First World Solutions: “There IS Something Good On Netflix!”

About a year ago, I wrote a blog called First World Problems:  ”There’s Nothing Good on Netflix!”   In it I addressed the common complaint that the most popular site in the world with which to stream movies indeed has no good movies.  This claim is of course nonsense and I offered plenty of options for the curious reader to check out.  Well, that blog entry is exponentially my most popular.  It’s not even close. At least once or twice a day someone will google ‘there’s nothing good on Netflix’ and stumble upon the entry (it pops up usually as the second or third option, try it yourself.)  Hopefully, it gives them some ideas.

So, to honor the first anniversary of that entry and to provide more ideas, I’ve decided to choose all my home viewing in the month of May from Netflix Instant.  At the beginning of the month, the service dropped over a 1000 movies.  The streaming rights had expired.  A huge deal was made of this.  It was referred to as ‘Streamageddon.’  But the site added several hundred more titles over the next several days.  No one talked about this.  No one talked about the fact that they’re continuously adding titles.  Well, I’ve got no skin in the game.  But hopefully if you follow along with this entry as I update it over the next month, you might find a few titles worth checking out.  You’ll almost certainly find some turds as well.  But you’ll never know unless you try.

Rules:

1)  All movies must be chosen from available Netflix Instant titles.

2)  I can not presently own the selected titles.

3)  I have to watch Fast & Furious and Fast Five to prepare for Six Fast Six Furious and since they’re not available on the service, I will ignore rules 1 & 2 for those films and those films alone.

May 1   Grave Encounters 2    C+

The first movie in the franchise is also available on Instant.  It, like this film, is a ‘found footage’ tale and in it the crew of a basic cable ghost hunting show enters a purportedly haunted abandoned mental asylum.  I actually thought it was a superior example of the genre.  In this sequel, an aspiring collegiate filmmaker, making a documentary for a school project, is given information via an anonymous e-mail that the purported fictional first movie is in fact actual footage of the terrible fate of the original’s cast.  He sets out on an obsessive quest that leads him and a group of friends to the hospital and the dark truth he’s been seeking.  Worth a spin if you enjoyed part one.

May 2    Shakma    C

Wow.  What an odd little film.  A bunch of actors more famous for other roles gather together a in the science building of a college campus to play some live action D & D.  Their nerd fest coincides with the escape of a baboon who has been the subject of experiments in controlling aggression.  The mad beast goes on a murderous rampage.  The animal attacks become a bit repetitive as half the cast is wiped out in about a 10 minute sequence leaving the ‘big’ names to attempt to escape the building without drawing the attention of the crazy primate.  It’s a pleasant enough diversion with a couple of chilling scenes.  I was especially creeped out whenever the baboon ran on two legs.

May 3   Sleepwalk With Me   B

Comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote, directed and stars in this comedy based on his Broadway show.  It’s an autobiographical tale of his early years of struggling on the stand up comic scene while dealing with a failing relationship and a sleep disorder.  I don’t recall seeing much of his stand up but I loved what I did see here and he’s very effective as an actor.  The film does a great job of portraying the hardships for a touring comedian willing to take any gig and always working to improve their set.  There’s a great supporting cast of familiar actors and fellow comics.  While there’s nothing too deep going on, it is an honest  portrayal of a rough patch in the creator’s life and that’s to be applauded.

May 6    Amber Alert    C-

Another ‘found footage’ flick notable this time for it’s grounded and somewhat realistic approach.  A man and woman, would be reality competition contestants filming audition tape while driving, spy a car that matches the description on the roadway amber alert they just passed.  They follow the car so they can help the police save the little girl the driver has abducted.  The pair, lifelong friends, begin to crack under the pressure of the responsibility, all under the watchful eye of her little brother, manning the camera in the back seat.  The acting is nothing to write home about but it is a fun, at times chilling, exercise in ‘what would you do’ speculation.

May 8   The American Scream   A

Halloween is quickly approaching in a Massachusetts seaside town in this documentary as three groups of people busily attempt to turn their homes into the ultimate scare factories.  To their own kind, they are known as ‘home haunters.’  To a stranger, they might seem obsessive or odd.  To the hundreds of kids who are delightfully scared by their displays, they are local heroes.  One family strives for perfection.  One family, inspired by the first, is just looking to have fun.  And a father and son, attached at the hip, squabble while building a train wreck of a display.  There isn’t an unlikable person to be found in the thoroughly enjoyable film.

