Recommendations-Netflix, Amazon, MHZ

[Angela]

I share recommendations with my friends. These are the ones I watched and liked or were recommended to me that I really liked. Fair warning that most of it is not 20 something oriented. If some of our members have favorites that aren't listed, feel free to post them.

Movies on netflix:
Warhorse
Valkyrie
Boy in Striped Pajamas
Zhivago-
Schindler’s List
The Pianist
The Lives of Others
The Imitation Game
Silence of the Lambs
Gosford Park
Outlaw King
Mudbound
Roma


Series on Netflix
The Fall
The Last Kingdom
Rectify
Witnesses
Broadchurch
Happy Valley
Hinterland
Collateral
Stranger Things
Narcos
Making a Murderer
Mindhunter
Dark
Breaking Bad-I liked it, but not crazy about it. He was too far off my moral compass.
Bloodline
Madmen
The Break
A lot of good films are available for free as dvds you can order but I don’t know if that applies in all countries: Il Postino, Cinema Paradiso, Mediterraneo, the newer Jane Austen movies etc.

Series On HBO:
Sopranos
The Wire
Game of Thrones

Movies on HBO:
Conspiracy
Angela’s Ashes
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The Client
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Gathering Storm
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
The Shipping News-so so film, fabulous book
Signs
A Walk in the Clouds-considered a chick flick, with Keanu Reeves, but I loved it

MHZ series with English subtitles-they’re all fabulous imo
All the “Detective” Montalbano episodes
All the “A French Village” episodes
All “The Octopus” episodes (La Piovra)
“Spiral”- French, excellent crime procedural

Amazon Prime
The Best of Youth Italian with English subtitles. Stupendous. If you want to understand something about modern Italy this is the one
La Scorta
Bread and Tulips-I can’t believe they’re making you rent it. It used to be free with Prime
The Choice
The oldie with Loren and Mastroianni-Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is inc. but all the rest you have to pay for.

The Sopranos are included

Line of Duty-BBC, absolutely excellent
Prime Suspect-Helen Mirren
Foyle’s War
Smila’s Sense of Snow
Endeavor
Unforgotten
Place of Execution
There’s lots of traditional ones: Inspector Morse, Vera, Inspector Lewis
Witness
Europa, Europa
The Garden of the Finzi Continis
Spring 1941
Within the Whirlwind
A French Village-great news, you don’t have to join MHZ
The Magnificent Seven
High Noon and dozens and dozens of other classics
Really wrong they make you pay for all the good Italian movies: Il Postino, Cinema Paradiso, Mediterraneo

[Angela]

Good grief...Now our Romanian friend (current name I( )) is going to take it out on Netflix that he got banned, and on me, apparently.

I didn't even do the banning, buddy. Why don't you just either follow the rules or find another place to play. You wouldn't try this on other sites. You'd think you'd be grateful that we're so forgiving.

[Jovialis]

Almost done with Designated Survivor on Netflix, it started off interesting. But wow did it turn into garbage by the third, and final season.

Jamestown on Amazon also had a strong first season. But the second one was so dull, I abandoned it.

[Jovialis]

I'm up to the last episode of the mini-series,11.23.63. It is based on a novel by Stephan King, on Hulu. It is about a time traveler that goes back to the early 1960s, to try to prevent the assassination of JFK. I really am enjoying it, and I recommend it.

[Jovialis]

I recommend the mini-series "Waco" on Netflix.

If it is in fact true how the show portrayed the events, than the people in-charge of FBI investigation, should be in prison right now. The Branch Davidians, were indeed crazy, but the measures taken against them were outrageous.

[Angela]

Given this is Holocaust Remembrance Day, I highly recommend The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Playing For Time, and The Pianist, all on Netflix. The latter shows what prolonged isolation can do to you.

On Amazon, Spring 1941 with Meryl Streep is still good, and Conspiracy about the Wannsee conference is excellent.

Unfortunately, Europa, Europa is now unavailable, which I think in its quiet way was excellent.

