnD do during their 'long rests' at the inn. It's intended to be a drinking game, with players assuming the roles of characters at the inn ( The base game comes with a Wizard, a Rogue, a Priestess, and Warrior ) and are given decks of cards containing context-sensitive actions and abilities. The goal of the game is to be the last person at the inn that isn't broke or passed out from injury or alcohol. The three main resources tracked are a characters health, sobriety, and coins and various cards can affect each of these in various ways. There's also a gambling mini-game that is a lot of fun. The expansions come in 2 types, main releases which consist of 4 new characters (later ones, 4+ seem not to work as well with the earlier ones, and may do better as standalones) as well as single character decks that aren't included in any of the main releases.

Tokaido(2-5 Players 3+ preferable, $30 + Expansion, Play time ~45-60 Minutes):
Tabletop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pipFRzGYgdk

Tokaido is a bit different than the rest of the games on this list so far in that it isn't explicitly competitive. At its' core, Tokaido is a game about seeing who can have the best vacation. Each player assumes the role of a different traveler (each with their own benefits and abilities) and proceeds on their way, trying to stop at the different available locations in such a way that they end the game with the most points (how points are scored is kinda complex, Watch the TableTop for this) but it tends to be a nice, low stress game as there's few ways to really 'attack' other players. There is currently one expansion out for it which introduces some new mechanics and does a good job of freshening up the game for players who have had it a while.

The Resistance/Avalon/Werewolf/Mafia and similar games (Many players, ~$15, Price varies, Play time ~30 minutes, depending on the variant):
Tabletop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_QRczGzXqw

The Resistance and similar are games about lying to your friends and trying to convince them that you are somebody that you're not. Or maybe they're games about telling the truth and trying to get people to believe you, that all really depends on the cards you draw. These are some of my favorite party games to play in a big group because it can really show you who among your friends has the best poker face. Games tend to go pretty quick so when a player is eliminated it's generally not a big deal (this can sometimes not be the case if the group is way large). Of the different variants I've played, Avalon is my personal favorite of the different variants due to the interesting mechanics that the additional roles bring to the table in this one.

Finally - Betrayal at the house on the hill (3-6 Players, more is better, $35 plus expansions, Play time ~60+ minutes )
Tabletop (Part 1 of 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MINNKyE4fjs

Betrayal is my go-to example of how great a modern board game can be. It's a moderately complex game, but don't let that scare you off - after you play it once you'll get it just fine, and setup is relatively quick and easy compared to a lot of the other sort of "DnD Lite" games that exist (Lookin at you here, Arkham Horror!). The game consists of players exploring rooms in a spooky house, building out the map as they go from a stack of game tiles with rooms on them. The rooms will have different effects and trigger different types of events as the players explore through the house collecting items and discovering 'omens'. These 'omens' tie into the whole point of the game implied in the title, the "Betrayal". What this translates to in real terms is that for the first half of the game, all of the player characters are cooperating, trying to help each other get as many useful items and to position themselves in the house in such a way that when one of the other players inevitably fails the 'omen' check and triggers the 'haunt' and begins the second half of the game that the non-betrayers can survive and/or escape. Survive and/or escape what you might ask? That is one of my favorite parts about this game, in the base version there are over 50 different scenarios depending on a bunch of different factors. These scenarios can be everything from demonic possession, ghosts, werewolves, 'the blob' and many other creatures, monsters, and horrific situations and do an absolutely fantastic job of giving the base game a TON of replayability. On top of that, they released an expansion for the first game (Widow's Walk) which introduced even MORE scenarios, as well as new rooms and an entirely new floor to the house, as well as Betrayal at Baldur's Gate, which has similar gameplay but takes place in that universe.

I could really keep going all day, but I think this post has gotten well long enough. Let me know in the comments what games you guys play and love, or if you want to hear about some other kinds of games (There are too many to think about even coming close to touching on all of them: Deck building games, Dice building games, Pandemic-like games, Classics like Catan, Ticket to Ride, Dominion, Milles Borne etc etc etc)

Needing a down weekend, the spouse and I settled in to watch TV, and discovered that Starz' series, Counterpart - spoiler warning, is one of the better series we've seen in quite a while, let alone among science fiction stories. Though The Expanse wins for sheer SFX pyrotechnics and breadth of technical scope, it's wonderful to sit in for a deep, thoughtful drama like Counterpart. The series focuses on character, story, world-building, plausible plotting, and avoidance of the usual alternate universe cliches. Counterpart is a genuine Cold War Noir spy thriller which happens to occur in a science-fictional setting, and the writers have managed to avoid or refresh the tropes of both genres in ways that ask interesting philosophical questions. It's quiet, slow, and meticulous in a way that most current television writing seems to have abandoned. There's tense action, but no primary colored-supersuits, no scary aliens, no gaudy laser beams, just... a split of history that leaves two distorted mirrors, reflecting each other.

J.K. Simmons' performances in the roles of Howard (Prime) and Howard (Alpha) are mesmerizing in a way that outmatches Tatiana Mazlany's Orphan Black characters. There's a slow unveiling of the respective parallel worlds' history, with continuing evolution and interplay of characters and relationships, which brings to mind the best of series like The Wire or The Americans.

