Slashdot Asks: Your Favorite 2023-Made Movies and TV Shows? - Slashdot

Posted by msmash

• M3GAN (Score:4, Interesting)

  by Press2ToContinue ( 2424598 ) on Friday November 24, 2023 @11:23AM (#64028935)

  M3GAN: A film about a robot doll gone rogue, offering a subtle hint about the perils of overengineering. It's every programmer's reminder to test their code... or else

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    That movie was from 2022

• My favorite would probably be Foundation. But it is only on Apple TV so I have not seen it.

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    I think season 2 of Foundation really improved on the first one. Definitely worth a watch, and as much as I love Asimov they did manage to improve on his original somewhat. Lee Pace and Day is particularly good.

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    Since you haven't seen it I'll just throw out there that I thought the first few episodes were pretty terrible. I just didn't enjoy most of the characters and got bored with it which was a big disappointment as I remember enjoying the books as a kid.

    The best I can say about it is that they have a really cool space elevator in it and what they do with the emperor (who i don't remember even being a character in the books) was a lot of fun but that wasn't anywhere near enough to carry the show.

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      The emperor plays a pretty big role in Foundation Prelude.

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        Ah, that makes sense. I never read Prelude, thanks for the info.

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          It's an amazing book, one of the best in the series.

  • by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Friday November 24, 2023 @12:31PM (#64029087)

    Foundation is definitely fun. However, It's problematic in that it requires Harry Seldon to invent ridiculous levels of technology in addition to psychohistory. I don't buy that. Throw in an ancient aliens relic plot line and maybe it would work, but "Harry did it" for ever more ridiculous things is getting old.

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      Agreed with that. Also, there's a fundamenal contradiction in the series, in that (1) they need to populate the series with individual heroes to foster audience support, but (2) psychohistory is supposed to be unable to predict (unable to model) the effects of individuals. So far, multiple crises would have resulted in failure, except for the heroic efforts of certain individuals. What we're left with is a pretty fun space opera involving certain heroes and anti-heroes, where they throw in "mumble mumble

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        It's a decent watch, but the writers weren't bright enough to understand the real premise and work with it.

      • No heroes but protagonists are required

        I think you're a little confused on Psychohistory. It's not that there are no protagonists. It's that there are no heroes that repeatedly save the day. The script was true to that - different people saved the day in different places, all tools to Pshychohistory.

  • • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Friday November 24, 2023 @01:57PM (#64029259)

      Glad I didn't put in the effort to somehow watch this if its nowhere near the original books.

      • Re: Foundation

        The books don't have much actually happen. They are primarily philosophical discussions. I think it borrows enough concepts from the books to feel satisfying, but that's filtered through the lense of someone who read them 30 years ago.

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          Are you sure you have read the books?

          • Re: Foundation

            All the major elements are there. Terminus, the Mule, the Second Foundation, even the kid from Forward The Foundation (though I had forgotten him until I looked him up). The details are different but that's not uncommon with these things.

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              I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood "The books don't have much actually happen." - thought you meant the books don't show much stuff happening:)

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              Actually, if you read the background material from the Asimov foundation, you'll see that the current show was made for modern audiences. Read into that whatever you like.

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      This was the true crime.

• Mike Flanagan always does a great job on his spooky shows. I’m excited for the new Doctor Who specials starting tomorrow. David Tenet returns because Jodie Whitaker was that bad.

• Really? As every year passes, I find time just seems to move quicker I sear to god, it was JUST last Christmas.... But I find this more-so after the time being stuck inside during the pandemic with stay-at-home orders.

  I don't think this really qualifies as an answer the question is looking for, but if anything keeps me coming back to the television, it's the news. There seems to be no shortage of, if nothing else, weird and interesting things happening. Sometimes lately it feels like real life is part

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    Yes, very slowly, and we still have another month left of this nonsense.

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      And just like movies and TV, next year will be the same thing all over again. Why are you in such a hurry to get there?

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        I am in a hurry to end this already and too much of a coward to commit suicide.

• I haven't seen a movie in the theater since Avengers Endgame, which was what... 4 years ago?

