Just want to give a shoutout to Mindhunter on Netflix. It’s a good window into the late 1970s, and when watching episodes a second time I find it interesting all the little details they pay attention to. The way guys would not put on their seat belts and not even mention it, the Coleman cooler that I remember from my adolescent years, the stuff on the television, all the little details. Heck, the only anachronism I thought I caught was wrong was twisting off the cap of a beer bottle, but I now know that some brands already had it back then.
And the story, though a very dramatic telling of the beginnings of the FBI profiler program, does avoid a lot of cliches. I highly recommend it.
The teen and I have been digging “Money Heist”, aka “La casa de papel” and have just started the third season. It’s definitely not a “Sting/Ocean’s Eleven” comedy, but neither is it a Guy Ritchie movie. The first two seasons come to a natural conclusion and you can leave it there, but the third season (so far) has turned into something more interesting. Cool!
I watched this 5-part mini series AND both “Avengers: Endgame” and “Captain Marvel” while traveling a couple of weeks ago. That was a majorly intense intake of good-versus-evil that gave me a bit of psychological whiplash! Obviously, this mini series is nowhere near as entertaining or action-packed as the movies, but it’s essential watching for those who do care about how ‘evil’ has been winning in recent decades:
They did a great job with ensuring that all of their major plot points got sorted by the last episode. It felt like all the characters had satisfying arcs, major and minor characters - everyone got an ending by the final episode, it seemed. John Goodman was fantastic (as he always is) as well Michaela Coel - interesting that my first introduction to both actors were through comedy shows (Goodman on Roseanne and Coel in Chewing Gum). The rest of the cast was absolutely solid, too.
It’s worth a watch if only for the scenery and costuming; the plot has enough turns to keep it interesting. Some details, however, I thought needed fleshing out.
Thank you so much for this shout-out - I hadn’t even known that Mindhunter existed before reading it, and oh man, what I almost missed out on! I’m wrapping up season two (please tell me it’s been renewed for a third!) and it’s one of the best shows I’ve seen in a very long time. The acting, the directing, the story, the music, the cinematography, all really good and very engaging, most of the time.
(As an added extra layer of fun, I just finished rewatching Hannibal… )
