••••• Drive is hands down one of the best new movies you’ll find on Netflix. I finished watching it a few minutes ago (my second viewing) and would eagerly watch it again right now if I didn’t have to get up early for work. Though its characters are as shallow as they come, their roles in the narrative (and some obvious symbolism) thread the film with a complex subtext that I’m finding more fun and satisfying to work out after my second viewing than after my first. Drive is colorful and loud (in the right places) and the music is electric. More than all that, though, it’s captivating, enjoyable, and entertaining. And I’m gushing. Watch it. Synopsis: A Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver is lured from his isolated life by a lovely neighbor and her young son. His newfound peace is shattered, however, when her violent husband is released from prison.
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The Chaser is a fine example of that unmistakeable genre, South Korean thriller. It can be accurately described in standard review adjectives like action-packed and enthralling (Netflix uses gritty and gripping), but what really sticks out here is the plot. It’s a bit far-fetched that the protagonist is a pimp/ex-cop, [MINOR SPOILER] but if that’s what it takes to kick off a story in which the bad guy gets caught very early on and spends the rest of the film using the police to mess with the main character, it’s worth the ridiculosity. [END SPOILER].  If you liked I Saw the Devil, chances are you’ll find The Chaser comparably enjoyable. If you haven’t seen I Saw the Devil, though, start there. It’s better. Synopsis: When his escorts start disappearing without settling their debts, cash-strapped pimp — and former police detective — Joong-ho (Yun-seok Kim) draws upon the skills of his old job to track down the recently missing Mi-Jin (Yeong-hie Seo). Cynical Joong-ho assumes a rival pimp has been siphoning off his labor pool, but it isn’t long before our hero closes in on the real and deadly truth in this gritty and gripping South Korean thriller.
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•••— Religulous is a documentary by (with?) Bill Maher that poses one question: How can otherwise smart people believe Biblical fairy tales are historical fact? It’s an important question worthy of exploration. Unfortunately, Maher spends the film mocking religious people instead of trying to answer it. In interview after interview, Maher teases, to their faces, people who were obviously duped into appearing in a atheist-leaning documentary. It’s not that I feel bad for these people, but he hardly pretends to be trying to examine a topic. He just asks people of various faiths to admit to their ridiculous beliefs, then ridicules them for it.  Can you discredit faith with comedy alone? Religulous tries. It’s entertaining, but I wanted more out of the documentary than a series of interview/roasts.  Netflix it. Synopsis: Politically provocative talk show host Bill Maher skewers the current state of organized religion in this hot-button documentary.
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••••- THE MIST (quick pick posted from iPhone)
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••••• The poster for Submarine is fantastic. The film is even better. It’s a story about high school and family and love and being a teenager. Our protagonist/narrator is one of those unbelievably precocious types, wittier than any real 15-year-old.  The trope isn’t as annoying in Submarine as in other movies because the character is so awkward and his intelligence is mostly revealed only to the audience through voiceover narration. It helps that he’s funny (not always on purpose) and likable and embarrassingly easy to identify with.  Submarine is funny and dramatic and quirky and a whole lot of other adjectives. It’s something like what I imagined a British Wes Anderson movie might be. The synopsis below is only the very basic early premise of the film, so don’t take it too seriously. Watch watch watch Synopsis: In this captivating coming-of-age story with an offbeat edge, 15-year-old Oliver Tate has two big ambitions: to save his parents’ marriage via carefully plotted intervention and to lose his virginity before his next birthday.
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••••• Written by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Adaptation is a comedic meta-drama about Charlie Kaufman writing Adaptation. Nicholas Cage stars as Kaufman and his twin brother, Donald, seamlessly interacting with himself on screen. This is a strange and wonderful film about creativity. Watch it twice for best results. Synopsis: In this offbeat indie tale, Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman battles immense feelings of insecurity and impotence as he struggles to adapt The Orchid Thief — a book about a mercurial orchid poacher named John Laroche.
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••••- The Lincoln Lawyer is surprisingly fun for a courtroom drama. Matthew McConaughey plays the edgy hotshot lawyer. Ryan Phillippe plays the entitled bro client. Of course things get complicated. Solid tension-building makes for an entertaining 2 hours. See? Synopsis: Tasked with defending rich lothario Louis Roulet, who’s been charged with assault, lawyer Mick Haller finds himself and his family in danger when he deduces the truth behind this and former cases he’s worked on.
