With Wednesday's announcement that Netflix InstantWatch is finally coming on the Nintendo Wii this Spring, Netflix now has the video game market in the palm of their hands. With all three next-gen systems providing it and phenomenal movie choices added every few days, the company has revitalized their home movie service. I freely admit that my satisfaction with Netflix has been rocky in the past, but in the recent couple of years, the growth of their streaming service has been so gratifying that it makes their DVD delivery service almost irrelevant.
Here are some of the great selections not to miss, newly available on Instant Watch this week.
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BIG FAN
Comedian Patton Oswalt, who first claimed cinematic acclaim with his voice performance in Ratatouille, here tries his hand at something much darker and pathetically sad. In truth, I've had a glimpse of that in his memorable appearance in an episode of Dollhouse, but here we see the full impressive package as a man-child assaulted by his favorite NY Giants quarterback. The film is slight and misses a lot of its own great set-ups, but it has an impressive air of authenticity in its portrayal of working class sports fanaticism and the petty rivalries born out of it.
GODZILLA: FINAL WARS
Supposedly the last Godzilla movie by Toho for at least 10 years, Final Wars is the 50th anniversary film that pits the G-Man against 50-years' history of his fellow famous kaiju monsters. An epic brawl of a movie directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus, Azumi, Midnight Meat Train), this is the most fun Godzilla flick since Destroy All Monsters! Don't miss it, and clap heartily when the true Godzilla bitchslaps the hell out of Roland Emmerich's American Godzilla.
SOMERS TOWN
One of the movies that made my overlooked films of 2009 list—and isn't that enough to put it on your queue? Ahem—Somers Town is a small, intimate movie about two young teens from different backgrounds spending their first summer in London together. It's a coming-of-age story that, while offering nothing new in terms of its exploration of growing up, is rich in atmosphere and charm.
LAKE TAHOE
Lake Tahoe almost made it to the aforementioned overlooked films list, but alas was trumped by others. I did a short review of the movie last April for the San Francisco International Film Festival, and it has stuck with me since. Fernando Eimbcke uses the long takes and droll humor to make this oddly mesmerizing film affecting and ultimately memorable.
FAIL-SAFE
Sydney Lumet's Fail-Safe is largely considered to be an interesting companion film to the undoubtedly much more famous Dr. Strangelove (which, by the way, is also available on Instant Watch). Released on the same year by the same studio and using virtually the exact same plot, so much so that a lawsuit was involved. They're two very different films—one's a flippant comedy and the other's a taut thriller. Luckily for Stanley Kubrick, his satiric Strangelove was released first, so no one would've considered it a Fail-Safe parody. Lumet's a master of the close-quarters suspense, and here he raises the stakes to the possibility of a global meltdown.
