Month: October 2011

Watch Instantly Now!

Here are some great new films streaming on Netflix currently that you should check out.

The Trip (2010, dir. Michael Winterbottom) – Coogan and Brydon travel Northern England eating and doing impressions

The Last Exorcism (2010, dir. Daniel Stamm) – one of the few found footage horror films that isn’t completely terrible

Hell House (2001) – Docu about a church’s Halloween time religious fear based haunted house

A Town Called Panic (2009) – Bizarre French stop motion animated comedy

Nursery University (2008) – Docu about the ultra competitive preschool industry in NYC

Happy Go Lucky (2008) – Brit Mike Leigh’s character study of an unendingly exuberant young woman

Midnight Cowboy (1969) – Classic film starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman

TV Review: American Horror Story

American Horror Story (created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk)
Starring Dylan McDermott, Connie Britton, Taissa Farmiga, Evan Peters, Denis O’Hare, Jessica Lange,  Frances Conroy, Jamie Brewer

Horror is tricky genre to tackle on television. It traditionally ends up in the anthology format and the few occasions it hasn’t been an anthology it hasn’t stayed pure horror, typically becoming a drama with a horror veneer (Dark Shadows, The Walking Dead). The minds behind Glee and Nip/Tuck have decided to create a new horror serial that actually cements its legs firmly in the tropes of the genre. I have to admit, during the promotions of the show during the late summer I wasn’t really sold. However, after viewing the opening five minutes of the pilot I was hooked. Murphy and Falchuk have managed to create an ongoing series that actually gets what makes horror so horrific.

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Movie Review: Drive

Drive (2011, dir. Nicholas Winding Refn)
Starring Ryan Gosling, Cary Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks

There is a sort of anti-hero, noted in films like Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai or Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, who is the epitome of the strong silent type. So too in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive, we have the hero who chooses to act, rather than speak. Its also a role that matches so perfectly with its star, Ryan Gosling, its hard to imagine anyone else playing the part (Hugh Jackman was attached for a time). Drive is a deceptive film in its public perception, having been marketed as a Fast & The Furious analogue, though it is anything but. Drive is a methodical, existential, and ultimately pop 80s movie.

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