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