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Hi, all. Many of you all have Netflix, and more than a few of you complain that the new releases are crap and the service isn't worth keeping, since content providers have now decided that customers are willing to sign up for content exclusive sites like HBO GO. What's worse, when you do find a movie you like, the primitive website and wonky recommendation algorithm aren't much help in identifying movies you might actually like, making the substantial Netflix Streaming selection look paltry. However, in a couple of threads, I notice that lots of people are watching more obscure stuff than just the new releases, films like Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and The House of The Devil get re-noticed after lackluster runs in theatres, glorious obscurities like the Jackie Chan/Sammo Hung vehicle Wheels on Meals, or David Mamet's dark and unpleasant Edmond get dug up and even garbage like The Little Cars Trilogy and Birdemic gets on there. I'm interested to see if you fine folks of CineD have watched films somewhat off the beaten path. Here's a few movies that I recently watched and liked a lot to get y'all started. Four Lions  I actually saw this in theatres, but if you haven't, you really ought to. The most surprising thing about the film is that never uses its subject matter to shock, never crowbars in some ill-fitting moral, never uses easy explanations and, probably most surprisingly, isn't mean spirited towards its misguided lead characters. My favorite touch is that the most compassionate character in the film is Omar's priggishly devout brother, who locks his own wife in a cupboard. Rendering the incomprehensible as farce is an old trick, but director/writer Chris Morris couldn't be more suited for that task. It's loving funny as hell, and the ending is oddly poignant, despite being as funny as the rest of the film. Some Folks Call It A Sling Blade  The "L.A. Takedown" to Sling Blade's "Heat," I actually prefer the short film that preceded the quirky feature it became. The center of both films is Billy Bob's opening monologue and personally, I feel it works better stripped down, moody and unadorned. The character, Karl Childers, is somewhat out of place in the feature, which is bigger, badder and a little too Dwight Yoakam-y. The short is like a good episode of Twin Peaks, the film is more like an episode from Twin Peaks Season 2. Day Night Day Night  Julia Loktev's brilliant fable "about the bananas," chronicling 48 hours in the life of an unnamed 19 year old girl (known as "She" in the credits) before she goes to Times Square to blow herself up. At worst, it could be called a "film exercise," given a character completely stripped of context, backstory or identifiable motivation. Many shots of the severe looking "She" seem to go on for minutes, drawing an explicit comparison with another filmic martyr, Dreyer's Jeanne D'Arc. At best, this engenders a kind of total empathy that is very uncommon with film characters, creating one of the most tense third acts I've seen in the past few years. Again, another poetic, haunting ending. Trees Lounge  I loved this movie, and had somehow never heard of it. No matter how often I see Steve Buscemi in something, I never cease to be amazed at how ridiculously charming he is, despite looking like a loving gargoyle. He's got a good track record of bedding nubile indie starlets, between this and Ghost World. Lots of fun cameos, from a super game Samuel L. Jackson (who is always a treat when he's given a real role and not the character "Samuel L. Jackson") to Jarmusch regular Rockets Redglare. The Last Exorcism  "How'd you like a blowing job, Reverend?" It rules. Kickass found footage movie with likable characters who you actually want to make it out okay. People who dislike the ending are objectively wrong.
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Oct 8, 2011 23:02
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I would recommend the flashy biopic about Korean national hero and Japan's first pro wrestler, Rikidozan, but then I remember how his life tragically ended. Whoops!
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Oct 9, 2011 16:55
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I had no idea This Is England was on Streaming. The TV series, This Is England '86 is also amazing, but is not on Streaming.
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Oct 10, 2011 21:38
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Feedflix is pretty good, too.
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Oct 11, 2011 16:42
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon I wanna yell at everyone who recommends this, but instead I'll just recommend a creepy horror movie you could actually make a sort of favorable comparison to Man Bites Dog with: S&MAN. It's been on Streaming a long time too, so I doubt it's going anywhere. Check it out! Also I agree that I was surprised at how much I liked Black Death.
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Oct 13, 2011 20:37
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S&MAN is supposed to be a comedy too, just like Man Bites Dog.
