For this week’s edition of, well, This Week in Streaming, I’ve rounded up a nice variety of films from Hulu and Netflix, as well as one very special Video on Demand choice, of which you can watch the first seven minutes of below, for you all to watch while you stay indoors and think about what it is you did to get that bracelet on your ankle in the first place. I also threw in a TV series to shake things up and keep us all on our toes, but mainly so I can find out if anyone else is watching it or if it’s just my loser ass.
Anyway, fire up your viewing screens of choice and get ready to pass judgment like only you can, as this week’s streaming picks include:
Wet and Reckless
My Awkward Sexual Adventure
Good Dick
Munchie
Fred Won’t Move Out
Antiviral
Valley of the Heart’s Delight
Note to Self
The Babysitters
Ripper Street
Already seen ‘em all? Well zip it and don’t spoil these fine or possibly terrible movies for the rest of us.
Video on Demand Pick of the Week
Wet and Reckless
Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Lucas Till, Sean Whalen, Jason Trost
A reality television show goes horribly wrong forcing its ill-equipped stars to hunt for buried treasure to find a way home.
Random YouTube Comment: “lmao. This is fucking amazing!”
Should You Watch It? I say yes, but decide for yourselves, as the folks behind Wet and Reckless, namely Jason Trost of The FP, were kind enough to let us all sneak a peek at the first seven minutes of the film.
My Awkward Sexual Adventure
Starring: Jonas Chernick, Emily Hampshire, Sarah Manninen, Vik Sahay, Melissa Elias, Tamara Gorski
Dumped over his lack of finesse in the bedroom, a hapless accountant strikes up a deal with a stripper: He’ll whip her dwindling finances into shape, and she’ll teach him how to be a better lover.
Random Netflix User Review: “I am dating Jordan. When I saw this pop up I was really unsure if I should or wanted to watch it because I’m dating someone who said he was absolutely terrible at sex before he started dating me (both of us are over 40). But I also wanted to watch it to get a better perspective of what it’s like for the guy in this case. I’m really glad I did. It’s written wonderfully, the actors play their parts perfectly and there is a perfect balance of comedy and endearment. It really goes to show that sex (on any level) is just as important as communication is in a relationship. As for my Jordan… he actually bought some cheezy instructional DVDs that actually teach. Between those DVDs and us talking about what we each like, the sex is amazing… wish I could say that to the women who broke up with him because the sex was bad ;p”
Should You Watch It? Only if that reviewer promises to stop sharing her sexual problems on Netflix… mom.
Good Dick
Starring: Marianna Palka, Jason Ritter, Tom Arnold, Martin Starr
A troubled young woman spends her days watching porn in her claustrophobic apartment. An eccentric young man spends his days serving her in a video store. The harder he tries to give himself to her the more she pushes him away.
Random Hulu User Review: “Headlines: Indie Star power falls flat. I showed this movie to three film classes and 80% wanted to give up after the first 20 min. They found the character a creeper. They were scared off by all his “devotions”. I’m reading this and people who thought he was cute, liked the movie. interesting. But if a person did what he did in the first 30 min to them in real life, I think everyone who call the police. Remember people, he watched her through the window then stalked her.”
Should You Watch It? I think everyone should watch it just based on Johnny Film Professor’s Facebook review up there. The guy writes choppier sentences than I do. (But I’m taking away points for the stupid tagline on the DVD cover.)
Munchie
Starring: Loni Anderson, Andrew Stevens, Jaime McEnnan, Arte Johnson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Dom DeLuise
After discovering an odd creature in a mine, young Gage runs home only to learn the “Munchie” has followed him and wants to ward off the bullies who’ve been hassling him at school. But the Munchie’s helpful intentions keep landing Gage into trouble!
Random Netflix User Review: “Don’t be fooled by the box art, kids. At no time in this dull disappointment does the Munchie character ride a pizza like a surfboard. The gags are mostly very tired, the effects unconvincing (the Munchie puppet can barely move its arms, and can’t sit, and has all the animation of a plank of wood), and Dom DeLuise (the voice of Munchie) seems sadly uninspired.”
Should You Watch It? Yes, for the memory of our teen crushes on a then-sane Jennifer Love Hewitt, and also because that review made me laugh.
Fred Won’t Move Out
Starring: Elliott Gould, Fred Melamed, Judith Roberts
With levity and sadness, two grown children and their aging parents struggle with the decision whether the older generation should stay in the house where they have lived for fifty years.
Random Hulu User Review: “IT MADE ME THINK OF MY LOVING PARENT..IT WAS SO HEART WARMING TO ME…IT MAKES ME THINK OF AGING LOVING PARENTS EVERY WHERE.”
Should You Watch It? It sounds really depressing and I don’t like depressing movies, because they make me look like I have feelings and you can’t do pushups while crying, bros.
