Netflix. It's on the 360, it's on PS3, it's on the Wii, it's $8 a month, it doesn't require a disc, and it's now even in Canada (with a severely reduced selection). So. Unless you're really poor, a picky Canadian, a hater of the 7th art, or European, there's no excuse for not having it!
What movies has the streaming service allowed you to discover?
Because of the limited selection here in Canada, which denies us access to some of the more recent and popular movies on the service, I've been using Netflix to watch 2 different kinds of movies: terrible crap that I'd never make any effort or pay anything to see (The Happening, Teen Wolf Too), and highly respected and acclaimed foreign movies that for some reason I always put back on the shelf without renting when I'm at the video store.
So here's a recommendation for you:
Amores Perros - This movie received much acclaim, won many prizes, and I'm probably one of the last chumps to see it. But hey, maybe you haven't seen it either, so at least I'm better than you. From looking at the title, you may recognize the word "amores" (love) and get totally the wrong idea about the movie. You may also recognize "perros" (dog) and be completely befuddled. Basically, the movie contains three vignettes in which cruelty and, yes, love, are central themes.
For one third of the movie, you follow the story of a kid using his dog to participate in dog fights and win money so he can elope with his brother's wife. For the second part, you follow a couple's crumbling relationship and oh god you're getting totally the wrong idea again. Don't worry, it's totally interesting and plays out a bit like a thriller. Actually, watching it I felt like I was reading an Edgar Allan Poe short story, but maybe it's just because it features... sounds... coming out of the floorboard. The third story is about this vagrant who abandoned his family to become a guerillero, went to prison, and now takes on hitman jobs from the corrupt cop who arrested him.
The characters cross each others' paths a couple of time, so you could say it's a bit like Pulp Fiction in that way, except I found the stories and characters in this film infinitely more interesting. Heh.
I don't know what your experience with foreign movies is or what you think of them, all I can say is that this movie is absolutely not boring. From the first scene to the last, I was hooked.
You make a persuasive argument. Have you seen the trailer for the sequel?
I've gone back and edited in a trailer for Amores Perros. But not Lady Vengeance. I think the American trailer spoils too much of the early mystery of the film.
Anyway, you guys all had time to watch all these recommendations, right? Here's another one.
Mother
Another Korean movie (guess rating Sympathy Vengeance highly pushed this one up the recommendations on Netflix). This one is about a mother trying to clear her retarded son of a murder, but everything is stacked against her. Right away at the murder scene, you hear the cops talking about how long ago it was they had to work on a murder, and when they talk about "not disturbing the murder scene", they then mention it's something they heard on CSI. At any rate, the mother's son is simply the most convenient suspect they have, and they don't seem to investigate past that.
The plot moves along at a great pace, and the lengths this small old woman will go to prove her son's innocence and find the actual murderer are something to see. And I don't want to spoil anything, but I'll say I didn't see the ending coming at all.
I finally got around to streaming and watching Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts tonight. I wanted to see it when it hit theaters, but didn't get the chance for whatever reason. However, it probably wasn't theater worthy, anyway. Yet, if you're a fan of Philip Glass (which I am, obviously), this is a great semi-short documentary to add to your instant queue. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the generous peak into the mind and life of this genuinely talented man.
I was such a huge fan of Lost, until the last season. =( Then I was so disappointed.
I'm on the last season now, and I honestly don't know how this show ended up the way it did. I'm going to finish it, but I'm pretty underwhelmed by season 6 so far.
Season 6 of LOST as a whole was a bit disappointing, but it had a great ending, some great individual episodes, and it wrapped up the series very nicely. I ended up preferring Season 6 to Season 5 by the end (and perhaps preferring it to Season 4 as well, but I'm not completely sure about that).
I just don't get how so many people could misinterpret that ending as badly as they did...
Well, I'm about half-way through season 6 and it's just a mess. Nothing makes sense, there is confusion at every turn. Plot holes galore. What is even real? I've seen so many twists that the show doesn't even know what it is, and I've followed very closely from the beginning. It's like they made this shit up at the last minute. It doesn't even feel like the same show I've been watching for the last 5 seasons. All of the charm and everything likable from EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER (including Hugo) from the show is completely LOST (pun intended).