If you can stomach it again, Schindler's List is on STARZ. I almost had a breakdown watching it, so never again.

Oh, if you want to watch one time when they fought back and some actually made it to freedom, watch Sobibor.

No good "fictional" version of the Uprising at the Warsaw Ghetto has ever been done in my opinion. Although, in that case they virtually all died and knew they would die, it's an extraordinary story.

[Angela]

Given this is Holocaust Remembrance Day, I highly recommend The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Playing For Time, and The Pianist, all on Netflix. The latter shows what prolonged isolation can do to you.

On Amazon, Spring 1941 with Meryl Streep is still good, and Conspiracy about the Wannsee conference is excellent.

Unfortunately, Europa, Europa is now unavailable, which I think in its quiet way was excellent.

If you can stomach it again, Schindler's List is on STARZ. I almost had a breakdown watching it, so never again.

Oh, if you want to watch one time when they fought back and some actually made it to freedom, watch Sobibor.

No good "fictional" version of the Uprising at the Warsaw Ghetto has ever been done in my opinion. Although, in that case they virtually all died and knew they would die, it's an extraordinary story.

There's a pop culture fiction book about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, with all the faults that implies, called Mila 18 for one of the bunkers the fighters used. The best book on it, however, is still John Hersey's The Wall.

This reviewer hits it on the head, and I think it's particularly meaningful given our present situation although of course it would be blasphemy to compare the two situations as being equally terrible.

"The most arresting parts of the book are those middle sections where he shows the ghetto life adjusting itself to all the restrictions and dangers of the new regime: each new insult and injury is perforce accepted, and a new kind of normality emerges. Life goes on, there are weddings and concerts and pathetic attempts at festivity; as the ghetto becomes more and more confined and living conditions become more crowded, unsanitary, and humiliating, new standards soon become taken as a matter of course. When Sienna Street is removed from the ghetto area, and the already teeming ghetto is confined within a still narrower space, the shabbier Chlodny Street replaces Sienna Street as the street on which “everybody who is anybody” wants to live. The devices to keep some remnant of dignity and hope, of routine and purposeful daily activity, have to be continually renewed, and Mr. Hersey presents the process with great skill. Even in the midst of the typhus epidemic, and of the subsequent ever increasing daily removals of Jews “for re-settlement in the East,” the resilience of routine asserts itself and life goes on.

The ghetto, into which more and more Jews are poured, is gradually decreased in size, and then the second process, of removing its inhabitants to gas chambers, begins. The discovery, by a ghetto agent sent out to “the Aryan side” for the purpose, that resettlement in the East is simply mass slaughter, and the final discovery that all the Jews are destined for that end, finally stops—though not abruptly—the perpetual process of adjustment to ever worsening conditions. The adjustment, symbolized by the increasingly dubious significance of the Judenrat and the Jewish police, founded to allow the Jews to administer their own “order” (under German directive) in the ghetto, breaks down only when the final doom is fully realized. Only then do the varying factions get together, and only then is a militant fighters’ organization set up to fight back as far as they can and meet death actively rather than trundling passively in trucks and railway cars to the gas chambers.

There is a dignity in adjustment, in nobly making the best of a bad job, in carrying on as though things were the same as they had once been, but beyond a certain point the dignity disappears and the pretence of living in a normal world—or indeed in any livable world—becomes grotesque and shameful.

It looks at first as though the book is moving to a purely nationalist conclusion, as though the discovery by all the Jews in the ghetto of their solidarity as Jews contra mundum is to be presented as the saving idea.

While The Wall is full of tentative conclusions, aphorisms, resolutions, professions of faith, made by one or other of the characters or by the diarist Levinson himself, the book comes to rest on none of them. It ends on a question: the few survivors are speaking together in the forest and Rachel asks: “Nu, what is the plan for tomorrow?”