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••••• Enter the Void, one of my favorite movies, is also one of the trippiest and most intense films you’ll find on Netflix. It is a movie about death, told in the first-person, from the perspective of a young American who dies while tripping on DMT in Japan.  This is the anti-Tree of Life. It tells a life’s story through the experience of a consciousness after death. Writer/director Gaspar Noe uses neon and druggy visual effects in ways you’ll just have to see to understand. The credits sequence alone is enough to blow a sober mind.   Enter the Void is a bright movie with dark themes. It’s main character led a tragic life, and his consciousness revisits the worst of his past and his friends’ and family’s present. This is a Great Movie, but it’s not a cheerful one. Enter at your own risk. Synopsis: When Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a foreign drug dealer living in Tokyo with his stripper sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta), is fatally shot in a police raid, his spirit leaves his body in a hallucinatory odyssey that merges his past, present and future into a chaotic whole. This riveting third film from provocative French auteur Gaspar Noe screened in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Cyril Roy co-stars.
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••—- I love Noah Baumbach movies. I did not love Margot at the Wedding. Maybe it’s because I went in with my hopes too high, but I feel about this movie the way a lot of people (who I insisted and still insist were wrong) feel about Greenberg: namely that its characters are unlikeable and that nothing happens. That’s hyperbole. Of course things happen. Just not things I cared about at all. And everyone except Jack Black’s character is tedious to watch (though Jack Black’s character really is fantastic). Really the whole film is, to use Margot’s own words, “insufferable.” Now I’m going to go count the critics who made that same connection. It’s so easy! Netflix if you want. Synopsis: After arriving to attend the wedding of her semi-estranged sister, a judgmental writer quickly takes a dislike to her sibling’s unemployed fiancé and proceeds to radiate turmoil with her sniping — which threatens to put an end to the nuptials.
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••••- A British gangster movie in the same vein as Lock, Stock… and Snatch (starring many of the same people), The Long Good Friday is a genre classic. Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are a fascinating pair, one slimy, the other smart. After one little cash delivery slip-up, it’s all out war in London; but who’s planting the bombs. You’ll have to watch to find out. I’m posting from an iPad tumblr app, so I can’t link to the movie or synopsis now, but it’s on Netflix.
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••••• I’m slacking off and not writing a full review tonight. Seriously, though, Slacker is awesome.Two characters meet, they talk, and when they split up, the camera follows one to the next encounter. Conversation ranges from philosophy to conspiracy and really just all over the place. It’s the precursor to Linklater’s Waking Life, so if you liked that, give this a shot. Synopsis: Richard Linklater’s 1991 cult classic gives viewers surreal slices of what it’s like to be a twentysomething in the college town of Austin, Texas. Told through a series of vignettes starring Linklater himself, Rudy Basquez, Keith McCormack, Jean Caffeine, Stephan and Jan Hockey, Bob Boyd and Mark James, the film includes a strange meditation on Madonna’s pap smear; a conspiracy theorist riffing on the United States government; and more.
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••••- The People vs. George Lucas is a documentary about how and why people love and hate George Lucas for the changes he’s made to Star Wars over the years. What’s surprising is that it’s actually fair to Lucas, who’s usually depicted as the villain in the story of the history of Star Wars. This film paints him as a brilliant auteur who, in rebelling against the studio system, ultimately becomes the head of an industry. He loses whatever drove him to make revolutionary movies in the first place. In the meantime, his biggest fans whine about everything he does. They want more Star Wars and hate everything he’s done since Return of the Jedi. It’s almost tragic. Netflix Synopsis: Building a balanced but spirited case without taking sides, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe sets up the decades-old conflict between Star Wars creator George Lucas and his legions of passionate fans in this “participatory documentary.”
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•••— Buffalo ‘66 is a grimy comedy about a man released from prison very close to my hometown that misses its mark in only a few key ways. Most important is the fact that separately, its characters are messed up and funny and true and so watchable. Together, however, their relationship — the core of the narrative — doesn’t make any sort of sense. I wish I could give it a 3.5, because apart from a few illogical plot points, this movie is fantastic. Writer/director/actor Vincent Gallo is in top form in all three of his roles. The directing especially shines in the transitions into and out of the film’s more surreal moments. I can’t promise you won’t hate this one, but if you’re willing to take a risk, watch Buffalo ‘66 on Netflix.  Synopsis: Writer-director Vincent Gallo stars as Billy Brown, who — fresh from a five-year stint in jail — heads home to Buffalo, N.Y., to visit his kin. Eager to impress his insouciant parents, Billy kidnaps buxom Layla and makes her pose as his wife.
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