I watched Blue Ruin last night and it was great. It's by the same director as Green Room, which came out recently.
Someone here recently recommended Spartacus, which I've been watching. It seems like it would fit your criteria. Plenty of plot, enough action, available on Netflix.
I've also heard Game of Thrones is popular.
If you like soapy drama with a lot of manipulative people plotting revenge against each other the show Revenge might not be a bad one.
Are you a near-invalid? If not why in the name of the Lord are you using an eliptical machine
8 to 6, of course. The Wire is a good fencepost here, because despite being the greatest of all things (and setting aside that I've watched the whole series five times) it's too intricate and slow for exercise viewing.
"Generation Kill" is by the same guys but better on the speed and intricacy counts. It's only seven episodes though (which might be good or bad under the circumstances I suppose).
Going Deep with David Rees, of course. Or maybe Master of None if you can get past the piss-poor acting.
"Generation Kill"
David Simon's Iraq series, right? I watched the first few episodes, which were good, but Ziggy, who almost ruined The Wire, ruined that, too. I kept waiting for him to die, but it didn't happen, so I bailed.
Master of None
Which I recommended on this very blog (the acting isn't really the point, churlish one), but isn't really manly-metal-elliptical viewing.
Which I recommended on this very blog
Oops! I forgot about that! Just goes to show what sterling taste we share.
Have you considered Archer?
Lifetime movies. I like to choose the ones where there is either a totally contemptible male villian or those in which all men are villains. I recently enjoyed Naked Lie a lot, broad-shouldered suits, filmed in San Diego, cinematography mostly indifferent with occasional nicely composed shots.
Also Bollywood. Billu is a fantastic movie, as is Swades
Gintama. Wait, action and not stupid. But I like stupid.
Cowboy Bebop has a great dub. Monster.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Langen. Ghost in the Shell SAC + 2 (tv) Psycho-Pass. Katanagatari. Seirei no Morabito. All pretty smart and fast, busy. FLCL and Tatami Galaxy too smart, too fast, too much sub reading.
There's a lot of film noir downloadable from the Internet Archive.
12: ah ok. Fargo is very good - just watching series 2 - but the style of humour isn't for everyone. Maybe if you liked the film?
I like watching stuff on the treadmill too. ST:DS9 and Xena are best for that purpose. Supergirl, as it airs rather than on the tablet, since I don't have broadcast TV at home (this helps drag me into the gym sometimes).
I tried Daredevil, but stopped because it took "men talking in hushed, serious tones" to near-fetishistic levels.
Now that I have Marvel Unlimited I can also read comics.
14: I think the Onion did a parody television schedule once upon a time that included, for Lifetime, a movie titled The Woman Who Didn't Mean to Kill Her Abusive Husband.
Also, Gotham High on the CW.
Fargo is very good
That is one I've heard good things about. I'll see if it's available.
Terriers was just one season, but it's a quality shaggy PI story with enjoyable characters.
I recently discovered the joys of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.
West Wing is on Netflix. It's fun to watch it again and appreciate all the things that make Sorkin so amazingly awful and the show so much fun.
If you start watching Justified, know that the first two or three episodes are truly terrible and have almost nothing, in terms of quality, with the rest of the show.
The Bank Job is virtually the only non-dumb movie Statham has ever made. I am nonplussed.
Silicon Valley is funny enough that it will be useful, I think.
TV shows: Vikings. Orphan Black. And yes, I'll say it: The Walking Dead.
It's 'about' life after the zombie apocalypse, okay? But really, honest to god, it's much, much better than you think. I have turned at least 3 people who'd initially pooh-poohed it with much eye-rolling. The acting and dialogue are quite good, the character development is outstanding; an ensemble cast.
What else? I suppose 12 Monkeys (tv show, not movie), though it's a bit complicated for elliptical work.
All of these are shows you must watch from the beginning.
If you're just getting around to Firefly and Pulp Fiction there may be other gaping holes in your exposure to classic not-too-complicated adrenaline-oriented cinema. If so, I propose:
Fight Club
Starship Troopers
Terminators 1 and 2
Tremors
Kill Bill 1 & 2
I used to work out in a gym that had televisions stuck on Fox News and Fox Business. Turns out that blinding rage is a great distraction from physical exertion.
Wait, why are you doing steady-state cardio?
Because I'm old.
If you're just getting around to Firefly and Pulp Fiction
Does anyone have the archives memorized anymore?
But lots of good suggestions. I'll check them out. I love Silicon Valley, but my free streaming source only had the first season.