Immediately preceding this conclusion, however, we have a conversation between Levinson and the heroine Rachel. They are waiting in the sewer for means of escape into the forest, and while they wait they talk. Levinson asks Rachel what she thinks about God, “now that she was on the point of graduating from ghetto-school life.”
“Rachel: I didn’t have much chance to learn about God; I am rather unclear as to God. But so far as the rest of our religion is concerned, I think there is only one thing: not to hurt anybody. For me the whole of the Torah is in one sentence in Leviticus: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
“N.L.: Even if thy neighbor is a Nazi?
“Rachel: How else cure him of being a Nazi?
“N.L.: Maybe there is no cure. Maybe you have to kill him.

“Rachel: I’ve tried that, and where did it get me? Where am I now?
“N.L.: In a sewer.”

[Jovialis]

4th season the Last Kingdom is now on Netflix, I just started watching now.

[Palermo Trapani]

Angela/Jovialis:

Ozark on Netflix is one that I watched, just finished Season 3.

HBO is doing season 2 of "My Brilliant Friend" which is based on a novel set in Post WW2 Naples. Pretty good show about 2 young girls from poor families, both exceptionally smart, but one really, really, smart, but with a Father less interested in her going to college and more interested in her skills at designing shows and working for him, etc. The HBO version is in English subtitles and the language spoken by the Italian actors in the series is both Standard Italian, which I understand some, and the Neapolitan Dialect. The author is Elena Ferrante, one of the young women in the series is Elena, but nobody knows who Elena Ferrante is as the writer has kept their identity secret, which this day and age is amazing.

You both seem very well connected to Italian Cinema, Literature, history food and culture so I thought I would pass this one along.

[Angela]

Season 2 of My Brilliant Friend isn't, imo, equal to Season 1, despite the wonderful acting.

The books also decline as the series continues. It becomes too much like a soap opera.

When the author's identity was finally revealed, my discovery that the author isn't southern Italian has lessened my enthusiasm for the books, as it has made me more skeptical that it is completely accurate about Southern Italian or at least Neapolitan family life, for example, a skepticism which was always a bit present for me. I had the pleasure of having a Neapolitan grandmother in law and came to know her sisters as well, and they bore no resemblance to the portrayal of women in the books and the series. If anything, they ruled the roost in their families. Nor do the men resemble the Southern Italian men from Italy I've come to know. Perhaps her feminism has somewhat colored her portrayals.

[Palermo Trapani]

Season 2 of My Brilliant Friend isn't, imo, equal to Season 1, despite the wonderful acting.

The books also decline as the series continues. It becomes too much like a soap opera.

When the author's identity was finally revealed, my discovery that the author isn't southern Italian has lessened my enthusiasm for the books, as it has made me more skeptical that it is completely accurate about Southern Italian or at least Neapolitan family life, for example, a skepticism which was always a bit present for me. I had the pleasure of having a Neapolitan grandmother in law and came to know her sisters as well, and they bore no resemblance to the portrayal of women in the books and the series. If anything, they ruled the roost in their families. Nor do the men resemble the Southern Italian men from Italy I've come to know. Perhaps her feminism has somewhat colored her portrayals.

I agree, Season 1 was much better, there does appear to be the use of secular liberal feminism season 2, and in particular the episode where Lenu has an affair with the older Journalist to prove a point to herself. I kind of thought that was well, I didn't care for it, I would have love to hear Lenu say my favorite swear word in Neopolitan the way Commasario Montalbano says it with a Sicilian flare when he gets ticked off at his Deputy Augello. I agree the acting is excellent and from what I gathered, all the Actors are from Campania since the show required them to speak the Neapolitan dialect. I am and episode behind in season 2 and it does seem the ratings, which were very good for season 1, have tailed off, probably an indicator of how the show is trending as you suggest.

I do agree, my Sicilian Grandmothers, and Great Grandmother on my Fathers side that I got to know, similar to the Neopolitan Grandmother in law in your family, all ruled the roost. I must have missed the revelation of who Ferrante was. Can you provide a link of where I can find it. The one good thing about it is the language is lovely, the people in the show are all very attractive (I am biased I know) and the visuals of Campania are incredible.

