Netflix now has The Secret of Roan Inish, which is more or less my favorite movie ever. If you’ve never heard of it, go ahead and watch it without reading anything about it. Even the IMDB plot summary has spoilers. It’s a John Sayles film, if that helps.
This was great. I’m a sucker for these kinds of movie production implosion stories and this was a doozy.
I know Kilmer has said in more recent interviews that he regrets the way he acted during this time in his career. He was deep into method acting and being a young arrogant asshole, so he burned a lot of bridges.
I also would’ve loved to have gotten some of Ron Perlman’s thoughts on the production as well. I know his time in the goat-man suit must’ve come with some terrible stories.
Special “OCH! ZOMBIES!” Edition
TBH, I’m not a big zombie fan; or rather, I think they’ve overstayed their turn in the spotlight in recent years. Still, one of the things I like about zombie stories is you can drop your zombocalypse into the middle of a completely different story, turning the movie on its head. Shaun of the Dead is the best example of this: take a typical slacker romcom, stir in bromance, add zombies - movie magic!
The Horde does the same thing to a crime drama: four cops go after a comrade’s murderer looking for payback, but get trapped in an abandoned tenement along with their criminal targets when the zombie outbreak begins. Cue obligatory band-together-to-fight-zombies camaraderie with who-will-backstab-whom?! tension. It ain’t art, but it’s a low-budget trashy hoot that knows it’s low-budget trash and has fun with it. Mad props to Eriq Ebouaney for pwning every scene he’s in; and Claude Perron for turning what could’ve been a throwaway role as the Token Ladycop into a midnight-movie tour de force, so to speak.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead goes about it the other way around. It plays the zombie apocalypse totally straight for the first act - including pretty blatant ripoffs homages to the Romero films, of course (like the title isn’t a giveaway!) - but then gets weirder, crazier, and funnier as it goes along. Again: a gory hoot which doesn’t take itself too seriously without descending into self-parody. I also liked Bianca Bradey, who spends most of the first two acts Damseled, but eventually gets her own back in the finale.
That’s really interesting, Richard Stanley came off the exact same way in the documentary…even though his cast and crew often disagreed with that assessment. I see one of his movies, Hardware, is on Netflix streaming now. Do you know if that’s worthwhile to watch?
In William Goldman’s Which Lie Did I Tell, he recounts an event during the shooting of The Ghost and the Darkness, which took place just after the shooting of Moreau. Kilmer couldn’t get his lines right, in a scene in front of a thousand extras. “His producer hat very much on, [producer/star Michael] Douglas takes Kilmer aside and asks, approximately, the following: Do you want a career like Eric Roberts? Do you want a career like Mickey Rourke? Well, you can have that if you don’t shape up.” I wonder if that helped straighten him out? I can’t remember him in an important role since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and that was, jeez, ten years ago.
Hardware is classically cheesy 80s sci-fi shot like a Cinemax movie. There’s some cool Terminator meets Demon Seed stuff there. But I think Stanley’s far more fascinating movie is Dust Devil, which is a mess that could have been brilliant once you know more about the cut he wanted to make. I think there’s an unofficial director’s cut available that uses rough footage.
But whether Stanley is a genius or not, he was definitely screwed over by the Hollywood system, as Cormac notes. Dust Devil was basically mangled by the studio to be more like Silence of the Lambs.
-Tom
Just in case you didn’t know, Netflix decided not to re-new its deal with Epix, which is a joint licensing venture with several film studios, and I believe at the end of September those movies will be leaving the service. Most impacted will be newer titles that have been released in theaters recently. Netflix seems to be moving more towards original content and exclusive licensing rather than big licensing services. Instead, Epix signed on with Hulu (it should be noted that it was non-exclusive and Amazon Prime already continued their licensing agreement with Epix too, so basically if you use two of these three services you’ll still be able to watch):
At launch, “Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” “World War Z,” “Wolf of Wall Street,” “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” “Robocop,” “God’s Not Dead” and more will become available to Hulu subscribers. “Interstellar,” “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” “Selma,” “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water,” “Top Five” and more will become available on the streaming service in the coming months.
Netflix still has a few other licensing deals on the books, as well as its big partnership with Disney which kicks in next year.
— Alan
Skeleton Twins is on Netflix. It is awesome. You should watch it (unless you have no soul - then YMMV).
Not sure when it got added but I re-watched The Substitute last night. I remember loving the serious cornyness of it and you know what, I still feel that way.
— Alan
The money they save from this deal will probably be put to words the giant checks they will be writing Disney net year.
I heard a story about this on the radio yesterday, where they were saying that Netflix claims its users want more TV shows and original content and fewer movies.
I guess I might feel differently if they got content more quickly, but the lag on getting any TV show that’s not original content is annoying as hell, and while their original content is good, it’s not so compelling that it’s the reason I subscribe to NetFLIX. FLIX!
I believe that, because they probably used my usage for that study. That’s basically how I use Netflix. It’s much easier for me to watch 2 hours of TV shows than 1 movie.
Watching a movie means sitting down and dedicating time to an active pursuit. If I’m watching a movie, I should be concentrating on it (I don’t actually take notes, but I could be).
Watching TV shows, even binge watching a whole bunch in a row, require a different level of commitment. I can second-screen Hearthstone or a Vita RPG or something, and I can bail out of it any time I want without any guilt.
…but they’re also producing movies too for simultaneous theater and VOD release, so it’s not like they’re abandoning the idea completely (and I’m not sure how this affects their mail service).
— Alan
The movies they are losing are ones I wouldn’t really watch. That god awful TNMT movie for one.
And I do tend to watch far more TV series than movies. Last movie I watched, on Netflix, was Mr Peabody and Sherman. Which I enjoyed more than I thought I would.
There are plenty of movies I would watch on Netflix streaming, but most of them are only available on DVD, which is why we’re still on a disc plan. There have been a few nights where I actually spent 30-40 minutes trying to find a movie available through streaming that we were even slightly interested in (and hadn’t already seen) but failed. On the other hand, there are quite a few TV shows we do watch on streaming between the kids and us.
I do wonder if the data that generated that quote was based on what people were watching, or if they actually asked people what they preferred. If it’s the former, it wouldn’t surprise me if it skewed towards TV shows because the movie catalog just isn’t that great for the more mainstream film watchers.
This Narcos series is good as hell. If that’s where Netflix is going, 10 hour miniseries over 2 hour movie, I’m all for it. Perhaps the 2 hour movie has been surpassed as an art form? It’s the difference between a magazine article and a book.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but I am going to recommend These Final Hours
http://www.netflix.com/title/80022817
Some impact event has occurred in the Atlantic, and the Aussies only have a little bit of time before the cataclysmic effects reach them. I think they do a good job of painting a picture of the possible breakdown of all civilization.
Peaky Blinders is something else allright and well worth watching - Just saw the first episode myself and was blown away. What a great cast as well!
Be carefully with those words. Some find the idea of television surpassing movies to be heretical.
Well, it is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison - or at least cantaloupe to watermelon*.
If you’re going to be a dick and drag in arguments from other threads, at least get the argument right. But by all means, tell us again that television is inherently superior to movies. We can discuss it here as well. You’ll find that reasonable people understand each medium has its strengths and weaknesses.
-Tom