Weekend Stream for 11/22/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just click the links or search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!


Weekend Stream for 11/22/13

This week's titles aren't really related in any way, although two of them tie in with content that's premiering this week in theaters or on the TV. Let's get to it, shall we?

So this week's big theatrical film is, of course, Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games. But when the first film was released, many people compared its plot with Battle Royale (2000), a Japanese film based on a popular novel and its subsequent manga. In the movie, the country has decided to fight back against rebellious students by passing a law mandating a yearly contest-cum-punishment. A class is randomly chosen, drugged, and brought to an island where they are forced to fight each other to the death. If they refuse or run for it, an explosive collar will detonate and remove their head. There is no Katniss, here, only a bunch of kids acting like kids might in this situation (suicide, panic, weak alliances), and a few random psychopaths who seem born for the job. Similarly, the film's political statements are a bit more jejune than those of The Hunger Games, coming across more as an attempt to justify the story's lurid subject matter. Our lead is Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara), a shy boy recovering from a family tragedy, who nonetheless has hidden reserves of heart and guile that he calls on during the contest. Director Kinji Fukasaku doesn't shy away from showing gratuitous blood and outrageous child-on-child fight sequences. The whole thing might be a little too much, especially as concerns certain sensitive areas of the anatomy, but you may enjoy its provocative tone and grotesque sensibility.

Weekend Stream for 11/15/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just click the links or search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!


Weekend Stream for 11/15/13

Good day, friends! Thinking about this morning's review of Frances Ha, I decided this weekend's movie selections would play off of the films I've covered this week that slightly disappointed me. So one of my picks features Frances's lead, Greta Gerwig, in a supporting role, and the other is a movie with a similarly quirky/cheerful lead from the director of Monday's film, Abigail's Party. So let's get to it!

First, we have Ti West's throwback horror movie, The House of the Devil (2009)—and no, I didn't choose it solely because it was filmed not far from my hometown in Connecticut. The film stars Jocelin Donahue as Samantha, a strapped-for-cash college student who takes on a weirdly high-paying job babysitting for a man (the creepy as ever Tom Noonan) and his wife (Mary Woronov). The man claims they need Samantha to watch his difficult, elderly mother for the night, and that's why they pay so much, but her goofy best friend Megan (Gerwig) finds the whole set-up disturbing. Obviously, Megan is right, and the situation is way darker and more evil than Samantha expects. Shot with the grainy 16mm of a cheap '80s chiller, the film recaptures something of that era's "Satanic panic" in Samantha's ordeal. The scares are effective and slow-burning, more mental and creepy than torture porn flicks, and Samantha makes a resourceful heroine in spite of it all. Gerwig definitely stands out as the junk food–loving Megan, one of the few cheery spots in an otherwise anxiety-provoking film. Black and tense, The House of the Devil is a well-built horror movie whether you dig on its retro style or not.

Weekend Stream for 11/08/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!

Weekend Stream for 11/08/13

Another week, another bunch of content for you to enjoy. No particular theme or organizing principal this time around. Enjoy!

Let's talk about Stingray Sam (2009), writer/director/musician/actor Cory McAbee's follow-up to the equally bizarre The American Astronaut (2001). Stingray Sam is an absurdist space-western/musical presented as a serial of six ten-minute episodes sponsored by Liberty Chew Chewing Tobacco and narrated by David Hyde Pierce. It concerns the adventures of entertainer/former criminal Stingray Sam (McAbee) and his partner, The Quasar Kid (Crugie), as they attempt to make up for their past crimes by rescuing one of the rarest things in a future where men can breed and conceive male heirs without women: a female child. Stingray and The Kid's adventures are presented in black and white, while exposition about their strange world is provided in color animated interstitial sequences. Each episode has at least one song performed by McAbee's band The Billy Nayer Show. The songs are ridiculous, silly, and upbeat, dealing with quirky topics like the male/male babies' hybrid names ("Fredrick and Edward had a son named Fredward / Max and Clark had a son named Mark"). The set design is decidedly cheap, its spacey world very lo-fi, but it's all done with a spirit of fun that's hard to resist.

Weekend Stream for 11/01/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!