Finding Vivian Maier, Cairo Time, Broadchurch, City of God ,Marco Polo, The Trip, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.
You prob love the 100.
We should post our netflix history. Some math person could do a graph for overlap.
If you have hulu the criterion collection has a LOT of movies available for streaming, although apparently that will change in the fall when they start some new streaming thing with tcm.
I found the second season of Broadchurch hugely cathartic, though not so much the cheesier bits. I haven't watched any tv or movies in the last couple of months, though, other than running across whatever the girls might be watching. Oh, I guess which specifically means I watched Freaky Friday, which I don't recommend for elliptical viewing.
I think Ogged would enjoy Freaky Friday. Who wouldn't?
I can't watch Netflix tonight because of the effect of Alzheimer's on anybody knowing where the iPad is.
The Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsay Lohan one where the teen's boyfriend totally falls for and kisses the mom body. Whyyyy?
The mom body is Jamie Lee Curtis' body right?
I would have thought the explanation was obvious.
36: I hope the TCM deal won't leave everyone worse off. There are a lot of non-Criterion old films that play on TCM that I'd like to see stream, so my excitement at hearing TCM would offer streaming was immediately dampened by hearing it would involve Criterion, which already has a streaming outlet.
I don't want some execs' ideas of the "best" I just want (to have the option to pay for) access to the fucking huge back catalog of films that could exist.
To elaborate, why did the movie rely on a high school student making out with the mother of a high school student, regardless of the attractiveness levels of any of the people involved? And the guy is Chad Michael Murray or whatever his name is, so obviously he's no catch.
28: I dunno, I liked it in the theater, but I just bot it for $5 at Target the other day, and only made it through about 25 minutes -- too many anachronisms and implausible class markers for 60s/70s London. But yes, almost all his other ones are just as bad or worse.
45: We've all been painted into that corner at least once.
Seconding Fargo, the TV series. Really great.
Vikings is kind of silly but fun.
Just started in on Line of Duty which so far is really good.
The Wire is of course, sublime and leads me to wonder if you've seen Deadwood.
ST:DS9 certainly does strike me as the kind of show that would be great to watch at the gym.
those in which all men are villains
So the documentaries?
Oh, The Americans is quite good. Party Down, Mr Robot also. Parks and Rec actually.
BSG, which was much discussed here but I don't recall you saying much about. Although I don't know if it streams anywhere anymore.
I'm also looking forward to the Criterion/TCM streaming thing once I finally get around to getting a proper VPN here (and fuck Netflix with a chainsaw). And I couldn't imagine watching movies, especially classic and art-house films on a treadmill or elliptical or whatever but I'll admit I find the idea of someone doing that appealing after I got over my admitted initial art-house film snob reaction.
Definitely BSG and let me put in a recommendation for the under-appreciated but truly great and weirdLexx.
I have no TV, but I must scream
+ space between weird and Lexx.
I doubt it's streaming anywhere though.
Also even though I'm tired beyond weariness of comic book movies I've gone and let myself get addicted to Gotham, The Flash, and . Of those three Gotham can be pretty good at times (the actor who plays the Penguin is quite entertaining to watch. And as long as I'm continuing in this vein, if you want to reach the pit of self-loathing, give Under the Dome a whirl, though even I couldn't stomach more than the first 10 minutes of the first episode of the last season.
Deadwood
Not one, but two long, contentious Deadwood threads on one page.
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Man, the opening riff and also the melody to "Secret Agent Man" totally rock in a timeless/utterly-of-their-time way.
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+ Agents of SHIELD.
Don't know what happened there.
The last 2 seasons of that show have been okay. The first season stunk and I would have given it up but for Jim Henley's recommendation, noting that it got a lot better.
52: why not just watch Last Year At Marienbad -- all the tedium of 18 months of daily elliptical, with none of the effort!
If you link to a page that starts with a link titled "The cautionary tale of a janitor, his dildo, a rope and two Samoans," you should check first to see that is still active or you might crush my spirit.
Ever since reading and enjoying The Invention of Morel I've wondered if I should watch Last Year at Marienbad, which I did not enjoy when I saw it, another time.
Perhaps in fact I should watch it over and over and over and over again!
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Holy shit you guys, our official Voter Information Guide just came in the mail and so many actual crazy people have paid to put in their candidate statements for the U.S. Senate next to Kamala Harris.