May 12   FDR:  American Badass    C

A thin premise is stretched too far in this bit of throwaway comedy.  Barry Bostwick plays the titular character, the famous four term president who guided America through The Great Depression and the second World War.  Turns out the reason he was in that wheelchair was because he was infected with polio from a werewolf bite while he was the governor of New York.  Later he becomes President and fights the Axis Powers led by a lupine Mussolini, Hitler, and Hirohito, played  to the stereotypical hilt by a trio of game actors.  There’s some funny bits here but the humor is pretty wrung out by the final act.

May 14  Bachelorette     B-

Women, as it turns out, are really quite terrible to each other.  Or so this comedic endeavor would have you believe.  Me and my guy friends like to bust each other’s balls but the women who comprise a bride and her bachelorettes are beyond the pale.  Rebel Wilson plays the bride, the token ‘fat girl’ in a group of old high school friends who deride her mercilessly to her face and behind her back.  The bridal party is hideous when together and their stories don’t really become interesting until they are separated by the crazy events of the night preceding the wedding.  Bonus points for fun performances from Lizzy Caplan and Adam Scott in a mini-Party Down reunion.

May 15    Truth or Die   B

This Brit import (known over the pond by the more appropriate Truth or Dare) is a step up from the usual direct-to-video horror fare that can otherwise be found.  The film centers on a group of university students who embarrass a classmate during an after semester party.  The group rejoin after some months to attend the birthday celebration of the offended party.  Don’t dig too deep into their questionable decision to do so.  Just roll with the action and the tension as their host is revealed to not be who they though it was and they recognize the error of their ways.  There are no real good guys here.  Just bad people doing bad things to other bad people.

May 19    The Shrine    B-

I watch a lot of straight-to-video horror flicks.  I tend to give them a bit more leash than I do movies of other genres.  This little flick was well on it’s way to a pedestrian distinction before taking a third act detour that elevated it and truly surprised me.  So when a movie like this surprises me, I have to give it credit.  The log line is pretty basic.  A couple of journalists along with a boyfriend photographer travel to Poland to investigate the disappearance of an American tourist.  The locals are not particularly thrilled with their presence.  Turns out it’s a great place to live but you wouldn’t want to visit.

May 20    Hit & Run

Check back here for further updates as the month progresses…

Now See This – Mud

Mud (written & directed by Jeff Nichols)

Grade:  A

Matthew McConaughey is on quite a roll.  He’s been delivering one killer performance after another with The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Magic Mike and Killer Joe.  And in this, his latest starring vehicle, as directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter), he once more shines as an earthy man fueled  by hidden demons and an obsessive love.

As the titular character, McConaughey has set camp on an island off the Arkansas coast in a boat stuck in a tree during a flood.  Two young boys, Ellis and Neckbone, stumble upon the boat and lay claim to it only to discover its current occupant.  Mud is hiding out on the island waiting for word from his girlfriend, Juniper, a mercurial woman played by Reese Witherspoon.  The trio strike a bargain and an odd friendship is formed.

Ellis is intrigued and inspired by Mud and Juniper’s story.  While trying to reconnect the lovers, he falls in love himself with an older girl from his school.  Neck looks up to Ellis but is much more cautious in his dealings with the strange man on the island who surrounds himself with lucky totems.  He just wants Mud to honor his end of the bargain to give Neck his pistol once they get the boat running.  But as it all to often happens in life, no one is really going to get what they want.  Mud and his mission may drive the plot but the film is just as much about his young friends, especially Ellis.  His views on love and relationships are consistently challenged by the dichotomy of Mud’s idealized love for Juniper and his own parent’s deteriorating marriage.

Nichols envisioned his movie as a coming-of-age tale, a modern take on Tom Sawyer.  It’s a bit daring to strive for the lofty greatness of Twain’s classic but the filmmaker comes damn close with genuinely great storytelling and with the help of a stellar cast.

Highest recommendation.

