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'll cede that but turnabout is fair play for every "protagonist gets a hottie" autobio-comedy ever made.

Who was the first troupe to kind of combine that sort of broad and surreal stoner comedy with lots of exaggerated ott faces and lots of screaming? Surely it preceded stuff like Tim and Eric, right?

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1965804.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/The-Goodies.jpg

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2018/09/051-ea1a409.jpg?quality=45&resize=620,413

https://nostalgiacentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/goodies33.jpg

Huh, I've somehow never heard of the Goodies.

Just watched the first episode of a cop show set in Dakar called SAKHO & MANGANE. Mismatched detective partners who hate each other, drug gangs, murder, etc., but curses and whatnot, too. In French, and I was surprised how much I caught/remembered from seventh grade. I’m in for the full season.

Dakar Noir.

We just started SAKHO & MANGANE based on your description, and are really into it already. I love the medical examiner.

The Queen's Gambit was much better than expected but the last 3 episodes felt like they could have been stretched more.

My gf binged Queen's Gambit and I joined her cold for the last episode.

I dunno if anyone's written about this, but I couldn't help thinking that part of the reason that this caught the zeitgeist so squarely is that it represents an impossibly of-our-time fantasy: a flawed woman makes her way to the apex of her industry based on talent, a strong support system and immense hard work and, on meeting the glass ceiling, is met by a group of gatekeeper men who ultimately deferentially acknowledge everything she's done and more or less apologize for not taking her seriously. I'm not sure I've ever seen a television story climax that way.

p much every other episode goes the same way

My gf binged Queen's Gambit and I joined her cold for the last episode.

I dunno if anyone's written about this, but I couldn't help thinking that part of the reason that this caught the zeitgeist so squarely is that it represents an impossibly of-our-time fantasy: a flawed woman makes her way to the apex of her industry based on talent, a strong support system and immense hard work and, on meeting the glass ceiling, is met by a group of gatekeeper men who ultimately deferentially acknowledge everything she's done and more or less apologize for not taking her seriously. I'm not sure I've ever seen a television story climax that way.

― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Sunday, January 3, 2021 2:18 AM (four hours ago)

I think this was at least subtext to every critical piece I read about it, but this essay (which is very positive) examines this pretty closely iirc:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/always-lived-castle-one-month-queens-gambit/

Thanks for sharing that, seems pretty much dead on given my limited exposure. I’m glad I only gave it an hour. Good set dressing tho!

There is a sort of fussiness in the production design of most Netflix (and Amazon etc.) period content that I find suffocating...an "accuracy" fetish the result of which is all the details getting flattened onto a single, unconvincing plane, like a set-design uncanny valley. You watch these shows and the actors seem as enthralled by this really cheap nostaglia as the viewer is supposed to be.

Anyway I attempted QG three times and it felt (like most of these shows do) like all the moving parts were contingent on this truly awful look, for me anyway it moved like molasses, couldn't watch it.

On that note I watched the first season of Red Oaks recommended in the other thread which managed somehow to look *exactly* like mid-80s north Jersey by dialing down that decade's signifiers (or assigning them degrees of importance), making them feel incidental as they would to the characters. Great show!

Having been a teen myself in mid-80s N Jersey I think I will check this out.

Watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom last night, thought it was pretty good. Made me miss Boseman even more than I already did, but Davis’ performance might even have been better.

watched the trailer for amy poehler's riot grrl nostalgia high school movie and I'm sorry but it's time to put gen x down

can we at least put the boomers down first? I still have some records I need to listen to.

most of Gen X would have been adults by the time riot grrl happened? High school riot grrl would be early millennial nostalgia tbh

not be all "gen x pride" about it, but, the majority of people I know who are/were really into riot grrl stuff are all millennials in their late 30s and younger

psst sarahell! TOWERS OF SONG: a Nick Cave Sings Covers listening thread and poll

I watched the trailer and immediately thought of Pump Up the Volume, which was pretty ... Gen X.

Riot grrl was my college years, so ... sort of adult? Born 1975, which I think puts me smack dab in the middle of the Gen X span, give or take.

Seriously, I'm prime gen X and riot grrrl is already "Seems cool but I'm too old for this scene" music

Just checked, and the author of the Moxie book, fwiw, was born in 1976.

... which is a gen xer

as were the people in the riot grrl bands and amy pohler.

Yeah, Poehler was born 1971.

kind of blowing my mind that Carrie Brownstein had just turned 18 (or was about to) when I saw her play in Excuse 17 (Sept 1992). I was 26. she def seemed older.

Possibly because she is can be almost preternaturally charismatic onstage.

The new animated series from Craig McCracken (Wander Over Yonder) - Kid Cosmic - is out, and it is awesome. Beautiful hand-drawn animation, great writing, fun story. Skip the weak trailer and just jump in, with your kids if you have them. SO good.

