In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And we'll freeze frame select titles at random places just for fun and see what image comes up. You know how we do!
LAST CHANCE AMAZON PRIME
Felton: I look... is distinguished a word?
Lange: It's a word.
In Secret (2014, expires August 18th)
What is this? Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange? Big name casts for movies that don't seem to actually exist that you suddenly realize do, in fact, exist, are kind of unnerving. Like how do movies that never really get released find financing to get made in the first place? Apparently Oscar Isaac plays an artist in this one (they're looking at a portrait he painted of Felton) so that's kind of smudgy hot regardless. Isaac with paint stains I mean.
Men weren't up to the task!
Robocop (2014, expires august 18th)
So that errant quote that popped up when I slid the bar to a random point in this useless movie is as good a quote as any to describe the foolhardiness of remaking a Paul Verhoeven picture. The Dutch auteur is many things but "remakeable" is not one of them. You've lost before you've begun essentially. See also the Total Recall remake and whichever one gets remade after that... maybe Basic Instinct?
seven more freeze framed films, some great/some terrible, after the jump...
NEW TO PRIME
You needn't take it any further, sir. You've proved to me that all this ultra violence and killing is wrong.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
I just will never be a big Stanley Kubrick fan. I know that puts me in the minority but we all have our off consensus pockets of taste.
When we get to California are you going to take me to that Chinese restaurant where all the footprints are out in front?
Kalifornia (1993)
People who didn't live through the early 90s will never know how obsession worthy Brad Pitt & Juliette Lewis were as a couple back in the day, both onscreen and off. Juliette Lewis's then patented disturbed childwoman act was a thing of weird beauty. She's great in this serial killer movie.
[noise / mayhem]
Cloverfield (2008)
When 10 Cloverfield Lane premiered early this year I avoided it for months despite how good people kept saying it was because, as part of this franchise I thought "how is that possible because Cloverfield was T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E!". But people were right and 10 Cloverfield Lane was actually good. I stand by the original being terrible though.
There is something in this house, something that is not at rest. I know you don't believe me.
The Others (2001)
The fun thing about this movie is that it works superbly as a Horror movie the first time you're watching it and the second time you're watching it it works even better as its other genre, Women Who Lie To Themselves™.
[coughing]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (1991)
I have never seen a single movie or TV show from this franchise. Every clip from any of them makes me want to die. Not even The Lovely Laura Linney could convince me to see one.
-I'm not a trained poodle.
-I thought singing was a joyous expression of the soul?
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
I wish I liked this movie more. It has miraculous elements (Oscar Isaac chief among them, and that genius scene with F Murray Abraham) but it's just too miserabilist and misanthropic for me. And the overworked monotonous color palette makes me bonkers, so I wasn't okay with the cinematography nomination at the time.
The Piano (1993)
True Fact: Every time I see a list of "Greatest Movies of All Time" I immediately scan it for this movie. It's a handy key to any such list. If The Piano is absent the list is garbage fire and you can already be assured that there's no real diversity in voice or subject matter. Said list will also assuredly be lacking in other great films about women, too. Jane Campion Forever.
Also New:
13 Assassins on August 29th
Afflicted
American Ultra on August 11th
Blue Ruin on August 24th
Coffee and Cigarettes
The Eclipse
Elvis & Nixon on August 25th
Foot Fist Way
A Good Woman
Goon on August 29th
House of Lies (S4 and S5) on August 23rd
How She Move
The Hunter on August 22nd
Joe the King
The Kicks on August 26th
Marathon Man
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Maxed Out
Melancholia on August 22nd
Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation on August 11th
No Country For Old Men on August 11th
Odd Squad Movie on August 8th
Ong Bak - Thai Warrior on August 8th
A Royal Affair on August 15th
Shattered
Shaun the Sheep on August 10th
Six Shooter
Spices III
Strange Wilderness on August 20th
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Very Good Girls
Wicker Park
The World's Fastest Indian on August 8th
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
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