I never thought that 1 season could negate an entire series, but I guess there is a first time for everything. I say this because I spent all that time watching all these fucking seasons, always in suspense, clinging on to a hope that they were hooking me because of some great reveal, but it turns out that I was a fool. It was a complete waste of time.
I was tricked into thinking that if I keep watching the show I would get the answers that I wanted. Well, the joke's on me.
^What are you confused and disappointed about? Are you one of the people who thinks the show didn't give any answers? Because all of the important answers were given to us or at least able to be inferred based on what we were given.
Or even worse, were you one of those people who thought the ending meant they were dead the entire time or trapped in purgatory?
My problem with the show is that I invested so much time waiting for some fucking closure to about a billion story arcs, only to be left in the dark as another sucker for curiosity. I was hoping that the last season would fill in the holes, but apparently the joke's on me.
Remember Walt's special 'side-effects' on things around him? Yeah, never explained, despite the show leading you to believe that it was going to be relevant at some point in time. On top of that, he could somehow be at any place and any time even though he wasn't dead.
How 'The Numbers' seem to correlate with Hugo's bad luck and dozens of other things is still a mystery.
The Dharma initiative was eventually brushed off as an after-thought, even though it used to be super-important.
Pregnant women die on the Island for reasons that remain unknown.
Etc, etc, etc.
There are dozens upon dozens of unanswered questions, which wouldn't really be a big deal if the show didn't initially make them out to be a big deal. The reality is that these story arcs were just used to keep people watching the show, and the writers had zero intentions on actually answering any of those questions.
So you can call me 'one of those people' if you want, but I know bad storytelling when I see it.
Remember Walt's special 'side-effects' on things around him? Yeah, never explained, despite the show leading you to believe that it was going to be relevant at some point in time. On top of that, he could somehow be at any place and any time even though he wasn't dead.
Walt was one of the special people just like Miles and Hurley. The same thing that makes Miles and Hurley special makes Walt special. We were told within the show that every person has some amount of the light within them, and the light is able to move things through space and time. Walt was just one of the people who was able to manipulate his own light.
How 'The Numbers' seem to correlate with Hugo's bad luck and dozens of other things is still a mystery.
The show made it clear during the episode "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" (back in Season 3) that Hurley wasn't cursed. There is no such thing as luck in the LOST universe. As for the Numbers' significance, that was revealed both in Season 6 and in the mostly-canon "The Lost Experience" alternate reality game.
The Dharma initiative was eventually brushed off as an after-thought, even though it used to be super-important.
How was it "super-important"? From the very beginning it was shown to be a group of scientists that came to the island to do research in an environment that they couldn't otherwise obtain elsewhere on Earth. This remained consistent throughout the show. Season 5 didn't change that at all, and it only showed us DHARMA's early years. We never saw DHARMA in 1977 through 1992.
Pregnant women die on the Island for reasons that remain unknown.
Pregnant women before 1977 could give birth. Pregnant women after 2001 could not give birth. So something had to have happened between those two years in order to prevent pregnant women from being able to give birth. It had to be an island-wide event that caused pregnant women to die. There are two known island-wide events that took place between these times: the Incident (which released a large amount of radiation around the island) and the Purge (which was carried out via unknown chemicals). It is possible that either one of these is responsible.
However, the epilogue outright states the answer, so this was explained.
Etc, etc, etc.
There are dozens upon dozens of unanswered questions, which wouldn't really be a big deal if the show didn't initially make them out to be a big deal.
It sounds like you're the one who was making them out to be a big deal. The show was always about the characters and the things that happened to them on this island. DHARMA as a whole played next to no part in the lives of these survivors until Season 5.
