Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Thought it might be fun/useful to devote a thread that flagged semi-obscure or off the radar films & tv shows on Netflix's Watch Instantly service.

A few recent discoveries:

Burnt Offerings
MST3K: The Wild World of Batwoman
American Grindhouse
Vampyr
Who Is Harry Nilsson?
Shock Waves
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue
Man with the Movie Camera
World's Greatest Dad
Rolling Stones: Stones in Exile

There are so many MST3K movies available, it is awesome.

My roommate and I watched about three quarters of the Doors doc that Tom DiCillo made. Johnny Depp narrates.
It's pretty ridiculous and awesome.

xpost -- between that, the DVD sets and YouTube it's a golden time.

yeah, I think I've gone through about a dozen MST3K's this month already

x-post - I'm not a Doors fan, but that I've heard good things about that doc

Between checking a few months ago and checking a few days ago, a bunch of Criterion Collection films have been added. I don't remember so much from the Essential Art House boxes being available before, and it looks like almost all of them are there now.

Unfortunately, I found this out after I added the Bergman box set to my Criterion order the other day. Hopefully they'll let me return it unopened so I can get the Cassavetes box instead.

you can stream a woman under the influence now so... maybe rethink that, too

oh shiiiit, Killing of a Chinese Bookie is streamable now too!

Recently I've watched and enjoyed the following: The Watermelon Woman, Suspiria, Rockers, She, The Last Picture Show, and Le Jetee (inspiration for 12 Monkeys).

Oh and a lot of old Nickelodeon cartoons from the 90s have been added but y'all probably already know that.

The White Ribbon is available!

Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum

I think all of the Paul Morrissey Warhol-produced films are on there.

Louie season 1, one of the most fascinating shows in a long time.

Dogs Decoded: Nova is an awesome doc about recent canine research. Highly recommended for any dog owners.

Loved Louie as well.

Also streaming:
The Girlfriend Experience
Slings and Arrows
Blue Thunder

And HAVOC!

i watched the happy hooker goes hollywood on streaming netflix tonight. "recommendation" is a strong word, but i had fun.

"American Grindhouse"

Haha so amusing who co-produced this (it's okay btw as talking head features like this go).

if you liked "The Wild World of Batwoman", make sure to check out "Eegah!"

Louie season 1, one of the most fascinating shows in a long time.

Yeah, I never got a chance to check this out until it was on Netflix - it's great.

"I Am Love" is pretty fascinating

if you liked "The Wild World of Batwoman", make sure to check out "Eegah!"

I did and it was great!

barking dogs never bite - korean black comedy about eating the dogs
we jam econo - awesome minutemen doc

if i start posting on this thread i will be participating in 3 different netflix streaming threads which seems excessive

There's two other streaming threads? Did I miss something?

dont feel bad, one of them is my own self-indulgent fault and the other is on I Love Games.

JJJUSTEN MAKES ONE SENTENCIRIFIC REVIEWS OF ALL THE CRAP THAT HE WATCHES LATE AT NIGHT ON NETFLIX STREAMING XBOX SOMETHING WHY BECAUSE HE BORED ALSO BECAUSE
Netflix Streaming Film Recommendations: Because You Can't Always Play With Yourself

one is jjjusten's personal joint and the other has a tmi title

xp

Sorry jjjusten! I totally missed your thread. Thought I did a search first. Look forward to reading those threads.

Tales from the Script has interviews with everyone from Richard Rush to Paul Schraeder to Shane Black about big-studio screenwriting. Lots of guys I'd never heard speak before. Good documentary.

the documentary about milton glaser (hugely important graphic designer) is on instant netflix. can't wait to see it.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (aka "The Banksy documentary") is an unexpected mindfuck, and surprisingly isn't really about Banksy at all. I recommend!

yeah that looks good

^Had me all fucked up over art, commerce, life in general, for a couple days.

Recent watches:

Soul Kitchen
Vengeance
Valhalla Rising
Centurion
Rewatched first five eps of Party Down Season 2
Planet B-Boy

Another thumbs up for Exit Through the Gift Shop. Just watched the Joan Rivers doc this weekend, too.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a good doc, not sure if it's on Netflix instant.

