Netflix: Should I or Shouldn't I?

[Sleepless]

So the new iPad went on sale today http://www.apple.com/ipad and I'm tempted, but I know there was some talk about flash not working on iPads before... will Netflix instant work on there, because that'd be a big incentive for me to drop $500.

[polkablues]

There's a Netflix app that you can stream instant from. You can even do it over 3G.

[modage]

Netflix Instant works on the iPad, incl. 1st generation.

[Sleepless]

Great.

[SiliasRuby]

Just now I found that you can watch saturday night live from 1975 to season 35 streaming on netflix. That means I can watch every year phil hartman (my favorite) was on....

Thats enough for me to keep paying for netflix no matter how high the cost and it isn't that much of a cost...

[Stefen]

Whoa. I didn't know that. That's awesome.  I'm going to watch the seasons from the 90's.

[Pas]

whaaa? I think I'll get netflix just for that... well, if it's available in Canada. SNL I mean.

[modage]

I think they cut all the musical performances, maybe some other stuff too, so they're not complete episodes. But still cool, yeah.

[polkablues]

Eerie, Indiana and Rocko's Modern Life on Instant. I'm having a nostalgia marathon.

[squints]

i'm nauseous i'm nauseous....

also,

laundry day is a very dangerous day.

[polkablues]

Which is funnier, bananas or cheese?

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

[Boring, typical backstory omitted], so after I found and killed the man (who was wearing my fiance's engagement ring, the villain!), I began to Netflix stream, and these are some gems I found recently:

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, Walter Ruttmann (1927) - Another famous city opera, Man with the Movie Camera, is also available to stream, but this one is less well known and its counterpart dvd OOP.  Less experimental than Man w/Camera, this is a graceful depiction of natural rhythms infused with a visual, filmic sense of narrative.

The Landlord, Hal Ashby (1970) - This came out on dvd without me realizing in May 2010 but is not available in disc form from Netflix.  An unusual blend of heartfelt drama and social satire, I couldn't always tell what was going to happen next and was often delighted.  Naturalistic performances and adventurous filmmaking.

The Year My Voice Broke, John Duigan (1987) - Long OOP and unavailable in disc form from Netflix.  Such a treat to see for the first time and discover the origins of a character I loved in the later film Flirting.  Owes a lot to 400 Blows, it's sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, and always searches for honesty, but crams too much narrative in its final moments.  Very much worth seeing though.

Circus, PBS Circus documentary (2010) - Big circus fan, and this was a great six-parter about an important American circus, the cast and crew.  The narrative blossoms in an intelligent and engaging manner.

Others I haven't watched yet but can't wait to:
Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro, Hayao Miyazaki (1980)
Two in the Wave (Deux de la Vague), Emmanuel Laurent (2010)
Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque (Le Fantôme d'Henri Langlois), Jacques Richard (2004)
Vigilante Force, George Armitage (1978)
Devil's Angels, Daniel Haller (1967)
The War Game*, Peter Watkins (1965)
Up Tight!**, Jules Dassin (1968)
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack  (1927)
Aelita, Queen of Mars***, Yakov Protazanov (1924)
Leaves from Satan's Book, Carl Theodor Dreyer (1921)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed)****, Lotte Reiniger (1926)
How to Get Ahead in Advertising, Bruce Robinson (1989)

* Banned by the BBC for being too disturbing, Peter Watkins's documentary-style drama imagines the devastating effects of a nuclear attack on a small town in England -- collateral damage from an all-out war between the U.S.S.R. and the United States. Food supplies dwindle, orphaned children roam the streets, and burn victims die a slow, agonizing death. Despite being a work of fiction, the film won the 1967 Best Documentary Oscar.
**In this remake of the 1935 film The Informer, unemployed and desperate Tank bungles his role in a Cleveland robbery, leading his best friend and accomplice, Johnny, to kill a guard during his getaway -- and then everything heads downhill.
***Known as the first Soviet sci-fi film, this film tells the tale of young Los, who lives in 1921 Moscow. When a mysterious radio message is beamed around the world, Los (Nikolai Tsereteli) receives it and begins building a spaceship to reach its sender: Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva), the daughter of the ruler of a totalitarian state on Mars. When Los helps the Martian proletariats begin an uprising, Aelita offers to help, but all is not as it seems.
****Considered by many to be the first full-length animated film, the story of Lotte Reiniger's mesmerizing work is taken from The Arabian Nights. A young prince named Achmed embarks on a series of great adventures, including uniting with Aladdin and the Witch of the Fiery Mountains to save a beautiful princess. Produced in Germany, this color-tinted film utilizes laboriously cut out silhouettes to tell its story.

  If you know some other good ones, let me know.

[squints]

Wow, that's a great list! Thanks for the heads up!

Now if the playstation network would just start fucking working again....

[polkablues]

Netflix streaming still works on the PS3 even with the network down.  When you first try to open it, it'll give you a message about needing to be logged into Playstation Network, but if you persist, it'll ultimately open Netflix and everything works like normal.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Of course with all these great options known to me, even anticipated by me, last night I watched Tremors II: Aftershocks, just because it's so fucking easy.  Anything that feels like a movie I would've watched on late night HBO in the 90s I'm a sucker for, including movies I watched on late night HBO, like Cool World, The Chase, Bebe's Kids, Red Rock West, etc., a more select group compared to the movies I would've randomly encountered in VHS or DVD form on random movies-for-sale shelves in grocery stores, gas stations, or what have you.  It's like I can't stop picking up all the movies I wanted to pick up in those days.

But the previous night I watched Two in the Wave, which was great and had strong vibes of the film as religion theme that's so captivating and flattering for cinéastes, and which is still best represented by the passion, intensity, and ambition of the French New Wave filmmakers.  The documentary is about that spirit more than the filmmakers (I want to see the tribute film Godard made about Eric Rohmer, which isn't mentioned in the movie but I know exists).

For Mother's Day I had to endure the gf's family, who among other things have different ideas about film than I do, as in their concept of films and filmmaking and the filmworld is derived almost exclusively from network talk shows, People and Vogue, TMZ, etc., and to whom my idea of filmmaking is fucking ridiculous and my concept of myself as a filmmaker utterly laughable.  I'm not still talking about random HBO movies, which I'd have high odds of connecting with them about, but anything non-Hollywood, foreign, artistic, etc, because ultimately they see movies as a business enterprise and successful filmmakers as financially and socially prosperous, which is sometimes true but not always, but try telling them that.  Anyway I sang praises for Netflix streaming to them.  They said they're already down with steaming.  Her brother also told me that he believes people will carry hundreds of movies around with them in terrabyte flash drives, in the future, near-future in fact, and dvds will be stupid things no one will believe anyone could ever have wanted to purchase.  Who the fuck wants to carry a terrabyte flashcard for movies when there's streaming technology?  He's ruled out as a possible sci-fi script collaborator.