Netflix Cannes

Despite a recent dust-up about Netflix at Cannes this week you can actually stream numerous films that have been in competition at Cannes over the past few years.

Age of Uprising: Michael Kohlhaas
Antichrist
Beyond the Hills
Blue is the Warmest Color - Palme d'Or winner
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Goodbye to Language
Grigris
Holy Motors
The Homesman
The Hunt
In Another Country
Jimmy P
The Kid with The Bike
Lawless
Like Father, Like Son
Melancholia
Mud
My Joy
Nebraska
The Son's Room - Palme d'Or winner
Touch of Sin
Vengeance
Venus in Furs
We Have a Pope
The Wind That Shakes the Barley - Palme d'Or winner
Winter Sleepers - Palme d'Or winner
Young and Beautiful

Movie Procrastination

I came across this in an article in The New Yorker about procrastination:

...people were asked to pick one movie to watch that night and one to watch at a later date. Not surprisingly, for the movie they wanted to watch immediately, people tended to pick lowbrow comedies and blockbusters, but when asked what movie they wanted to watch later they were more likely to pick serious, important films. The problem, of course, is that when the time comes to watch the serious movie, another frothy one will often seem more appealing. This is why Netflix queues are filled with movies that never get watched: our responsible selves put “Hotel Rwanda” and “The Seventh Seal” in our queue, but when the time comes we end up in front of a rerun of “The Hangover.

I have to admit this is sort of true for me as well - although I wouldn't choose The Hangover or a movie I had seen recently. I think the issue with Netflix is that there are too many choices at your fingertips and so rather than procrastination it is a frustration in having to choose from so many more serious films. It becomes easier to just give in and watch something that isn't filling in a serious art-house movie gap. Or more accurately it is instead filling in a lighter movie gap. So rather than watch a serious drama I might prefer a 1970's comedy that I missed along the way.

But I have seen enough movies to know that it doesn't necessarily take more effort to watch a Bergman or a Godard film than it does to watch a blockbuster comedy. The brain doesn't turn off when a movie is on.

Still interesting....

They Might Be Giants

I think if God is dead he laughed himself to death because, you see, we live in Eden. Genesis has got it all wrong; We never left the garden. Look about you... this is Paradise. It's hard to find I grant you but it is here under our feet. Beneath the surface all around us is everything we want. The Earth is shining under the soot. We're all fools. Moriarity has made fools of all of us. But together you and I, tonight, will bring him... down.
Scene from They Might Be Giants

If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, or Don Quixote dreamers or mental patient movies or romantic comedies or early 70's cinema this is the movie for you. See it. It's good fun. It's tough to find on DVD for under $100.00 but it is available streaming on Netflix.

Netflix still pretty good

I know there were a lot of people who were upset when NetFlix switched up their model, splitting between streaming and DVD units thus raising the monthy subscription around 60%. [They lost 800,000 customers last quarter] However, I notice a lot of comments about how Netflix streaming content sucks. Let me just say if someone cannot find good movies to stream on NetFlix then they are either completely ignorant of what is actually offered or they only want brand new mainstream crap.

If they want the crap then let them toss their money over to Blockbuster and RedBox. Or let them pay $3.99 per movie at Amazon or iTunes rather than the still pretty inexpensive $7.99 a month offer.

But, seriously, people need to expand their horizon's beyond the latest Hollywood hits. Viewers willing to do that will find it very easy to build an extremely long queue from what NetFlix has to offer. I find great old movies, foreign language films and hidden gems all the time. True, they will lose some of the Criterion titles to Hulu-Plus soon but it's not like the average viewer cares about Criterion titles anyway so it is no loss for the mainstream Mike's and Mary's out there. For the rest of us - who appreciate non-mainstream films - it will be a loss - but then Hulu Plus offers the titles at $7.99 a month, which ain't bad.

Get out there and look for streaming titles. I see no reason for me to list the great films I have streamed on NetFlix. If you can't find them you probably don't care anyway.

Happy viewing.

Romantic Netflix

Netflix has recommendations. But half the time they are odd. For instance, I don't think they [or their algorithms] know what is or what is not a romantic film.

Besides this screen grab here are a few titles they recommend as romantic films based on my taste:

That Obscure Object of Desire
Secret Things
Talk to Her
Emmanuel 7
La Jetee
The Piano Teacher
Jerichow

Crossplot

Crossplot (1969) is hardly a great movie but it is a rather fun one. Undoubtedly it is a film that helped launch Roger Moore into the Bond franchise four years later. This film - directed by veteran TV director Alvin Rakoff - plays more like a comedic Bond film with it's swinging London locale, sexual relations between Moore and his co-star Claudie Lange and the dizzy incompetence of the crooks. It's very much a film that can be lumped in with 'Casino Royale', 'Danger Diabloic' [even 'Blow Up'] and all the Connery starring Bond films as a film that inspired the Austin Powers films.

The plot almost doesn't matter. Claudie Lange plays a Hungarian model who is wanted by an underground group of criminals because she accidentally overheard of their assassination attempt on a world leader who is coming to London. Roger Moore plays an ad-exec who unwittingly comes to her rescue. With his charm and wit he manages to uncover the plot and get her to fall in love with him. The film has a fair amount of repartee between the two stars that recalls some of the humor we see in screwball comedy; along with the conceit that the two are in love with each other but they don't know it yet.

Style is really what matters here. The women wear colorful clothing, mini-skirts and have big hair while the men sport long sideburns and wear frilly shirts. These along with subplots about students rioting and an assassination attempt make the film a relic of its time. It also has a rather unique scene involving a helicopter chasing a 1920's automobile.

Is it worth buying? No. But it is worth checking out on Netflix where you can stream a somewhat below par video copy.

The trailer can be seen here.