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Oct 13, 2011 22:08
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Sorry Hey, don't be sorry, you didn't make the movie. Check out S&MAN though!
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Oct 13, 2011 23:43
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Someone recommended it in a thread and I found it to be not terrible.
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penismightier posted:I gotta second this - this is a really haunting documentary. I have a big problem with that documentary, because if I remember correctly, the director manipulates events just so they can get tickets just to meet Tiffany. I have a problem with a documentary filmmaker actually intervening just to create a scenario for his film.
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Oct 16, 2011 19:15
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All the stuff where they get a hotel room together in Vegas seems a little too pat. Either they cut out some important information, or blatantly manipulated stuff off camera so these two besotten oddballs could get together and have an awkward meeting of the minds. Given the subject matter, at the very least it's distasteful and exploitative.
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Oct 16, 2011 19:25
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WOLF KIDULT MAN posted:Explain to me how a film about two deeply unlikable mentally ill individuals could be anything but exploitative from concept to execution. What about the film isn't laughing at these characters before the hotel rendezvous? Well, implicitly, yes this is the case. Indeed, most interview-style documentary filmmaker is exploitative on some level if it's not extremely sympathetic to the subject. When I saw Marwencol with the filmmaker in attendance, a film that's extremely sympathetic to its mentally unstable subject, he copped to the need to play it close with the way he depicted Mark Hogancamp. It's a fine line already and crossing the line with actual exploitation is deserving of scorn, IMO. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 07:52
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It honestly could've gone a few more seasons, I mean the whole premise of the show is that the catering gig is a dumping ground for people who are "between things". On the other hand, almost no show survives losing most of its cast.
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Oct 20, 2011 18:29
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penismightier posted:The second season is better than the first because Jane Lynch is gone. How dare you. I first started watching not because of Adam Scott but because of Ken Marino. How that guy never got a big break, I'll never guess.
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Oct 20, 2011 22:31
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My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is Herzog doing Southland Tales, not David Lynch.
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Oct 21, 2011 02:51
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I'm pretty sure they are using pan-and-scan versions too, which is just preposterous.
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Oct 22, 2011 22:04
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That Ray Wise stands out as hamming it up on Twin Peaks amidst the entire cast of that show should tell you something.
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Oct 30, 2011 03:30
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Since people are unironically recommending Highschool of the Dead, I should go ahead and point out that Lake Mungo is now on Streaming.
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Nov 1, 2011 12:57
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The Leck posted:I know nothing about this movie, but I will watch it because you also got excited about poliziotteschi movies being added to instant. That gives you credibility. Admittedly, I haven't seen many, but what I have seen really makes me wonder why there isn't a lot of modern interest in the genre. The gialli and "spaghetti westerns" are rightfully seen as among the best Westerns and horror films ever made.
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Nov 3, 2011 01:43
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Wabbit posted:They have Walker (1987) directed by Alex Cox on streaming now. I really like the movies of his that I've seen, and Repo Man is probably my favorite movie. I never saw Walker before now, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Oh hell yeah. And I thought was excited for Insidious popping up. The ten minutes Marlee Maitlin is in this film, she's brilliant.
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Nov 9, 2011 23:00
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stratdax posted:Hey Canucks, the first three seasons of Breaking Bad has finally been put online. Not totally sold on it yet, but it is supposedly amazing. There's nothing supposed about it.
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Nov 10, 2011 19:02
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I think I've rewatched Paris is Burning more than any other film in the past year.
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Nov 12, 2011 19:26
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William Friedkin's excellent To Live And Die In L.A. is on Streaming, so long as we're talking about "neo-noir".
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Nov 13, 2011 17:20
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Zwabu posted:This is amazing. Among other things, gritty pre-Giuliani NYC is captured perfectly. It really gives great insight into the principals. Is there any website that sums up what has happened to the people in this film? I understand many of them have passed away from AIDS by now. Oh, I'm glad you asked. Also the House of Ninja has been featured on America's Next Top Model, IIRC. Rupaul's Drag Race features many, many Paris is Burning related shoutouts, including my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqeJ2qNIcqg HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Nov 28, 2011 |
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Nov 27, 2011 19:00
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I forgot about Freddie, the scene in Roy Rogers might be the best in the whole movie.
