Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 4/9/12

Monsters

From 2010, Monsters is a low-budget sci-fi film about two Americans - a journalist and a tourist - struggling to get back home from Central America to the United States. Why are they struggling to get home? Because in this world, Mexico has been walled off and declared an INFECTED ZONE, in which a NASA satellite crashed, unleashing a host of alien creatures and monsters onto Earth. Overcoming their obviously limited budget with smart camerawork and a dash of surprisingly well done CG effects, Monsters is a very strong film, which also excels thanks to a good story and good acting, and it should interest fans of science fiction as well as people that normally wouldn't see a movie along these lines. And this movie should definitely interest people who are into independent films, especially those low-budget ones that do a lot with very little (click here for my original review).

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Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 4/2/12

Hunger

A 2008 film from British visual artist and first-time feature length film maker Steve McQueen, Hunger is about the 1981 Irish hunger strike in the Maze prison, in which IRA volunteers were held without any sort of political status, as that was stripped from them by the British government in 1976. Led by Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), the prisoners strike first with a "no-wash" strike, in which they don't wash or shave and get as dirty as possible (much to the prison guards' displeasure), and then they build up to the hunger strike - in the meantime, the guards are depicted as savage monsters, mistreating the prisoners at every opportunity. Full of strong acting, especially from Mr. Fassbender, and filmed with style and interesting directorial choices from Mr. McQueen, Hunger isn't exactly easy watching, but it is a very well made and incredibly interesting film, and definitely worth checking out.

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Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 3/26/12

Confessions of a Superhero

From 2007, this documentary follows the lives of four separate people in Los Angeles, all of them aspiring actors, all of them relegated to dressing up in costumes and standing on the sidewalk to take pictures with tourists for money. There is a Superman, a Batman, a Wonder Woman and an Incredible Hulk, and the people in these costumes are all fascinating in their own ways, as they all came from vastly different backgrounds to only find themselves standing side by side, vying for the attention of the same tourists and their dollars, selling themselves one digital picture at a time. This documentary is both very funny and kind of sad, but never in a mocking or cruel manner - these people are given the proper respect and sometimes just enough rope to hang themselves - and it makes for a very entertaining and surprisingly insightful ninety minutes.

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Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 3/19/12

Gomorrah

An Italian mob movie from 2008, Gomorrah is one of the most visceral, real and in your face gangster movies ever. Forget what you think you know about the mob - the whole group of old Italian men sitting around in expensive suits and pulling the strings on heists from a distance? That's the Sicilian style mob. Gomorrah is about the Camorra crime syndicate, which is much rougher, tougher, more brutal and, most of all, de-centralized. With no clear leader, there is no head to cut off of this body, hence it is nearly impossible to stop these criminals and their grip on their communities. Based on a non-fiction book of the same name, this is an incredibly well made movie, both stylish and grounded, fantastical and real, use your Netflix account now to check out the best mafia movie since Goodfellas.

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Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 3/12/12

The Thin Red Line

From 1998, nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography), cut down from a surely genius six hours to a more manageable 170 minutes, and featuring so many A-list actors that a number of them didn't make it into the final cut of the film, Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line is a war movie not like any other. Bringing his love for the world and his curiosity about mankind's coexistence with the brutality of nature into the folds of an epic World War II drama about the men fighting for Guadalcanal in the Pacific Ocean, Malick takes the time to focus his camera on the trees and on running water and on the local wildlife, because to him these things inform the men fighting for survival, life feeding into life, with death constantly in the air, looming, vast and inescapable, and this dread and angst unfolds throughout the movie. It's a masterwork of a film, brilliant in its layers and easily re-watchable. If you have the time anyway.

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Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 3/5/12

Following

Before there was Inception, before there was The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, before there was even a Memento, there was Following. Christopher Nolan's feature-length film debut, Following is a neo-noir British film, a story about a writer who follows people and watches them for inspiration, and of course ends up following the wrong person. Despite the financial limitations of this film, much of Nolan's style and handiwork is evident from the get-go, including the non-linear structure of the plot that now seems synonymous with his style of storytelling. This a great little movie and it's very interesting to watch it now, as today we all know Christopher Nolan as one of our biggest filmmakers working right now, but once upon a time, just like many other people, he was a struggling writer/director making a movie with his friends during their spare time - it's just rare that the results happen to be this good.

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Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week - 2/27/12

Bucktown

From 1975, Bucktown is the story of a man named Duke Johnson, who returns to the little craphole of Bucktown to bury his deceased brother. He then finds himself re-opening his brother's nightclub, which goes well for about three seconds before the local redneck sheriffs come rolling around looking for their kick backs and bribes. Instead of paying off the cops, Duke stands against them and soon calls in some help from the "big city" to come in and help get rid of these greedy, racist cops. But what happened after this, even Duke couldn't see coming. A story about the corruption of power and the strength (and frailty) of loyalty and friendship, Bucktown is a kick ass blaxploitation flick featuring great performances from Fred Williamson and Pam Grier, as well as a pre-Apollo Creed version of Carl Weathers.

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