Let’s face facts here: the selection on Netflix’s Watch Instantly section is definitely about quantity over quality. It’s hard to find good movies mixed in with all the crazy shit they like to put up for you. It’s a lot of dentritus, Mockbusters, television, and weird stuff.
So, as your faithful (and inconsistent) blogger/gatekeeper, I’d like to recommend a few films this week for your viewing pleasure… This also gives me a chance to capsule review movies and that’s always fun.
You can click the titles to go straight to the movie’s Netflix profile. The dates in parentheses are when the movie gets pulled from W.I.
La Dolce Vita (ends 8/1/11. SEE IT NOW!)
This is arguably Fellini’s masterpiece: a lush, three hour tour of Rome and papparazzi and woman troubles. It’s one of those movies that’s really hard to write about because it’s so densely layered and absolutely fantastic.
But, as mentioned. It ends on Monday.
A Woman Under the Influence, Faces, Shadows , The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (all ending on 8/3/11)
A Cassavetes quadruple feature, listed in my preferred order. I haven’t seen The Killing of a Chinese Bookie yet, but all I’ve heard is that it’s great, so I guess I’ll have to watch it before Wednesday.
A Woman Under the Influence is my favorite of the three. It’s a 2 and a half hour character piece on a woman’s mental instability and the ways that it’s pulling the family apart. Like all of his films, it never flinches away from the crazier moments and the experience is definitely life changing. Check out the trailer:
Faces comes in at number 2 and it probably has the best ending of the three. It covers a single night in the life of a married couple after the husband says “I want a divorce.” They both go out seeking solace in myriad ways. My only complaint is that, because of the high-contrast (possibly Super-16) black and white film stock this film was shot on, the shitty quality of Watch Instantly is really on display. If you can ignore that, you’re in for a great movie.
Shadows is Cassavetes’s first film as a director and really puts on display the themes he would continue to deal with: the brutal honesty of love and its implications. It’s about a mixed race couple in 1950′s New York. And has a lot of Jazz. It’s also the shortest of his films, so it’s definitely a good entry into his style.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (doesn’t end… it was distributed by Netflix, so why would they pull it?)
This Romanian film won the Palme D’or in 2007 and is absolutely fantastic. Set in the Communist 80′s, a woman and her friend seek out a black market abortion to get rid of the child for various sociopolitical reasons. There are several sequences in this movie that will stay with you.
It’s an emotional film that, if you can stick out, is a rewarding experience.
Let me In (no end date)
This remake of the 2008 Swedish film, Let the Right One In, does its best to not really remake the original film, but to reinterpret the novel. For that reason, this movie stands alongside it as a solid companion. And! It’s not subtitled like the original (in case you hate reading).
This film is filled with great cinematography and an excellent score from Michael Giacchino on top of two great kid-performances (a trend I’ve noticed the past few years and would love to see continued) from Kodi Smit-McPhee of the Road and Chloe Grace Moretz from Kickass.
Let the Right One In (no end date)
As it turns out, both versions are on Netflix. I’m of the camp that thinks that both are equally as compelling and awesome, but I’ll let you be the judge.
Gomorrah (no end date)
I watched this one the other day and, no, it’s not about sodomy’s cousin. It’s actually about the most influential Italian mob, which is called Camorra. It follows the lives of several people of different ages and occupations as they deal with being in the mafia and the choices that people must make in situations like this.
What I found most interesting, though, is that it turns its focus away from the violence and onto the characters. As a result, it could be criticized as boring, but I found it to be the exact opposite–especially when the two teenagers are on screen. Their story is perhaps the most tragicomic since you know exactly what ends they’ll probably meet from the moment they begin to buck the trends and laws laid down by the bosses. And then stealing their guns and cocaine.
It’s a gutsy movie. And I can definitely see why Martin Scorsese attached his name to it.
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Oh-kay. I guess that’s about it for this week. Hopefully I’ll do it again in a week. I’ll be honest, I’ve been intending on doing this for awhile and am finally getting around to it.