[Palermo Trapani]

Personal MHZ recommendation to add. MHZ has the fully restored "La Piovra." Finished watching all the restored episodes, save the 2 flashback ones. Michele Placido is excellent as (Cattani) is Remo Girone and the French actress Milardet who plays the Milanese Magistrate. Similar to Commassario Montalbano, this show does not portray organized crime as illustrious and the central heroes are uncorruptible Police officers and Judges. The Show Gommorah, while well written and well acted, to me does not have a force for good, Magistrate or Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner from the Police with center role in the show.

Interesting tidbit about Placido, he was married to the Roman actress who played Mike Corleone's first wife.

[Angela]

I just finished watching "Reckoning" on Netflix. I thought it was really good, partly because the acting was so good. I really, really like Aiden Young. One review said it was too dark and he didn't like any of the characters, because they were flawed. I don't know what world he lives in, but in my experience everybody is flawed to one degree or another, and most people have done things they shouldn't have done. I completely liked and cared about the main character.

He was the star of another Netflix series I really liked called "Rectify".

On Amazon I watched an Italian series a little while ago, a crime procedural with a personal mystery involving the Chief Detective. It was a relief from the typical Mafia fare which even Italians focus on too much in crime stories, although at least, unlike Americans, they don't romanticize them.

It's called "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and it stars Miriam Leone, a former Miss Italia from Sicily, so, for male watchers, there is that, although unlike American crime procedurals she's not "dolled" up. The majority of the other actors are also appropriate to the area.

For those who like the more old fashioned English crime series, there's Endeavor, and the Inspector Lynley series. More gritty ones include The Fall, Line of Duty, and The Tunnel, all of which are excellent, imo.

I liked Fortitude as well. It's a horror/psychological series, if you like that sort of thing, which I do, and gore and stuff don't bother me.

[Palermo Trapani]

I just finished watching "Reckoning" on Netflix. I thought it was really good, partly because the acting was so good. I really, really like Aiden Young. One review said it was too dark and he didn't like any of the characters, because they were flawed. I don't know what world he lives in, but in my experience everybody is flawed to one degree or another, and most people have done things they shouldn't have done. I completely liked and cared about the main character.

He was the star of another Netflix series I really liked called "Rectify".

On Amazon I watched an Italian series a little while ago, a crime procedural with a personal mystery involving the Chief Detective. It was a relief from the typical Mafia fare which even Italians focus on too much in crime stories, although at least, unlike Americans, they don't romanticize them.

It's called "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and it stars Miriam Leone, a former Miss Italia from Sicily, so, for male watchers, there is that, although unlike American crime procedurals she's not "dolled" up. The majority of the other actors are also appropriate to the area.

For those who like the more old fashioned English crime series, there's Endeavor, and the Inspector Lynley series. More gritty ones include The Fall, Line of Duty, and The Tunnel, all of which are excellent, imo.

I liked Fortitude as well. It's a horror/psychological series, if you like that sort of thing, which I do, and gore and stuff don't bother me.

Your quote about romanticizing Organized Crime in American Movies about Americans of Italian ancestry and organized crime (i.e. The God Father, Good fellas), while both exceptionally great works of art by two great Americans of Italian ancestry (Coppola and Scorcese), have always been a sticking point with me. As I alluded to earlier, the Inspector Montalbano and La Piovra (perhaps the Standard of Italian TV shows dealing with organized crime), both dealing with the Sicilian La Cosa Nostra never do that. The Show about the Neopolitan Camorra, Gommorah, again while exceptionally well written and acted, does in my view romanticize the Camorra. I haven't read the book that the show that it was based on so I can't comment on how the TV show differs from the Book.

Not sure if anyone has been watching Westworld but to use the 70's nomenclature, it is getting close to "Jumping the shark." For those not familiar with American 70's TV, it is when the show Happy Days became a joke of a show and never recovered. The only way the show can be salvaged to me is if Delores "I prefer to see the good in things" is not dead and she defeats the "Wyatt personality" that seems to be the makeup of "The Charlotte Hale" version of Delores.

