This Week On Netflix

This tumblr is devoted to reviewing the films (and occasionally TV shows) available on Netflix Instant Queue.

[temmiechang]

shadowbringers doodles

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 82 Minutes

Rating: R

Score: 2/10 as a movie, 11/10 for bad movie hilariousness

Bet you weren't expecting me to be doing reviews again, huh? Well, it's alright. I wasn't either. At least, until I saw an image for this movie on my Tumblr dashboard.

Had to see if it was actually a thing, and I was pleasantly surprised that the movie was not only real, but also on Netflix Instant Queue. So, I loaded up the ol' PS3 for a look at this incredibly mixed bag of a movie.

Why is it a mixed bag? Oh, dear god, you're about to find out.

So Rubber starts out with a message. A message that is apparently reached by a guy standing around with some large amount of binoculars, while a police car rolls up smashing through a bunch of chairs placed around a dirt road--okay, I'm sorry, I'm already lost. Why am I watching this? Who wrote this? Quentin...Dupieux? Who the hell is he?

This guy comes out of the trunk and starts on a rant about how so many movies have elements that occur for what is defined as "no reason." And that's just it. This movie embodies this entire message, which is why it's so hilariously bad, and yet, in a strange way, ignoring the score I gave it, so intriguing. Things occur for what appears to be just as the movie intends them: no reason whatsoever. It's an understandable message, yes, but at the same time, is that really what you're going to write your movie about?

Let me try to give you some perspective as to the more finite details you're going to encounter if you actually try to watch this...film. There's this tire--named Robert, apparently?--that comes to life and rolls around destroying stuff as though it was its only purpose to exist. Why? We just don't know. The movie tries to explain the tire's motivations, but even then, they still don't make sense.

On top of that, Rubber attempts to be a satire on a bunch of other stuff, such as theater audiences, the idiocy of movie villians, and so much more, to the point where it feels as though all of this information that has no real explanation to its purpose is just shoved down our throats. Which is Dupieux's point, I'm aware...but it destroys an attempt to feel for his movie's message. Things just happen or get expressed, and then it's on to something else about the tire or some other point, and it weaves all around until I had to pause the movie to take a break and ponder it over pizza. That's the first time I had to pause a movie on Netflix to make sense of it, ladies and gentlemen. I consider myself a pretty intelligent guy, but the writing is just...wow. I know it's a satire, but come on.

That's really what it comes down to in this movie. Dupieux's writing a satire on a bunch of things. It's like he's doing a paper without a direct focus. He claims to have one, and you follow it, but then he goes on to a different topic, and drags you along with him as you flail around trying to go from point to point to point without losing any sort of information. It's hard.

But that's what makes it hilarious to watch, as well. You're so confused and unattached from the movie that anything that happens suddenly just has you dying from laughter brought upon by sheer randomness. It's like Dupieux made an 82-minute YouTube video that would get countless views simply because it's so out there in terms of interpretation. Which is confounding in itself, because mind you, this movie had a budget. A BUDGET.

So, in summary, we've got a movie about a killer tire that's attempting to satirize sensibility in movies without actually helping its own case. Everything makes so little sense that you come to expect in and feel set up to laugh at times, not that it prevents you from doing so at all. This movie is essentially Birdemic, but with tires. Seriously. Tiers are vastly superior to birds somehow. It's in the movie. But I'd still recommend watching it if you ever have the itch to see something that requires thought processes on the levels of Inception and Enter the Void to understand.

Because Rubber will certainly do that to you.

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 143 minutes

Rating: NR

Score: ??/10

So, uh, Enter the Void.

This is a... weird movie. There's really not much to it besides that.

Enter the Void is the story of Oscar, who lives in an apartment with his sister Linda in Japan. The movie is unconventional in that it is shot entirely from Oscar's point of view. He makes a living dealing drugs while his sister makes a living as a stripper. The film begins in their apartment where Linda is leaving for work. Once she's gone, Oscar decides to get high and the audience is treated to a hallucinogenic display, which I can only assume is accurate in its portrayal as the director himself has done drugs.

Some time later, Oscar's friend Alex shows up to escort Oscar to a sale he is to make. On their way, Alex explains the Buddhist concept of death to Alex according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which Alex had lent Oscar. During the sale, things go bad when the police raid the place. While attempting to flush the drugs down a malfunctioning toilet, Oscar yells that he has a gun and will shoot if the police don't back off.

