Netflix Instant TV and Movie Picks

I found myself at a loss a little bit this week. With the Oscars taking up most of the this year, it's tough to get out of that mindset all of a sudden. But thankfully, that season is over, and now is the time to catch up on films that you may have missed in years past. 

Netflix Instant TV and Movie Picks Best Documentary Oscar Edition

Guys! I did it! I'm so proud of myself, and I know my cohort would be proud to. For my column this week, I am highlighting Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary films you can see on Instant. Now, two of these films are nominated this year, and the final one was nominated in 2011. I've already highlighted another documentary nominated for this year's Oscars, and you can see read about that here.

And now, onto the picks for this week!

Netflix Instant: Cool TV and Movie Picks- Back to School Edition

So it's the end of summer for me. I'm a teacher, and I've been back in the classroom this week with the kids showing up bright and early Monday morning. So, for my picks this week I have two that feature child actors, and one that makes me laugh and will help me get through this week. 

SUPER 8

Not a perfect film, but it has wonderful nostalgia for anyone who's a fan of the Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment films. It's a fun walk down your childhood when kids went outside and created things with their imagination. Check out my review here.

DANCE ACADEMY 

I heard about this Australian series on our Alamo Drafthouse Media tour (here's part one and part two of that adventure). I'm a sucker for anything dance related, and I spent this summer obsessing over Bunheads. This series follows a girl, Tara, as she auditions and makes the National Academy of Dance.  Some of the dialogue is a little cheesy, but I have really enjoyed some of the dance sequences and characters. 

DEATH AT A FUNERAL

Finally! One of my favorite comedies from the past few years is now streaming. Forget the 2010 remake, the original has the English dry sense of humor and wit. If you're a fan of English comedy, check it out immediately. 

That's it for me this week. And here's to another great school year!

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Netflix Instant: Cool TV and Movie Picks

Happy Friday, dear friends. Jonesy here with my picks for the week. Again, like my picks usually are, they're very varied, but hopefully there's something for everyone here!

JIM GAFFIGAN: MR. UNIVERSE

Not only is Mr. Gaffigan hilarious and spot on with his humor and commentary, he is also extremely nice in person. I saw him years and years ago and was lucky enough to meet him after the show. Super polite and surprisingly quiet. Now he has a new special on Instant that I cannot wait to watch. I hear his joke about McDonald's is side-splitting.

THOR

Hammer time! Not my absolute favorite of the individual Avengers films, but because of Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki, it made me love it. 

DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-A-LONG BLOG

Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion in a Joss Whedon musical production?? Yes please! Originally aired on a blog, hence the name, in episodes, but now is conveniently all in one place. They story is funny, the lyrics are smart, and who doesn't love watching our own national treasure, NPH, sing? That's what I thought. 

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AFI Top 100 Countdown: #80 THE APARTMENT

80: THE APARTMENT 

Directed by Billy Wider

Written by Billy Wider and I.A.L. Diamond

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray

AFI Top 100 Countdown: #81 SPARTACUS

81: SPARTACUS 

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Written by Dalton Trumbo

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, and Tony Curtis

AFI Top 100 Countdown: #82 SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS

82: SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS

Directed by F.W. Murnau

Written by Carl Mayer, short story by Hermann Sudermann

Starring: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston

AFI Top 100 Countdown: #83 TITANIC

#83 TITANIC

Directed by James Cameron

Written by James Cameron

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Gloria Stuart and Bill Paxton

Netflix Instant: Cool TV and Movie Picks

 Jonesy here. Hope everyone had a fun holiday and survived the first week of the new year. Here is my first fabulous list of Netflix Instant picks to help tide over the lull before awards season.

TRUE GRIT

The remake of the John Wayne classic, this Coen Brothers film made me have a new appreciation of Western movies. One of my favorite films last year, and a great introduction to Hailee Steinfeld.

INSIDIOUS

A horror movie that got a bit lost in the shuffle this past movie season. Made for under a million dollars, which is quite a feat nowadays, this movie reminded me of the creepiness of THE RING. Now, even though you cannot recreate sitting in a packed theatre, watch this movie with the lights off and the sound off. 