Like I already said, we were given a ton of answers, and a ton of information which allows us to figure out what the correct answers have to be without being explicitly told. The only questions that I can think of that were made into a big deal and then not fulfilled in some way were Aaron and the metaphorical "magic box" (because both ended up with the answers of "the characters were lying or VERY seriously stretching the truth").
So you can call me 'one of those people' if you want, but I know bad storytelling when I see it.
Hey, if you realized that in the end they weren't all dead, and they weren't all in purgatory, but were rather the flash-sideways were of the in-between place mentioned back in Season 2, then kudos to you, because you're one of the few. And if you did realize that, then you're not "one of those people". You could be another type of person, i.e. a person that needs every answer spoon-fed to them in a very obvious way, and needs all of these answers to come from the 42-minute long episodes that were aired on ABC and need the answers that you want despite their relevancy to the overall story, but that's quite a different person from the one I was originally talking about, and has very little (nothing, actually) to do with bad storytelling.
Ahh, so you're a LOST apologist. Good for you, but the answers you provided did not answer any of my questions. I already knew everything you just posted. That doesn't explain why there were so many story arcs that were not resolved. I don't need information spoon-fed to me. But I would like COMPLETE information. I could watch a movie half-way through and predict how it is going to be resolved if there was sufficient information given, but that doesn't mean that if the movie ended half-way through that it would be an acceptable way to tell a story.
My question regarding Walt has nothing to do with WHY he has it powers. It has to do with the fact that the relevance of his powers is never expounded on after they are introduced. We learn that he has a special ability, and then it is quickly swept under the rug, unlike the abilities of Hurley and Miles, which we have seen in action ad nauseum. As for his mysterious 'appearances', this isn't explained at all. We don't even know if this is a special ability of his, or if these are random hallucinations from the respective people's minds that can see him. Maybe we can just chalk it up to the Island's magical powers (i.e. cop-out).
As for Hugo, I don't mean actual 'bad luck'. But all of the coincidental tragedies didn't occur until after Hugo used the numbers for the lottery. I know what the main significance of the numbers are (the candidates, the equation), but that doesn't explain all the other connections, like why the hatch had to have those numbers, or why discharging the electromagnetism had to use those specific numbers before pushing the button. Obviously, there is a reason for the connections between these numbers, but it is never fully explained.
As for Dharma, the 'research' (besides time travel) is never explained. We know why and what they want to research, but the actual research itself (theories, hypotheses, conclusions, etc.) remains unknown. I would have taken an explanation for this over some of the pointless backstory flashback drivel that we got for some of the more uninteresting characters in the show (i.e. the couple with the diamonds).
And after your two theories on the pregnant women, you can't tell me which of them it was. Question remains unanswered.
And those are just a few questions. There are many, many more. But I'm not going to waste my time wading through them.
As for the ending, it is clear that the flash-sideways is indeed the afterlife (whatever you want to call that). But everything that happened on the Island before that really did happen. So we know they didn't actually die in the plane crash, but at their own times.
Can I ask you guys to take this discussion to the Lost thread so this can remain a Netflix recommendation thread? Thanks for your understanding.
I just checked out Jim Henson's The Storyteller and I'm really, really impressed. I almost wrote speechless but that would be over-selling it, it's just really, really impressive. Perhaps I'm impressed because of my preconceptions: I had heard of the series but thought it was like George Lucas's crappy Amazing Stories. And I had heard it was for kids.
For kids, really? You guys watched this as kids? I'm watching the Greek Myths episodes right now and they are uncensored. I don't mean they're x-rated but they do talk about the rapes and the bestiality and everything. Those myths are something we all end up learning about in high school but in my mind I thought this show aimed at a younger audience than that.
Anyway, it's a really, really great way to learn about/be reminded of these classic stories. The acting from episode to episode can vary, the actors all pretty much act as if they were in a play, but at least they're all British so they're a higher class of actors than the show probably could have afforded in the US with the same money.
And whatshisname, Dumbledore? He is just fantastic as the Storyteller.
Great, great show. At least the Greek Myths episodes.
My question regarding Walt has nothing to do with WHY he has it powers. It has to do with the fact that the relevance of his powers is never expounded on after they are introduced.