Weekend Stream for 11/01/13

TV shows sometimes get short shrift here in the Weekend Stream, so I thought it'd be fun to leave movies out of it and pick out a few TV titles for you to stream.

First, there's Fringe, the weird sci-fi show that aired from 2008-2012. I've written about the show before (SPOILERS), doing a "Seasons in the Sun" post about its second season a while back. If you don't want to read that and get spoiled, here's the gist: Fringe concerns the exploits of Fringe Division, a secret FBI branch dedicated to looking at The Pattern, a series of strange events involving technology, bio-terror, and outright paranormal-seeming activity. Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) leads the team, joined by fellow agents Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) and their boss Philip Broyles (Lance Reddick). Also working with them is Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), a bright-but-cynical con man who comes along to help reign in his recently-let-out-of-the-asylum father, mad scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble), whose genius provides the solution to (and, possibly, the cause of) many of the "Fringe" events. Over time, the show went from a "case-of-the-week" procedural to a far more tightly serialized story, building everything from parallel universes and shapeshifters to time-traveling future humans into its complicated mythology. It gets off to a slow start, and things really don't get cooking until the second season, but it's definitely worth trying. Over time, the show's humor and the chemistry and camaraderie of the characters begin to work their spell and keep you engaged even on down weeks, and its (often quite gross) sci-fi and horror elements do the rest.

Weekend Stream for 10/25/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!

Weekend Stream for 10/25/13

Given that Halloween is less than a week away, I thought I should highlight some CREEEEPY content befitting the spooky season. But since I've been talking about old-school classic creepers in my TCM Tuesday posts, I'm going to focus on more recent movies here. Enjoy!

For me, it's just not Halloween without Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, director/animator Henry Selig's imaginative stop-motion musical about the denizens of Halloween Town and their attempts to take over Christmas. I don't even know why I'm bothering to describe this one, since most of you know what it is and what it's about. Made before the Tim Burton aesthetic went from interesting to ubiquitous, the film has a certain energy and macabre sensibility, where the monsters that haunt us are just decent folk trying hard to do their (admittedly gruesome) jobs well. Danny Elfman's songs are memorable and fun, and every painstakingly-animated frame shows love and dedication. It is one of only maybe a handful of legitimate holiday classics made during my lifetime, The Nightmare Before Christmas is great for kids and adults alike and makes a perfect bridge between holiday seasons.

Weekend Stream for 10/18/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!

Weekend Stream for 10/18/13

Hey! It's the weekend again! Don't you wish it was ALWAYS the weekend? Maybe if it was, I could find the time to get through my insanely-long Netflix queues. Anyway, here are some things for you to stream!

First, we have In Bruges, Martin McDonagh's darkly-comedic crime caper. After a job goes wrong, resulting in the death of a child, we follow hitman Ray (Colin Farrell) and his fatherly associate Ken (Brendan Gleeson) to Bruges, Belgium—the "best-preserved" medieval city in Europe. There, they lie low while awaiting word from Harry (Ralph Fiennes), their hotheaded gangster boss. Ken enjoys the city's history and architecture, but the sarcastic, guilty, self-destructive Ray is less impressed until he encounters Clémence Poésy's Chloë, a comely production assistant/dealer. Meanwhile, Harry tasks a conflicted Ken with killing Ray for his mistake, before eventually coming to see to his wayward employees himself. McDonagh's dialogue, honed over his career as a Pinteresque playwright, is sharp, witty, and hilariously profane, and I'm fairly certain Colin Farrell has never been and will never be better. There are many moments that are certainly not PC, but I think the film keeps its humor largely couched within Ray's hyperbolic reactions to people rather than in the people themselves. You may disagree. Still, the tone is well-balanced between humor and bloody action, and the result is a film that seems to get better each time I watch it.

Weekend Stream for 10/11/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service for you to watch each weekend. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, see?!

Weekend Stream for 10/11/13

No theme or connective tissue between this week's topics. Today, I'm just highlighting a few movies of note and a TV show I'm sure you all know about, but STILL.

