Pick of the week: “Exit Through the Gift Shop” — My full review is here. Street artist Banksy’s playful (and possibly apocryphal) documentary about a graffiti artist wannabe who ends up becoming more successful than his ideals is a wicked satire on the artist in the age of branding.
Pick of the week: “Short Term 12“ — My full review is here. Writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton drew from his own experiences working in a group home for troubled youth to make this wonderful film, shot through with humor, insight and honesty. The film doesn’t romanticize or trivialize the huge obstacles that some teens have to overcome, but shows that it can happen with a patient, constant application of love from others.
It’s all classic movies this week (well, movies that are a decade old at least), in this week’s edition of Instant Gratification.
Pick of the week: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind“: Steven Spielberg’s 1977 UFO thriller stands the test of time because it’s so grounded, with Richard Dreyfuss and the other folks obsessed with Devil’s Tower seemingly like real middle-class people. Looking back, the film plays like a bridge between the personal filmmaking of 1970s auteurs and the blockbusters still to come.
Pick of the week: “Mud“ — Writer-director Jeff Nichols’ terrific films feels like a modern-day updating of a classic boys’ adventure tale mixed with a true slice of Southern life, as two boys help a mysterious stranger (Matthew McConaughey in mid-career Renaissance) hiding out on a remote island. The film’s understanding of its characters and their environs feels authentic; this movie was made by people who’ve been there.
Pick of the week: “Gattaca“ — Every time Andrew Niccol makes another movie, I hope that he’s made another film worthy of his 1997 sci-fi classic, set in a modern society where your life is predetermined by your genetics. It’s a great combination of style, ideas and action — a formula Niccol has never been able to replicate (“In Time”?)
Pick of the week: “Das Boot: Director’s Cut“: Wolfgang Petersen’s film about the tense mission of a German U-Boat is a claustrophobic masterpiece, and this director’s cut adds another hour of footage to the film.
The start of a new month means a lot more movies arriving onto Netflix Instant, including some indie gems and bonafide movie classics of the type you might find randomly appearing in an Oscar montage.
For some reason, a bunch of really good documentaries from the past few years just went up on Netflix Instant in the last few days. So I’m going to break protocol this week and do an all-doc edition of Instant Gratification, with subjects ranging from sports to politics to a very strange romance.
The pickins’ are a little light this week, perhaps because Netflix assumed its audience would be too busy streaming the second season of “House of Cards” to watch a movie. But I’ve pulled together a list of five good movies for every mood that just began streaming recently.
The big news on Netflix Instant this week is that the second season of “House of Cards” will drop on Valentine’s Day, so Netflix may understandably not want to detract from the binge-watching with a lot of new movies. Still, here are five recent additions worth your streaming time.
Pick of the week: “A Fistful of Dollars“: I highlighted “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” last week, so it’s time to look at Clint Eastwood’s first collaboration with Sergio Leone, a visceral update on “Yojimbo” in which Clint plays two rival gangs off against each other. Now we just need Instant to add “For a Few Dollars More.”
Madison Movie 