Netflix 2013 - Cinema Crespodiso

Netflix pick for 4/1/13 – ‘The Warriors’

the-warriors-wonder-wheel

I just recently republished my original book-to-film adaptation analysis of the great “The Warriors,” when lo and behold, on the most recent episode of Cinema Crespodiso (available here), the completely random Netflix Pick of the Week turned out to be “The Warriors!” So here we go!

From 1979, “The Warriors” is about a a Coney Island street gang getting framed for the murder of the biggest gang leader in all of New York City, and having to fight their way back home through about half a dozen other gangs, varying in numbers, style and competency. Walter Hill is a tough guy director, often making movies about tough guys having to do tough things or at least act tough, movies like “Southern Comfort” and “48 Hrs” and the recent “Bullet to the Head.” So while this movie does has a slightly cartoony feel thanks to some of the gangs’ outfits (a cartoony effect Hill claimed was intentional, stating that he wanted to treat this movie like a comic book story), it is still pretty gritty and intense at times, thanks in large part to being filmed not only on the streets of New York City, but late 1970s New York City, which is completely different from the city today, as it exuded menace and danger at every lonely street corner and in every darkened doorway.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 3/25/13 – ‘True Grit’

This is a two-for-one special, because Netflix Instant Watch has proven to be quite resourceful in this particular situation. We got something for everyone here, if everyone is happy with a western anyway. In 1969, John Wayne won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for his portrayal of an old surly U.S. Marshal named Rooster Cogburn in the first adaptation of the book of the same name, and in 2010 the two-headed filmmaking beast known as the Coen brothers made their own adaptation of this book, to much critical and commercial success. “True Grit” is something special, and there is much to enjoy from these two versions of the same story.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 3/19/13 – ‘Midnight Cowboy’

“Midnight Cowboy” is a classic. The only X-rated film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture (and also winning Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay), this is the story of a young Texas idiot named Joe Buck (Jon Voight) who moves to New York City with the intention of starting a career as a gigolo. Of course since he is a yokel he gets taken advantage of immediately in ole NYC, and struggles mightily to get his dream job going. He also meets polio-riddled Rizzo the Rat (Dustin Hoffman), a street hustler who initially hustles Joe Buck but then becomes friends with the guy, and soon enough they are the only thing the other person has.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 3/11/13 – ‘Donnie Darko’

“Donnie Darko” is a crazy sci-fi coming of age time travel weirdo movie that has gained a massive cult following since its release in 2001. A high school kid has weird visions and finds himself standing between the end of the world and everyone else, and crazy things happen to him as he sees visions, does weird things in his sleep, and all in all has a confusing few weeks that changes the way he looks at the world and those around him.

Netflix pick for 3/4/13 – ‘Flirting With Disaster’

Flirting With Disaster

He’s had back to back critical and commercial hits with “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” but there was a time when David O. Russell movies kind of went under the radar: this is the period we’ll call the Pre-Three Kings phase of his career, which basically consists of two extremely odd “romantic comedies” – the incest-driven “Spanking the Monkey” and the infidelity-centric “Flirting With Disaster.”

In “Flirting With Disaster,” Mel (Ben Stiller, Mystery Men, Heavyweights) is on a quest to find his birth parents, and along with his wife (Patricia Arquette, True Romance) and case worker (Téa Leone, Tower Heist), they embark on a journey that takes longer than it should and involves quite a few mistakes, all of them hilarious. There ends up being some tension between Mel and the case worker, while his wife eventually comes into contact with a bisexual ATF Agent (Josh Brolin, No Country For Old Men) who ends up hanging out with the group along with his working partner and life partner (Richard Jenkins, The Visitor), and relationships threaten to crumble and/or combust at any moment.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 2/18/13 – ‘Biutiful’

“Biutiful” is a 2010 Spanish-language drama from the director of “Amores Perros” and “Babel,” featuring an incredible performance from Javier Bardem that is pretty much worth the price of admission alone. It’s a grim and heavy movie about death and dying, as Bardem plays a guy dying of cancer and who is faced with the near inevitable fact that he will be leaving his young children with no money and a lousy mother, so he tries to hustle and use his weird psychic ability to make some extra cash at funerals and maybe do some illicit things that he shouldn’t be doing but feels like he has no choice because he doesn’t want to leave his kids with nothing. It’s not a fun viewing experience, but it is an emotionally charged experience and pretty satisfying.