We're pretty much all (except, oh, say, one percent of us) still suffering through the carry-on effects of the 2007/8 financial crisis. The fuse for that particular powder keg was lit in the sort of Manhattan financial firm depicted in  J. C. Chandor's 2011 thriller Margin Call. I call the film a thriller largely because it is predicated on the slow accumulation of tension, though it has no chases or scenes of violence and takes place almost entirely inside of corporate offices and board rooms. Still, with its plot closely following the same sort of shady, self-preserving behavior of firms like Lehman Bros or Bear Sterns in the days leading up to the crisis, Margin Call definitely provides thrills. The film is about who knew what risks were being taken, when they knew, what they did about it, and how that ultimately undermined the entire global economy. Chandor's Oscar-nominated script and the great ensemble cast led by Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, and Stanley Tucci do well in giving real characterization and shading to roles that could easily have played as bland corporate stooges. I can't speak to the film's accuracy, though it certainly has a feeling of verisimilitude that makes the whole enterprise even harder to stomach... or look away from.

Weekend Stream for 10/04/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, chappy!

Weekend Stream for 10/04/13

After last week's heavily-British/Irish edition of the Weekend Stream, I've decided to avoid the United Kingdom and the Emerald Isle in favor of other regions for this week's streaming choices.

First up, we have The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 character study of Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a cautious audio surveillance expert who becomes obsessed with deciphering the meaning of a conversation he was asked to record by Martin Stett (Harrison Ford) and his shady boss (Robert Duvall). What seems to be just another '70s paranoid conspiracy thriller becomes much more in Coppola's hands, as he adds loads of Catholic guilt to the film's heady thematic mix of privacy, ethics, and isolation. Hackman is brilliant as the brittle, antisocial Caul, while he gets able support from the late, great John Cazale, among others. This is a slow-burning, contemplative film, and Coppola's visuals and audio trickery add up to a sense of urgency and unease that gets under your skin. Often outshined by the Godfather franchise and Apocalypse Now, The Conversation is top-tier Coppola, beyond any doubt.

Weekend Stream for 9/27/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Just search for the bolded titles on your preferred Netflix-watching device, and you're in business! Since content can disappear from Netflix with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, comrade!

Weekend Stream for 09/27/13

This extra-long edition of the Weekend Stream has a special theme: In honor of the great British sitcom The IT Crowd returning to UK airwaves tonight for a farewell special, I've decided to spotlight streaming choices featuring the show's cast members and creators! HOORAY!

First up, we've got, well, we've got the show itself. Created and written by television veteran Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd aired for four six-episode series between 2006 and 2010. A workplace sitcom, the show concerns the misadventures of newly-hired IT "relationship manager" Jen Barber (Katherine Parkinson) and her coworkers at the intentionally vague conglomerate Reynholm Industries. After lying her way through an interview with boss Denholm Reynholm (Chris Morris), the computer-illiterate Jen goes to the basement to take charge of her misfit techie underlings Moss (Richard Ayoade) and Roy (Chris O'Dowd). The three become reluctant friends, dealing with difficult bosses (both Denholm and his wanton wastrel son Douglas (Matt Berry)), wacky situations, and the general mismatch between how they perceive themselves and how they actually are. Now, this may sound like a very sitcommy set-up, but Linehan's clever writing and the strong performances by (and chemistry between) the leads is what really makes the show hum. While it does fall back on nerd cliches from time to time, it is neither as pandering nor as oddly antagonistic towards geeks as, say, The Big Bang Theory. Moss and Roy make the ostensibly-normal Jen the butt of the joke at least as often as she does for them. But, above and beyond all of that, the show is just plain hilarious. 

Weekend Stream for 9/20/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, sport!

Weekend Stream for 09/20/13

So for this week's movie selections, I thought I would do something a little different and point to some things I've already reviewed here that ALSO happen to be streaming now. That means there's no TV choices this week, though you're always welcome to stream Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, or Doctor Who (all of which have been partially reviewed here).

