Christopher Nolan
Mark Duplass, who stars as Pete in The League, recommends Netflix picks on his Twitter account on a fairly regular basis. Tonight he pointed to the first feature by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception), Following. That got me wondering what other Nolan films were available for streaming, so here’s a Nolan Mini-Mega-Post featuring Following, Memento, & Insomnia.
Following, uh, follows a young writer with a penchant for stalking. He falls in with another stalky type, and they get into some trouble. The black and white, noir-style photography suits the subject matter well. Remarkably, Nolan made this movie over the course of a year, filming on weekends, for a ridiculously low budget.
Memento follows Leonard, who has lost his ability to retain short-term memories and has to piece his existence together out of clues he’s left himself via Polaroid pictures. Kind of like Dana Carvey in Clean Slate except, you know, not terrible. Is is one of those movies that you can’t watch the same way the second time, like The Usual Suspects or Fight Club, so if you’re watching it with someone who hasn’t seen it, don’t be a jerk and ruin it for them.
Insomnia is a remake of a foreign film staring Al Pacino and Robin Williams. But, despite all of that, it still has a 92 on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s not my favorite Nolan film, but it’s definitely Queue Worthy. Besides, what else are you going to do when every channel on your TV is showing football?
Super Troopers
Super Troopers is an absolute classic of the stoner comedy genre. Either you’ve seen it and you love it or you haven’t and you’ll hate it. Meow,* maybe you like it, but not so much that you want a DVD of it sitting around your house for your parents to find and try to watch while everyone’s over for Christmas. Fortunately for you, it’s on Netflix Instant!
*You’ve either seen it and you get it, or you think this site took a really weird turn.
Criminal
John C. Reilly can be a bit hit or miss in staring roles—you either like his shtick in movies like Walk Hard and Step Brothers or you don’t, and his independent films can as dark as his comedies are broad. But one thing Reilly has nailed is the likably unlikable character.
If you’re tired of criminals with hearts of gold (Oceans 11, Italian Job, etc.), then Criminal might be just the movie for you. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that you keep waiting for Reilly to do the right thing, but you’re not really disappointed when he doesn’t (he is a con man, after all).
Also, if you prefer Maggie Gyllenhaal in roles that lean more towards sexy than quirky Crminal is a good flick to check out.
Cheers
In honor of Netflix Instant’s return from an unexpected outage, we bring you the first new Qworthy post in months!
Perhaps the best sitcom of all time, Cheers managed to overcome a contentious cast situation with Shelly Long and then didn’t skip a beat when she left after five season. She was, of course, replaced by Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe, and the show lasted another six seasons. They also had to replace one of my all-time favorite sitcom characters, Coach, when Nicholas Colasanto died in 1985.
At 11 seasons, you could be forgiven for not sitting through the entire run of the show, but it’s a great fallback when you can’t find something else to watch instead of cleaning the kitchen.
Cheers Seasons 1-11 on Netflix
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Here’s an interesting movie. A stacked cast, a quirky script, biting satire of the military industrial complex… and all based on a true story? Well, that was the pitch anyway.
I had to check it out just because of the tag line: “No Goats. No Glory.” In the end, the movie is as uneven as its Netflix reviews, which range from “headed for cult status” to “shockingly unfunny,” might suggest. Though I might point out to the latter reviewer that satire isn’t always laugh-out-loud funny.
This movie is worth seeing for at least two reasons: (1) to see George Clooney staring at things and (2) to form your own opinion of one of the strangest movies of the decade.
The Men Who Stare at Goats on Netflix
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
In a world where all vampires can do is look angsty and make teenage girls’ hearts melt, it’s almost quaint to look back at a vampire show that’s heavy on action (every vampire knows karate!) and even heavier on sass.
Buffy gave us a whole world of beasties and, um, beastie fighters over its seven seasons and you can catch up on all of them on Netflix and Hulu Plus (which are both now $7.99 for all you can stream). It also inspired a spin-off and launched Joss Whedon to his current nerd-genius status.
I missed the boat on Buffy the first time around, and I have to admit I haven’t quite caught up on all 144 episodes, but I have a few questions… Can someone be a werewolf and a vampire at the same time? How about a witch and a vampire? Why is there so much hand-to-hand combat involved in slaying vampires? And isn’t Angel just dreamy?
Uh… never mind that last one.