Rewatched first five eps of Party Down Season 2

when are they going to put up the final 5 is my question

they took mall cops away :(

i only got to see, like, 4 episodes.

you could write, like, ten doctoral thesiseseses just watching that show and never leaving your couch. amerikkka writ sad.

Just watched Black Narcissus -- so good.

when are they going to put up the final 5 is my question

up now

Milton Glaser doc is good btw.

Just watched Black Narcissus -- so good.

― pixel farmer, Thursday, December 23, 2010 12:38 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Beautiful stuff like these seems worth waiting for the disc to show up, no?

I just watch Hoarders and old SNLs

Exit through the gift shop is so awesome

I know the disc would be better quality than streaming, but streaming is definitely better quality than regular tv -- there are far fewer compression artifacts than I get on cable. Maybe Netflix can tell I have decent downstream bandwidth (10 Mbps), I dunno. Turn off the lights in my office, watch fullscreen on the larger monitor, in with the earbuds, ask the family not to mess with me for two hours (or watch in the morning before they get up), a nice near-cinema experience.

"Beautiful stuff like these seems worth waiting for the disc to show up, no?"

Not with my TV, no.

ah good point

i'm a little of worried that Netflix is gonna phase out discs before the internet connections get good enough for streams to be disc-quality

I'M STILL HERE, one of the greatest and most underrated films of the year, is now on instant. Time will be very kind to it.

Just watched Moon, pretty good.
Now starting the Red Riding Trilogy.

Just watched "I Think We're Alone Now" about two disturbed dudes obsessed with Tiffany. Pretty interesting, if a bit depressing.

Come to think of it, both of the dudes are probably ILM regulars.

I was going to say, even by the time I got into film-as-film, Christopher Doyle stans were prevalent

The very first film was just images of trains and waves, and it wasn't really because of the narrative that people went back. So yeah, it's the oldest idea in the book.

https://deadline.com/2019/11/netflix-first-look-at-second-season-of-brit-com-sex-education-1202782762/

There's like this whole subset of crime-/murder-centric programming that my gf watches which basically serves as a background soundtrack to me doing other things. I'm as surprised as anyone that the show which increasingly caught my attention to the point where I'm now full-on watching it alongside her (and am now possibly more interested in than her) is How To Get Away With Murder. I mean, it's thoroughly ludicrous but also super addictive? It's basically a comic book, like some early-2000s cult favorite Vertigo crime title. And I'm pretty on board with the general theme of 'absolutely everyone involved in the American criminal justice system is or eventually mutates into an indefensible sociopath'. We've blasted through most of three seasons in no time so I guess I'm in for the long haul.

jed, i AM in fact. they're no longer allowing manual updates according to their new facebook post but maybe they're fixing the issue now?

look at the fb post dated nov 3rd.

yah but this morning's post includes the phrase "I am not doing manual resets ever again!!!!!"

ah i see! ok

3 eps in and really digging season 2 of End of the World but... is it just me or is there just So Much Soundtrack (tbf very well-curated so not mad about it)

I watched the first episode of that Charli XCX show and...well, I will watch the rest of it.

3 eps in and really digging season 2 of End of the World but... is it just me or is there just So Much Soundtrack (tbf very well-curated so not mad about it)

dolemite is my name is awesome. i kept expecting rico to turn up and ask for a slightly bigger cut than the $10 moore gave him in the alley. he would have been justified in asking for it!

s2 of the end of the fucking world is good, love both actors, but i agree, it really is more of a tone poem of cool songs than a coherent series this time around.

very happy to hear the excellent use of Scott Walkers the Sood Mans Back Again.

I haven't heard this version.

It’s great, it’s on Scott Sore.

will check it out! :)

Is Echo in the Canyon any good?

I've heard ... not really. My buddy told me of course there is some good stuff, but there is also a lot of Jakob Dylan or Fiona Apple performing songs of the era, which sounds unnecessary to me.