First, there's Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance's 2010 film that could justifiably be called a romantic tragedy. The film cuts between the beginnings of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy's (Michelle Williams) relationship and its seemingly-inevitable end. Here's an excerpt of what I had to say about it in May 2011:

"'Unflinching' is a word that gets tossed around a lot, perhaps too often, in critical circles. But Blue Valentine earns the description. Its shaky, hand-held camera shows us awkward, uncomfortable scenes—both good and bad—of the kind normally kept behind closed doors. Cianfrance and cinematographer Andrij Parekh stay with these scenes in search of the tiny moments, the gestures and expressions that are indicative of each character's state of mind. The script gives them words and phrases to repeat, and the actors imbue these halting repetitions with subtle depth that shows just how stuck their characters have become. We're privy to fights, intimate conversations, even sex scenes, none of which have the typical glamor we've come to expect from a film, and both leads do a great job keeping their performances raw and real."

Weekend Stream for 09/13/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, guy!

Weekend Stream for 09/13/13

This week's selections all feature people trapped in bad relationships, though one of these relationships is between a man and a hotel. I say it still counts as a theme. Let's get to it!

First up this week is Woody Allen's 1985 romantic dramedy The Purple Rose of Cairo. Cecilia (Mia Farrow), a poor waitress in Depression-era New Jersey, is stuck in an abusive relationship with the loutish Monk (Danny Aiello) and goes to the movies as an escape. But after re-watching the same film—the titular "The Purple Rose of Cairo"—a number of times, the character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) takes notice and descends from the screen to join her in real life. Baxter's departure causes chaos, as the film's remaining characters can't move on or even exit the room without him. Disruptions occurs on all prints of the film, and the fear of copycat characters threatens to paralyze the industry. Eventually Gil (also Daniels), the actor who plays Tom, is dispatched to try to sort things out, and an awkward love rectangle between Gil, Tom, Cecilia, and Monk ensues. Allen has employed magical realism in a number of times over the years, but rarely does it feel as charming and bittersweet as it does here. Gordon Willis's photography is striking in both his vision of '30's New Jersey, and his admirable facsimile of that era's films (which Allen uses to great comedic effect). Allen gets great supporting turns from Dianne Wiest as a snarky prostitute and Edward Herrmann as one of the film-within-a-film's stars. Most similar in tone, perhaps, to Midnight in Paris, The Purple Rose of Cairo perfectly balances humor with emotion and longing with whimsy, touting the cinema's powers of escapism while warning us about buying too far into what we see on the screen.

Weekend Stream for 9/06/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, buddy!

Weekend Stream for 09/06/13

There's no real connection between this week's choices. One involves poisonous ambition, one stars an inanimate object and a small child, and one is about the wackier side of corporate culture and technological progress.

First, we have There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's epic story of capitalism, greed, and spiritual corruption during the oil boom. It's a difficult film to describe in words, because so much of it is carried by imagery, by tone, and by performance. Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar as Daniel Plainview, a ruthless prospector and businessman whose bottomless ambition and desire for money and power come with a deeper, more personal cost, while Paul Dano plays the local charismatic preacher who stands up to Plainview at his own peril. Oscar winner Robert Elswit's sparse, beautiful imagery couples with Anderson's uniquely oblique storytelling to create a film that's not hard to follow, but which refuses to fit standard modes of reading. Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) provides an evocative, percussive score that suits the film's darkness and its mechanical, industrial heart. Haunting, difficult, and unforgettable, There Will Be Blood is one of the first truly great American films of the 21st century.

Weekend Stream for 8/30/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, pal!

Weekend Stream for 8/30/13

This edition of the Weekend Stream features two very different performances by Henry Fonda, and a Steve Coogan TV show (but not the one you probably think).

First, we have 1941's The Lady Eve, a witty screwball comedy from writer-director Preston Sturges. Sturges was one of the very first high-profile screenwriters to make the jump to the director's chair, and during a period in the 1940's, he and his stock company of actors produced some of the very best classic screen comedies. The Lady Eve stars Henry Fonda as the hapless, hopelessly naive Charles Pike, heir to an ale fortune, and Baby Face's Barbara Stanwyck as Jean Harrington, a flirty con artist attempting to seduce Pike out of his money. Fonda's "good guy" persona suits him like nobody's business when it comes to playing a sap, and Stanwyck is always at home playing clever, seductive types. But Sturges's favorite bit players (like William Demarest and Eric Blore) steal the show in their hilarious supporting roles. Filled with Production Code–pushing gags, quippy dialogue, and loads of physical comedy, The Lady Eve is one of the cinema's great pleasures.