  (I'll assume the post refers to "the previous year" and not specifically 2023, since a lot of seasons drop in mid November.)

  And most of the TV seasons have been really uninteresting. I think Loki, Mandalorian, and Boba Fett were pretty good, but also pretty shallow and predictable. I suppose "the boys" is the best of the lot. The chemistry between Loki and Mobieus is fun to watch.

  Rick and Morty used to pose philosoph

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    Were these superhero franchises ever interesting at all? If so, it must have been way before my time. I know people direct(ed) similar criticism at sci-fi, but... that genre seems to have no shortage of heavy-hitting philosophical works. Or, hell, even just worthwhile entertainment for adults.

    I'm not sure what you were expecting out of Teen Titans, but I'll close with this. I'm a furry and still think all this superhero stuff is cringe a.f. from top to bottom.

    • Re: Just about nothing

      Compared to what came before, the MCU is very grounded. Or at least it used to be. When Iron Man came out in 2008, it was a revelation. It's built up enough backstory by now that it's hard to still make this claim.

• Silo (Score:4, Interesting)

  by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Friday November 24, 2023 @11:32AM (#64028961)

  Silo is a great sci-fi TV series with a slowly revealed mystery (no spoilers if you read the book) and great acting/directing. Can't wait for season 2.

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    Well, the fact that people inside the silo are fooled and shown digitally edited images of the outside world sure isn't revealed slowly IMHO for one thing. I have only watched a couple episodes so far. Anyway, this kind of plot isn't new. The interesting part of such plots is to make us wonder how much we see the real world we live in as it really is.

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    Hadn't heard of it until I saw the parent message this morning. Went and downloaded it. About to start episode 3. I like it, very entertaining sci-fi.

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      Wouldn't express it that harshly, but I did watch something like the first three episodes and thoroughly agree with it being stretched out and full of fillers. So I read the wikipedia summaries and watched the last episode. I think it could have been a good movie.

• Adventure in the multiverse with Kung-fu. What not to like;-)

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    I hated everything about that giant messy piece of shit. It was not original or entertaining. I see what they were going for but they missed, widely.

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      I only managed to watch half of it before quitting. It was a pretty bad movie, and to this day I have no clue why it got so many people excited.

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    A new movie that instantly jumped into my top 5 favorite movies.

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    Overrated IMO.

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    I stayed away from reviews and synopses before seeing it. I'm glad I did. I floundered at first, trying to figure it out, but as the pieces came together I came to enjoy it and was entertained.

• Oppenheimer was good.
  The Killer was watchable.
  To Catch a Killer (no relation) also - until the cowpaganda section which had me crawling on the floor looking for my eyes which had rolled straight out of my head.

  Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was a ridiculous slog.
  Until the finale where I laughed so hard watching Roman centurions hitting a flying plane with spears, Nazis saving the day and Harrison Ford begging to be allowed to die - but the metaphoric hand of Disney punches him out, patches him up, plumps him out and plops him down, presenting him to the audience as plausibly still sequelable.
  "Get back to work Harry. We can milk you for a few more sequels."
  It was a beautifully hilarious edition to the canon. And the art of film. Or art in general. Worth every penny of that $300 million budget.

  There hasn't been anything watchable on TV since Chernobyl. The TV show, not the nuclear disaster.
  I rewatched some episodes of DS9 on youtube the last few days. That was good. Shame we can't have that anymore.
  Adding 2.5 billion humans in the meantime was a mistake. Half of them are morons that the current TV is catering to.

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    I doubted they would let Indiana Jones die on screen, but I was hoping he would at least stay behind with Archimedes... then maybe they'd find his hat in a tomb 2000 years later with an inscription in Greek, implying that he lived to an old age and died happily...

    Unfortunately they had to go and ruin a good opportunity.

    It was nice to see John Rhys-Davies again, though.