(he also made Powerpuff Girls)

will give it a peek

I liked it. A lot like Steven Universe.

We just watched "The White Tiger," which I thought was going to be a certain type of movie, but ultimately turned out to be pretty dark stuff!

Felt like it was part of the same anti-capitalist cinematic universe as Snowpiercer and Parasite.

I really liked it.

Yeah, I got some serious Parasite vibes from it. And, um, GoodFellas.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/entertainment/chappelle-show-dave-chappelle-netflix/index.html

lmao at the Dave quotes in this

like, yes I'm glad he was able to finally get paid but also did you ever consider how "I called the head of Netflix and told them they made me feel bad, so they took my show off of the programming" would land with people who don't worship you

(obv for varying values of "finally get paid", to be clear)

does he say anything about feeling bad about people catching COVID at his "fuck masks" superspreader shows

uh what are you talking about

i don't think he went to far as to say "fuck masks" but
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dave-chappelle-sounds-off-on-capitol-rioters-covid-cowards-in-video-on-chappelles-show-netflix-return

gonna be generous and say this is just him being old and cranky (all his current material has this... weirdness.)
and hopefully not slowly turning into Charles Barkley

a "hero", lol

I read that and I knew he had been holding shows with social distancing; I was looking for sic's source for a "fuck masks" stance.

About him holding indoor residencies at venues that do not require masks, participants posting photos of unmasked hugs with each other and audience randos captioned "WE ALL GOT RAPID TESTED SO SHUTUP!!"*, at one of which "Someone in Dave's circle... got Dave sick... Radio Rahim got sick, the photographer's son got sick, I don't know if the photographer got sick. A lot of guys got sick. Louis CK—" Chappelle's partner in the residencies not quarantining after this transmission, and continuing to do live shows six days/the next weekend after Dave was diagnosed.

And about Dave probably, even before the Netflix deal, having enough money to be able to sit at home for ten months and not endanger employees, venue staff, peers, freelance photographers and their children, or audiences, let alone actively promoting maskless embraces with strangers.

*

“They are approved for use when someone has COVID-19 symptoms, so using them to screen asymptomatic people who want to gather at a club is not necessarily going to prevent an infected person from slipping through,” an epidemiologist and bioethicist at Virginia Tech said. Antigen tests like the ones Rogan and Chappelle provide at their Stubb’s residency require a relatively large amount of virus to turn up positive; people with lower amounts of viral particles—perhaps because they’re early in their infection—may receive a false negative even though they’re perfectly capable of spreading the virus.

Frequent rapid testing is an effective means of identifying cases within a community (or workplace), but it doesn’t change the fact that any single negative result may be inaccurate, and it’s no excuse to disregard basic safety protocols. When I asked Lee if there’s any conceivable reason someone shouldn’t quarantine after exposure to Covid-19, she demurred. “Contacts to persons who test positive for COVID-19 infection should enter quarantine immediately and remain separated for at least 10 days, or until day 7 if you have a negative test then,” she said. Again, six days elapsed between the Stubb’s show and the Antone’s show.

xp yes, not an exact quote, but a clear ethos

I would like to believe you are smart enough to recognize that there is a difference between "we thought we were being careful" and "we don't need to be careful" but precedent shows that whenever you've decided you don't like someone, you zero in on the least-charitable characterization of their actions possible and then present them as if they baldly stated that, so I'm going to let this go

His outdoor shows in Ohio seemed to show evidence of being careful, and I thought it was good of him to try and find a way for people to have collective entertainment in trying times.

Relocating to another state, in winter, in order to hold maskless indoor shows, and encouraging staff and audiences - from his position of influence and authority - to believe that rapid antigen tests provided any level of safety, I believed was reckless and massively irresponsible. Chappelle's entourage and a freelancer's child subsequently catching COVID due to this may or may not back this personal opinion up.

(I started to be more cautious in my positivity when people were posting backstage photos from the Ohio shows, featuring wealthy comedians who had travelled across the US to meet up, perform, and then travel again afterward. I think this activity was dangerous, but it's not because I'd earlier "decided I don't like" Sarah Silverman or Michelle Wolf. Have comfortably settled on deciding I don't like Louis CK, though.)

is anyone else watching "Money Heist" a.k.a "La Casa De Papel"? Completely over the top, ludicrous, and thoroughly enjoyable "heist gang" madness, I recommend watching in the original Spanish with subtitles.

yes.
its the most fun, switch off brain tv show ever.
i cannot wait for the next season.
and as always, switch off dubbing, and watch with subtitles.

Money Heist is great until it weirdly has to be the same tv show over and over again. It’s the Spanish Prison Break

I put it top of my ballot in last year's tv poll but was the sole voter. great cast, inventive plotting, morally ambiguous, thoroughly ridiculous. warning though, things do not wrap up at the end of season 4.