What are you watching?

[Conrad]

Anybody else tuning into Ken Burns' Vietnam tonight? His productions have often been excellent and some outstanding; not sure if enough time has passed for any American to revisit Vietnam with a fair eye but I have been waiting for this one to see if Mr. Burns can apply a fair and even hand.

Peter Coyote is narrating this one so that is a plus, at least IMO. David McCullough would have been even better but now in his mid- 80's, he has not narrated anything in some years, though he is active here and there as a guest historian.

It starts tonight and per the usual Burns documentary, runs on and off for the next 10 days or so; 10 episodes totaling 18 hours.

Brian

My wife and I watched the first ep last week. I was surprised at how interested she was in the show. Normally 'war stories' put her off but she raved at how well done this one is. I agree, most excellent! The different perspectives that Burns brings to this subject is fantastic.

[mikeyw64]

Oh man, I'd love to see that.

~~Apparently it is/will be available on Amazon in the US

[B.D.F.]

Most of Ken Burns productions are like this and are usually excellent. Even the ones about subjects you would not think you would like, he presents them in a neutral enough way, while preserving the essence and interesting content that they really are very easy to watch. I think the first one was about the Brooklyn Bridge back in the early '80's and there have been quite a few since. The Civil War is probably his most well known work but I have found others that are the equal of that, at least IMO.

I hope you recorded the episodes when they were broadcast because they often will not reappear for a long time after the initial showing, and his series are aired a bit stangely, with around five episodes per week until the series is finished. I grabbed the whole series on DVR and so did not pay attention to what days it was on but I think the next episode aired on the next night (Monday).

I am current at E6 I think and as has always been the case, the series is extremely even- handed and well- paced throughout. Honestly I was not sure any American could do a neutral overview of that conflict yet but I think he has managed to pull it off, or at least it seems so to me, viewing it with my own biases perhaps (I grew up right in the middle of that time and for a while, I thought I was going to get the 'all expenses paid trip to Southeast Asia myself' but missed it by 1 1/2 years).

Glad to hear you liked it. And as I said, it will be well worth your time to check out his other productions if you like this one IMO. The only one I have not been able to connect with is 'The West'.

Brian

My wife and I watched the first ep last week. I was surprised at how interested she was in the show. Normally 'war stories' put her off but she raved at how well done this one is. I agree, most excellent! The different perspectives that Burns brings to this subject is fantastic.

[VirginiaJim]

~~Apparently it is/will be available on Amazon in the US

I hope so.

[Conrad]

Most of Ken Burns productions are like this and are usually excellent. Even the ones about subjects you would not think you would like, he presents them in a neutral enough way, while preserving the essence and interesting content that they really are very easy to watch. I think the first one was about the Brooklyn Bridge back in the early '80's and there have been quite a few since. The Civil War is probably his most well known work but I have found others that are the equal of that, at least IMO.

I hope you recorded the episodes when they were broadcast because they often will not reappear for a long time after the initial showing, and his series are aired a bit stangely, with around five episodes per week until the series is finished. I grabbed the whole series on DVR and so did not pay attention to what days it was on but I think the next episode aired on the next night (Monday).

I am current at E6 I think and as has always been the case, the series is extremely even- handed and well- paced throughout. Honestly I was not sure any American could do a neutral overview of that conflict yet but I think he has managed to pull it off, or at least it seems so to me, viewing it with my own biases perhaps (I grew up right in the middle of that time and for a while, I thought I was going to get the 'all expenses paid trip to Southeast Asia myself' but missed it by 1 1/2 years).

Glad to hear you liked it. And as I said, it will be well worth your time to check out his other productions if you like this one IMO. The only one I have not been able to connect with is 'The West'.

Brian

We did watch The Civil War a few years back and I agree with you, it was excellent. We don't have a DVR any longer as we stream everything now via Roku. Well, almost everything. I still have a working antenna w/rotor, antenna amp, and a 30' tower that receives all the Chicago stations for nuttin. I suppose I could get a DVR that works off of the antenna but we have more than enough to watch without it.

[maxtog]

Started WestWorld, since I now have HBO even though I didn't really want it but got it for "free."

[B.D.F.]

Westworld (the series, not the movie) starts off somewhat slow but it really is very well done IMO. And it gets better- a lot better, again of course IMO. I ended up liking the series a lot, and it builds upon itself so you really have to watch it in order and not skip any episodes.

In fact I liked it enough that it was kind of a downer that it will not be back for 2017 but instead delayed until 2018 for the next (second) season).

Brian

Started WestWorld, since I now have HBO even though I didn't really want it but got it for "free."

[B.D.F.]