[Angela]

The Inspector Montalbano series, of which I've watched every single episode, is most emphatically not a series about the Mafia. They are present, when they are present at all, mostly just an adjunct, as Montalbano is not part of the Mafia task forces, and most of the episodes deal with a variety of situations, with a lot of them being crimes of love as much as hate, and centered around the family and lovers.

La Piovra is different, as it is indeed solely about them, and portrays them as monsters, which they are. They are portrayed that way in virtually every Italian film I can remember, from La Scorta to all the films made around the legendary Sicilian prosecutors and judges all over Italy who fought them.

[Palermo Trapani]

The Inspector Montalbano series, of which I've watched every single episode, is most emphatically not a series about the Mafia. They are present, when they are present at all, mostly just an adjunct, as Montalbano is not part of the Mafia task forces, and most of the episodes deal with a variety of situations, with a lot of them being crimes of love as much as hate, and centered around the family and lovers.

La Piovra is different, as it is indeed solely about them, and portrays them as monsters, which they are. They are portrayed that way in virtually every Italian film I can remember, from La Scorta to all the films made around the legendary Sicilian prosecutors and judges all over Italy who fought them.

Montalbano I agree is not about the Mafia, they are always in the background when they appear in the shows, which is not often. I too have seen every episode, several times, In the earlier shows, the Sinagra and Cuffaro families were in the show, more so Sinagra, but as you correctly state they are tangential. I guess my central point about the Montalbano show is it does not give the Sicilian Mafia the center stage ever. La Piovra is indeed about the Mafia, and they are monsters, I agree, and the show portrays them as such. The great thing about La Piovra is that it has a Chief Inspector (Cattanni), Magristrate Conti, and Undercover Licata as the Police and Judges who fought them. On the other hand, the Gommorah show does not have to me at least a major character that is there to defeat the Cammora. So I guess I am not a big fan of the show Gommorah precisely because there is no Police Inspector or Magistrate in the show working to lock them all up.

I haven't seen La Scorta, but I recognize many of the Actors that are in it. Gacinto Ferro was Montalbano's Chief, he passed away a few years back. Ricky Memphis (Ricardo Fortunati) is also in it. I will have to put that on my watch list, assuming it is available on MHZ.

I have no disagreement with your analysis, for what its worth.

[Angela]

MHZ has Giovanni Falcone, Borsellino, Palermo Connection, Transatlantic Ties, The Last Godfather (Provenzano, with Michele Placido e Daniele Pecci), The Mafia Only Kills in Summer, as well, of course, as lots of non Mafia related movies and tv series. (I didn't like "Anti-Mafia Squad" at all.)


La Scorta is available on Amazon Prime for free.

So is a good but little known film called Profumo de Venezhia about the end of World War II. I found it very moving.

Bread and Tulips, an excellent comedy, is also available, but for some unknown reason they make you pay to rent it.

There are films on youtube but only for Italian speakers; few provide English subtitles.

[Palermo Trapani]

MHZ has Giovanni Falcone, Borsellino, Palermo Connection, Transatlantic Ties, The Last Godfather (Provenzano, with Michele Placido e Daniele Pecci), The Mafia Only Kills in Summer, as well, of course, as lots of non Mafia related movies and tv series. (I didn't like "Anti-Mafia Squad" at all.)


La Scorta is available on Amazon Prime for free.

So is a good but little known film called Profumo de Venezhia about the end of World War II. I found it very moving.

Bread and Tulips, an excellent comedy, is also available, but for some unknown reason they make you pay to rent it.

There are films on youtube but only for Italian speakers; few provide English subtitles.

Angela, I have seen the Falcone and Borsellino (Luca from Montalbano does a really good job) movies, Palermo Connection (quite good 1 season show). The actress Valentina Lodovina from Umbria in Palermo Connection is the daughter in one of my favorite Montalbano episodes "A Nest of Vipers". The actor who is the half-brother plays Young Montalbano, he is a good actor. The Mafia only kills in Summer (Series, not movie) and Anti-Mafia squad as well. The Last Godfather I actually got around to watching last night!. There are 2 shows set in rural Tuscany, you probably already are aware of them, Inspector Manara and Murders in Bar Lume. I liked both of them.

