Started The Boys, on Amazon Prime.
This is some great f’ing tv. Our world, modern times, superheroes are commonplace. To say anymore would need a spoiler tag. Two episodes in and can safely say this is a must watch.
@OhBollox, I think you’d enjoy this one.
Massive fan of the comics. It’s just Watchmen again really, but it’s great. I’ll give the series a try, thank you!
Never read the comics, but this show is much less “dark” than Watchmen. Some blood and gore, nudity, definitely not for the kiddies. But also without the racial under / overtones that is Watchmen - kind of like apples and oranges here, I guess. Both fruit, but different.
Yeah, it is a fun one.
The Hunters. It’s heartening to see an explicitly anti-fascist TV series. Advertised as if it was some sort of HBO prestige programme, but really it’s very much in the style of comic book TV adaptations, albeit this time it’s about Nazis in America and the small band of didn’t-ask-to-be-heroes hunting them.
“Living well is not the best revenge. You know what the best revenge is? Revenge.”
Had read some mixed reviews - glad you think it’s worthwhile!
I think some people were expecting something more Munich than Inglorious Basterds, but it’s fairly flamboyant at times.
I’m on the fence as to whether I’ll watch Hunters … reading stuff like this bothers me:
I plan to watch Hunters, I enjoyed Inglorius Basterds. 
I do think this criticism, from the article @geigerm linked, is valid. Hollywood doesn’t mind crossing a line when there is no compelling reason to do so.
Invent an non-existing camp and Nazi atrocities perpetrated there. If you however use a real place, respect it’s history and suffering of its victims.
Not sure how it aids Holocaust deniers. They deny any of it happened, so inventing a fiction isn’t going to assist or hinder them.
I’m guessing (but really don’t know) their perspective is seeing Auschwitz fictionalized makes it easier for idiots to insist the whole thing was just a fiction. But I’m not 100% sure.
The series creator had a thoughtful response to that criticism:
I’m uncertain, as well, as to how effective it would be in aiding Holocaust deniers. My understanding of their concern is that deniers may try to focus on this fiction and ignore the facts, which is a reasonable concern.
I recall the movie “Denial”, about the trial in the UK with the burden of proof on the accuser on libel, with the “no holes, no holocaust” slogan, so perhaps they are sensitized to a new “no chess, no holocaust” slogan? I dunno, I wasn’t in the UK for the Irving court proceedings so don’t have personal knowledge of how the press portrayed it.
For myself, I support their criticism that:
Invent an non-existing camp and Nazi atrocities perpetrated there. If you however use a real place, respect it’s history and suffering of its victims.
I do appreciate the creator/executive producer’s good intentions in using fictitious tattoo numbers, but I disagree on not using a fictitious camp for the fictitious chess scene.
As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, they are likely thrilled that this story was linked to on the “front page” of the USA Today website: Auschwitz Museum upset with made-up scene in Amazon’s ‘Hunters’: ‘Dangerous foolishness’
I’m all for accurate depictions of history. But there’s a big difference between works of fiction that are obviously embellishing, and works that depict it “as it really was” without ever saying so.
Any depiction of the Holocaust is irrelevant to deniers; they know it happened, they are compelled by ideology to state it never happened. Fictional depictions of any aspect of it are irrelevant. They already deny actual evidence.
I haven’t seen the show, but here is my take:
I don’t care about fictionalizing history as long as it isn’t done to deceive or rewrite.
Holocaust deniers are so objectively stupid and hateful that the burden can’t be on the artists to make works that won’t worsen their stupidity.
the Auschwitz memorial curators have such an agonizingly somber job that I can’t ever fault them for speaking out any time there may be an issue that trivializes or obfuscates the horror.
Paradise PD. A stupid, crass, crude series incapable of doing anything other than constantly harvesting low-hanging fruit. I love it.
We finally watched Maniac on Netflix, I really enjoyed it. My wife was a little mixed on it. We are just about done right now with Season 2 of Punisher and it is great.
Watching the first 2 episodes of Hunters, I can say that the backstories of the Nazis they have hunted are comic book like. You don’t need to sensationalize the horrors of the Holocaust to make Nazis look evil. And the moral dilemma the protagonist feels about murdering Nazis hiding in America feels hollow against Tarantino-style gorefest. The whole show feels tonally off. OhBollox mentioned that people were expecting more Munich than Inglorious Basterds, but I think the show tries to do both at once and it suffers for it. Al Pacino’s emotional and serious performance about the reason why they hunt Nazis, to give justice to the survivors of the Holocaust and 6 million voiceless Jews who were massacred, is undercut by the comic book nature of the series. Even the visual style of the show with bright colors and flashy intros for the hunters is incongruous with the seriousness of the subject matter.
I’ll watch a couple more episodes to see if it gets any better but I’m not holding my breath.
I don’t think the series is ‘serious’ at any point.
It’s a kind of updated old pulp serial, which leans a little too heavily on the modern parallels, but gives us a pleasant fantasy of a network of blatant Nazis that can be openly fought. If anything, the series struggles to be as ridiculous as real life, considering countries brought in Nazi war criminals like von Braun after the war, and trifles like their use of slave labour from death camps was simply too gauche to bring up in polite conversation. They weren’t hunted down and shot, like they should have been.
Well I’ve only seen the first 2 episodes but nearly all of Pacino’s scenes are meant to be serious and the kid Jonah seems to have a serious moral quandary about hunting and killing Nazis but he also feels guilty about doing nothing to stop the murder of his grandmother. But yes, it is mostly filled with cartoonish camp that makes the few serious scenes fall flat.
Homecoming. Just started this. A treatment centre for military veterans is not what it seems. Shea Wigham is so good.
Outsider was okay. After watching it all, it had some good moments but the ending left an awful lot to be desired, quite apart from finishing 40 minutes early and then dribbling for the remaining runtime. I’m sure the book is better but also twice as long as it needs to be.