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Nov 28, 2011 20:29
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Wheels on Meals is on there. It has some great acrobatics and fight choreography, especially toward the end. I mentioned Wheels on Meals in the very first post cause it owns. Another great minor Jackie Chan film is Dragons Forever, which has some incredibly brutal stunts in the final fight.
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Dec 2, 2011 22:10
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Sorry, must've missed that. Nah, don't be sorry, I'm just glad someone else has seen Wheels on Meals! fenix down posted:I watched this earlier and I highly recommend it. Ridiculous and hilarious throughout. Did you have to watch it with subtitles, like I did? I've seen it in theatres and found the accents perfectly comprehensible, but the actors were so quick I was forced to resort to subtitles to catch everything the second time around.
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Dec 4, 2011 22:47
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maxnmona posted:I use http://thenowhereman.com/netflix/ which has the easiest interface. I know for a fact it occasionally misses something, so I also doublecheck feedflix every once in awhile. Thanks for this. I've never even heard of this site before.
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Jan 2, 2012 16:20
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I didn't notice this but the gorgeous and incredibly unusual Dust Devil, directed by Richard Stanley (Hardware, one-third of the incredibly unusual Island of Dr. Moreau) is on Netflix now.
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Jan 2, 2012 16:28
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City of Life and Death is on Instant now, it's a pretty excellent film that is (erroneously) described as a "Chinese Schindler's List." It's a drama that focuses on the Rape of Nanking.
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Jan 8, 2012 00:17
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My god, that sounds like the kind of film only a homosexual would enjoy! Out with you!
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Jan 9, 2012 12:03
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One of the small little details that I love in Best Worst Movie is that George Hardy has fabulous teeth.
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Jan 13, 2012 18:58
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Jakabite posted:Ahh right, thanks then. If a TV series was about to be taken down would there be some sort of warning, or would I be halfway through the series and beep boop, no longer there? No warning. This happened to me watching Dexter, I honestly had no idea it was expiring.
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Feb 5, 2012 15:29
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Todd Margaret is really short so there's that, I guess.
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Feb 8, 2012 17:12
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The Rock-A-Fire Explosion is everything I Think We're Alone Now wants to be, in both a bad way and a good way.
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Feb 14, 2012 20:48
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Wilhelm Scream posted:They just added a bunch of Corman's New World stuff, including the awesome as hell Humanoids from the Deep. Humanoids from the Deep is an absolute must see. It is the scummiest, seediest monster movie imaginable.
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Feb 15, 2012 17:33
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Popular Human posted:My wife and I watched the first three episodes of Lilyhammer last night. It's pretty good, although it is basically just Silvio Dante's Adventures in Norway (which isn't all in all such a bad thing). It also feels like a show made by Norwegians that happens to star an American lead, rather than a US show with WACKY Europeans, which I appreciate. I feel like this is a weird kind of dream series for me because I always felt like Silvio had so little to do on the Sopranos.
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Feb 16, 2012 17:30
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Correction: Little Steven. Anyway, it's probably for the best that Silvio was, at most, a featured extra, because his portrayal of the character is so ridiculously over the top stereotypical that it might have been too much to deal with. Then again the same could be said of at least half the characters on that show.
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Feb 16, 2012 18:47
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In The Mood For Love is an absolutely gorgeous film, ditto Days of Being Wild. I think I'll have to follow your lead with Ashes of Time. In other news I'm refreshing my memory with Humanoids from the Deep and holy poo poo does this movie turn into Deliverance.
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Feb 16, 2012 22:10
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Insidious is in my top ten for 2011. There's nothing about it I don't like.
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Feb 23, 2012 15:42
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Oh my Lord, they put THE GATE up on Instant. If you haven't ever seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it because it's loving great, no caveats, no hedging.
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Mar 4, 2012 23:17
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I am curious how modern eyes see The Gate because I honestly have no idea if I'm tainted by nostalgia.
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Mar 5, 2012 16:13
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