Weekend Stream for 08/23/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature curating content for you to watch this weekend from the current selection on Netflix's US streaming service. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, champ!

Weekend Stream for 08/23/13

For this edition of the Weekend Stream, we've got a documentary that comments on (or, perhaps exploits) some of the same themes from today's review of Amour, a throwback Japanese samurai epic with one of the greatest battle scenes ever staged, and a critically-beloved yet underwatched detective show.

First up, that documentary. Young@Heart is about the Young@Heart Chorus, a senior citizens' singing group led by director Bob Cilman. In Stephen Walker's film, we get to watch as the volatile Cilman demands the best out of his elderly performers, getting them to put on a show featuring a mix of oldies and modern pop/rock tracks. We're privy to the specific challenges of working with that demographic, from forgetfulness, to physical limitations, to all the illnesses, injuries, and deaths that the performers wind up confronting. There's a certain amount of objectifying cuteness inherent to the project that seems like it could almost sink the film, but ultimately we're won over by the group's dedication and the love they clearly have for performing (and for each other). A moving, inspiring look at the elders who our society too easily shunts aside, Young@Heart shoots straight for our hearts, and hits us dead-on. Bring tissues.

Weekend Stream for 8/16/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature recommending content currently available on Netflix's Watch Instantly service in the US for you to watch this weekend. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a title will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, bozo!

Weekend Stream for 08/16/13

For this week's picks, I've got a fascinating foreign time travel misadventure, a film featuring the next Doctor in his most famous role, and a British TV series you really ought to have watched by now.

First up, we have Timecrimes, a Spanish sci-fi film by director Nacho Vigalondo. Héctor (Karra Elejalde) is a normal guy who finds himself stabbed and pursued by a mysterious figure with pink bandages covering his face. After taking refuge in a mysterious institute near his home, he winds up traveling back in time. Unlike a lot of time travel films, this is no epic, years-spanning yarn; Héctor only goes back a few hours. Instead of the pleasure of imagining the distant past or future, Timecrimes involves us in a simple mystery whose complexity expands as the layers pile up. Vigalondo keeps us invested, balancing tension with just the right amount of wry self-awareness. Héctor is largely a comic figure, and Elejalde captures his buffoonery and thickheadedness well, displaying an aptitude for physical comedy. Understanding Timecrimes's plot probably won't require multiple viewings, and though there's more to appreciate on subsequent watches, I found it thoroughly satisfying even the first time through.



Next, there's In The Loop, the film adaptation of Armando Iannucci's British political satire The Thick Of It. Starring future 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi as poetically foul-mouthed Whitehall spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, In The Loop is about the inherent absurdity of the political process. An unimportant Cabinet Minister (Tom Hollander) makes a minor misstatement to the press, and winds up both the target of Tucker's ire and a pawn in an international warmongering agenda. Featuring strong supporting turns from James Gandolfini and My Girl's Anna Chlumsky (who would later return to Iannucci's stable for the similarly-themed HBO show Veep), In The Loop is the sort of biting satire that you hope is not as true-to-life as it probably is. Iannucci and his cowriters know their subject, and understand how to milk humor out of cringeworthy moments and out-and-out farce. The jokes come fast and furious, so this is definitely not the sort of movie to put on in the background.



Finally, we have Spaced, a now-classic British comedy series from writers Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg, and director Edgar Wright—all of whom (along with Nick Frost, who appears in a supporting role here) would later go on to be involved with breakout hit film Shaun of the Dead. Ostensibly the tale of near-strangers Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Stevenson) pretending to be a "professional couple" in order to qualify for a flat in Marsha's (Julia Deakin) house, Spaced is really a playground where the writers and director can stick all of their pop culture references on a roundabout and spin them until they fall off in interesting combinations. Wright's hyperactive directorial style is already in effect, as is his love of well-intentioned genre parody. But the most important thing about Spaced is that, even with its references and post-modern verve, it still has a huge, emotional, beating heart at its center. There are only fourteen episodes, but I don't recommend binge-watching. You're better off parceling them out like a sweet to be savored after supper.

