Now Streaming (Netflix): A Slim Selection But Jude (!) and Gillian (!!)
Tuesday, November 1, 2016 at 9:09PM Netflix, which initially looked like the 21st Century Blockbuster is well on its way to being the new HBO, so they're cutting back severely on movies now. But there's still a few titles of interest each month. Here are streaming options as of November. We'll randomly freeze frame a handful of titles and share the results. Okay? Okay!
Shop till you drop, girls
Alfie (2004)
The Year Jude Law Was in Every Movie. Also, arguably, the peak of his gorgeousity.
It's like a jumble of ideas rattling around in my brain.
Big Eyes (2014)
Uff. how narrowly we avoided this film getting Oscar nominations!!! Amy Adams actually won the Globe for one her totally average performance (pity it didn't go to Juliianne Moore in Map to the Stars or Emily Blunt in Into the Woods). This is why December glut is so bad for Oscars and film culture. There's barely enough time each year for people to remember that "prestige" titles don't deserve the label by virtue of release date but only if they're actually good. Also how is it possible that Christoph Waltz already has two Oscars when he is bad so often?
P.S. Weirdly, almost every actor who has a one scene role in this movie (like this guy here) is actually excellent in it, so the casting director was doing something right outside of Waltz.
Why does it matter if the battery is weak or not if we're just sitting here?
Cujo (1983)
I always forget that wee Danny Pintauro was already a working actor before Who's The Boss?! Have any of Stephen King's novels NOT been filmed at this point?
-You married?
-[long pause] yes.
The Fall (Season 3)
I keep reading that people find this series boring. As someone who often thinks TV is overpraised for the way it stretcheeeeeeesss its narrative out to fill hours and hours of TV (all seasons of True Blood had about 2 hours of story. Recently The Night Of... never met a 5 minute event it couldn't stretch into 30 minutes) that's actually a strange strength with this series. The series is so weird and different than most serial killer narratives focusing on insane minutae like (in this season's case) medical procedures or side characters like an angry thirsty teenager who loves the killer and how much she hates her girlfriends or the enigmatic beauty of Gillian Anderson's face. Sometimes the camera will stay on Gillian for minutes without dialogue and it's just enthralling.
[Drunk Slur Singing]
The African Queen (1951)
Katharine Hepburn is starting to cry just off screen which is how I feel when this movie comes up. Ugh. DO NOT LIKE. Do you have one of those classics? Complete travesty that Bogie's overplaying beat in two genius performances (Clift in A Place in the Sun AND Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire but Oscar wasn't really for their reinventing-the-artform jelly just yet).
What are you doing?!? That food is for Po!
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
LIES. Panda don't procreate this much. Why are there so many baby pandas?
Also new to streaming on Netflix in past week or so
Big Eyes, Cujo, Jude Law, Netflix, Oscars (14), documentaries, dogs, streaming
Reader Comments (17)
My Hollywood classic that I just do.not.like. is Mary Poppins. Ugh. That movie.
The Fall is hypnotic...
Tempted to watch Cujo just to see how bad it is...
Christoph Waltz Oscars: the right roles in the right movies in the right time.
The African Queen is wonderful. One of my top 100.
Bogard's Oscar is for his career, not winning for Casablanca and his great performance in an unusual type.
Classic I DO NOT LIKE: The Godfather trilogy.
The panda multiprocreation is like lions and elephants in Tarzan's jungle - how many people really know or care?
Classic I do not like:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Well, I do like it as a camp classic. But as an adaptation of an epic Tennessee Williams play? Meh.
I love The African Queen, Bogie is wonderful in it.
Classic I do not like: Gigi, worst best picture ever, and I love Minnelli.
I don't think Waltz was right for BE too big where Adams keeps it grounded,I quite liked her in it,maybe i'd have nominated her.
Classic I do not like: Cabaret
Nathaniel, you should take a look at FilmStruck. Could be huge for streaming classic movies.
Arkaan -- i meant to but they kept pushing the opening back. I guess i missed when it finally went live.
I really liked Big Eyes a lot, especially Christoph Walz, so much better here than in his turn in Django Unchained (especially being chosen over Philip Seymour Hoffmann). Was sad to see it get trampled in the December stampede.
I also don't care for African Queen, but The Sound of Music is my choice for most stomach-turning "classic" of all time. Took me 3 tries to finally get through the thing. I walked out of it after an hour in the theater, turned it off after a half hour on tv, finally had a friend strap me to a table, lock me in a room and instructed him not to let me out no matter how much I screamed and cried until he was sure I'd seen it to the end.
Classic I do not like: Terms of Endearment. I saw it during a particularly rough time in my life, and I recall shouting at all the characters to grow up. I never would have finished it had it not been a Best Picture.
African Queen is not close to Bogart's best performance, but he was overdue and it was such a different character for him. I get why he won.
The Fall is fantastic! While it's true that the first half of the 3rd is relatively slow (particularly compared to the much more action-packed end of season 2) I never find boring, rather the opposite. Episode 1 with the emergency room and surgery is oddly fascinating and Stella Gibson is such a great character. It's a shame the show hasn't made a bigger splash states-side, because she's definitely Emmy-worthy!
I really dislike Grease.
Classics I don't like: L'Avventura or Red River... I don't like Antonioni, or I am yet to watch a movie by him that I actually like.
Gone with the Wind can go with the wind as far as I'm concerned, and while we're at it, is it simply I, or is The French Connection nothing but two hours of chases?
The first episode of the X-Files I've watched was "Sleepless" and I found that boring but I told myself to give this show another chance and boy I'm glad I did. Dana Scully/Gillian changed my life!
Gillian was my first celebrity crush and still is today. I'm so happy for her she has The Fall and I so looking forward to American Gods. 8)
Is 'Jesus Camp' worth watching all these years later as someone who is generally aware of the subject matter?