Welcome to your weekly streaming column, where you’ll get more data than a hobo with a licked finger lifted high into the wind. This week has some legit options, Hollywood knows we have money again, and they aim to take it. They’re a bit like my high school teacher and my virginity in that respect.
As always, we’ll start with the streaming Netflix and then segue into the paid streaming rentals. Let’s get it on!
Top Netflix Streamer of the Week
Orange is the New Black Season Two, June 6
Love this show, and if you’ve got a Netflix subscription it is a zero-brainer. Ya just gotta watch. It has everything! Lesbian action, sexual coercion, prison, and the guy from American Pie, Mr. Biggs. It’s based on a true story, though I’m quite certain it has been modified to fit our dramatic screen because there’s no way in hell that chick from “That ’70s Show”, the preppy one, would find her sweet tail in prison. We all know the prison system is massively racially biased, and redheads with glasses represent a sliver of the pie chart that’s smaller than Vince’s manhood.
Streamability: You could watch season one and two back-to-back – now that’s a freakin’ weekend. Bounce, bounce, bounce!
Netflix Streaming Curio of the Week
Left Behind, June 1
First off, the box art is amazingly hilarious. Kirk Cameron looking off into the distance as airplane wheels prepare land on him. Next up, over here in my philosopher’s corner, I have this theory that naysayers (people who say “nay”) believe the world is ending because they are personally significant. In other words, we all sort of look at the world and say, “Whelp, after 13 billion years it’s probably high time this whole ship went down, with myself at the helm. It’s all been leading up to me!”
I love this idea, and I love the rapture too. I could talk for years about it. All the nice people ported right up into heaven, leaving me and my dog (he’s an asshole) to roam the Earth looking for a lady of the night (also a sinner). Left Behind is a masterpiece, and we’re not going to get this kind of thing anymore when robots are carrying us around on big pillows. Savor it.
Streamability: I’m going to go with “yep”, and with a sixer of Natty.
Netflix Streaming Movie Only I Like
Reign Over Me, June 1
I’m prone to melancholy, and so I did much in the way of soul-searching with this film. Because I loved it, and I loved Adam Sandler in it, especially juxtaposed against all the subpar work he normally does. He’s capable of so much more! Punch Drunk Love is a real movie, as is Spanglish and the one with Seth Rogen (mostly).
We’ll get back to SandMan in a moment, but first a few comments on Reign Over Me. It features an bi-racial friendship onscreen that has nothing to do with race. Has that ever happened in cinema before? It’s got that great Springsteen hook, and Liv Tyler as an attractive therapist. Mmmmmm, Liv Tyler giving therapy and maybe prescribing medicine. Enjoyable.
As for Sandler, we’ve gotten the one we deserve. I hate to be like that, but everyone watches Click and Grown Ups and then sits around and complains nothing is worth watching. We could have forced everyone to see real Sandler movies, given him awards that didn’t rhyme with “Creople’s Choice Award”, and then gotten a slew (A SLEW) of real work from him. He’s already got money, he doesn’t need to take these crap roles. But when his choices are 1) be ignored or 2) hang out with his friends and screw around for huge dollars you can understand why he does what he does. Anyway, that’s my rant. Nothing really groundbreaking, but I feel like it at least helped me achieve my word count.
Streamability: I wish you would, for the children.
Netflix Streaming Movie That Didn’t Age Well
Rudy, June 1
I would maintain that Rudy doesn’t hold up, though the reasoning is sort of unfair. It struggles these days because the story is so played out, partly because of Rudy‘s success; we’ve all seen 750 sports underdog stories. Hell, they even made the movie Secretariat into an underdog tale, even though he was a 1-10 favorite at the Belmont. The Fighter, though well done, was an underdog tale. Dodgeball. The one where Mark Wahlberg was a Philadelphia Eagle. You get the idea.
Streamability: I mean, if you’re bored.
Top Netflix Streaming Documentary
The Good Son: The Life of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, June 1
I really only included this so I could embed the Warren Zevon song about it after the trailer. Mission accomplished. But it should be noted that if this sort of thing happened today it would keep ESPN busy for about six months straight. In fact, I could see someone over there actually planning a vast global conspiracy to accomplish just that scenario. Keep an eye out for that.
Streamability: You tell me.
Netflix Streaming for the Recently Born
Apocalypse Now, June 1
You never forget the first time you watch Apocalypse Now. I was in a basement and we passed around a few bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. That’s the official drink to have when you’re too young to be drinking, but even if you DO get caught, the adults will still probably laugh it off, because it’s not as though it is Tequila shots off a stripper. Those days come later. Like a week after you’ve watched Apocalypse Now and become a full-fledged man.
Streamability: Who hasn’t seen this?
Paid Titles
Paid Streaming Where the Book is Better
Lone Survivor, June 3
I can’t speak to the quality of the film, the book was plenty effective enough for this guy. True stories are always too horrific for me to inbibe visually, so I generally just skip them unless someone pays me thousands of dollars. Great book though.
Streamability: I can’t emotionally get there. (Amazon Instant, $4.99)
Paid Streaming You Didn’t Know Was a Thing
Romeo & Juliet (2013), June 3
Why do they remake this every four minutes? Is it because no one has to pay Shakespeare royalties? And what kind of odd follow-up was this for Hailee Steinfeld to accept after True Grit? She could have booked any film in the Western genre that needed a young and slightly hardscrabble teen. Instead she went with the Bard, and not the Baz Lurhmann one either. Less than 200,000 people saw this in theaters, and even less will see it on home video. After that it will remain alive only on the periphery of human memory, like that Facebook request where you’re not quite sure if it is from a former co-worker or high school acquaintance, so you just leave it there forever, in limbo.
Streamability: Ha, no. (Amazon Instant, $4.99)
Paid Streaming that’s Slightly Underrated
Robocop, June 3
This is going to sound controversial, but I think the Robocop sequel was slightly better, but only in that it didn’t make me nearly throw up. Remember the original, how graphic and amazingly brutal it was? This new one doesn’t have that, it’s more of a sci-fi than a “whoa, Detroit is the WORST” sort of film. No one shoots the original human guy like 600 times. The only thing keeping it from being “truly” good is the whole relationship this fella has with his wife and kid. It’s the most bonkers over-the-top sentimental nonsense, and the movie totally could have bailed on the entire angle. Instead they figured they’d throw it in there just in case they could convince six or seven date nights to give it a chance. Other than that, full speed ahead!
Streamability: Doooooooooo it. (Amazon Instant, $4.99)
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