Netflix Picks - Cinema Crespodiso

Netflix pick for 6/3/13 – ‘Over The Top’

Okay, listen…”Over the Top” is not what one would necessarily call a “good” movie, but it’s a guilty pleasure so for once please indulge me on this one, okay? Sylvester Stallone plays a truck driver with aspirations to be a world champion arm wrestler who owns his own trucking company. I mean, how can you go wrong?

Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk (come on! Look at that name!), the aforementioned trucker who also tries to reconnect with his young estranged son Michael (David Mendenhall, God Bless America), all the while getting resistance from his rich and dick-ish father-in-law (Robert Loggia, Magnum, P.I.), and he forces his son to take a road trip to see his dying mother, with hee-larious consequences! And really, this movie is all about the awesome arm-wrestling tournament at the end, which director Menahem Golan presents in all its 80s glory and gusto.

Oh, and about that name, this is the type of movie in which no one could get his name straight and he would be referred to as both “Hawk” and “Hawks,” and he responds to both, so it doesn’t matter I guess. This movie is a classic, I tell ya.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/27/13 – ‘Side By Side’

“Side By Side” is an interesting documentary produced by Keanu Reeves that explores the evolution of digital photography and compares it to the ole reliable stalwart of excellence that is 35 mm film, and just like the title implies, they go through a side by side comparison of the two technologies, along the way interviewing a who’s who of Hollywood filmmakers to get their input from their hands on experiences with both techs.

Keanu actually makes for a good host and guide through this world, as he has access to so many different people who can give him some great insight, and since this is a movie, the many examples they use of film work and digital video work gets very interesting as the movie progresses and digital video starts catching up.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/20/13 – ‘Heathers’

“Heathers” is a like a 1980s John Hughes movie but with the sentimentality replaced with black-as-outer space humor, setting it’s sights on one of the hot button issues of the time, teen suicide, along with general teen malaise, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and all the other things that makes being an alienated and misunderstood teenager in high school so memorable. It’s “The Breakfast Club,” except instead of a character talking about thinking about suicide and the others tell him how wrong that is, we get crazy suicide attempts and killings and cover ups. Ahhhh yes. Good times.

This is one of those movies that bit it hard at the box office, only to find a cult following down the road, and it is available now here on the Netflix Instant for you to check out. And featuring Christian Slater, Winona Ryder and Shannon Doherty actually in their late teens like their characters, this is a heckuva a cynical trip back to late 80s high school culture (and culture in general).Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/15/13 – ‘The Hammer’

Formerly known as “Hamill” (at least that was that title when I saw it at the 2011 Florida Film Festival), “The Hammer” is a movie based on the life of Matt “The Hammer” Hamill, a wrestler and eventual MMA fighter who was born deaf and had to overcome some extra obstacles that not even the average deaf person has to deal with. Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/6/13 – ‘Wet Hot American Summer’

“Wet Hot American Summer” is a great comedy from David Wain (Wanderlust, Role Models) and featuring many of the comedians who comprise various comedy troupes and television shows like The State, Viva Variety and Stella, as well as actors before they hit it big like Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler and Christopher Meloni. It’s a weird little satirical comedy set in a summer camp, and if you’re willing to go along for the ride, this movie will take you to come crazy places.

“Wet Hot American Summer” is set in a summer camp, specifically the last day of camp, in the summer of 1981, and all the counselors and teenagers are portrayed by actors in their 30s, which is already pretty hysterical, and it is mostly centered on Michael Showalter (Signs, The Baxter) and his character’s pathetic attempts to convince a girl to like him. This is a fun movie with its share of surprises, so give it a shot right here on the good ole Netflix Instant.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 4/30/13 – ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’

“Safety Not Guaranteed” is a great little sorta sci-fi, sorta romantic dramedy about a trio of magazine workers who investigate that curious classified ad on the poster above. Intrigued by this great little ad, they set out to find out if this guy is for real or not, and in the meantime, other things get found out as well.