Netflix pick for 2/12/13 – ‘The Hospital’

Conceived and shepherded by much acclaimed writer Paddy Chayefsky, “The Hospital” is a 1971 satirical black comedy about a lost and suicidal doctor, played by George C. Scott, who laments the deplorable conditions of his hospital and who finds himself butting up against more and more health insurance related garbage, when all of a sudden people start turning up dead all around the hospital, including nurses and doctors, which of course complicates matters further. Naturally this is where they inserted a dame into the equation, here the daughter of a patient, played by Diana Rigg, and the pot is now a-boilin’.

Since it’s Chayefsky, this movie is loaded with great rants and speeches and monologues, and of course Mr. Scott brought all the sound and fury necessary for the role, and Chayefsky won an Academy Award for best screenplay for this movie, so there’s that.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 2/4/13 – ‘Bubble’

“Bubble” is a small Steven Soderbergh experimental movie, squished between “Ocean’s 12” and “The Good German” and “Ocean’s 13,” an all digital movie back when that was actually an experiment, in the foul year of our Lord 2006, and populated with non-actors, who give naturalistic performances that border on stilted, all telling a very small drama that takes place in a small town doll factory (hence the creepy poster).

Also adding to the experimental nature? Most of the dialogue was improvised (again, by non-professional actors), the actors in the movie used their real homes, and when this film came out it was released simultaneously on DVD, in theaters and through video on demand services, which is a practice that is far more common now, but hey, someone had to blaze that trail.

It’s a short, interesting, well made movie, made with an obviously small budget, and it definitely fills in some interesting gaps in the overall body of work compiled by master filmmaker Steven Soderbergh.Continue Reading …

Netflix Pick for 1/28/13 – ‘Collapse’

This week’s Netflix Pick of the Week is the very well-made documentary Collapse, of which I already wrote that –

“Collapse is a great film, one of the best of 2009, and should be required viewing for anyone out there who rather help build lifeboats than not acknowledge that the Titanic is sinking.”

I also called it a great horror film based on the film’s subject and his foreboding message and the great, tense atmosphere they get out of a guy in a chair talking about peak oil and fiat currency. And even if you don’t agree with what the guy is saying or don’t buy it and think it is all just ridiculous conspiracy theories and whatnot, it is still a very fascinating film and in the simple way it is put together, it become pretty compelling quite quickly. So enjoy this most documentary about the imminent collapse of the society as we know it.Continue Reading …

Netflix Pick for 1/21/13 – ‘Primer’

Shane Carruth and David Sullivan in Primer…

From my original write up on Examiner.com:

“Good thing this movie is short (77 minutes total running time) because it takes multiple viewings to truly start appreciating the seeds sown in this film. And if right now you’re thinking, “Man, movie plots are all the same and predictable and I can follow anything you throw at me,” then consider yourself challenged. Watch Primer once and tell me you completely understand the depths that this movie delves into. And on the flip side, if you are the type of person that always asks questions during movies and has trouble following films like The Whole Nine Yards and Ernest Goes to Jail (what with the Ernest P. Worrell lookalike and all), then don’t even worry about trying to follow along with what’s going down. Just allow yourself to be swept up in the pure movie making of it all, the tension, the suspense, the whole feeling of “what the eff is going on?” By the end of the movie, you may not be too sure about what you have just seen, but you will know that you’ve seen something great.”

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