My buddy's other complaint was that it painted a really incomplete picture of that scene in service of the scene the makers wanted it to be. For example (and my friend is no fan of these two) there is apparently no really mention of Frank Zappa or Jim Morrison, both Canyon mainstays. I'll probably put it on when I'm assembling furniture or something.

no it's disappointing. first off, the covers as performed are across the board quite poor and just make you want to hear the originals. And yeah, it's really incomplete. There's a great story that exists about this period of music and these musicians but this really only brushes the surface.

the best part comes at the end during the credits when Neil Young shows up out of the blue and freaks out on guitar.

Ok, glad I asked, it didn't look great, but I was still intrigued

Felt more like an EPK for Jakob Dylan and his pals than anything.

I liked some of the interview segments with mguinn and Crosby at least. But correct me not even a mention of Joni?

I think it’s best going in to expect that the movie is primarily about a tribute concert that Jakob Dylan et al put together to perform songs from the mid60s associated with Echo Canyon based bands. There is historical footage provided and interviews with the original artists but don’t expect much coverage of any artists that weren’t featured in the concert or didn’t participate for whatever reason. I thought it was fine for what it was.

weird about Neil though...he's obv the elephant in the room as he's not interviewed but he's in the old Springfield footage and discussed a lot. I'm guessing he decided he didn't want to be interviewed at the last minute because he was pissed at Cosby for giving him a hard time about Daryl Hannah.

neil has the other best part in the movie, which is the archive footage of Buffalo Springfield doing 'for what it's worth' which transitions into Mr. Soul and the moment of that transition is fucking awesome. for whatever reason the only version of this on youtube that I found was in poor quality but here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V8VvEzuQ6Y

Um that should’ve read Crosby.

We watched Knight Before Christmas. It was really bad. Although Vanessa Hudgens had a lot of nice coats in it.

Klaus was cute ifvyou need some holiday cheer

Jeff Garlin’s special is fun and goes by fast.

the Bikram doc was well made I thought

My yoga teacher was very disturbed by it!

it is indeed disturbing

Just finished Unbelievable. Wow. I want Merritt Wever's Det Duvall to somehow be in charge of stuff in my life.
Shows based on real life are often so much more interesting than scripted stuff. Because you're not anticipating the next step in the plot formula. You can see how everything simmered together to let this happen. Plus, no-one would really write rape victims like Amber and the Druid girl (actually, you know what? Veronica Mars might).
The episode where Toni Collett is like 'WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE??' - yeah! This is how I feel all the time! It's pathetic that I'm grateful it's spelled out in a few minutes of a Netflix miniseries.

I'll read that article linked upthread.

The Dragon Prince is finally paying off, the third season is really excellent. (Shame that the creator is problematic.)

^ Just started the first season of that with my nine year old and both really liking it so far

omg this The Movies That Made Us that they have their first episode as Dirty Dancing (the only one I will probably watch) A+.

This is on Hulu but the second season of Castle Rock is excellent, so much better than the first one and it even redeems the first one to a degree.

xpost I've never heard of that series, but was thinking of watching the Die Hard episode. Except ... there's no way Willis contributes, and Alan Rickman is dead, and John McTiernan is in jail ...

Oh, wait, they did get McTiernan, I guess he didn't serve long.

I also enjoy Castle Rock

Thirded. The two recent backstory episodes have been superb.

Can I watch Castle Rock season 2 without having watched the first season?

Yes, entirely new cast and storyline.

There was one payoff in a recent episode that wouldn't mean anything if you haven't watched the first season but other than that you're good.

The episode of The Movies That Made Us I saw kind of sucked. In another time it would have been a 10 minute VH1 segment.

The Politician is bonkers. I'm not sure I mean that in a good or a bad way; leaning towards the latter--Ryan Murphy strikes me as a self-righteous faux liberal in the Paddy Chayefsky mode--but I did keep watching. I legitimately laughed out loud once it was revealed what the Judith Light character's "skeleton" is.

xpost, yeah I only cared about Dirty Dancing. I am not into anything else.

do we have a separate thread for rhythm + flow or is no one watching?

Totally liking Castle Rock so far, 2.5 eps in, thanks everybody

I had some doubts about the second season of End of the Fing World but once I learned to enjoy the extremities to which the show is being pushed, it is indeed quite fun.