The Watercooler for Netflix

… you might like:

 Wire In The Blood

This tense British crime series follows the work of Dr. Tony Hill (Robson Green), a psychologist with a peculiar talent for understanding how serial killers think.

 Luther

A troubled yet brilliant English police detective, DCI John Luther (Idris Elba, The Wire) is separated from his wife and is torn between her and an unrelenting approach to solving serial killings.

 Doctor Who (Season 5 in particular)

The  epic sci-fi series follows the adventures of the a mysterious traveling alien adventurer and his human companions.

This modern reimagining of Sherlock is absolutely brilliant. At a time when most TVs are choking on a glut of bluster-laden procedurals Sherlock is sharp, clear and captivating. 

The show format is unusual even for the BBC: three episodes, each of which is 90 minutes. Most procedurals are hampered by their 44 minute run times which have to introduce and make you care about one-off characters and story lines in too little time. This cinematic breath Sherlock allows itself lets you be fully drawn in. 

While I love Martin Freeman, who plays Watson, but it’s Benedict Cumberbatch’s bristly, mood-swinging, sociopathic Sherlock Holmes that really makes the show. Like the original, this modern Sherlock is driven by the purusit of puzzles, knowledge and, fundamentally, the pull of something new. But this modern Sherlock takes these traits and turns them up to a neurotic degree. Sherlock’s casual misogyny, which can almost certainly be attributed to Stephen Moffat, can be off-putting but as part of the character it works well as a way to define and aliente the character from those around him. 

It’s a show well worth pursuing to enjoy that something new it has to offer.  

Sherlock is available to stream now on Netflix. 

I’ve tried to resist their siren song for months but I give in. Let’s talk TV. 

I’ll be watching all three shows but you should watch any of the three that interest you:

Farscape - Season 1 - 22 eps, 50 mins each. (~4 episodes per week)

• A sci-fi show with heart and Jim Henson puppets. (Trailer)

Better Off Ted - Season 1 - 13 eps, 22 mins each (~3 episodes per week)

• A quirky and incisive office comedy. (Trailer)

Downton Abbey - Season 1 - 7 eps, 48 mins each (~2 episodes per week)

• A British costume drama set pre-WWI.  (Trailer)

Reviews of pilot episodes will go up this weekend.  Please watch along and submit any thoughts you have on them!  

Watching and discussions will happen throughout June. If people like this we’ll vote for new TV shows come July. 

(Movie reviews will go on hiatus for the summer. Recommendations will crop back up when I have time to do a round-up. Sherlock review and related titles will be out later this week. Thoughts on anything? Comment or email me.)

… you might like:

Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (Trailer)

The high school is under siege, and not just from the usual teenage angst, but also from a bomber who’s hell-bent on making everyone’s life miserable. 

 Macross Plus (Trailer)

Two old friends/rivals find themselves rival test pilots in competing projects while a mutual old flame returns to them with her own secrets.

 Gurren Lagann (Trailer)

Simon and Kamina venture beyond the borders of their world, reality and imagination. Venturing further and further into a hidden truth that has kept humanity prisoners for millennia.

Watching FLCL is the closest me, someone in her late 20s, will come to reliving puberty. There’s a lot going on! I don’t really understand everything that’s happening to my body or in my life! But it’s exciting and I’m seeing people in a way I didn’t before! I’ve got a horn on my head that’s a boner metaphor and now there’s a robot coming out of it but also now this robot is sort of like my maid and is playing baseball!

Yeah, I didn’t quite get everything that’s going on in FLCL. I sorta fell asleep the first time I watched most of the episodes. Not that that’s FLCL’s fault. It’s 6 half hour episodes each as zany and jam packed as the last. I did get more out of it the second time I watched the episodes through, but I’m sure I could get even more out of repeat viewings.

If that sounds like a cop out, it’s because it is. While I may not be a complete neophyte, I’m far from an anime auteur. So there’s probably a bunch I didn’t for a vareity of reasons. But even though I didn’t get fully it, possibly because i didn’t fully get it, I definetly recommend seeing it. I’ve said I like my anime weird and FLCL certainly fits the bill. 

… you might like:

 Hindsight (Trailer)

Unexpectedly pregnant with no means to raise a child, Dina and Ronnie decide to sell their unborn baby over the Internet. Their plan begins to unravel when the couple they’ve chosen have an agenda of their own.

 Vital (Trailer)

After a tragic car accident where his girlfriend died, Hiroshi Takagi suffers amnesia with his memories completely blanked. Becoming a medical student, he explores his grief and the incident. 

 Ab-Normal Beauty (Trailer)

When a young photography student witnesses a woman get hit by a car and bleed to death, she snaps a few shots of the scene, inadvertently discovering that she has a disturbing fascination with death. 

Also: Me and You and Everyone We Know (Trailer)

Who am I? Do you know me? Have we met? In real life? In passing? Have we hung out together? Have you read things I’ve written? Do you know me? Am I the me that you thought I’d me? Am I the me that I think I am? Want to be?

There are no perfect circles in nature, but a thick outline will make it seem perfect.

Maybe because it’s spring but I’ve seen at least a half dozen people post online recently “I want to run away from it all.” I get angry when I read that. Who are you to abandon your responsibilities? Your friends? Me? Do you think I don’t want to run away too? Things would be easier if life had granular control. Running away from things that are dreary, shutting down on things that are hard, following along with things that mollify. Is life something that you can permit in piecemeal, instead of something that you have to live?

Everyone wants to be the flower but not the vase.

Noriko’s Dinner Table, the sequel/prequel to the buckets of blood flick Suicide Club, is billed as a horror but there’s really no more than 5 minutes of gore in this 2 hour and 40 minute movie. In many ways it’s a darker, externalistic version of the romantic, introspective Lost In Translation. Both movies ask “Who am I? What does my life mean?”

She came to Tokyo to be happy, but I knew she’d transcend it.

For a film made in 2004, it speaks to a modern alienation (technological or otherwise). The push/pull that comes with developing seemingly close but ultimately intangible connections with people either across the country or across the dinner table. It’s a stark movie that layers upon itself leaving you questioning the ephemeral nature inherent to all relationships. Talking doesn’t mean you’re communicating, staying doesn’t mean you’re content, and running doesn’t mean you’re blissful. 

Your heart is a small glass, if you pour too much emotion into it tears will spill out.

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