List-O-Mania: Time Travel Flicks

I love a good old-fashioned time travel flick.  There is of course the Back to the Future trilogy.  You’ve got wonderful Terry Gilliam gems like Time Bandits and 12 Monkeys.  You even have great movie romances that tackle the subject such as Time After Time and the heartbreaking Christopher Reeve vehicle, Somewhere in Time.  I find that I most appreciate the movies with multiple time jumps.  They usually involve someone trying to fix a wrong only to create a new timeline where everything is all catawampus.  Then they try to fix that and so on.  You get the point.  It’s often referred to as the butterfly effect.  So, it’s only fitting that I begin this list of perhaps lesser known or under-appreciated time travel movies with…

5.  The Butterfly Effect

This is a nice little sci-fi thriller that should not be lumped in with its inferior direct-to-video sequels which to their credit don’t star the at times grating Ashton Kutcher who is at his well-behaved best in the 2004 original.  Kutcher plays a collegian prone to frequent blackouts in times of stress.  His was a troubled childhood filled with abuse both sexual and psychological.  While reading his journal entries from his youth, he discovers that he can send his mind back in time to occupy his past body.  He realizes these little mental jaunts through time are the source of his blackouts and he decides, that like Sam Beckett, he will put right those things that once went wrong.  Oh that it were that easy.  His actions, of course, have unforeseen consequences.  It’s a little shoddy.  It’s definitely trashy.  But if you just like a pure time travel yarn, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

4.  Retroactive

James Belushi is Frank who, along with his co-dependent girlfriend, picks up a stranded motorist on a lonely road in Nevada or New Mexico (I don’t remember which…maybe Arizona?)  Anyway, the grateful motorist, a psychiatrist by trade (played by the fetching Kylie Travis), quickly recognizes the signs of an abusive relationship and realizes Frank is not such a good guy.  She decides to bail at the next gas station but bears witness to a shocking act of violence by Frank.  She takes off on foot through the desert with Frank in hot pursuit to eliminate her.  She stumbles onto a research facility where a lonely scientist is studying time travel. She explains her situation.  He offers to send her back so she can save the lives previously taken.  The carnage continues as everything she tries to fix the situation results in more death and more jumps back in time.  Finally, she decides to take control and confront Frank directly.

3.  Triangle

The UK brings us this trippy little tale that loops back in on itself multiple times before a devastating conclusion.  Melissa George plays Jess, a single mom with an autistic son.  She’s more than happy for the opportunity to get away for a while on a boating trip with some friends after dropping the kiddo off at school.  They hit a strange electrical storm on the open waters which disrupts their communications and capsizes the boat.  The survivors come across a bizarrely empty cruise ship and desperately search for a way to contact the coast guard.  They quickly realize they are not alone as a masked assailant begins stalking and killing them one by one.  Jess soon discovers that she is in a never-ending time loop and decides that she will do whatever she must to break the cycle and return to her son.  There’s some really clever stuff and striking images in this one.  To say much more would be to spoil the fun.

2.  Primer

Filmed in Dallas, TX in 2004 on a budget of $7,000, writer/director/star Shane Carruth delivers perhaps the smartest time travel film one is ever likely to see.  The simple plot is that a pair of scientists stumble across the key to time travel.  As most people would, they decide to make money by using advance knowledge of the stock market.  Then they decide to play.  And that’s when things get ugly.  It can all get a bit confusing considering Carruth made the choice to use actual technical jargon as opposed to spelling out the science for the viewer.  Since its release the film’s cult status has grown.  There are web pages devoted to tracking the many alternate time lines that are created by the protagonists multiple trips back.  There’s a scene near the beginning of the third act that will blow your mind and make you doubt everything you’ve seen prior.  This is truly a film that rewards multiple viewings.

1.  Timecrimes

Written and directed by Spanish wunderkind Nacho Vigalondo, this is quite possibly the perfect little small-scale time travel movie.  Hector lives with his wife in the Spanish countryside in a house they are renovating.  One pleasant afternoon while she is off shopping, his spies with his binoculars a comely young lady undressing in the woods just beyond his property.  Being a dude, he goes to check it out only to be attacked by a pink bandaged man.  He flees the scene and breaks into a nearby building.  An intercom bursts to life instructing him to hide in a large mechanical device.  When he emerges from the machine, a scientist is waiting and informs him that he has gone back several hours in time.  Hector then sets out a mission with, against and back again in time to discover the truth behind the man who attacked him.  Ultimately, a great sacrifice must be made to protect the one he loves.

