Category Archives: Instant Gratification

Instant Gratification: “Z for Zachariah” and four other good movies on Amazon and Netflix

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Pick of the Week: “Z for Zachariah” (Amazon Prime) — My full review is here. Despite a stellar cast that includes Margot Robbie (“Suicide Squad”), Chris Pine (“Star Trek Beyond”) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), this Craig Zobel sci-fi drama never really caught fire and never played theatrically in Madison. Too bad, because it downplays the sci-fi and plays up the character drama, set in an idyllic valley apparently immune to the ravages of an apocalypse. A man and a woman meet there. And then another man shows up, setting up a love triangle with perhaps the future of humanity at stake.

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Instant Gratification: “The Big Short” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix and Hulu

Left to right: Steve Carell plays Mark Baum and Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett in The Big Short from Paramount Pictures and Regency Enterprises

Left to right: Steve Carell plays Mark Baum and Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett in The Big Short from Paramount Pictures and Regency Enterprises

Pick of the Week: “The Big Short“ (Netflix) — My full review is here. Adam McKay has satirized ’70s newsmen (“Anchorman”) and buddy cop movies (“The Other Guys”), but his wit has never been sharper or put to better use than against the arrogant idiocy of bankers who precipitated the 2008 financial meltdown. Working from Michael Lewis’ book and using a ridiculously good cast, McKay keeps us laughing even as we’re learning what happened, and why we should be so pissed off about it.

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Instant Gratification: “Lost in America” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix

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Pick of the week: “Lost in America” (Netflix) — Albert Brooks fan rejoice, as Netflix is now streaming all the comedies he wrote and directed. Maybe give a miss to “The Muse,” but there are some comic masterpieces here, including “Defending Your Life,” “Modern Romance” and this 1985 gem  starring Brooks and Julie Hagerty as an upwardly mobile couple who decide to “drop out” of society, only to find life out of the rat race isn’t so comfortable. Even in a top-of-the-line RV.

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Instant Gratification: “Spotlight” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix

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Pick of the week: “Spotlight“ — My full review is here. Last year’s Best Picture winner was something of an underdog, fitting for a complex, cool-headed but quietly furious drama about a team of Boston Globe reporters who painstakingly unearth a conspiracy of silence around priest abuse in the Catholic Church. Writer-director Tom McCarthy avoids Hollywood melodrama, instead showing us the relentless legwork that went into reporting the story, making things such as searching through archives and interviewing witnesses the stuff of high drama, and heroism.

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Instant Gratification: “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” and four other good movies new to Netflix and Amazon Prime

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Pick of the Week: “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” (Netflix): My full review is here. Netflix dropped this excellent documentary by UW-Madison graduate Bill Siegel about a month ago, but wisely picked it back up after the death of Ali. It’s a terrific look inside Ali’s struggles in the 1960s against the Vietnam War and for civil rights, a fight that got him banned from boxing and made him a pariah for many white Americans. While he is being rightfully lionized, this film is an important reminder of how much of the country turned its back on him and what he stood for.

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Instant Gratification: “Jurassic Park” and four other good movies new to Netflix

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Pick of the week: “Jurassic Park“ — Perhaps getting ready to release “Jurassic World” later this summer, Netflix has posted both “Jurassic Park” and the sequels, “The Lost World” and “Jurassic Park III,” on June 1. Especially when compared next to the bloated and unfocused “Jurassic World,” Steven Spielberg’s original “Park” is a perfectly-balanced summer movie, with just the right amounts of humor, horror, thrills and wonder. “Lost World” seemed like more of the same upon first viewing, but has some dynamite suspense sequences. And “III” is a fun and occasionally clever B-movie that follows in the same big footsteps.

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Instant Gratification: “Goosebumps” and four other good movies to watch on streaming

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Pick of the week: “Goosebumps” (Netflix) — I was pretty skeptical of a big-budget version of R.L. Stine’s quickie kiddie horror novels, but this adaptation starring Jack Black is fast-moving, funny and just the right amount of scary. It’s the best Joe Dante movie Joe Dante didn’t make.

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Instant Gratification: “A.C.O.D.” and four other good movies new to Netflix

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“A.C.O.D.” — My full review is here. UW-Madison grad Ben Karlin wrote the screenplay for this sharp comedy, in which Adam Scott plays an Adult Child of Divorce still dealing with feuding parents Richard Jenkins and Catherine O’Hara. Some might describe the movie as a little sitcommy, although that’s probably a testament to how good sitcoms are these days.

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Instant Gratification: “Begin Again” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix

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Pick of the week: “Begin Again” — It’s not “Once.” It’s not “Sing Street.” But I would argue that John Carney’s second feature, starring Mark Ruffalo as a down-on-his-luck music producer who thinks he’s found a star in singer-songwriter Keira Knightley, does capture the joyful spirit of music and creation. The Cee Lo cameo is ill-advised in retrospect, of course.

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Instant Gratification: “Pawn Sacrifice” and four other good movies to watch on Amazon Prime and Netflix

FILM STILL - PAWN SACRIFICE - Liev Schreiber (left) stars as Boris Spassky and Tobey Maguire (right) stars as Bobby Fischer in Edward Zwick's PAWN SACRIFICE, a Bleecker Street release. Date Added 8/4/2015 3:25:00 PM Addtl. Info Credit: Takashi Seida

FILM STILL – PAWN SACRIFICE – Liev Schreiber (left) stars as Boris Spassky and Tobey Maguire (right) stars as Bobby Fischer in Edward Zwick’s PAWN SACRIFICE, a Bleecker Street release. Date Added 8/4/2015 3:25:00 PM Addtl. Info Credit: Takashi Seida

“Pawn Sacrifice” (Amazon Prime) — My full review is here. Tobey Maguire gives a bravura and boldly unlikable performance as Bobby Fischer, the unstable chess wizard who played a series of high-profile matches against Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) in 1971. The film has the contours of a sports movie but the depth of a character study, mixing archival footage and reenactments to tell a fascinating story.

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