I just watched the first episode of Nautilus, a new reimagining of Jules Vern’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It has a very 1930spulp action feel, Indiana Jones. I really enjoyed it.
It’s on Prime here in the UK and Ireland. Unfortunately, Disney screwed the rest of the world over by deciding to not carry it after commissioning it, so you might have to check out where it’s available in your country.
Highly recommend though.
I can’t believe there’s only one episode left for The Penguin. This series hasn’t any right to be this good.
I’ve never understood the idea of something not having the “right” to be good. Because it’s based on a comic is supposed to be sub-par? What does that even mean?
Starting watching Atlanta. It’s good!
I thought it was just a ‘saying’. I adopted my way to speak and write in english from the way other people talk and write so maybe I use some phrases incorrectly… but the english language is fucking weird so I really don’t care XD.
Of course it has the right to be as good as it is. Some of my favorite comics and TV shows are based on comics.
The idiom is “better than anything has the right to be” which is supposed to emphasize that it’s so good it almost feels impossibly so. But I’ve seen it written the way it is above where “anything” get’s replaced with “it” and that transforms the meaning to something that makes a bit less sense. It’s similar to how the expression “I couldn’t care less” gets misspoken as “I could care less” and loses its meaning.
And then the idioms travel around the web, and people unfamiliar with them pick them up, and might pick up the altered expression rather than the original.
i’ve never even heard that expression. I prefer stuff ‘that’s so bad it’s good’ 
Things like Photon: The Idiot Adventures for example. oh man did i enjoy
Another so bad it’s good: Go Nagai’s Scary Zone: The Mysterious Demon. Most bonkers thing i’ve seen in a while.
Then there’s Crawlspace. a Charles Band movie with a pretty wacky premise
also saw The Substance, a really nifty and interesting and creative sci-fi film with some good body horror and interesting ideas in it
Outland is a cool sci fi movie that impressed me with it’s original story and weird space politics. I really liked Sean Connery’s character and performance.
Trying to watch an old Japanese classic every few days. Chomping on the Kurosawa: Seven Samurai was good, Ran was even better
Okay, that makes sense. I’ve never heard it in general use, only seen it online. It seems like a rather insulting phrase to me, like certain things are only “allowed” to be a certain level of “good”.
It’s like the “high art” Vs “low art” thing; it’s just “art” and if it moves you it’s legit.
I don’t think the original meaning is intended to be insulting. It’s a hyperbolic way of saying something is so good it goes above expectations, that it breaks the ceiling on what is imagined to be possible or the base line of what is possible for any work. That’s the key. If it’s better than anything has a right to be it’s not about elevating something specific to a point that it becomes better than its source, it’s about how it’s just generally excellent.
The idiom has taken on other meaning because it’s now “better than it has any right to be” to mean it surpassed the expectations of the viewer. I don’t think that really means people are deriding the source material, they just didn’t expect a show or movie to be as enjoyable as they found it to be. It doesn’t have to be about something adapted from source material. For example, I could say that The Rock is better than it has any right to be as a film by Michael Bay, because I don’t enjoy other movies by him. Or it could just be because a trailer looked bad and you expected the film to be good. If I watched Borderlands and had a good time, I could say it’s better than it has any right to be, or because I want to deride its source or because video games can’t be adapted into enjoyable films. It’s because the trailer made it look awful, so my expectations were low.
It’s really all just a hyperbolic way of saying “I liked this more than I expected to.”
There’s also another variation which is “X was better than any of us/anyone deserves” which means it was under appreciated or that we are not worthy of the thing that was created because we didn’t give it the respect it deserved.
I think it’s the “any right to be” part that bothers me. Maybe it’s because different cultures have different associations with various words, but for me there is no way in the reading of that phrase I see it as a compliment.
Have you never seen a movie that prior to viewing you thought “this is definitely going to be bad” and post viewing you think is great? That’s when one uses the phrase.
I got myself excited about Sean Baker’s oeuvre and went to watch one of his early works, Take Out. The movie takes a matter of fact approach to its subject matter- undocumented immigrants in the food industry. I know folks in this exact situation! And it feels a little odd to admit, but I learned things about that experience from this film. The film lacks Baker’s signature color grading, but has a lo-fi quality of its own. Performances are strong yet nuanced. The film has one scene which removes it from qualifying as a Dogme 95, but I love when films do this kinda thing.
Great film for those who maybe are a bit too prudish for Baker’s other works (although maybe you should push past those feelings and check out the Florida Project anyway).
I added Pee Wee’s Big Adventure to my physical collection, and re-watched that one !
– I sort of wondered if it’d’ve been more powerful for him NOT to find the bike, realizing that the true bike was the friends he made along the way. But then again, it was the coolest bike in the world
– Last time, I said the movie reminded me somewhat of Batman[89]. It’s also interesting to re-visit it after having seen BEETLEJUICE
– A cute waitress befriends Pee Wee Herman, even giving him a k-ss on the ch–k ! The same thing happened to me <3
– I was actually planning to watch Batman with [my waitress], but unfortunately she was feeling under-the-weather : [ Hope she feels all better ASAP. I have a Beetlejuice soda to give her later
– Elvira has a cameo because she and Pee Wee were friends; I got her movie too. What if there had been a whole movie: Pee Wee Herman meets Elvira !
– And Santa has a cameo too. You know, it seems to me [so far] that there are more Christmas-adjacent Tim Burton movies than Halloween ones [?!] HO HO HO
This time we watched Superman IV: The Quest For Peace !
– My favorite part was when he said "to solve this crisis, I must become Superman IV: the Quest For Peace "
– World peace, eh…I suppose in fiction, as in reality, the world is a never-ending struggle between good and evil
– Lacy Warfield. Wasn’t Warfield Garfield’s greedy rival, who loves Mondays and hates lasagna ? And he stole Garfield’s castle once ?
– An evil rival with Superman-like powers. Didn’t we already do this plot in 2 ?
– When he deposited Nuclear Man in a box on the moon, I thought, uh oh ! He’s going to escape decades later, and it will take five teenagers with attitude to stop him
– Superman stops him at last, by blocking the sun with the moon. Isn’t Superman also powered by the sun ? I’m not up to date on him
– Speaking of which, war profiteer Lex Luthor incarcerated, rather than being president or something. Quite a fantastical scenario. Imagine Lex Luthor as president !
– I think I read a funny review of this one years ago. Maybe on agonybooth.com ? Oh, and I need to watch the Pitch Meeting for it, which–coincidentally enough–just came out !
Rewatching Creep and Creep 2 now that the Creep Tapes has started.
I watched the Tetris movie and hated it. They turned a really good story into a dumb ““thriller””
I’ll post this every time the topic comes up, this is the only film on the Tetris story anyone needs:
Saw The Red One at the movies today ! That was interesting. Brought The Nightmare Before Christmas to mind
Also, re-watched Mrs. Doubtfire on the YouTube the other night. My favorite thing was all the wacky puns, and Mrs. Doubtfire herself of course! She and Napoleon Dynamite should get together and throw fruit at people
We just finished DanDaDan. Bawled my eyes out.