Writing about all these movies makes me want to watch them all over again.  If only I had the time.  Wait a minute.  Maybe, just maybe…

I’ll Wait For The DVD: Killing Them Softly

Sometimes you just don’t get around to catching a flick 

Killing Them Softly (d. Andrew Dominik)

So why didn’t I see it in the theater?  There was a wide gulf between audience and critical responses.  CinemaScore, an audience polling group, assigned the film an ‘F’, a rarity with easy to please mass audiences, while Rotten Tomatoes, the critic aggregate site, gave it a ‘fresh’ rating of 76%.  The great disparity gave me cause for pause and the film was gone as quickly and as quietly as it arrived.

So why did I buy the DVD?  The disparity.  The truth is I don’t generally trust the movie going public.  These are the people who have made Adam Sandler and Kevin James billionaires.  The eventual explanation for the audience response was that they were not presented the movie they were expecting.  The previews led one to believe they were getting a typical Mafia movie but Dominik and star, Brad Pitt, delivered an offbeat, slower moving art house flick, more concerned with characters and motivations than with bloody shoot outs.  Hell, that’s not the movies fault that’s the ad agency who was trying to get butts in seats.  One should never judge the movie they think they’re going to see.  One should judge the movie they actually see.

So was it worth it?  Oh, hell yeah!  I was more than pleasantly surprised with the film.  There’s a brilliant scene towards the beginning that is so filled with anticipatory dread that I could barely contain myself.  It’s filled with great performances from familiar actors like Pitt, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta.  Oddly, it reminded me a bit of my favorite film of 2011, Drive, which also subverted audience expectations.  My only real complaint is that the second act felt a bit light.  At 99 minutes, the movie is very streamlined and its admittedly spare plot gets straight to the point. Allegedly, the director delivered a much longer first cut at 2 1/2 hours which he willingly edited.  I’d be very happy to see that first cut.

So what’s it about?  It’s the fall of 2008.  Barack Obama is about to be elected president.  The economy is in collapse and the job market sucks.  A shady businessman, Johnny Amato, enlists two petty criminals, Russell and Mickey, to knock off a Mob protected high stakes poker den (the aforementioned tense scene) run by Markie Trattman (Liotta), who’s got a bit of a reputation when it comes to busted up card games.  In response, all the other action around town is shut down.  Nobody’s making money and they’ve got mouths need feeding.  A cool as ice hitman, Jackie Cogan (Pitt), is called in to clean up the mess.  He quickly susses out the perpetrators but is having a difficult time getting the okay to take care of business from Driver (Jenkins), the mouthpiece of the men running the show.  After some negotiations, he’s allowed to bring in another shooter, Mickey (Gandolfini), to split the hit.  Mickey’s glad to take the assignment cause he needs the cash and is facing some legal issues back home.  These sordid characters bounce off each other leading to an ultimate and cynical realization that the good ole’ US of A isn’t just a country, it’s a business.  And people need to get paid.

So what’s the grade?  I gave this 4 of 5 stars on Letterboxd which would translate to 8 stars on a 10 point scale. So if 10 stars were an A+ and 9 were an A, I’d be more than comfortable giving this film an A-.  However you grade such things the movie’s just plain good.

In Memory Of…Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

I can’t remember the first time I saw Roger Ebert and his partner Gene Siskel on television.  By the time I was exposed to their movie review show, they may have already segued from Sneak Previews to the now classic At The Movies.  I do remember that I immediately loved what I saw.  The dynamic between the two men, who worked at rival Chicago newspapers, was fascinating.  Their’s was a contentious relationship fueled by friendship, mutual respect and a love for cinema.  More often than not they were talking about movies I’d never heard of or had no chance or interest in seeing.

As I grew older I became more interested in movies that weren’t Star Wars or directed by Steven Spielberg.  I started sneaking into R-rated movies and paying closer attention to my local newspaper’s movie reviews.  Every Friday I would open the Life & Arts section of the Corpus Christi Caller Times and pore over the ads for the new releases at Cinema 4, Cine 6, The Mann’s and The Movies.  My eyes would skip over the blurbs from Gene Shalit and Joel Siegel.  I was looking for three simple words.  ’Two Thumbs Up.’  Sometimes, there were ‘Two Very Enthusiastic Thumbs Up!’  These movies went to the top of my list.  I have to admit I felt pride when a movie I liked got the famous seal of approval.  And I felt a bit chastened when a movie I enjoyed received a review pointing in a downward direction.