Oscar is then shot through the heart and dies.

What follows is the absolute weirdest series of events I have ever seen on film. And I've seen Legend of Chun-li.

Oscar's... "spirit," I guess, begins by seeing the events that immediately preceded his death. After watching as the news is broken to his sister, his life begins to play out before his eyes. He relives his parents' death in a car crash, being split up from his sister, moving to Japan, etc. etc. He then begins to see the fallout of his death and how it has affected his sisters and friends. The film concludes with a long take of Oscar's "spirit" flying through the rooms of a Japanese love hotel, showing its patrons having sex as their genitals glow. It settles on Linda and Alex having sex and eventually switches to a shot of the sex from inside Linda's vagina and follows Alex's sperm as it travels to an egg. We then watch Oscar being "born" again from his perspective.

This film is... odd. It's difficult to form a concrete opinion on it. It's an incredibly innovative and image-heavy film to be sure, but unless you go into it with an open mind and not expecting a conventional film, you're not likely to enjoy it. In fact, you'll probably find it to be freaky as shit.

Frankly I'm not even sure if I'd say I "liked" it. It certainly was an interesting watch, yes, but I'm not sure if I really... enjoyed it? In the same way that a terribad movie is like watching a train wreck, Enter the Void is sort of like staring at a lava lamp. It's really cool to watch the globs of goop flow up and down, but at the end of it all you're not really sure if you got anything substantial out of it.

To that end I've left the score for this film ambiguous. There's really no way I can fairly rate it because it's not the kind of film you can hold up to the same standards you hold other films to.

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 88 minutes

Rating: NR

Score: 2/10

I'm going to ruin this movie for you, but don't worry, it ruins itself in the first 15 minutes.

Mark is your average, kind of doofy looking guy who has had 5 failed relationships.  The movie opens with his most recent girlfriend dumping him because he can't say the L word.  He is physically incapable to the point where he shoves food into his mouth to avoid saying it, much like those Twix commercials.  So, at this point, it seems to be pretty obvious that Mark is afraid of love.  Moving on...

Oh, wait.  Only the person watching knows that.  You have to wait about an hour for any of the characters to figure it out.  Great.

Mark has this thing where he takes up a new hobby every time a relationship ends.  This time he has decided on karate and goes to what he thinks is a class.  Turns out, it's really a bunch of women trying to trick men into coming to their speed dating group by posting karate flyers around town.  (Seriously though, they couldn't think of a better man-lure than karate?)  After "catching" Mark and explaining their plan, one of the women says, "The problem is, whenever it works, we can never get them to stay."  I wonder why!?  Oh, maybe because you're all crazy?  They are so desperate that they end up paying him $500 just to stick around for a bit and give them guy advice.  Need I remind you, these are adult women.

Mark retells the stories of his first 4 relationships, which are fantastic until the girlfriend wants to move to the next level and he is again incapable of telling them that he loves them.  It's not until 46 minutes into the movie that one of the crazy ladies asks, "Are you afraid of falling in love?" DING DING DING, we have a winner!  Seriously, that's the big thing.  He's afraid of love.  They make it seem like this groundbreaking moment, when in reality, anyone with an IQ above 70 could figure it out in the first few minutes of the movie.

Mark ends up leaving because he is so uncomfortable with the fact that they have unearthed this deep dark secret that he has not even revealed to himself.

Skip ahead 15 minutes and he's back, after having a revelation that he loves girlfriend #4 and decides to get her back.  And he does.  And they live happily ever after.  What a shocking ending.

The only reason I didn't give it a rating of 1 is because there were a few laughs to be had.  For example, while watching a black and white movie, girlfriend #5 asks, "Is it going to change to color anytime soon?"  No.  Be less stupid.  That's something I found myself saying throughout the majority of the movie.

Anyway, don't watch this.  It's predictable and rather boring.  Your time would be better spent thinking of ways that you could spend your time more wisely.

[thisweekonnetflix]

My friend and I watched Isolation, under horror. Its worth the watch.

Oh, thanks for the recommendation! I'll pass it along to our chief horror expert (Gage).