Of course, as with most TV shows that are almost old enough to drive, watching Buffy is like a constant parade of Before They Were Stars. It should be a drinking game… if you spot an actor you recognize in a bit part, you have to take a shot. (Don’t actually do that, I don’t want to get sued.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 1 on Netflix
Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu Plus
And a special bonus: the original movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie on Netflix
Weeds
Although Showtime has generally lagged slightly behind HBO in original series, it has a legitimate hit on its hands in Weeds, the story of a suburban soccer mom turned pot dealer. Some critics have said the show has passed its prime, but the good news for you is that means best seasons are on Netflix Instant.
It also doesn’t hurt that the main character, played by West Wing’s Mary-Louise Parker, is all kinds of hot. If only all suburban soccer mom pot dealers were so gorgeous. And it’s a rare title that can bring together fans of Desperate Housewives and Friday.
Weeds is currently nearing the end of its sixth season (and has been picked up for a seventh), and the first five seasons are currently available on Netflix.
Tribute to Stephen J. Cannell
Stephen J. Cannell, who passed away at the end of September, was responsible for some of the best TV of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, including Rockford Files, A-Team, The Commish and Greatest American Hero. You probably remember him for his production card, which included footage of Cannell typing and then tossing a piece of paper, which turned into an animated logo. (You can see several versions here.) Next to “Sit Ubu, sit,” it’s the credit I remember most from my childhood.
Here’s a round-up of everything I could find that he wrote, produced or created. If I missed any, let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post. Some of these shows don’t hold up very well, so if you have particularly fond memories of one of them, it might be better to just skip it.
The Greatest American Hero: Season 1 on Netflix
The Greatest American Hero on Hulu
The Rockford Files: Season 1 on Netflix
The A-Team: Season 1 on Netflix
The A-Team on Hulu (Available only through Sept. 18, 2011)
The Commish: Season 1 on Netflix
21 Jump Street: Season 1 on Netflix
Firefly
Star Trek has the reputation for being a short-lived sci-fi series, but it’s got nothing on Firefly. Fox bought the show, ran the episodes out of order, and killed it after only 14 were filmed. Nonetheless, Joss Whedon’s dystopian space western launched a cult following that, while not quite of Star Trekian proportions, was large enough to result in the film Serenity, which closed out many of the show’s story lines. (Fans of Firefly are called Browncoats, BTW, which you will understand shortly into the series.)
If this is your cup of tea at all, you might as well run out and get the DVDs (actually, if you knew about it and didn’t hate it, you probably already own the DVDs), but in case you’re not sure, the complete series is available on Netflix and Hulu Plus (and Serenity is available on Netflix, as well).
A stand-out character in the series is Adam Baldwin’s Jayne. If you like Baldwin in NBC’s Chuck (which had its fourth-season premiere last night), you’ll definitely dig him in Firefly and Serenity. Plus it features Nathan Fillion displaying all the charm he shows in Castle and Dr. Horrible (and that he didn’t not in the short-lived Drive).
I’m purposefully leaving out the details of the show, because I think it’s better to go in open to discovering what it has to offer. But in a television landscape that is increasingly full of remakes or retellings of the same old stories—or worse, reality show tripe—shows like Firefly are rare. If it had only been successful, maybe we could have a slew of space western clones instead of spinoffs of The Girls Next Door.
Firefly: The Complete Series on Netflix
Hackers
Perhaps one of the greatest (but not best, let’s not confuse this with fine cinema) movies ever made. At the very least it’s Fisher Stevens’s best role that doesn’t involve donning a terrible Indian accent. I also can’t think of another Angelina Jolie movie that I like.
With Jonny Lee Miller (TV’s Eli Stone) and Matthew Lillard (Shaggy from the Scooby Doo movie) rounding out the most well-known of the cast, Hackers takes you deep into the seedy and sorted world of freaky (or should I say phreaky?) kids on rollerskates who can crack any computer system in the world. Including a magical one that apparently exists only as a set of three-dimensional holograms.
When you watch this today, you may think the technology only looks laughable in comparison to your iPad, but, seriously, the tech in this movie was goofy even in 1995. By the time this movie was made, there were plenty of stories of real hackers and the damage they had created (like, say, Kevin Mitnick, who had been in prison for years by that point), but I guess it was easier to create a fictional world of fast typing and strange clothes. And for that, we thank them. Hack the planet!