After I graduated high school and moved on to college, I became a little less dependent on those famous opposable digits.  Of course, I still watched the show to see what was playing and what they were liking.  I was a fan but I understood that my enjoyment of a film was not predicated on the critics’ approval.  Later still, I had stopped watching altogether.  It came as quite a shock to me when it was reported that Siskel had died.  I hadn’t even known he was sick.  I was sad.  I recall thinking at the time that I would be just as sad, if not more so, when Ebert passed.  To his credit, Roger soldiered on through his best friend’s death.  He kept the show going with a rotating cast of guest reviewers before eventually teaming on a full-time basis with Richard Roeper.  Their collaboration lasted until Roger himself fell ill to cancer and inevitably the show died.

Ebert was a warrior though.  He suffered through thyroid cancer and his jaw was eventually removed.  He lost the use of his voice.  He emerged from his illness proudly and unafraid despite the drastic change to his appearance.  He kept reviewing movies.  He emerged as a presence online gathering a huge following on Twitter and on his blog.  He revived At the Movies serving as a featured critic. He was as respected and as esteemed as he had ever been.  And so it appeared he’d just keep going.  But a couple of days prior to his death, he announced that he would be stepping back from his reviewing duties.  What was thought to be a fractured hip was revealed to be a recurrence of the cancer.  He would fight it because that was his nature.  Besides, he still had plans which he detailed on his blog.  He was excited.

And then he was gone.  Gone but never forgotten.  His legacy will live on in the writing of every film critic, professional blogger, and would be hack like me.  It will live through his website where thousands of movie reviews are waiting to be discovered.  It will live in his series of books, The Great Movies.  It will live whenever two or more are gathered together and start talking about their favorite movies.  Yes, the man is gone but his passion for the medium will fuel generations to come.  For now though, I’m kind of heartbroken.

If I could say only one other thing to any one who reads this and to Roger himself, it would echo the last thing he said to his fans:

‘So on this day of reflection…thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.’

IYSTW, THILH: Olga Kurylenko

Olga Kurylenko

This Ukrainian-born beauty first caught my eye in the unfairly maligned Quantum of Solace, the second Daniel Craig Bond flick.  She was distracting in her beauty in that film and capably handled her own acting against Mr. Craig.  To my memory, she was one of the few Bond dames that doesn’t die…probably because she didn’t sleep with 007.  But I digress.  Hers was a small role but I was eager to see her in more.

I next caught her in The Assassin Next Door, a thriller in which she stars as the titular Russian assassin who befriends a neighbor who is a victim of domestic abuse.  She was quite good in the role.  If you haven’t seen it I recommend you check it out.  She also featured prominently in Neil Marshall’s Centurion as a mute and fierce Pict warrior woman who wages war on a group of Roman soldiers.

She’s about to show up in her biggest feature to date in the Tom Cruise sci-fi film, Oblivion.  I know next to nothing about the movie other than what the trailers have shown but I do know from those trailers that she’s in it and she has a big role.  And I’ll be damned if that ain’t good enough for me.

If you see this woman, tell her I love her.

Netflix Pix #3 – Archer

Archer

It’s almost unfathomable to me that some people might never have seen this show or maybe even heard of it.  Those poor souls have been deprived of the ceaselessly entertaining adventures of Sterling Archer and the other eclectic characters that staff spy-for-hire agency ISIS.

At first gloss, Archer is a New World James Bond, a smooth ladies man dressed to the nines and deadly with any weapon.  But scratch away the very thin veneer and one will find a stunted man-child who is more likely to be found passed out whiskey drunk next to a high dollar escort than to be sipping martinis in the company of a high-class dame.  Part of the problem is that Sterling has mommy issues which are no doubt exacerbated by the fact that his mother Mallory, the shrewish harridan who has so dominated his life, is his boss at the oft inept covert organization.  He also keeps getting sent on missions with Lana, his Amazonian ex-girlfriend, who is repulsed by him despite and because of his repeated and unwanted attempts at reconciliation.

The animation is sharp and stylish.  The voice actors are superb, led by the incomparable H. John Benjamin who some may remember voiced Coach McGuirk on the late, great Home Movies.  The writing is witty and clever, often setting up standard spy plots before veering into complete chaos all while cleverly incorporating obscure pop culture references from Gator to Fandango and anything and everything in between.

Archer is easily one of the best comedies on television.  It’s currently in the middle of its fourth season on the FX Network and it was recently announced that a fifth season would be forthcoming.  The first three seasons are available right now on Netflix Instant.  Do yourself a solid and check them out.