[thisweekonnetflix]

CALL FOR ADMINS

We could use some admins, as of this moment we have two people here to write the reviews.

If you're interested, drop your tumblr e-mail in our ask box and I'll put you on.

That's it!

Thanks.

[thisweekonnetflix]

CALL FOR ADMINS

We could use some admins, as of this moment we have two people here to write the reviews.

If you're interested, drop your tumblr e-mail in our ask box and I'll put you on.

That's it!

Thanks.

[thisweekonnetflix]

[thisweekonnetflix]

Reposting this because I put this up at like 2AM and I doubt any of you saw it.

[thisweekonnetflix]

Rereposting because one of our admins has left due to a lack of time to devote to the blog and that means we could really use more help here.

C'mon, it's fun!

[thisweekonnetflix]

[thisweekonnetflix]

Reposting this because I put this up at like 2AM and I doubt any of you saw it.

[thisweekonnetflix]

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 86 minutes.

Rating: R.

Score: 7/10

All right, so, Smokin' Aces 2!

This is by no means a cinematic masterpiece. Hell, I wouldn't even call it a good film. But good god is it a fun one.

A bounty is put out an FBI desk jockey, Walter Weed. Nobody can seem to figure out why this bounty was put on him, but they do know he's going to be dead soon if they don't do something about it. So they start up a protection service for him.

We're introduced to a colorful cast of assassins. There's a femme fatale, a family of hillbilly killers, a torture specialist, and a crazed a master of disguise. They're all after Weed and the $3 million bounty on his head.

Obviously, they clash. And it's glorious.

This movie has a lot of obvious faults. The explosions look like they were done in Windows Movie Maker, for one. There are some obvious backdrop and editing errors.

But y'know what? This movie is fun. It's pretty much an hour and a half of pure, unadulterated action. Guns and explosions and ridiculous shit everywhere. And it's even pretty well acted. Is it the best movie like this out there? Not at all. But is it a good one? It is, yeah.

Give it a shot if you've got an hour and a half to kill.

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 91 minutes.

Rating: R.

Score: 8/10

Following hot on the heels of my colleague's review of The Machinist is another film by director Brad Anderson. His latest film: 2010's Vanishing on 7th Street.

When most of the city of Detroit suddenly vanishes without warning following a strange blackout, leaving only their clothes behind, 4 seemingly random people who managed to avoid a similar fate must figure out how to safely get out of the city.

The disappearances seem to be tied to the darkness itself, as shadows seem to shift and close in on any source of light they find, draining their power and putting it out. Some will hear voices in the dark... voices of loved ones, people they knew. And should they venture out, they don't return. What's more, days are getting shorter; most of the movie takes place midday and it's black as pitch outside.

The movie plays on the most primal of human fears: That of the dark. And it utilizes this well, several scenes that would normally not be very special are made unnerving by the movement of shadows on the background or periphery of the shot.

Events in the film are told out of order, starting with two characters moments after the initial disappearance and then immediately cutting to days later. What happens between the beginning of the film and the present, as well as the chronology of the other two main characters, is given through exposition and flashbacks.

Aside from creating a tense atmosphere and utilizing the fear of darkness, the film's main tool is ambiguity. There are a lot of unanswered questions in Vanishing, an aspect which would likely cause many people a great deal of frustration (a 2-star rating on Netflix is evident of this). But where some find frustrating, I find immersive. A lack of knowledge puts the audience in the same boat as the characters who spend part of the film discussing what could possibly be happening, why it's happening, and why they were spared the fate of the others. And why should we even know the answers to these questions? The film would become far less interesting if everything was rationalized.

In closing, Vanishing is a tense horror/thriller that utilizes a haunting atmosphere and minimalist storytelling to create a compelling narrative that'll make you afraid to sleep with the lights off.

But of course, it's not very minimalist if you consider the obvious answer: Vashta Nerada.

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 101 minutes.

Rating: R.

Score: 9/10.

Okay, so, after far too long of a hiatus, I'm back and writing reviews of things!

So, The Machinist.

The Machinist centers on Trevor Reznik (played by Christian Bale), the titular machinist suffering from chronic insomnia. He's not slept in a year. He only finds comfort in the company of Stevie, a prostitute who develops feelings for Trevor, and Maria, a waitress at the airport diner that Trevor frequents.