Not only that, but the thing is legally required to be in ten languages, so people actually had to translate:
- Run for God's Heart and America's Freedom, challenge 10 giant chaos in economy and economy-related sectors
- Through my national and international research and political activism, I identified "mind control slavery" by satellite energy technology weapons and social engineering programs that have been in continual development for the past 50 years and facilitated their "declassification". As a result, I came under heavy sanctions that are ongoing.
- My education & expertise merits this prolific occupation in order to represent California, as United Senator. I hold a Democratic Party platform with key issues for gun control, human trafficking, balancing the national deficit, and foreign policy initiatives. I am mainstream Facebook in social media! My core values drive America!
- Democrat Presidents; were most wise: Andrew Jackson balanced budget seven of eight years. Franklin Pierce vetoed a federal welfare bill. To reverse downward spiral of last II8 years:
- *S.A.V.E. the future!*
into Spanish and Hindi and Khmer.
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I feel like a snob for not liking the tv Fargo and 12 Monkeys enough, though I do like them. One of the things I appreciated about The Wire was how the first few seasons never felt to me like they were dragging things out to reach a specific number of episodes. Both first seasons of Fargo and 12 Monkeys, which I've watched in the last month, started to feel like that with a couple episodes to go.
Maybe Ogged should try watching Lav Diaz and Apichatpong Weerasethakul films.
I watched Last Year at Marienbad something like twenty years ago and all I remember are empty salons. Corridors. Salons. Doors. Doors. Salons. Empty chairs, deep armchairs, thick carpets. Heavy hangings. Stairs, steps. Steps, one after the other. Glass objects, objects still intact, empty glasses. A glass that falls, three, two, one, zero. Glass partition, letters.
A great Criterion film to watch while exercising is Vive le Tour.
I wish Criterion would come out with Vive l'Amour.
Now for the treadmill, there you'd wanna watch Salo: 120 Days of Sodom.
Can't go wrong just watching The Clock.
65: Yes, it's a trip. I drove to Sac today and saw at different times small signs for the guy who promises to accept no salary and serve only one term. And then there's the woman who I can only assume legally changed her first name to President, and whose statement includes "I am mainstream Facebook in social media!"
68: But you seem to remember a lot, cause it's a pretty movie, or arresting visuals to get high-falutin. I just watched Marienbad for the first time last week. I don't think you can be that bored with that horror movie pipe organ soundtrack going on. Too tense.
70:Shocked that ain't on Criterion.
Just finished Sayonara Kabukicho (Kabukicho Love Hotel) ...Ryuichi Hiroki is a terrific director of romantic weepies. and women actresses. Link to a review.
Any Number Can Win Henri Verneuil, 1962 is just a terrifically directed simple caper movie, with Jean Gabin old, and OMFG god is he beautiful Alain Delon very young.
Nobody google phrases from the latter part of 68.
And Unz, who gets invited to real debates and everything, I guess didn't even submit a statement?
Finally, I'm amused by the diehard evenhandedness at the bottom of each page: "Candidates who did not submit statements could otherwise be qualified to appear on the ballot."
The guy who says "Rescue America! Rescue America!! Rescue America!!! Californian!... People in Washington has collapsed this country" is on the paper guide but not the website. I wonder if he actually got disqualified somehow.
Generation Kill is one of the best things ever. I just saw Veep for the first time and it's funny.
The candidate for California's US senate seat who made this awesome statement (satellite energy technology weapons are creating mind control slavery):
My candidacy represents the United States Constitution, the only contract between the people of America and America's government "Of the people, By the people, For the people" to be restored and strengthened in America and extended to the UN as a contract between all people of our world through US leadership and diplomacy. International bankers, multinational corporate leaders, militaries and police must all 100% obey, comply with the Constitution of the US/UN in the Spirit of Truth, Serving All in Peace. Transforming from the Industrial Technology Age to the new "Energy Technology Era" will saturate US job markets for the next 500 years. My campaign represents ending international bankers' rule and their financial exploitation of nations; reestablishing people's rule by creating a Citizen's Bank to serve as America's central bank; ending mind control slavery; ending non-consensual human experimentation; ending hunger, homelessness and violence; protecting earth, water, air, forests, oceans and animals; practicing Christ consciousness and implementing constitutional justice under the leadership of the US/UN. Through my national and international research and political activism, I identified "mind control slavery" by satellite energy technology weapons and social engineering programs that have been in continual development for the past 50 years and facilitated their "declassification". As a result, I came under heavy sanctions that are ongoing. I request you, the voter, to rise above all untrue accusations that assail my good character and heart. See my evidence and review my service. Senator Bernie Sanders' presidency is crucial for bringing this into reality.
was fired from her job with LA county for threatening to murder people.