Did you even watch the show? This was one of the things that was explained point-blank to us. They were never relevant. The Others kidnapped Walt because Jacob told them that Walt was one of the people that he wanted the Others to integrate into their society. Walt was on Jacob's list. It was only after the Others discovered Walt's abilities that they freaked out and tried to figure out a way to get rid of him. His powers were never relevant to any part of the show except for why the Others were so easy to agree to part with him.
As for his mysterious 'appearances', this isn't explained at all. We don't even know if this is a special ability of his, or if these are random hallucinations from the respective people's minds that can see him. Maybe we can just chalk it up to the Island's magical powers (i.e. cop-out).
There are no magical island powers. I see you skipped large portions of Seasons 2, 4, and 5, huh? Walt's appearances were explained as part of his ability by Ms. Klugh in Season 2, and by the writers in various interviews.
As for Hugo, I don't mean actual 'bad luck'. But all of the coincidental tragedies didn't occur until after Hugo used the numbers for the lottery. I know what the main significance of the numbers are (the candidates, the equation), but that doesn't explain all the other connections, like why the hatch had to have those numbers, or why discharging the electromagnetism had to use those specific numbers before pushing the button. Obviously, there is a reason for the connections between these numbers, but it is never fully explained.
The reason for the Numbers on the DHARMA stuff is because they specifically chose them because they were researching the Numbers. Why do you think that there's anything more to it than that? DHARMA came to the island to attempt to change the Numbers, so they used the Numbers all the time in association with their experiments. As for Hugo, do you not remember his past? We only saw three flashbacks of his life before the Numbers, and the events included in them were such tragedies as being committed to an insane asylum, his father leaving him, and a deck he was standing on collapsed, killing several people. Tragedies occurred around Hugo before and after the Numbers. He just didn't pay attention to them until his lotto win. Also, the Numbers were a source of good luck when Hurley was running late for Flight 815. They appeared constantly as he made his way to the airport, and he just made it on time despite all of the set backs, and it ultimately turned out to be a good thing for him.
As for Dharma, the 'research' (besides time travel) is never explained. We know why and what they want to research, but the actual research itself (theories, hypotheses, conclusions, etc.) remains unknown. I would have taken an explanation for this over some of the pointless backstory flashback drivel that we got for some of the more uninteresting characters in the show (i.e. the couple with the diamonds).
Why did we need any of this information though? We know that DHARMA was trying to save the world by studying six or seven particular subjects, but since DHARMA was wiped out, any further information on the irrelevant subjects just isn't necessary. Yeah, it'd be nice to get that information, but it has nothing to do with the storytelling because it is in no way pertinent to the story being told.
And after your two theories on the pregnant women, you can't tell me which of them it was. Question remains unanswered.
The question was answered. I already told you that. Just go watch the epilogue instead of pretending it doesn't exist.
And those are just a few questions. There are many, many more. But I'm not going to waste my time wading through them.
Many, many more that we have received answers for but some people that hated Season 6 want to believe we didn't receive. If you're going to hate, at least do so for a legitimate reason.
As for the ending, it is clear that the flash-sideways is indeed the afterlife (whatever you want to call that). But everything that happened on the Island before that really did happen. So we know they didn't actually die in the plane crash, but at their own times.
It's a place that's in-between life and the afterlife, but that's nit-picking. Good for you picking up on that though.
I just watched 21 Grams (it's on the streaming service... in Canada, anyway). I really liked it! I think they went a bit overboard with the non-chronological storytelling at the beginning (I don't think it's a good idea to switch character, place and time every 20 seconds before we actually know who the characters are), but once the pieces fall into place enough for the story to become understandable, it's pretty damn good drama.
Two movies that have NOT stood the test of time: Erik the Viking (so boring!) and Sneakers (I remembered it as being great, but it's actually downright crappy!). You've been warned.
Here's another one.
At any rate, the mother's son is simply the most convenient suspect they have, and they don't seem to investigate past that.