Conflict comes when a mysterious man named Ivan begins working at Trevor's factory. Trevor becomes mildly obsessed with Ivan, and due to this obsession, he causes an accident that results in another employee's loss of an arm.

At about this point, Trevor begins to descend into insanity. And as he does, so does the film itself. Nothing is constant, and what is seen can rarely be believed, by both Trevor and the audience. The movie from this point on is what defines it as a psychological thriller. The uncertainty created here is very similar to that created in Shutter Island and Perfect Blue.

Like always, I'm not going to delve into spoilers. But it does have a very, very good plot twist near the end.

Bale makes a fantastic turn as Trevor. At all times he appears fatigued and incredibly worn. This may have something to do with the massive amount of weight he lost prior to filming.

Aside from Bale, there's not really any big name actors in this. To be honest, the only one whose name I recognized was famed voice of Sam Fisher, Michael Ironside, very convincingly playing the man whose arm is lost due to Trevor.

There isn't much I have to say in the negatives about this movie. Nothing really stuck out to me.

So, yeah, you should watch it!

[thisweekonnetflix]

Figured I'd make a list of our admins and such.

I'm Eddie, the guy that started this blog. My personal is here.

Then there's Gage, the one who's actually proficient at writing funny reviews. His intro post is here and his personal is here.

Next is Don, who has written precisely one review but hopefully he'll do more soon! Personal here and intro post here.

Lastly is Lyn, a cool person who has yet to do reviews. SOON, THOUGH. MAYBE. Personal here.

We're always taking more admins, so drop an ask if you wanna join our review crew!

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 103 Minutes

Rating: PG

Score: 3/10

Let me tell you about my week.

Some time ago, in the dead of summer, I marathoned the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I recently decided to finish the series. And you know what? It was really good!

And then of course I decided to watch the movie. "GAGE WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT," you may scream. To which I say calm the hell down, there's no need to scream. This was actually my third time seeing this movie.

Let's get a few things out of the way right off the bat. Yes, there was controversy surrounding the racist undertones of this film's casting decisions. I will be addressing this LAST, because it is not NEARLY the biggest problem this film had.

Second, I honestly kind of like M. Night Shyamalan. I mean, the guy made Unbreakable, and Unbreakable is a fantastic movie and I highly recommend it if you have not seen it yet.

Third, this is going to be a long one. Make sure you're comfortable.

Let's start off with what this movie did right since that'll take less time and effort. I've always absolutely loved the cinematography of Shyamalan's films. The man knows how to shoot a scene. Last Airbender has a couple fantastic longshots in it that were really fun to watch.

Now let's move to the bad, starting with The Last Airbender's biggest problem: Pacing. Pacing is, of course, the way the movie feels. With most good films, you can feel when the conclusion is coming because it's often the most intense part of the movie. Leading up to that conclusion is usually a fairly consistent build-up of events. The Last Airbender's events are anything but consistent and if the feel of the film's pacing is anything to go by, the film should have ended halfway through.

This is potentially a symptom of the decision to adapt the entire first season into a little over an hour and a half of movie. If they had decided to maybe meet the season halfway or made the movie slightly longer, this could have been remedied, but they didn't do anything like that.

Another aspect of good pacing are the moments between action where the audience gets to breathe and relax. The Last Airbender has those, but they're often too big a contrast with the moments of action that they come off as less of a breather and more as incredibly dull.

Now obviously the biggest draw to a movie based on Avatar: The Last Airbender would be the very act of bending, but this movie manages to screw even that up. Whereas bending in the series was interesting to watch and flowed with the movements of the characters, bending in The Last Airbender is, comparatively, pretty boring and makes no effort to even seem like it's affected by the movements of the benders themselves. While movements in the series had clear effects on each element, in the movie a character could go through and entire kata to do something like throw a rock or blow a gust of wind and there would be no build-up to that even happening.

So finally let's cover the issue of race. In the weeks leading up to the movie, I was... well, not necessarily a "defender" of the casting, but I felt that as long as the actors did a good job and the film was at least somewhat consistent, their race shouldn't matter. And that ended up being about half true. The fire nation and earth kingdom were both pretty consistent racially, and if there was any problem with the air nomads then they weren't onscreen long enough for me to really notice. I figure this would be the case for all of them and that I would go into the film with no real problems. But then I got a look at the water tribes.