• I haven't liked a whole lot this year. I haven't seen Asteroid City or Killers of the Flower Moon yet, but both look pretty good. Oppenheimer was OK. None of the superhero movies looked any good so I haven't seen any of those. We watched Elemental with the kids and it was pretty mediocre. The last season of Ted Lasso was OK. I started watching a few streaming series and never got more than an episode or two in (Silo, Foundation)

  Everything I've seen this year was pretty meh. I'm looking forward to getting ti

• • Apparently more people than this story [slashdot.org] which was on the front page for a day and got no comments. Apparently scrambling for first post is no longer a thing here.

    FWIW, my choice is Happiness for Beginners [wikipedia.org] as I'm a big fan of hiking and Ellie Kemper.

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      Is called "Happiness for Beginners"
      Involves the outdoors and bunch of walking.
      Doesn't sound happy to me.

  • Re:

    You must be new here. They do this every year and nerd culture has always been a part of the website. Hence an end of the year round up on everyone's favorite media.

    On the up side you've contributed to Slashdot's even longer tradition of complaining about posts not being appropriate for the site!

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    Who's on first?

• Some one had to say it. It's fun and the greatest whitewash of a brand ever seen, whatever Mattel paid Greta Gerwig it's not enough.
  (I haven't seen Oppenheimer yet but intend to).

  RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop - 4 part series. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5... [imdb.com]
  Blue Lights - Well made police drama takes place in Belfast, some humor. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]
  The Woman in the Wall - Also northern Irland, dark drama that ties back to the Magdalene asylums. Ruth Wilson is amazingly good as the main character. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2... [imdb.com]
  Annika - season 2. Scandi-crime starring Nicola Walker. Suffers a bit from podcast origin (also Nicola Walker) you'll probably need to be a fan of her to really enjoy. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]

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    Speaking of crime dramas, Bosch Legacy season 2 was decent.

    Gen V, a spin off from The Boys, was okay too. Some decent moments, but the ending wasn't great.

• I loved The Eras Tour [imdb.com], first time I'd seen a movie in a theater snce Skyfall.

  On TV/streaming I'm just finishing up Reacher [imdb.com], but that's a 2022 leftover.

  ...laura

• Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
• I saw The Marvels in 4DX. I'd recommend it. The seats move more than they really need to, but that's a minor complaint. What really sold the experience was the wind and mist. Surprised how much that can add to the ambiance.

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• Top apex predator out of it's mind on cocaine! Ha.

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    Department of redundancies department?;-)

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    +1 for this, it was much better than I expected.

• Any list of good movies and TV Shows for 2023 will be a short one due to the writer [wikipedia.org] and actor [wikipedia.org] strikes. Most major TV networks are still playing game shows nearly 24/7 as a result.

• Andor series on Disney+ was excellent, with much of the grit that made the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series great. For All Mankind seasons 3 and currently 4 (Mars colonization) on Apple+ was/is also top notch. Agree with Strange New Worlds thumbs ups.

• Arguably it's more tech-adjacent than tech-oriented, but I've quite enjoyed the first three episodes of Lessons in Chemistry, and am re-watching them because my wife signed on half-way through the first episode and is keen to watch the rest.

  Definitely not technical, but we've also been loving The Irrational and look forward to the episodes that haven't been made yet because the SAG-AFTRA strike stopped production.

• My wife and I really enjoyed Mrs. Davis and hope it gets a 2nd season. I jokingly say that it should have been called "Nun on a bicycle." It's fun, it has a dose of sci-fi in a tongue-in-cheek / doesn't take itself too seriously style and it's different. I can't think of anything like it on TV or in film at the moment.

  We're also magicians and so it has some overlap in subject matter for us there. Teller was apparently a consultant on the show and it shows in that there were a few scenes where what the chara

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    Typo correction: I meant to say "Nun on a motorcycle*"

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    This show was great to watch. The many twists and turns were hilarious to watch.

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      So it was a maze of twisty little passages, all alike?

• Fantastic animated sci fi on HBO Max that follows three stories of people who have crash landed on a lush, bizarre alien world and are fighting to survive and make their way back to the ship. Compelling, weird, and beautiful, with some of the coolest ecological designs I've seen, ever.

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    Thanks! I hadn't heard of this att all and it seems interesting (looks Moebius inspired).