BILLY ELLIOT

A sweet film about a young boy who decides to take ballet lessons instead of boxing lessons against his father's wishes. If the premise sounds a tad cheesy, don't let that fool you. The movie has so much substance. It was one of my first experiences I remember of enjoying a "foreign" movie. (I say foreign...it's from England, but to a 14 year old, that's a foreign movie).

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AFI Top 100 Countdown: #86 Platoon

86: PLATOON

Directed by Oliver Stone

Written by Oliver Stone

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, and Forest Whitaker

AFI Top 100 countdown: #87 12 ANGRY MEN

87: 12 ANGRY MEN

Directed by Sidney Lument

Written by Reginald Rose

Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, and E. G. Marshall

Cool Netflix Instant Picks: Movies & TV Shows

Javi here. So two weeks in a row you have been getting awesome recommendations by me. This week's column has a theme with just focusing on kids/animation stuff. It's either nostalgia picks, or stuff that I'm probably too old to watch, either way enjoy!

PHINEAS AND FERB: ACROSS THE SECOND DIMENSION

Proof that even nowadays, Disney (not Disney-Pixar) can create something worthwhile. PHINEAS AND FERB is a fun cartoon series that harkens back to shows where the story arc is exactly the same but the situations are different. Think of it like a funnier SCOOBY DOO. The show has great songs and the imagination that the kids display reminds me of that summer my best friend Aaron and I tried to build a life-size AT-AT with scrap metal.

ROCK-A-DOODLE

I have not seen this movie in ages. The Spanish-dubbed version of this movie was one of my absolute favorites when I was growing up back in the old country (aka Mexico). I remember I loved the music, and I loved the fact that it wasn't just some Disney princess-centric movie. I'll be rewatching it this weekend to see
how it holds up, but I bet it's still pretty great.

YO GABBA GABBA!
Seriously, where else can you go for your dose of psychedelia, important life lessons, and guest appearances by Elijah Wood,  ?uestlove, and The Flaming Lips? Only with Yo Gabba Gabba!

So that's it for this week's selection for Netflix, next week Jonesy will be back with some of the equally nerdy she's watching. I bet it's some dance movie.

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AFI Top 100 Countdown: #88 BRINGING UP BABY

88: BRINGING UP BABY

Directed by Howard Hawks

Written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde

Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett, May Robson, and Fritz Feld

AFI Top 100 Countdown #89: THE SIXTH SENSE

#89: THE SIXTH SENSE

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Bruse Willis, Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette

AFI Top 100 Countdown #90 SWING TIME

#90: SWING TIME

Directed by George Stevens

Written by Allan Scott and Howard Lindsay

Starring: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Netflix Instant: Cool TV and Movie Picks

It's been a while since there's been some Netflix Instant action here.  As the summer movie season comes to a close, the theater releases will become slim pickins.  Thankfully there's Netflix Instant to keep you entertained as we wait for the holiday movie season in a few months:

Tangled

As a Disney nerd, I was really excited when I heard that Disney went back to its roots for this movie.  An updated story of the classic Rapunzel story, TANGLED is a throwback to the song and dance features that cemented Disney in the 90s.  A fun family film with one of my favorite scenes for 3D from last year.

The Man in the Moon

Before Reese Witherspoon was a lawyer or a country singer, she started in this little coming-of-age movie of a young Louisiana girl smitten with her neighbor.  

The Fighter

Another movie I thoroughly enjoyed last awards season.  It is completely worth a viewing for the performances from the unrecognizable Christian Bale and Melissa Leo.  

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Bias: Comparing Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows and Transformers: Dark of The Moon

The Boy Who Lived Isn't Perfect!

About a month ago, the final entry in the Michael Bay's Transformers saga was released to the world, and as expected, people completely hated it.  Obviously, after the atrocity of TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, critics especially had a reason to be skeptical whether the third chapter would be any good.  When it came out, the results were not so stellar.  Like Jonesy and I said, DARK OF THE MOON was a big disappointment of a movie, even though it got some brownie points for trying to reach a lot of higher than its predecessor.  From the get go, people were ready to pounce on this movie no matter how good it could have been.  And since I'm the one with a Decepticon tattoo, I can admit when things I like aren't that great.