From my original review posted on Examiner.com:

‘This is a very good movie, pretty funny throughout, but not really content with just being a comedy. They do quite a bit of thematic exploration, with so many characters secretly pondering their past decisions and the repercussions of what they did and how they acted, and this is a pretty universal topic, something that just about anyone can cop to at one time or another. What if I didn’t break up with that girl? What if I didn’t buy that stupid car? Why didn’t I help that old lady across the street this morning, and did she eventually make it or did she get hit by a city bus? Am I to blame if she did? Does that make me a bad person? Everyone has these types of questions lingering in their minds somewhere, and “Safety Not Guaranteed” is pretty much a comedy based on these kinds of regrets. And yes, that makes you a bad person, letting that old lady get killed.’

Netflix pick for 4/22/13 – ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’

Only Werner Herzog would see fit to make his singular foray into 3D filmmaking a documentary about the world’s oldest cave paintings, and of course since this is Werner Herzog, “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” can’t just be a straightforward documentary, but has to include the director pontificating on the actual existence of these people who created these paintings and how they felt and thought and what they may have dreamt about, only for those dreams to be forgotten, lost to time and space forever. Oh Werner. Way to be the life of the party.

From my original review from Examiner.com:

“Of course, this is a Werner Herzog movie, so he has more on his mind then just pretty drawings of horses and old footprints – he spends time thinking about the people who created all of this art, and what kind of people they were and if they had goals and dreams and desires, and if so, what were they? Of course no one can ever know what kind of dreams these people could have had (hence the film’s title), though it may be safe to assume that some of these people dreamed vividly of the wild animals living among them. He also takes a little time to get into what is essentially the world’s oldest porn – there is one painting in the cave that appears to be the lower torso of a woman, and this is followed by experts showing off some tiny little figurines of headless busty woman that date back thousands and thousands of years (nice to see that people really haven’t changed very much, at least on a base level). And of course he has to throw in just a little bit of the bizarre, as he closes out the movie with a coda about a crocodile habitat that gets its water from a power plan and how they thrived in the artificial environment and how albino (possibly) radioactive crocodiles are flourishing in this croc-only greenhouse.”

Netflix pick for 4/16/13 – ‘Archie’s Final Project’

“Archie’s Final Project” is an excellent crazy little movie about a very creative but also very depressed high school kid who decides to make his own suicide the subject of a film class project. Sounds like fun, no? Well keep on reading!

From my original review of “Archie’s Final Project“ (which at the time was titled “My Suicide“) from the 2010 Florida Film Fest:

“My Suicide, directed by David Lee Miller, is the type of film that can usually only be seen at regional film festivals. Full of odd and interesting choices, this movie about a high school kid’s planned suicide threatens to be merely a very bloated student short, but in the end flat out works as a very kinetic and intense film…The subject matter is not what will keep the movie from theatrical distribution or free from home video obscurity. Heathers all ready explored the allure of teenage suicide, and even recently movies like Suicide Club and World’s Greatest Dad honed in on similar themes. Instead, the thing that will keep My Suicide out of shopping mall multiplexes is the presentation. The movie starts with Archie recreating a scene from The Deer Hunter with the use of a green screen and animation. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, a very hyper tone is established as the audience will be bombarded with a slick multimedia presentation that perfectly replicates Archie’s angst-ridden and overloaded mental state. All sorts of editing and filming techniques are employed throughout the movie, and though it threatens to fall apart, this crazy tone and style is actually sustained really well for about 75 to 80 minutes, before the inevitably heavy final act story elements come in.”

Netflix pick for 4/8/13 – ‘Kumare’

“Kumare” is an excellent documentary about a man who sets out to start his own sham religion centered around yoga and meditation in an effort to show how people can be duped by such charlatans, only to find out that maybe these little sham religious leaders and religion in general aren’t all bad.

From my original review from my Florida Film Festival 2012 coverage:

“Fortunately, Vikram’s motives are far less sinister than most other frauds – as Kumaré, his experiment turns into a real lesson to give people, a lesson about how their search for a spiritual leader and guru should lead back to within themselves. And Kumaré is up front with this, telling people over and over that he is a fake and he is wearing a disguise and that he is just trying to help these people find the guru within themselves, but of course people only hear what they want to hear – so when they hear Kumaré saying he is a faker and wearing a disguise, they think he is speaking metaphorically and that he is being all deep and spiritual about his role, when in reality it was Vikram the whole time telling them the truth.”

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 …