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The Netflix recommendation thread [community]
 
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.

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11/30/10, 02:22    Edited: 12/31/17, 09:54
 
   
 
Fine, more detailed impressions.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Actually, this is all you need to see.

12/03/10, 01:40   
I love indie movies however Me You and Everyone We Know is a fucking... and let me stress the word "fucking"... terrible movie. It is an indie movie trying oh so hard and failing on such an epic scale it is in my opinion the worst, or one of the worst indie movies I've ever seen.

It's really awful. Beyond that its one of the most pretentious movies I have ever had the displeasure of watching.
12/03/10, 04:16   
Worse than Dan in Real Life, which is the very definition of an indie movie trying too hard IMO?
12/03/10, 04:47   
12/03/10, 05:30   
Pandareus said:
Worse than Dan in Real Life, which is the very definition of an indie movie trying too hard IMO?

Find me anything in Dan in Real Life as bad as this:



I honestly had a visceral, negative reaction to this movie. When I say it's my least favorite indie movie and among the worst movies I've ever seen I'm not lying. It's like some dipshit took a chalkboard, wrote down every indie film staple he could think of, jumbled it up and shat out this mess.
12/03/10, 05:59   
@Oldmanwinter

Alright.

Yeah.


...riiiiight.

Ahem. Dan in Real Life is a Modern Classic, apparently.
12/03/10, 06:26   
If you are looking for a more recent scifi movie Pandorum was good. Also for a more family friendly movie I also liked City of Ember.

A good mini series to check out is The Lost Room.
12/03/10, 09:05   
Edited: 12/03/10, 09:11
Dead Like Me: This is one of my favorite series of all time (along with Supernatural, Star Trek TNG, and Battlestar Galactica). It's a show about life after death. The main characters are reapers who go around guiding people to their final destination after they die. But mostly it's about how these reapers live among us and how they deal with the afterlife.

Battlestar Galactica is also awesome. Think of it as Star Trek DS9 with a movable station and sexy humanoid robots.

@FINlos I'm already watching Avatar. It's pretty awesome. I want to watch the whole first season before I watch the movie. I'm also very interested in watching Pushing Daisies, given that it's from the creator of Dead Like Me.
12/03/10, 10:00   
Edited: 12/03/10, 10:01
@sirmastersephiroth

I'd really recommend just skipping the Last Airbender movie.

I rented it last week from Netflix, and despite knowing all the bad reviews beforehand, I still managed to be disappointed by it. There were so many changes to the source material that didn't need to be made. You're better off just watching the entire series, and pretending that this abomination doesn't even exist
12/03/10, 10:22   
Edited: 12/03/10, 10:22
@Oldmanwinter

You weren't stoned, huh?


I gave Devil's Backbone a view tonight... no Pan's Labyrinth, but I liked it.
12/03/10, 10:46   
Edited: 12/03/10, 10:47
@Hinph

No amount of drugs will make that movie good.

Anyhow being as all the Battlestar Galactica seasons are now available for streaming I'm going to watch those. I never have seen any of them, however I loved DS9 so I'm really looking forward to checking it out.
12/03/10, 22:00   
Oldmanwinter said:
It's like some dipshit took a chalkboard, wrote down every indie film staple he could think of, jumbled it up and shat out this mess.
...and then pooped it into someone else's butt.

The first 6 or so minutes of that video were just weird, but the last minute was stupid on a profound level. I mean, wow. Come on.

EDIT: Ebert places it as the fifth best movie of the decade.
12/03/10, 22:11   
Edited: 12/03/10, 22:19
Me and You and Everyone We Know is actually pretty fantastic. It's the pinnacle of 00's indie films. Hell, it was even screened in one of my film classes back in '05 when it came out. I can understand someone not liking it and not getting it though. And this was before the "indie" genre was made popular with Little Miss Sunshine and Juno, so it's not like it was drawing upon the tropes that plague current indie flicks. I also wouldn't consider the film funny at all.

And watching a scene out of context of a film like this is pretty stupid.

And since we're on the light-hearted indie drama topic, my top 3 of the 00s would have to be:

Me and You and Everyone We Know
Junebug
Squid and the Whale
12/03/10, 23:28   
@sirmastersephiroth - I'll second what kgtennis says. Don't even bother with the movie. I went in with the lowest of expectations after hearing all of the negative reviews, and I was still disappointed.

Also, since you liked Dead Like Me, and you're interested in Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls might be another show you'd be interested in. The guy who created Dead Like Me has only created 3 shows, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies, and though I didn't care for Dead Like Me that much, I loved Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies. And all three shows have many of the same idiosyncrasies like a prominent female character with a guy's name, a relatively normal or mundane world in which the main character has some fantastic ability, a lot of wordplay and dialogue-focused humor, and a light-hearted look at death (though that's only present in one or two episodes of Wonderfalls).

I definitely recommend checking those two out, and Wonderfalls is only 1 season of 13 episodes, so it's pretty easy to blow through fairly quickly (and the whole series has been uploaded to YouTube if you're the kind that can stand the quality and don't want to have to wait for the disks from Netflix).
12/04/10, 00:17   
Hell, just buy the Wonderfalls set! It's super cheap, and I personally like the series more than Pushing Daisies. And Caroline Dhavernas is super cute.
12/04/10, 00:29   
^That she is.
12/04/10, 00:30   
@TriforceBun

Ebert is a fucking quack.
12/04/10, 00:51   
Doctor Who! Oh and I heard Battlestar Galactica is on there now, what you waitin for?!?!?
12/05/10, 00:14   
Marsh said:
Doctor Who! Oh and I heard Battlestar Galactica is on there now, what you waitin for?!?!?

Wait, the NEW BATTLE STAR GALACTICA????!!!!! If it's the new Battle Star Galactica I AM GOING TO FUCKING SCREAM AND DO CARTWHEELS IN MY HOUSE RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO HEAR!!!!
12/05/10, 08:36   
Well I don't know about the US but in Canada it's just the 70's version.
12/05/10, 09:21   
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