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So there you have it for another Weekend Stream. I realize this edition was weighted towards British "humour," so my apologies if you're not really into that—though I think both In the Loop and Spaced have strong enough comedy chops that they'll connect for you anyway. In any case, we'll see you next week!

Weekend Stream for 8/09/13

The Weekend Stream is a weekly feature recommending titles currently available on US Netflix's Watch Instantly service for you to watch this weekend. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a film will no longer be available by the time you read this, so you'd better act fast, bozo!

Weekend Stream for 08/09/13

This week's picks include two movies that play with genre, and a great underwatched TV series. First up is Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, a beat-em-up action flick that is just self-aware enough to point at its own exploitation film conventions without tipping over into parody. The other main twist, of course, is that the film's protagonist and prime beater-upper is a woman, MMA fighter Gina Carano. Carano is not the greatest actress, but she is definitely the most convincing action star I've seen in ages. One of the film's chief pleasures is watching her fight macho guys like Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender knowing that she's really taking it easy on them. While the film is definitely light on plot, it's still an engaging piece of kinetic cinema, and Soderbergh keeps things breezily moving along (as he always does). Action films are rarely intelligent without taking themselves too seriously, but Soderbergh manages it here with panache.

Weekend Stream for 8/02/13

The Weekend Stream is a new (hopefully) weekly feature where I recommend interesting selections from the library of titles currently available on Netflix's Watch Instantly service for you to watch this weekend. Since titles can disappear with little or no warning, there's always a chance a film will no longer be available when you read this, so you'd better act fast, bozo!

Weekend Stream for 08/02/2013: The films of Shane Carruth

Texas filmmaker Shane Carruth basically embodies the do-it-yourself ethos of independent film. His first feature, 2004's Primer, was an exceedingly low-budget affair. Carruth himself wrote, directed, produced, edited, scored, and starred in the film, using locations in and around his home town and employing his friends and family as its cast and crew to save money. But what Primer lacks in production costs, it more than makes up for in production value; the film looks and sounds far more professional and assured than its budget and Carruth's lack of experience would lead you to presume.

Primer is about a group of engineers who, in their spare time, run a side business and research new technologies. In the process of attempting to devise a way to decrease an object's weight, they inadvertently stumble upon a functional method of time travel. Soon, the discovery brings all of the group's tensions to the surface, and as the timeline becomes increasingly blurred, questions of ethics and greed abound.



Primer is a very wordy film, filled with complicated technical talk that grounds things in a sense of reality. This isn't some jaunty, impossible adventure; everything follows a set of rules and internal logic. But don't expect to understand everything on one viewing. Nothing here is simple, and the film functions in loops that won't fully make sense except in the light of the whole.

If Primer has any major fault, it's that the film is a largely cerebral exercise, and its dearth of emotion can feel cold. Similarly, some people might not enjoy its puzzling structure, and while it trusts its audience to follow along, it'd be easy to disengage and give up. But Carruth's follow-up, 2013's Upstream Color attempts to rectify both of these issues without losing any of Primer's complexity and thematic depth.

In Upstream Color, a woman, Kris (Amy Seimetz), falls prey to a conniving thief (Thiago Martins) and, after losing everything, finds herself entangled in the life cycle of a bizarre psychoactive parasite. Eventually Kris meets Jeff (Carruth), who may have been through a similar ordeal, and the two seem to bond due to forces neither completely understands. The two come together, helping each other deal with their trauma-shattered lives and find some sort of peace.



Like Primer, Upstream Color demonstrates an immense trust in its audience, but while not all aspects of the story make immediate sense, it has a greater narrative cohesion and stronger emotional throughline than the former film despite being dialogue-free for huge stretches of screentime. At its heart, it's a simple story about the complex interconnectedness of life, the fallibility of memory, and the way in which we never know just what has influenced us and what we influence in turn. It is a film that offers you many opportunities to read your own meaning into the text, and its haunting atmosphere will likely linger with you for some time.

Both films are available to stream or rent on DVD from Netflix right now, and I can't recommend them highly enough. Carruth is an auteur in the truest sense, and his singular vision and love for his projects comes through in every frame of his unique, unforgettable films. If you're looking for something thought-provoking to watch this weekend, it's hard to go wrong with either of these.