Now with HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2, there was the culmination of over a decade and a generation's worth of people lining up to finish up the franchise. There was a lot of emotion going into these final parts. What I found interesting was the decision of having the last book be split into two for the purpose of putting as much of the book as director David Yates could and having the final battle be the most epic thing ever.  And yet, after I left the movie, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed by the overall experience.

Then  I started really thinking about DEATHLY HALLOWS, and a few of the things began to bother me, especially during the Battle of Hogwarts sequences, and I realized they were the same issues I had with TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON. Yet the more I read around on the Internet, the more I saw people dismissing if not out right praising those same faults in DH while completely shitting on DOTM.  The point here is not to say necessarily that DOTM is a misunderstood movie, or that Harry Potter was worse, but more that it's interesting that the "fanboy/fangirl" aspect really clouds people's judgement.  A lot of people, who are better writers than myself, fall into this category, but I can admit when something I'm very fond of has major problems.


(Please know there are totes spoilers after the break.)

Netflix Instant: Cool TV and Movie Picks

Hey everyone, Jonesy back again with hopefully something for everyone:

American: The Bill Hicks Story

A wonderful documentary about the comedian Bill Hicks.  The movie takes a look at the roots of the comedian including insightful interviews with his close family, friends, and colleagues.  Taking his influences from greats such as George Carlin and Richard Pryor, Hicks made a splash on the comedy circuit with his dark humor and spot on culture commentary. 

Spy Kids

I remember this movie being on TV one idle Saturday afternoon, and not thinking much of it, I started watching and feel in love.  Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez (yes, that one), SPY KIDS follows a brother and sister as they try to rescue their parents, who are former spys and have been kidnapped.  A great, fun, and smart family film.

Rubber

As many of you know, here at WDYMS, we went and watched RUBBER a few months ago with not the best experience.  Now that experience is behind us, everyone can experience the magic that is RUBBER for themselves.  This movie is absolutely ridiculous, yet somehow, it's so much fun.  If you can't concede to the premise that a tire comes to life and starts to kill people...then this movie isn't for you.

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Netflix Instant Cool TV and Movie Picks: Childhood Edition

Hey guys, Jonesy here with some childhood memories for everyone.  In a themed Netflix Edition this week, here are a few of my favorites from my childhood before the world of reality tv, the Disney Channel, and Sponge Bob (sorry I will never understand the appeal of that cartoon).

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

Everyone had their favorite color, mine was totally Pink, and all my friends and I loved watching our Rangers everyday as they try to defeat Rita Repulsa.  I was also so curious how these teenagers balanced fighting aliens and going to school, but some mysteries will never be answered. 

Rugrats

This was part of the really cool "after hours" of Nickelodeon called "Snick".  It was four extra hours of cartoons and variety shows.  RUGRATS was my favorite cartoon because it brought us insight to how babies communicated with each other.  Maybe that's a little too deep...and they were just super cute and never aged.

Ren and Stimpy

Thinking back on this series, I don't know how in the world this made it onto Nickelodeon's line up.  Crude, weird, and completely fits for late night Cartoon Network or Comedy Central, REN AND STIMPY follows our favorite cat and dog on their wild and very odd adventures, almost the kid's version of Beavis and Butthead.

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Netflix Instant Cool TV and Movie Picks

Jonesy here this week again with a classic, a remake of a classic, and an awesome TV series.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The 70s cult classic which has a notable midnight following.  Now is your chance to see it for yourself, so you can be "in the know" when you dress up in your best transvestite outfit to an interactive showing, and you're not the only person who doesn't know the Time Warp.

The Crazies

The remake of the 1973 horror movie, THE CRAZIES tells of a plane crash in a small town that releases a chemical that starts, well, "changing" the locals.  When I saw this a couple years ago, I was surprised how solid the film was.  Remakes of horror movies usually have a stigma, but THE CRAZIES surpasses that stigma.

Gangland

A current series on The History Channel, GANGLAND takes a look at current gangs in today's world.  Focusing on a different gang, including Hell's Angels and Latin Kings, every episode, the series has some unprecedented access and interviews to members and authority figures that paint a frightening picture of how many gangs have evolved and survived. 

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