Currently watching The Vietnam War, E8 so far, and it is excellent. I know how this turns out of course but it is the viewing of 'the trip' that is most interesting. And I am learning all kinds of things I never knew about that period even though I grew up during that phase. One thing that really surprised me was that Creighton Abrams replaced William Westmoreland as the overall commander of the US forces in Vietnam. As an interesting aside, of course the M1 Abrams tank is named after Creighton Abrams but I was only familiar with him from much earlier fame; he was the commander who led the 4th Armored Division of the Third Army (Patton's command) in that outstanding maneuver that brought US forces to bear and relieved the siege of Bastone during the Battle of the Bulge. I was just not aware that he was active in Vietnam at all, never mind commanded all US forces there for the second and last phase of our involvement in that conflict.

Also current in the last season of Episodes with a couple of episodes left to go. Not excellent but really pretty good, offbeat and interesting. For Americans, I think the real plus here is watching Matt LeBlanc ('Joey Tribbiani') be..... well, a callous, crude and somewhat nasty version of Matt LeBlanc. Assuming Matt LeBlanc is not actually callous, crude or nasty of course :-)

Watching the current season of Ray Donovan and while the characters are all still excellent (really, every one of them is excellent in his / her role), the series is losing a bit of steam. Still OK and worth watching but it is having the usual 5th (I think) season plot failures and they seem to be hunting around for something interesting for the cast to do. Very common of course but not desirable.

Brian

[VirginiaJim]

Tora! Tora! Tora!

[B.D.F.]

Finished the Vietnam War last night. The usual Ken Burns excellent production.

Some people have criticized the series for not putting enough emphasis on the South Vietnamese participation and I did notice that a bit. But the entire show was very clearly shown from the American side and I think that makes it more acceptable because it never claimed to be an unbiased or a neutral view.

Certainly a bit of an emotionally negative show to an American though because it all happened recently enough to have a personal memory of those events. Not like his The Civil War or even the series about WWII, The War, which are a lot more abstract as I did not live through either one. But an excellent series I think.

Brian

[maxtog]

Finished the Vietnam War last night.

I am glad someone finished it, plenty of work was left undone.

[B.D.F.]

Watched Gerald's Game, it was recommended to me. I would give it a solid meh. Well, maybe not quite that good. For whatever reason, it just did not float my boat, and frankly I just do not understand parts of it. Another Stephen King novel made into a movie and they have been all over the place; this one is on the 'less than stellar' side for me.

Brian

[Conniesaki]

The Revenant. Knew nothing about it except very good reviews. Did not see the bear attack coming. Holy crap. Brutal.

[Conrad]

Watched Gerald's Game, it was recommended to me. I would give it a solid meh. Well, maybe not quite that good. For whatever reason, it just did not float my boat, and frankly I just do not understand parts of it. Another Stephen King novel made into a movie and they have been all over the place; this one is on the 'less than stellar' side for me.

Brian

We watched this the other day and we concur with your 'meh'.

*****spoiler alert******





Although the scene where the wife gets her hand free of the handcuffs is NOT for the squeamish!   

I might have tried using my legs to break the bedposts first... 

[B.D.F.]

I think they addressed that by having the husband say something like 'I reinforced the bedposts just for this'.

Funny thing but Stephen Kings's books, turned into movies, have ranged from excellent to terrible, with a lot, maybe most, of them being mediocre and worse. That said, a handful do stand out I think, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and a one that I always though was excellent though I do not think it ever caught on either in the box office or afterwards in video release: Needful Things.

And to address your *****spoiler alert******:

Yep, that truly was gruesome. And I did not see it coming at all, I though she was just committing suicide.... what she actually did is worse, at least having to watch the mechanics of it. I think I would have waited a bit longer for spontaneous combustion of a bedpost, or maybe someone casually entering the cabin looking for, oh I don't know.... maybe Waldo. And certainly, I would have tried using your legs to break a bedpost also; and I probably would have made more of an effort with your legs than you would have. 

We watched this the other day and we concur with your 'meh'.

*****spoiler alert******





Although the scene where the wife gets her hand free of the handcuffs is NOT for the squeamish!   

I might have tried using my legs to break the bedposts first...

[VirginiaJim]

Handcuffs are not allowed in my home.

[Conrad]

Handcuffs are not allowed in my home.

Zip ties then?

[B.D.F.]

Maybe he cannot answer right now?

Brian

Zip ties then?

[Conrad]

We watched Guardians of The Galaxy 2 and Wonder Woman last night.

Guardians 2 was great! 5 stars.   

Wonder Woman gets a meh and 3 stars.

[mikeyw64]

We watched Guardians of The Galaxy 2 and Wonder Woman last night.

Guardians 2 was great! 5 stars.   

Wonder Woman gets a meh and 3 stars.

GOTG2 wasnt quite as enjoyable as GOTG1 for me, although it was still good.

I enjoyed Wonder Woman far more than I thought I would.

Ok so there was quite a large shift in the "origin " story from WW2 to WW1 and it 's obviously just a lead in for a JLA film but....