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      Yeah, it absolutely flew below the radar but is easily my favorite show ever. Great visual storytelling, absolutely wild ecosystems, and gorgeous animation.
• Ok it has some annoying aspects but the plot is great and very timely for today's world:

  George is the latest recruit to The Lazarus Project – a secret organization that has harnessed the ability to turn back time whenever the world is at the threat of extinction.

  https://www.tntdrama.com/shows... [tntdrama.com]

• I don't know if it was the writer's strike, but there's definitely a lot of movies that seem to be missing basic story elements like character motivations and so on. That said, there were a few solid entries, including: "Spider-man Across the Spiderverse", "Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning (pt 1)", "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", "Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves", "Gran Turismo", and "Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3." I wouldn't put any of them at the summer blockbuster level of "Top Gun: Maver

• Decent treatment of some nice high-brow SF anime. Got me through another 9 hours on the treadmill.

• In film, Oppenheimer was very good, but also a typical Christopher Nolan film, which means it won't for everyone. I've got a copy of Sisu on a friend's strong recommendation, but haven't watched it yet.

  On TV, as several others have mentioned, SNW is good, but here, I'll say it: Lower Decks is frickin' spectacular.

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    Sisu is awesome. Watch it.

• Rewatching Those Old Scientists;

  Mariner: "Have you noticed how slow everyone talks?"
  Boimler: "Yeah, and quietly."

  and Lower Decks

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• Slow Horses, For All Mankind, Peacemaker, Severance, Russian Doll, Star Wars: Andor, Annika, The Great, Pennyworth, Dickinson, The Peripheral
  These are all shows that took up space in my head this year and I still think about.

  Not too many movies have done that for me. Most of them are fun at the time but when over, gone like soap bubble.

• The documentary, "Cessationist"
  Although clearly promoting the cessationist viewpoint, the documentary accurately portrays the counterview (continuationism), as well as those who are somewhere in between (or refuse to choose a side).

• This year I got to see the finales of Doom Patrol, Disenchantment, and Loki, all were really good.

  I really enjoyed Picard, too, but I feel like I was born just the right year for it.

  Resident Alien is a bit older but I only discovered it this year and loved it. Twisted Metal was unexpectedly fun, too.

• Most Anderson movies are a real treat.

• I've just been watching YouTube a lot this past year. It's hard to stomach big-budget TV anymore. I like a good 90-minute movie or a procedural comedy, but now everything has to be drawn out into a slow-paced 8-episode epic that has no ending. It used to be that TV was designed to get you to stay tuned so you'll sit through the ads, so it was actually entertaining. Now TV is designed to keep you subscribed to the streaming service it's exclusive to, and only needs to be just entertaining enough for you to c

• Violence, cursing, swearing and more ass on your screen that you could wish for.
  All with a message at the beginning saying : Viewer discretion is advised.
  After watching an episode, you'll be wondering what you've just been looking at and quickly realize there are so much more useful ways to spend your time.

• Surprised that no one has mentioned this. The only franchise that hasn't disappointed. Ever.

• ST: SNG, The Creator. Especially The Creator; it presents a clear-headed view into what the world might be like if AI was as good as we are.

• • Re:

    Picard Season 3 gets an honorable mention:)

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      Memberberry trash. They fucked up the writing/characterization for most of our heroes and tried to make it up for it at the end with a barely plausible reintroduction of the Enterprise-D. Production values, sets, SFX, amazing, but the writing was terrible, with all the terrible tropes (unnecessary cliffhangers, mystery box plot, cheap character deaths, Starfleet crew members reduced to whimpering cowards, three hours of story stretched into ten hours for the "TV Novel" concept) that made Picard S1 & 2

• • Re:

    Agreed, with the exception of the musical episode - that was absolute garbage.

    • Re: SNW

      You're kidding, right? I mean, not every song was all that, but it was still super fun.

      • Re:

        I thought it was corny. The weird excuse for everyone singing and dancing trope is overused.

        https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pm... [tvtropes.org]

        • Re: SNW

          The excuse for a musical is just that: an excuse. So long as it's halfway plausible the specifics don't matter. I did appreciate Subspace Rhapsody's knod to the Buffy musical, though.

