Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

I watched Slavoj Žižek's The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology last night. It was quite a slog, a lot longer than it needed to be. It had it's cute moments where he inserted himself into various scenes from famous films, but overall didn't feel like it added up to much. I expected him to fire off some really contentious or controversial ideas, but it was mostly just standard critical theory. Mostly I found myself wishing that someone would give him a hankie because he kept wiping his nose with his hand and sniffling a lot as he spoke.

Basically, forks is a dork

and anybody/everybody should watch Muscle Shoals.

and again, i wouldn't call it racist so much as borderline racist

as for 20 feet, tastes can vary but the popular revival of several of these women's careers on the back of it has to be universally positive right? I mean fuckin darlene love at the oscars!

for real

The results of 20 Feet's success are laudable but don't mean the movie isn't a piece of shit.

i liked it, i'd recommend it, i'd defend it.
you are literally the first person i've heard of not liking it. And i've talked about it with people who both book and sing with darlene! what's your beef exactly?

most music docs suck. didn't anyone watch bullet yet? if zizek were in bullet you all would have watched it by now i bet.

My "beef" is that backup singers are a good topic, but I thought the movie was trite, PBS Doo-Wop reunion special pap. I'm glad it spotlighted such amazing talents, and it was nice to see them finally get their due. It was feel-good Oscar bait and it caught the fish. I'm happy for all involved, but I will never suggest anyone spend a minute watching it. Folks would be better off looking up youtube clips of all the singers in the credits.

did you guys see jailbait yet? that's a good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR-ouRYzlm8

i spoke with the director of 20 feet, i really don't think he was aiming for oscar bait. He seemed passionate about the performers and the music and that showed to me in the performance? He said he interviewed another thirty or forty performers who didn't make the cut, not because their stories weren't meaningful but because their experience was similar to other folks in the film already.
I'm generally pretty sensitive to soft pedal bullshit in music docs; this one was certainly mom-friendly but it didn't seem spoon fed to me. What was missing for you?
ps 'muscle shoals' still sucks

I didn't like the structure. I wanted more meat, more history - both past and present - and less folks sitting around a table proving they could still sing. I was dreading the inevitable "everyone in a room together" ending from the very start. This was gauzy Hollywood standard fare, not for fans but an uninformed public; one that would never see it without the Oscar run. I also thought that unfortunately it was far too much about Darlene and not all the other equally talented folks. I'm sure it doesn't get made without her, but I went from anger at the way she was treated to wanting her to shut up.

Likewise, I thought Darlene's first measure of singing at the Oscars was great, but then she went on and on and on.

more meat and more history would certainly have been welcome but doing it at the expense of the stories of the women he was interviewing would've not necessarily have improved it for me. I'd love to see the film you wanted to see too but I didn't need this to be that.
I was not a fan of the lean on me singalong, agreed.
i could listen to darlene all day quite frankly but if i was gonna pick the lead in this i would've picked merry clayton which was A OK by me.

Star Trek a new generation

How did it take me so long to get into this??

Merry Clayton was all charm, no smarm. Darlene, alas, was not.

maybe this has already been discussed but i just watched the doc about levon helm and it was really good! i enjoyed all the musical parts as well as the life parts. the ENT visits were a little rough, but he was always fun to watch.

Rutger Hauer's "The Future"

^^I imagine it's different from the Miranda July one.

o/t but Miranda July's The Future was excellent

both underwhelming

I've never been so pleased by a cat's death, tempered only with the sadness that it wasn't depicted more explicitly.

I do think Hamish Linklater is foxy but yeah cat v/o was a dealbreaker. MJ's mistake was adapting one of her goddamn "performances."

When July said in a Walker Q&A that she thought keeping the v/o despite everyone else's reservations (or downright objections) was a "punk moment" for her, I struggled not to raise my hand and have a Michelle Visage moment with her. "Oh, it's cute that you think that's what punk is, bitch."

Don Jon totally worthwhile.

Honglei Sun was so good in Drug War. Does he have another stand-out performance anyone would recommend?

The Trials Of Muhammad Ali
Like Someone In Love
Stranger by the Lake

Loved July's "The Future".

Rutger Hauer and his wife (Brigitte Nielsen) adopt a cat...

stranger by the lake is great

just re-watched jackie brown for the first time since i was a teenager. actually better than i remember!

jackie brown is def incred. when i first saw it i think i was a little let down bc pulp fiction was such a ride, but over time i kinda recognized how classic JB is.

yeah Jackie Brown has great rewatching legs (and Pam has awesome legs too which helps, lol)

Tarantino should spend the rest of his career making Elmore Leonard movies tbh.

I rewatched kill Bill and it was nowhere near as good as I remembered. JB definitely holds up, though.

i really disliked both kill bill movies.

Tarantino should spend the rest of his career making Elmore Leonard movies tbh.

― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:28 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ OTM.

xpost

between the two Kill Bills there's probably one solid 2-hour film that could be cobbled together

maybe. kill bill hit the tipping point for me, where tarantino's vision was so bleak and mean that i didn't care anymore. jackie brown got close to this, too, but there was a love story between the central characters that kind of saved it for me.

I really liked the first Kill Bill but the second one was such a snooze.

love the kill bills, qts probably never doing anything better

inglourioys basterds my fave qt, but the kill bills & jackie brown run close second

didn't feel very involved in kill bills. liked inglorious well enough, but jackie brown, pulp fiction and reservoir dogs are unquestionably the top of the heap for me.

jb is far and away the best imo, i really need to watch it again

I'm watching Condor. Apparently I hate myself.

still thinking expanding KB into 2 films was a maje mistake, remember when it was gonna be 1?

I don't mind it as two. The first one is sort of a fun, indulgent, massively reference-packed lark (iirc), but the second one brings in some honest emotion and a little bit of breathing space, neither of which I think would be that effective without the first. They're also really well directed. I certainly like them both more than current rambling QT mode. Basterds was OK, but Django was a dud. JB prolly his best, but perhaps mostly because it wasn't as ubiquitous as his other stuff. Also, Elmore Leonard. Between this and esp. Out of Sight, and maybe Get Shorty, the guy had a great late '90s!

I like Death Proof almost as much as JB.

I like all the movies that Tarantino's directed quite a bit, but KB1 is probably my least favorite full length.

Forgot all about Death Proof, had a lot to say/think about it at the time - the car chase that veers (literally) from '70s homage-ville to contemporary suburban road packed with mini vans was a nice touch - but I doubt I could ever sit through it again.