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domino harvey wrote:Uh, Goonies-era Martha Plimpton 4 Barb 4 realz

Joan Cusack

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Brian Dennehy for the sheriff

Interesting idea, but, for me, Atkins was the first one, along with Cassavetes, that came to my mind while watching the show & the first inspiration for me making that image in the first place. I feel very strongly that if Carpenter had made it in 1983, Atkins would be in that role.

That's fair. Plus I would think Dennehy would not be interested in playing a sheriff so soon after First Blood.

This is awful to say because as I said I thought he was great on the show but whenever I see David Harbour, a tiny part of me thinks he only got the part because Michael C. Hall said no. That at least had to be the case for Revolutionary Road in my mind.

Halloween?

Target is releasing an exclusive Blu-ray/DVD combo of the first season in VHS packaging on October 17

Nice. Is Netflix distributing it themselves?

Yep-- it appears they also made a deal with Target to release some other Stranger Things-branded items like special Monopoly and Ouji boards

I figured it would be about time for the company to branch out a little into physical media, especially with their financial problems.

Any special features?

I would have picked this up eventually, probably when it was cheaper, but admittedly I got it today because I liked the packaging and it was less than $25, which I thought was a deal. Though I'm not a fan of the foam hubs for the discs, it's very sturdy and well put together. They were also going to fully imitate not just the look (and it's almost to scale of a VHS) but the feel as well. The sleeve is fairly flimsy like a VHS cover, but the "cassette" box inside is made with a thicker and stronger material so it actually does feel like you're holding a VHS tape.

Kind of silly, purchasing a streamable show, but yeah...I just went to Ebay and bought one.

TV shows can look significantly better on Blu-ray.

I just finished the Blu-ray, and I'm afraid I have to say that this was highly a highly overrated season of television. Perhaps in the 90s, a series like this would have been worthy of this kind of effervescent praise, but today, on the heels of fantastic shows like Breaking Bad or Westworld, a series like this has to be better.

I'll start with the good: The kids, all five of them, are really good, and both Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown are fantastic. The series is definitely at its best when its focusing on its youngest characters, and the interplay between the young actors is one of the shining aspects of the series. In fact, the dialogue and performances between the kids are so good, you tend to forget they are kids, and start viewing them as fully adult characters who are free to make whatever decisions they see fit.

I also liked the music in the show, including the liberal use of actual songs from the era, and it's clear that some attention was given to period detail, too. And I did think the level of content was nicely appropriate, given that most popular Netflix shows are patently adult. This show is obviously one notch above a modern PG-13 (too much blood), but really right at the level of a 70s/80s PG horror film like Poltergeist.

Of course, I noted how the series steals liberally (no wonder they cast Winona, sorry Winona!) from the 70s and 80s, but I expected that from a program like this. What I didn't expect is how the series fails to become anything beyond the sum of these nostalgic parts. Winona Ryder is woeful in her hyperventilating, shouty performance, and she never really feels like "mom" material, even though her series arc is predictable. David Harbour's understated sheriff is better, but his backstory and arc are again so old and tired, that he can't really turn in a memorable performance. The two main teens in the series are okay, but the subplots involving them outside of the main story aren't developed properly (and seemed to deprive Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) of character development). The same could be said of many of the supporting child and teenage characters, who are all walking clichés, with teens either horny as hell, or chaste and cloistered, and town bullies that are one-note, too. Matthew Modine adds little more than a name actor for an "And" credit. The only minor character who impressed me was the teacher, Mr. Clarke, who seemed endlessly supportive, and was just a classy guy. And Mrs. Wheeler, Mike's mom, is quite a babe in disguise--no wonder the boys were always over at Mike's house...

Normally, tired characters and character arcs are bad news, because really, a show like this should be all about the quality of the journey to an expected end. In some cases, you might buck that trend, and play up narrative tropes simply to subvert them later on (e.g. the clueless parents are not so clueless, or the government's role is not what it seems), but unfortunately, the writing isn't clever enough to do that, and so the show simply settles for homage after homage. And all of that would be fine if the story weren't so utterly predictable. First of all,

Spoiler

you know Joyce is really mother-of-the-year because she doesn't take any shit, and she's overly concerned for her children. Secondly, the sheriff is a drunk and a bit of a layabout, but that's easily excused thanks to a horrifying tragedy in his backstory that brought him from ideal family man to now, and the story will provide him with a convenient "fix" for his problems by the end, allowing him to resume being a "good" guy. The government facility that (of course) caused all these problems is shrouded in mystery at the start, and not much more transparent by the end. And so on, and so on. And of course, in the end, no kids die, not really (Barb(ara) is a teen), and certainly not Will,

because this isn't a show with balls, this is a show that wants to be a Steven Spielberg movie, right down to taking his absent father/parenting motif to a ludicrous degree

Spoiler

what parent doesn't go down into their finished basement/kids playroom for a whole week?

And a two hour film, or four-part miniseries would have probably been wonderful for this story, but as an eight-part series, it simply goes on too long, with a story that, to be frank, is stretched a bit thin.

It probably sounds like I'm being much too hard on the series, and in a way I am. It's entertaining for what it is, and it's well made and shot, even if I disagree with some of the lighting and stylistic choices. My guess is that younger audiences, especially those who may feel they are getting away with watching something a bit too naughty for them, are probably the ones who have appreciated the show the most. For me, knowing that the show was indebted to the 70s/80s, and having loved lots of that cinema and culture, I was expecting something more than what I felt was a greatest hits of scary movies show, and from now on, I'm going to temper expectations for other Netflix shows when they come to Blu-ray/UHD Blu-ray.

So, can anyone confirm if there are special features or not?

I can confirm not. Which is pretty disappointing, actually, since the Duffers are pretty fun and like to talk.

The first season of House of Cards has commentary from each episode's director optional on Netflix itself. They already throw up trailers for their shows and movies there, you would think putting up more supplemental material like commentaries and behind-the-scenes stuff would be a no-brainer too.

New poster, featuring the leads wearing what appear to be either Ghostbusters uniforms or costumes so close to them that they're lawsuit worthy

Spoiler

Mungo wrote:New poster, featuring the leads wearing what appear to be either Ghostbusters uniforms or costumes so close to them that they're lawsuit worthy

Spoiler

They're wearing Ghostbusters costumes in the trailer for the upcoming season, so I'm guessing it's all been properly licensed.

Anyone watch yet??