[Jovialis]

We've been binging "Justified" on Hulu, and we are on season 3 of 5. It is sort of like a grittier version of Walker Texas Ranger. It's a fun show to have on in the background, while I'm surfing the web.

[Angela]

We've been binging "Justified" on Hulu, and we are on season 3 of 5. It is sort of like a grittier version of Walker Texas Ranger. It's a fun show to have on in the background, while I'm surfing the web.

I really liked it, and it got really positive reviews. I like him a lot too.

He's been on Conan often, partly, apparently, because they're good friends, and I've watched the youtube clips with him; he's just as charming and has just as much swagger in person as does the character. :) Like Dorian Grey he must have an aging portrait somewhere; the man looks incredibly young to me for his age.

He's goofy and funny in Santa Clarita Diet, and completely different in Deadwood (the series and the recent movie).

[Jovialis]

I really liked it, and it got really positive reviews. I like him a lot too.

He's been on Conan often, partly, apparently, because they're good friends, and I've watched the youtube clips with him; he's just as charming and has just as much swagger in person as does the character. :) Like Dorian Grey he must have an aging portrait somewhere; the man looks incredibly young to me for his age.

He's goofy and funny in Santa Clarita Diet, and completely different in Deadwood (the series and the recent movie).

I like that show as well!

[Angela]

I like that show as well!

I didn't think I'd like it; watched it mainly because of him, but I think it's really funny in a bizarre way. :)

Have you tried Schitt's Creek? I thought it would be some cliched series about how stupid the yokels are, but it's not like that at all. I thought it was really funny.

For gritty westerns, I liked Hell On Wheels; particularly like the lead. :)

[Jovialis]

I didn't think I'd like it; watched it mainly because of him, but I think it's really funny in a bizarre way. :)

Have you tried Schitt's Creek? I thought it would be some cliched series about how stupid the yokels are, but it's not like that at all. I thought it was really funny.

For gritty westerns, I liked Hell On Wheels; particularly like the lead. :)

I have, I do think it is pretty funny. I like that deadpan-style of humor. I haven't seen many episodes yet, however.

[Angela]

I have, I do think it is pretty funny. I like that deadpan-style of humor. I haven't seen many episodes yet, however.

I wish they had more "adult" comedies; they're few and far between. For escapism I also do like police procedurals, and the occasional well done horror film, like Fortitude.

The Scandinavian crime films are usually pretty good, but they're so gloomy and so lacking in humor and banter of any kind, and usually involve such "sick" sexual crimes that a few of them go a long way imo.

[Angela]

I honestly can't say I recommend this film on netflix, but it was certainly a shocker.

Last night we were just channel surfing on netflix and it came up as the number one watched movie in the U.S. When I later looked it up it's also number one in netflix-Great Britain, and in the top three most watched netflix film in what seems like dozens of countries.

It's called 365, and I would describe it as a Polish made soft porn film geared probably toward women (like 50 Shades of Grey), and starring as the male "lust" interest an Italian, which I found a bit bizarre in a Polish film. Is this a common fantasy there?

The "plot", such as it is, is ludicrous imo, the acting mediocre (sorry, but I didn't "believe" him during the actual sex scenes; maybe a better looking woman would have helped, or maybe he was embarrassed, I don't know), and it's totally politically incorrect, so I'm sure all the women's lib and women's studies people hate it. Yet, it has this incredible viewership.

So, inexplicable, in some ways. This isn't supposed to be what women want, is it?

Perhaps it's just Massimo. I must say, after watching just ten minutes of this, I was like, forget Christian Grey. :) Not that I ever watched all of that either. Not my thing.

Still, if you're going to lose your mind with lust, this is the guy. :)