To the extent that Counterpart borrows from literary canon, the most significant underlying influences are John LeCarre's find-the-mole games in the Smiley series, China Mieville's The City and the City, and Philip K. Dick (particularly, The Adjustment Team).

The really guilty pleasure, and the lightweight pressure relief from the grimdark of Peaky Blinders or Counterpart, was a spit-and-giggles Canadian production called Letterkenny. I didn't have high hopes, but the 22-minute episodes are exactly what my brain needed to get over the daily doses of blah.

The opening credits of each episode refer to the fictional rural Ontario town of Letterkenny as follows:

There are 5,000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems.

The plots are barely coat-hangers, with most of the comic tension spent on interactions among the Hicks (farm people), Skids (creative-but-disaffected Internet subculture wannabes), hockey players and Christians - a/k/a small-town tribes recognizable anywhere in North America. The portrayals are caricaturized enough to be both humorously offensive and humorously sympathetic simultaneously. [Could be some toxic racial/gender meta, but mostly, the treatment of women and minorities is in keeping with the setting.]

The banter, and the utter Spock-like deadpan of Wayne (the toughest guy in Letterkenny)'s Hick character are the stars of the show. Some people have complained that the rapid-fire use of heavy dialect in the dialogue is impenetrable; that actually helps with comic timing. When your brain catches up to what was actually said, it's like receiving a two-by-four between the eyes of funny. I've got a bit of home-team advantage in the midwestern North American dialects area, and usually get it on the first run, but it's good enough to re-watch happily if the spouse needs a do-over. Transcripts are available, but watch the show before looking.

We now have a new battery of in-jokes and gag lines to add to our secret spousal language - "Hard no.", "That's what I appreciates about ya", "...and he was never the same after that."

There's really nothing quite like Letterkenny, and it's exactly smart/dumb enough to make fantastic comedy. Two seven-episode seasons are currently available on Hulu.

I'm in the last 100 pages and would like to recommend this book. Although it plods a little bit early on, to me it's something of an achievement to keep things going and create interest in the last pages. The premise is that people live multiple lives, but there's more to it than that. The level of writing is above average and the breadth of the book, taking you through several countries and historical events is well done. I'll be up for discussing it in a week or so if anyone's interested.

The premise is like Survivor: don't get eliminated. The thirteen contestants vie for immunity and each week's loser gets axed. The games are mostly board game-style gambling -- from straightforward poker derivatives to deckbuilding.

The show is completely unscripted and the cast is a mixture of minor celebrities, professional game players, and -- in seasons three and four -- ordinary folks from the general public.

The show's marketing material describes the show as an investigation of what genius is. There's a case to be made for this -- the games are diverse, well-designed, and the gameplay onscreen is always interesting. You'll be constantly saying to yourself "I didn't think of that," even the second or third time you watch the show. There's often more than one way to win each game.

What the show does well is presenting mundane reality TV dilemmas psychologically. The show takes place in a kind of liminal space where it isn't clear who's going to become the monster and how. There's lighter stuff and camaderie -- on-camera shtick like hugging and bowing and begging, eating delicious food. Sometimes, there's a little bit of sexism.

It ends in something continually getting worse, and nobody's ever sure exactly what. It usually takes more than one episode for someone to pinpoint what it is. A lot of the tension comes from how the first time something strange happens, it's OK or you excuse it as a coincidence -- and the second or third time it happens, your fear of confirmation bias makes it so you're still not entirely sure if it's a pattern. The show spends a lot of time on this precipice.

The people on The Genius are abnormal. Some of them play the games weird and some are weird themselves -- some of them have learned to hide their biggest character flaws and some of them haven't. At the most extreme it's like sitting next to someone on the bus who snores loud, but not loud enough to make you give up your seat, and then he shoves his hand down your throat.

You can view the first season here, subtitled in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpwIgWPfNvc . Most of the fans consider Episode 2 a very strong episode, so you should watch at least until that, or skip to it if you're impatient.

If all the psychodrama stuff I mentioned sounds appealing to you, skip to season 2, the darkest season. Unfortunately, the later seasons aren't on YouTube, but you can find them in a lot of places: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGenius/comments/5s7eh9/the_genius_s2_s3_and_society_game_file_links/

I've been rabidly evangelizing this show to all my real life friends for years. Please ask any questions that will lead to you watching it! (PS: To those who've seen it, please don't post spoilers in this thread!)

Today NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe which will dive closer to the sun than any other man made object in history.

In celebration of this event I watched Sunshine, a really well cast sci fi thriller. It was pretty darn good. I would highly recommend a watch if you are into this sort of thing, I had entirely missed it somehow. Casting is great, visuals are great, story is good, pacing is excellent. Don't be put off by the age of the movie, I don't think vfx would be any better today.

50 years into the future, the Sun begins to die, and Earth is dying as a result. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun - but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind's last hope.

It may not be on US Netflix but it is on Amazon.