          • Re:

            Sci-fi and musical doesn't mix well, that episode was an abomination. It's called "jumping the shark". It was every bit as bad as Fonzie water skiing and jumping over a shark. Just not good writing, not a good idea, not good anything. Leave the musicals to the kids in theater class. Star Trek used to be good Sci-Fi, but that musical episode was anything but. If there were no better story lines available, I'd be very surprised. But the franchise was pandering to who?? Not people who are actually interested i

            • Re: SNW

              It's possible you take this stuff too seriously.

              • Re:

                It's possible (and likely) you have no clue what you're talking about and you're easily entertained. I bet a ham sandwich singing a song would entertain you.

                • Re: SNW

                  Back when Enterprise was first airing, I was in the mix discussing every episode online. Speculating, complaining about canon violations, bitching about gazelles, the works. It was fun but in retrospect it was also toxic. It lessened my enjoyment of the show a lot. Years later, when it had been long enough that I didn't remember everything, I rewatched Enterprise on my own terms. It had its flaws, but it was better than I had perceived it the first time around. You know what I learned from that? Being too c

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                    > Being too close to the material isn't good for you. Being too much of a "true fan" can backfire. Enjoy it for what it is, don't complain about what it isn't.
                    
                    You do not know me. You don't know anything about me from a couple of social media posts, so don't pretend that you do.
                    
                    As someone who has been interested in science fiction for 45 years, the musical episode of "strange new worlds" wasn't just strange, it was a steaming pile of shit. It went too far past what is acceptable in the genre of scienc

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              Yeah I'm going to strongly disagree with you on this one boss and I'll match my Star Trek cred against anyone not named Roddenberry.

              Liking Sci-Fi and liking musicals are not mutually exclusive. Even if you don't like musicals, that episode is pretty far from the corniest things Star Trek has done.

              Would [wikipedia.org] you [wikipedia.org] like [wikipedia.org] a [wikipedia.org] long [wikipedia.org] list [wikipedia.org] of [wikipedia.org] links [wikipedia.org] to [wikipedia.org] worse [wikipedia.org] entries [wikipedia.org] in [wikipedia.org] Trek [wikipedia.org] canon [wikipedia.org]?

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                >Liking Sci-Fi and liking musicals are not mutually exclusive.
                
                I never said that they were mutually exclusive, but thanks for the troll. I can like musicals, and I can like Sci-fi, but I definitely do not like when they are mashed-up together, is that too difficult to understand without suggesting I have to like both when mashed up? You have shitty taste if you think that episode was worthy of anything but a trash bin.

            • Re:

              It could have been worse, it could have been the Doom Patrol musical episode...

    • Re:

      That was my favorite episode of the series! I guess we have different tastes.

      • Re:

        Yes, we have different tastes - I like science fiction, and you like whatever that episode was - it was *not* science fiction, it was a ridiculous joke. I guess you like ridiculous jokes. Whoever approved that story to be made should be fired and never allowed near a script again.

• • • Re:

      Wokists are generally rather nasty, hateful people, and unaware of irony. Thank you for confirming my generalisation.

      • Re: Too WOKE: I can't enjoy Wokist tv and movies

        Only because they perceive anti-wokists as nasty, hateful people. The whole thing is about celebrating minorities after all.

• • Re:

    I was so glad Futurama was able to keep up the quality as it's always been a favorite.

  • • Re:

      Is there any way they could have made the explosion bigger and still been legally able to set it off?

      • Re: A few good things this year...

        Narrow angle lens, additional haze, higher frame rate slowed down. Those would be the go-to methods, I assume.

        Or just use CG, like a normal person. If anything ever called for non-practical effects, I think an atomic explosion is it.

        Twin Peaks nailed it. There is no more terrifying presentation of atomic weapons I've ever seen.

• • • Re:

      I agree. One Piece was really good. I think a lot of it has to do with the guy playing Monkey. He really nails the blind enthusiasm.