Antiviral
Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Douglas Smith, Joe Pingue, Nicholas Campbell, Sheila McCarthy, Wendy Crewson, Nenna Abuwa, Malcolm McDowell
This wild sci-fi vision imagines a freaky future where diseases caught by celebrities are put on the market for injection by their obsessed fans. Virus dealer Syd March makes a big mistake when he gives himself the same bug that killed a superstar.
Random Netflix User Review: “Ive had more enjoyable experiences with actual viruses than this film. Don’t waste your time. Please. If your coming to this film hoping for a next VideoDrome, Alien, Jacobs Ladder, Machinist, any film with originality that engages and unnerves you, just Stop. Stop right now. This films plot is about a paragraph long and poorly written at that. Terrible overacting, and pretension abound in this contrived flim. Awful.”
Should You Watch It? I tend to ignore the opinions of people who make the your/you’re mistake and spell film “flim,” so I’d say give this one a shot if you’re into futuristic horrors. The more important question is whether or not the star has thought about dropping the Landry from his name so people don’t confuse him with the quarterback Landry Jones. Or maybe he likes that. Actors are strange.
Valley of the Heart’s Delight
Starring: Gabriel Mann, Pete Postlethwaite, Emily Harrison
When the kidnapping of the scion of a wealthy retailer ignites a firestorm of suspicion and rage in idyllic, Depression-era San Jose, California, a principled young reporter takes on the powers-that-be to prevent the lynching of two men he believes are innocent. Story inspired by the only eyewitness account of the actual kidnapping. All characters are fictional and have no resemblance to anyone living or dead.
Random Hulu User Review: “this may be one of the worst flicks I’ve ever seen.”
Should You Watch It? Pete Postlethwaite is one of those actors who falls into my “I’m gonna give this a chance” category because he was pretty awesome.
Note to Self
Starring: Christian Keyes, Richard T. Jones, Letoya Luckett, Brian McKnight, Eva Pigford, Clifton Powell, Jason Weaver
Curtis King, a handsome and popular student athlete, may know his way around the court, but his heart still needs a game plan. When he decides to keep a journal to give his life a new direction, the path leads him straight to the love he needed most.
Random Netflix User Review: “Christian Keyes I am so very proud of you! I have been following your career since you started with Tyler Perry! I knew that you would be a huge success! And watching this movie that you wrote just prove to me just how far you have come! With an all-star cast of my favorites actors, and singers! I wish that I could give this movie 10 gold stars! What a very uplifting movie for all men at any age to learn and grow from! What a great and uplifting movie, that I will continue to watch over and over again!MLB”
Should You Watch It? Don’t worry, MLB, I’m sure Christian read your review and is super stoked. That said, if I’m going to watch a basketball movie these days, it needs to give me something more than a dude falling in love. I need aliens, magic shoes or Rosie Perez winning on Jeopardy! at the very least.
The Babysitters
Starring: Katherine Waterston, John Leguizamo, Cynthia Nixon, Andy Comeau, Lauren Birkell, Denis O’Hare, Halley Wegryn Gross, Ethan Phillips, Alexandra Daddario, Spencer Treat Clark
When honors high school student Shirley (Katherine Waterston) becomes romantically entangled with Michael (John Leguizamo), the married father of one of her baby-sitting clients, she quickly recognizes the affair’s potential for turning a profit. The enterprising Shirley soon sets up a teenage prostitution ring made up of school chums who she matches up with Michael’s bored married friends, all under the guise of baby-sitting.
Random Hulu User Review: “Awesome movie! John Leguizamo is Soooo HOT.”
Should You Watch It? Sure, have a blast. I was going through the comments on this video on Hulu, and people are just f*cking crazy now. One guy was calling out people by their professions and whatever other information that Facebook makes available for watching what he thinks is porn, while another woman made it about Trayvon Martin and a Yahoo! commenter showed up to bash the American education system. The Internet is remarkable.
Ripper Street
Starring: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Amanda Hale, Charlene McKenna, Lucy Cohu, Jonathan Barnwell, David Wilmot, David Dawson, Clive Russell
In April 1889 — six months after the last Jack the Ripper killing — East London is emerging into a fragile peace, hopeful that the murderer’s reign of terror might have finally run its course.
Random Netflix User Review: “Well written and acted Victorian crime drama –not Edwardian, which was post 1902. One has to expand their credibility gap to accept that these sleuths-of-the-day have all the collective criminal and forensic/medical knowledge in the world at the time to solve murders. Other than that, it’s quite entertaining.”
Should You Watch It? I’ve really enjoyed the episodes that I’ve watched, but I fell behind because I felt like no one else was watching it. It wasn’t really what I expected either, but I still feel like this show should be talked about more.