The inconsistency with the people of the water tribes was simply so jarring that I could not afford to ignore it. It is incredibly odd to see Sokka and Katara, both as white as the snow they live in, surrounded by several decidedly Native American/Inuit-looking children. This led to many jokes about them being "THE ONLY WHITES IN THE VILLAGE" a la Little Britain.

So that's The Last Airbender. I would not recommend watching it if you have not already hardened yourself with years of terrible films as I have, because it is an INCREDIBLY dull movie. If you feel like you absolutely must watch it, gather some friends for a riffing night. Or grab the movie's Rifftrax and enjoy it on your own!

[thisweekonnetflix]

'Sup.

I'm Don. I sorta got into this because I don't have anything better to do with my spare time. But hey, I've been meaning to watch things on Netflix, so I may as well rant about them in review format, right?

So, yeah. I'm guy #3. It's a party now.

[thisweekonnetflix]

Duration: 116 minutes

Rating: R

Score: 8/10

I came across the movie while I was watching the Matrix Trilogy back in the day (which was about a few months ago, since we haven't even had Netflix for a year) and thought I'd give it a full viewing, since I had seen roughly half of it before on regular TV and thought it was pretty good.

To say that it's "pretty good," if you like action-thrillers, isn't saying much. In Speed's case, it's almost an overstatement at times, what with some incredibly dull lead-acting (which isn't allowed to affect any reviews of a movie ever, because it's Keanu Goddamn Reeves doing the job), and the less-than-stellar special effects. Compare this movie to any action-thriller now, and they're blown out of the park in terms of effects.

But don't throw this idea out the door just yet. I'm telling you what's a bit rough about this movie first before you hear me say why I love it so much. Believe it or not, a lot of it has to do with the plot.

So there's our main protagonist, Jack Traven, who's with the LAPD, and he and his buddy Harry Temple save a bunch of people in a skyscraper from this crazy retired police officer guy, Howard Payne, who likes playing mind games with bombs for some reason. He blows himself up as they escape. Some villain.

Right, so the next day a bus blows up. Uh, okay then. Traven gets a call on a payphone from Payne, who's not actually dead (wait, what), about a bus that has a bomb on it. You know, something that explodes and kills people. And apparently, the bomb arms itself if the bus goes above 50 miles per hour, and explodes if it goes below.

Well, shit.

It's about this where the movie itself gets most of its thumbs-ups from yours truly. Reeves eventually catches the bus with the bomb on it and then has to find it, with the passengers still on it. The fear of danger heightens here, because as a viewer, you see the normal people on a bus that's on a course for complete destruction, and you feel like you're with them, about to die at any time. A lot of credit for this fear doesn't go to Keanu's acting, but Dennis Hopper's, who plays Payne. He's a damn scary villain for a retired police officer character, and every time he gives Traven a call, you know shit's about to hit the fan. There's also Sandra Bullock as the lead actress. She does a pretty good job too. Y'know, because she got the Saturn Award for this movie as well as two MTV Movie Awards. Other than that, she's just the token woman for the lead protagonist to woo with his awesomeness.

See, it's the fact that I feel like I'm a part of the bus that makes me actually like this movie. The fact that it's completely possible for a bomb to be rigged on a public bus to explode at a certain speed. It just...it freaks me the hell out, man. That's why it's so hard to say negative things about the bus scenes, especially when they're the most action-y compared to the rest of the movie. I'm not even kidding you--if I hadn't felt so into this movie, I would've slammed it harder because of the terrible use of effects; the ending is absolutely terrible and anti-climactic in every shape and form. In fact, I'd probably just be writing about the soundtrack of the movie, which is pretty amazing on its own, by the way.

But this movie, all in all, does a very good job of keeping its viewers on the edge of their seats; whether it's the fact that they have to jump a several-hundred-yard gap in the road with a bus, or the fact that Reeves ends up fighting Payne to the death on a freaking SUBWAY TRAIN (which is the greatest demonstration of the terrible special effects in the movie, by the way, but it's still badass as hell), you're clinging onto whatever hope you can that Traven gets to save the day.

Totally recommend watching this movie.