Just started binge watching Stranger Things this morning. Very entertaining 80s tinged sci-fi in a small town. Pretty similar to JJ Abrams Super 8 movie from a few years ago. Anyone else watching this?
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
Replies
Yes! Just started episode five as I type these words! I think it's way better than Super 8. I like how it feels 80's without shoving it down your throat. It's 80's in a very realistic way. Plus it's really freaky.
I keep hearing good things about it on Facebook: I think Rich Lane and Jason Marconnet are both watching it. Added it to my list, but I haven't started on it yet.
Now that you've called it to our attention, I'm adding it to my streaming list.
Watched Episodes 1-2 tonight. Good stuff!
I've only finished the first 3 so far, but it's really coming along nicely. Hits all the nostalgia buttons but also feels pretty fresh.
It's very Spielberg-y. Like Super 88, almost an homage. Anyway, we've watched the first two episodes and we're hooked.
They get the 1980s mostly right, although I don't think people bought phones back then, as Winona Ryder does in the second episode. When my home phone went bad in the '80s, I called Ma Bell from work or school and they installed a new one. The first time I ever had to pay anything phone-related was in the '90s, when AT&T no longer covered the wires leading into your home, and I had to have those replaced on my own dime.
My wife says she thinks Ma Bell was broken up before 1983 (when Stranger Things is set), so maybe in some areas you already had to buy your own phones. I didn't live in Indiana (where Stranger Things is set) then, so I don't know.
They get the music right, though. I was surprised that "Should I Stay or Should I Go" was recorded that long ago; I remember buying Sandinista! around 1981 or '82, and thought Combat Rock was several years after that. But no, it was 1982. Good call, Stranger Things.
Another good call was casting nervous, fragile actress Winona Ryder as the nervous, fragile mother.
I wonder about the black kid fitting in so seamlessly in a small Midwestern town in the early 1980s. Those places were largely white and redneck back then, IIRC. Oh well, at least he's not the comedy relief.
The guy who is, the one with the lisp, may be the best actor on the show. He does a lot of understated comedy I appreciate. That's a role where he could go over the top, but instead you have to watch him when other things are happening to get all of his bits, most of which are spot on for his age group.
The sheriff looks like a younger Nick Nolte, but well on his way to becoming the older Nick Nolte!
Speaking of whom, are we to believe the mother and the sheriff had a fling? Magic 8-Ball says "All signs say yes." Maybe that's why the marriage dissolved, although the ex-husband is depicted as such a louse that I think we're supposed to pin the blame on him, setting us up for a big reveal later.
I'm glad Matthew Modine doesn't have a lot of screen time. In his younger days he was a screen hog and I tired of his mugging. He's better in understated roles, like in Dark Knight Rises and this one.
The older brother looks to me like a young Norman Reedus. My wife thinks he looks like River Phoenix. Maybe a combo, and with that combo, surprised he hasn't been in a lot of things already!
I'm less impressed with the girl who gets sexed up by the bad boy. She's so painfully thin, she looks around 25 to me in the face. I don't know if that's because she's so thin that her face is prematurely aged, or because she really is in her 20s, but she doesn't look high school age to me.
Speaking of thin, I'm glad to see most of the shool-age kids are. That's how it was when I was growing up: Obese kids were a rarity. Now they're the majority. They probably had to hunt high and low for enough kids who could pass for '80s kids!
They also get the fashions and cars right. No Big-Ass Trucks, and jeans that look awful.
Haven’t started watching it yet, but will soon.
Captain Comics said:
My wife says she thinks Ma Bell was broken up before 1983 (when Stranger Things is set), so maybe in some areas you already had to buy your own phones. I didn't live in Indiana (where Stranger Things is set) then, so I don't know.
In 1982 I was in the process of buying a place. Ma Bell wanted to take back the phone I had at my apartment and install a jack instead. I put them off until I actually moved. Bought my first phone at the end of 1982 when I moved into the new place. Ma Bell had me cut their wire and drop off the phone at a PhotoMat!
I don’t think Ma Bell broke up at that time. They just passed legislation to allow people to buy phones rather than renting them forever from Ma Bell.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 5 Next