Trailer

I don't watch a ton of TV, but one show I've binged lately has been Pose.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7562112/

The show is set in the ballroom scene of 80s NYC, and deals with a lot of hard topics like the HIV epidemic, gay and trans POC and their acceptance in the "straight" world, and what makes a family. It can be tough to watch in parts, and the first season's storyline was a bit too cliched in places. But overall it's a well acted, well scripted show that highlights a very unique part of history.

Has anyone else been watching? What did you think?

I know I am VERY late to the game on this one, but so far this game has eaten up 20+ hours in 3 days. For anyone who doesn't know, it's an open world action adventure (?) game set in the 31st century. Robotic animals roam the world, and you play an 18 year old girl that hunts them, utilizing bows, spears, slings, ans traps. It has a very primitive feel to it, so you can only assume this is either an alternate universe or a post apocalyptic earth.

While I've already had most of the plot spoiled for me, I'm enjoying all the little bits of lore I'm finding. I csnt wait to see how the plot plays out (as I said, it was spoiled, but only broad strokes, like knowing Vader is Luke's dad.) It's HARD sci-fi in a VIDEO GAME, not something shallow that's been done to death or that's too predictable.

I am severely overleveled, but combat is still fresh and challenging (playing on hard for my first play through.). There are so many different ways to approach situations, I can always change things around and try a different Tactic. I've had so much fun just going around farming and questing that I've ignored the main story for the most part.

The way the game handles its lore is phenomenal. I can't go into details without spoilers (just go read the wiki if you want to I suppose) but I'll save everything happens for a reason,and beautifully so.

Its not without its cons, however. As great as the combat is, a lot of the more difficult parts (so far) can be avoided by going out of bounds where enemies can't reach you (say a cliff or up a rock face, which if you can't climb, some careful jumping will take care of for you.)

It feels like some other games. I'm a big fan of open world, so its in the same family of MGSV, Farcry, and Shadow of Mordor, down to the map markers, collectibles, and inventory wheel. But hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Quick intro: My personal problem with Reddit's movie sub is with its narrow perspective on films. I know it might sound elitist, but I just found most of the discussions to be circlejerks or full of references/memes done to death. The anti-theater Netflix-can-do-no-wrong attitude is confusing at best (considering the overwhelming love for Nolan/PTA/Taratino who are championing the analog film experience). /r/truefilm is full of insightful writing but it's not exactly a welcoming place for newbie cinephiles who got into films via MCU, Star Wars, or other blockbuster franchises. Don't get me wrong, I visit both subs everyday, but I kind of wish there's a balance: A place where you can have both casual discussions about high-brow cinema AND in-depth essays about comedy with dick jokes.

Hence why I am writing this while ~movies is still fresh (hopefully I am adding something of value and not come off too rambly). Now of course I could just start a post asking for foreign film recommendations, but I just don't find those post to go anywhere, they usually just end up with people listing out films without any thought or explanation. Cinema is about your personal experience in relations to what you see on screen, and I think we are doing ourselves a disservice if we watch something and just shrug it off as "it's great you should watch it" or "it sucks". So putting money where my mouth is, here are some recommendations for non-english films. Sorry for the long set-up, but I hope this encourages a dialogue, even if you disagree with the above or my recommendations.

ANYWAY. I settled on 6 because I didn't want it to a Top-5 list and 4 seems too short. 6 just feels right. Cannes just ended and I feel like it's a good time to start talking about the directors of this year's festival as their newest films will be available in the near future. So in no particular order, here are six quality films from the directors of this year's Cannes:

1. "Mountains May Depart" (2015) - Jia Zhangke
   An ambitious piece of work that spans 25 years with an intro that goes for about an hour before the title card. Even if you don't like the film, the confidence of Jia Zhangke is in full display here.
2. "Secret Sunshine" (2007) - Lee Chang-dong
   If Lars Von Trier films aren't realistic enough for you, here's a good one to kickstart your misery. After I finished watching it for the first time, I had to go for a walk and ended up wandering the city for 3 hours. It affected me in such a meaningful way. Surprising funny, if you can see the irony in it.
3. "Ida" (2013) - Pawel Pawlikowski
   The cinematography! The framing in this movie is incredible, as if Ida is having a silent ever-going conversation with God. Not to mention the beautiful black and white!
4. "A Separation" (2011) - Asghar Farhadi
   It was my first Farhadi film, and I quickly went on a hunt for all other Farhadi films right after. The writing grips you and really puts you in the place of all the characters. I could recommendation any other of his films, but to me, A Separation is perfect writing and a must-watch for any screenwriters.
5. "Nobody Knows" (2004) - Hirokazu Kore-eda
   Heartbreaking. You know how the characters will end up (spoiler: not a good place) but you can't look away. I'm glad Kore-eda won Palme d'Or. Can't wait for his new one!
6. "Vivre sa vie" (1962) - Jean-Luc Godard
   The only film pre-2000 on my list, but it's a film that feels quite modern. I've always felt that "Vivre sa vie" should be everyone's first Godard film instead of, say, "Breathless". It's the most coherent and it's a easy watch. It's a good starter movie before you take a deep dive into Godard's filmography (his work ranges from groundbreaking to borderline unwatchable IMO).