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.

the dub isn't horrible, phil hartman (rip) is a mismatch for jiji though

So you should be pleased that the original soundtrack can be heard, not booing about it?

Right, not the score--the soundtrack. Specifically the pop song that plays over the radio when Kiki first flies off on her broom was very very charming and likable (to me) and is not used in the Eng version. Also I didn't like the voices.

since we're talking about Ghibli, is this what I want if I want a DVD collection?

https://www.playtech-asia.com/studio-ghibli-collector-edition-dvd-english-dubbed-hd-version.html

I remember Roger Ebert making the observation that unlike films, *all* cartoons are dubbed, so it doesn't really matter what language it's in, as long as the voice actors are a good fit. If they changed the score, yeah, that would be a mistake, but voice actors are a matter of preference. For example, I know folks who love Hartman as the cat. I haven't seen the movie for a while, but I recall liking him as the cat, too.

I think it must of been this, from his "Ponyo" review, in support of people seeing it even if it's (shock) in Japanese! (Kind of the reverse complaint purists have about dubbed films.)

Miyazaki is the Japanese creator of “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Spirited Away,” “Howl’s Moving Castle” and many other beloved films. Already I have heard from a few people who don’t want to see it “because it’s Japanese.” This is solid-gold ignorance. “Is it only dubbed?” I was asked. You dummy! All animated films are dubbed! Little Nemo can’t really speak!

I have a major beef with the English dub of Kiki that I swear I have brought up on ilx before. Need to be at a keyboard afore I capitulate

But in short, the English script translations feel rushed and dated and mostly fucking suck and often break the movie
Totoro is an exception iirc

which always causes me to ask: which totoro

it's been 1000 years since i watched the kiki dub but i was way harsher on english dubs the last time i saw it and i found very little to object to? in orbit is correct that the song replacements kinda suck but what can you do w/r/t a 1998 buena vista dub, the first disney acquisition of any miyazaki/ghibli property

then again the original evangelion dub was much worse than i remembered when i tried to rewatch it a few years ago so i could be very wrong here

But in short, the English script translations feel rushed and dated and mostly fucking suck and often break the movie

But if like me you don't know Japanese, how would you even know if they're rushed or break the movie? You kind of go to war with the subtitles you've got.

I'm all for thread drift, but it's probably not necessary to fill up the Netflix Watch Instantly thread with criticisms of the English dubs of films that Netflix will be offering in Japanese to New Zealand viewers in three months

otm

I'm watching KIPO AND THE AGE OF THE WONDERBEASTS and although a better subtitle would be AND THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP AND SONGS, I'm really enjoying it! The animation is unexpectedly wonderful, too.

― Siouxie Sioux and the Vanjies (Leee), Monday, January 20, 2020 8:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

only a few eps into this, but yeah it's super charming. Feels a little like the new She-Ra (and therefore Avatar/Korra) + Samurai Champloo

It might be too twee for me.

I could see that, but I wonder how much you watched? Each one has felt slightly different than what I expected. The last one featured GZA as a member of a pack of astronomer-wolves. The frog dudes are genuinely weird imo

But if like me you don't know Japanese, how would you even know if they're rushed or break the movie?

The example that I had in mind with Kiki requires you to buy into my (supported by ten viewings) interp of the story which is that its subtext is a tale of a young woman going through puberty and losing power. Remember, Kiki gets sick and then can no longer communicate with Jiji / control the broom / access her power. Until then, she's had opportunity to see pathways to maturity in the independent young woman in the woods and the older woman who bakes and sees the foolishness of immaturity in the bratty grandkids. When she accesses her power to save Tombo (that "Fly" always gets me goosebumps), she is leaving behind her childhood and recognizing that her greatest days lie ahead.

So here's my beef: in the Japanese version, when Kiki is mobbed and Jiji (who has found his own leap forward in maturity by falling in love with the cat next door) jumps out at the film's end and loudly meows. Miyazaki is telling us that maturity means that you lose a little of the magic of childhood, that everything has a price and a tradeoff. It's an important moment that speaks of repercussions and growth. In the English dub, Disney has obviated that lesson by having Phil Hartman's Jiji jump out and say "I can talk again too Kiki!" It's a sign that they've completely missed the point of the film.

a quick glance at the wiki suggests they dialed this back somewhat for the rerelease on home video but GKids in-theaters version (to the best of my experience) retains the original dub. the quoted section below also brings up my loathing of what Disney does to the almost always excellent music: they fuck it up.

There are a number of additions and embellishments to the film's musical score, and several lavish sound effects over sections that are silent in the Japanese original. The extra pieces of music, composed by Paul Chihara, range from soft piano music to a string-plucked rendition of Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. The original Japanese opening theme is "Rouge no Dengon" (ルージュの伝言, Rūju no Dengon, "Message of Rouge"), and the ending theme is "Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta nara" (やさしさに包まれたなら, "Wrapped in Kindness"), both performed by Yumi Matsutoya (credited as Yumi Arai). The original opening and ending theme songs were replaced by two new songs, "Soaring" and "I'm Gonna Fly", written and performed for the English dub by Sydney Forest.

The depiction of the cat, Jiji, is changed significantly in the Disney version. In the Japanese version Jiji is voiced by Rei Sakuma, while in the English version Jiji is voiced by comedian Phil Hartman. In Japanese culture, cats are usually depicted with feminine voices, whereas in American culture their voices are more gender-specific. A number of Hartman's lines exist where Jiji simply says nothing in the original. Jiji's personality is notably different between the two versions, showing a more cynical and sarcastic attitude in the Disney English version as opposed to cautious and conscientious in the original Japanese. In the original Japanese script, Kiki loses her ability to communicate with Jiji permanently, but the American version adds a line that implies that she is once again able to understand him at the end of the film. Miyazaki has said that Jiji is the immature side of Kiki, and this implies that Kiki, by the end of the original Japanese version, has matured beyond talking to her cat. More minor changes to appeal to the different teenage habits of the day include Kiki drinking hot chocolate instead of coffee and referring to "cute boys" instead of to "the disco".

