Streaming Sunday (2/17/2013)
Welcome to GFBRobot’s Streaming Sunday! Below you’ll find a selection of movies and TV shows recently added to streaming services that we here at GFBR think you’ll love.
Compliance (2012)
Netflix Instant
image via www.esquire.com
Description: “This tense drama unfolds as a prank caller pretends to be a cop and convinces a restaurant manager to interrogate her teenaged employee about a theft.”–Netflix
Reason to Watch: Compliance is a film that has sparked a lot of controversy in a short amount of time. The film is based on true events, and goes out of its way to portray those events in as uncomfortable a way as possible. This led to boos, hisses, and walkouts of the film’s first screening and a stark split among critics to date. It isn’t often that a film will be on nearly as many top 10 lists as bottom 10 lists and Compliance seems to be one of those few films. Hopefully if you take the time to catch this on Netflix, you’ll be in the camp that loves it, but if you end up hating it you should realize it early on in the film as the tone and nature of the movie becomes apparent. If that’s the case you’ll be able to walk away with little time lost. I know that I will invest the time to find out which camp I belong in.
United 93 (2006)
Netflix Instant
image via cinemacounterpoint.blogspot.com
Description: “Re-creating the harrowing events aboard United Airlines Flight 93 in real time, Paul Greengrass presents the devastating drama of Sept. 11, 2001.”–Netflix
Reason to Watch: United 93 is written and directed by Paul Greengrass, the writer/director of several Bourne films. This movie is a real-time portrayal of United Airlines Flight 93, and is purported to be as close to the true story as possible given the information available to us. United 93 also happened to be one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2006, showing up on numerous top 10 lists and receiving over a 90% or more review on conglomeration sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. I’m not sure why or how I haven’t seen this film before, but I added it to my personal queue the second I noticed it on Netflix. Hopefully you’ll take my advice and do the same.
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Netflix Instant
image via collider.com
Description: “A team of journalists are dispatched to find out who’s behind a classified advertisement seeking a companion for time travel, with payment on return. After tracking down their oddball prey, the team has to decide how best to approach their subject.”–Netflix
Reason to Watch: This film came on Netflix late this week. It is so good, and I love it so much, that I actually knocked another film (that I had already written about) off of this week’s list to feature Safety Not Guaranteed. Safety Not Guaranteed was my ninth favorite film of the year, and I went into a little detail on it in the GFBRobot top 10 podcast segment. To sum it up, this is a romantic dramedy about being true to yourself and being happy with yourself. In addition to that, a very pleasant story is a treat for television fans. Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza, New Girl’s Jake M. Johnson, and The League’s Mark Duplass all put in excellent performances that will please their fans while pleasantly surprising viewers unaware of their television work. Safety not Guaranteed is small, simple, kind of lovely, and well worth the time.
Watched Compliance and Safety Not Guaranteed tonight. Thanks for the great recommendations. Two winners!
As Donnie said, we really enjoyed Compliance and Safety Not Guaranteed last night!
Compliance still has us both thinking; we just had a conversation about power, the brain, and how the events came to unfold the way they did. It’s fascinating.
And, Safety Not Guaranteed was a delight. I really, really enjoyed it … I love Aubrey Plaza, and her performance did not disappoint. It’s a film that I will be watching again soon.
That’s great! I’m glad that you two enjoyed the films. I’m looking forward to a Safety Not Gauranteed rewatch this weekend.