50: If you like The Americans, you'll love Deutschland 83 (are subtitles inimical to the Lur?). More cloak and dagger: The Night Manager (evil Hugh Laurie, woo), Cambridge Spies (can't have a proper spy story without Tom Hollander hard-drinking and gay).
I could get behind most of 80. Who could object to ending mind control
slavery and non-consensual
human experimentation?
Now for the treadmill, there you'd wanna watch Salo: 120 Days of Sodom.
I am now trying to think of the worst, most demotivating TV to watch while doing cardio. (The gym where I used to work used to do this with music. Trying to lift is made much more difficult if you're listening to some sort of panpipes-and-birdsong free-range relaxation granola shit. The description is not mine, but that of one of the other patrons.)
Trying to lift is made much more difficult if you're listening to some sort of panpipes-and-birdsong free-range relaxation granola shit
Couldn't you, like, harness the hatred as motivation?
re: 48
Someone (dsquared on twitter, maybe) was going on when the last series of Line of Duty was on that it was easily the British equivalent of The Wire. I still haven't watched.
Ogged: have you watched Luther? Which alternates between silly and great, often within a single episode, and has Idris Elba brooding around London as a cop.
82: " I request you, the voter, to rise above all untrue accusations that assail my good character and heart. See my evidence and review my service. Senator Bernie Sanders' presidency is crucial for bringing this into reality."
Clinton supporters: objectively pro-"mind control slavery" by satellite energy technology weapons and social engineering programs?
I am definitely in favour of both social engineering programs and satellite energy technology weapons, ideally combined. ("We will ensure a permanent Democratic majority by offering white non-college-educated men in the Midwest unionised jobs building orbiting death rays.")
85.1 It was dsquared on Twitter who praised it highly.
85.2 Luther is indeed very good and aptly characterized there.
The parameters of this search seem to broad for me to offer anything particularly useful, so I'll just recommend Black Mirror because I always do.
On the candidates. I love the reverse bathos of Greg Conlon's statement, which for some reason has "I am an Eagle Scout" before "As a Commissioner and President of the California Public Utilities Commission".
Surely if you could get to be the Cal PUC chairman, which is actually a pretty important and powerful regulator, you could do a better job of a political career than doing a nutter presidential campaign?
social engineering programs and satellite energy technology weapons, ideally combined.
I was thinking more like: Anybody wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap gets zapped.
was fired from her job with LA county for threatening to murder people.
And apparently had a lawyer so bad the main subsequent legal issue was whether she deserved a break on timely-appeal-filing requirements. (Whose current LinkedIn page includes "There is no fate that can not be surmounted by the power of contempt.")
have you watched Luther?
Another one I'd heard of and have been meaning to check out. Thanks!
The Wire is ... too intricate and slow for exercise viewing.
I can vouch for this, having watched the first series while pedalling a stationary bike - definitely made the plot harder to follow.
I sat down to watch the first episode of Black Mirror with me wife -- on the strength of recommendations here and elsewhere. She was furious with me afterwards.
Also The Last Panthers is excellent, though not gym viewing. I think it comes out in N America in June.
96: That is incredibly funny, and yet only a slight exaggeration of what the show is like.
95: Each episode is pretty different. Maybe I'm too squeamish for that first one but I liked the others better. Except the stupid Christmas special.
62: This appears to be a corrected link to the janitor, rope, and Samoan article. Perhaps someone can update the archives for your convenience.
I really do appreciate that, but it's kind of sad.
The new (last) season just started and reminded me to recommend Person of Interest, which is one of those quietly very good shows that tends to fly under the radar because it's on a basic cable network and never picked up much in the way of a prestige-television audience. But it is genuinely very, very good and does a lot better at maintaining long running storylines and world building than anyone could reasonably expect from a 22 episode a season show.
Now that I'm thinking about it it might be a perfect one to watch while exercising, at least if you have any tolerance for procedural-ish shows. (It does that thing where it seems almost entirely procedural for most of the first season but turns out to have been spending time world building, introducing and developing characters and so on, and then things kick in and it gets very interesting all at once. The longer the show goes on - for very clear story reasons - the less and less you see the procedural-ish episodes it sounds like it should be and the more it maintains a serial plot.)
My father likes that one. I haven't been watching much TV for a while, but I think I'm going to start more soon.
I'm in the market for them. Small, achievable goals.
I just watched House of Cards (Spacey) and was completely hooked by it.