However, when Disney re-released the film on DVD in 2010, several elements of the English dub were changed, reverting more towards the original Japanese version. Several of Hartman's ad-libbed lines as Jiji were removed, and Sydney Forest's opening and ending songs were replaced with the original Japanese opening and ending songs. Additionally, Jiji does not talk again at the end, implying that Kiki never regains the ability to talk to him, and many of the sound effects added to the original English version have been removed. The English subtitled script used for the original VHS subbed release and the later DVD release more closely adheres to the Japanese script, but still contains a few alterations. Tokuma mistakenly believed the Streamline dub was an accurate translation of the film and offered it to Disney to use as subtitles. As a result, several additions from the dub appear in the subtitles regardless of whether or not they are present in the film.

And yeah, Miyazaki and Ghibli sign off on these changes but it's impossible to know how much they understood in 1997 how much Disney was going to rethink the story. In any case, I want to see (and hear!) the film Miyazaki wanted, not the one Disney thought it could sell back in the twentieth century.

anyway, we now return to your regularly scheduled streaming service.

It might be too twee for me.

It is pretty twee, but IMO not much more than She-Ra (if that's an appropriate reference point for you).

The last one featured GZA as a member of a pack of astronomer-wolves.

And a Sagan fan to boot!

thanks ulysses, i didn't realize how much they changed

good on disney for correcting that jiji line i completely forgot about???? damn

The last one featured GZA as a member of a pack of astronomer-wolves.

This is kind of what I mean!

lol yeah as I was writing that I thought "this probably sounds wack" but I enjoyed it as an odd surprise.

This is different from "too twee," but I don't usually try to convince people to like animation as I find its appeal works on a more instinctual/affective level than live action. I tried to get into Big Mouth after it did well on the cartoons poll--it is funny but the animation style is aggressively hideous to me and I couldn't stand it after a while.

Yeah the animation in Kipo isn't really my thing either. It's funny - the backgrounds / mattes / whatever they are look straight out of classic Japanese anime, but all the characters and action look like... indie comics?

I often find myself totally out of step on this stuff. Like I can't stand Adventure Time.

I sorta see where you’re coming from, as I don’t think the character designs for most of the humans show off the quality of the animation. (Wolf and maybe Benson have good designs.) It's grown in me all the same.

Also the penultimate episode goes to a REAL dark place.

And I just realized that all of the central characters are people of color! Lots of diversity here.

second season of sex education is great - this show has so much heart and the characters are so well-drawn, i fuckin' love it

Yeah. Few episodes in and loving it. Shot just up the road from me so lots of added place recognition too

I just started watching s1! It is great agreed

I'm not particularly fond of it but it's quite cute and the soundtrack is dece

GILLIAN ANDERSON

I watched the first 2 eps of S1 last night and am having trouble with suspension of disbelief.

You mean the fact that literally everyone talks about, or has, sex all the time and only one person seems the least bit shy about it? I kind of see it as science fiction in a way, like, what if the world was like this

Pretty much. The idea that any teen having sex probs would talk to someone outside their clique about it doesn't fit with my known universe, and paying for that advice is even more NOPE. Give me high school science teachers cooking meth to pay for cancer treatment any day.

Giri/Haji: I'm enjoying this, as it's certainly not afraid to move the plot along, but I've reached a point where the characters are making what seen to me inexplicable decisions and it's a little hard to swallow.

ok I'm walking back my premature knock on Cheer that it seems drama-free relative to Last Chance U

just got teased pre-credits by the revelation that Monica has a scary, inner "Annette"

v much digging this

It's definitely a fantasical utopia, for the houses alone (well, except for the trailer park I guess), but it's funny & sweet.

xp

I liked Grace and Frankie in the beginning, but my god, the current season is like they pulled all the episode ideas out of the big hat of tired sitcom tropes. Mank.

i had to nope out of Grace & Frankie
too much like hanging out w my mum & her friends when theyve had too much wine

my gf (and ergo by extension me - our apartment is small) binged the last half of the first season and all of the second season of that show marcella yesterday and god, what a crazy show. started to find how grim and heightened everything was sort of unintentionally hilarious by the end of it, but that didn't stop it from stressing me out

I had to bail at the beginning of the second season (Marcella). I think I kind of started to hate it even though it started out fine.

it's pretty ludicrous

everyone in the second season looks so uncanny valley too.

I just watched E5 of Sex Education's first season and it is one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen. So many stories interweaving, so much payoff. And so much NOT paid off that it's giving me a gnawing feeling in my stomach. There were horrific moments and heroic moments. There were moments that the characters will remember their entire lives. FUCK!

I don't know why I'm so late realising this but have they deliberately mashed up styles from the last half century? Or is this just the post-modern way people dress now??

Gillian Anderson - 1940s
Jackson - 1950s
Aimee (toothy girl) - 1970s
Otis - 1980s
Eric & Maeve - 1990s

it's not just the clothes, the locations are often very late 70s / early 80s drab, and the set dressing of the school seems neither typically british but not quite american either

i think it looks fantastic tbh

eric has some incredible outfits in s2 btw, you've got a lot to look forward to

the locations are often very late 70s / early 80s drab

You need to spend more time in the Wye Valley.