Although the Netflix updates aren’t too bad this week, we’re still taking some losses. Most of the films going away aren’t particularly exciting, but we are losing a few fantasy epics, and that’s a damn shame. Still, what we’re getting in return isn’t terrible. Actually, it is terrible, but intentionally so, which makes it kind of okay.

Leaving the Stream

1. ‘Camelot’ (8/19): You don’t have a lot of time to catch up on this one, but you can at least get a few episodes in to see if you want to pick it up on a more solid format. This is the King Arthur kind of ‘Camelot‘ – none of that JFK stuff. My roommate is pretty addicted to the show.
2. ‘Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ (8/20): Purists will say that this is a film that needs to be seen on Blu-ray rather than streaming, but hey, you’ve got to get your ‘LoTR‘ in where you can get it. I won’t make you feel bad; I watch plenty of epic films on Netflix, even those I own in other formats. It’s just easier. Oh, and if you somehow haven’t seen the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, then I don’t know what to tell you. Get on it. It’s wonderful and beautiful and coolbeans. Man, my adjectives really fell off for that third one.

Entering the Stream

1. ‘The Expendables’ (8/26): The all-star cast (if you can really call it that without Steven Seagal’s presence) of action heroes is one of those movies that’s almost wonderfully bad, but in a good way. I don’t think it holds a torch to ‘Machete’ – which, incidentally, does have Seagal. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad flick, though. I mean, it is, but that’s kind of the point. ‘The Expendables‘ is one of those “Turn off your brain and enjoy a bunch of dudes shooting at stuff” movies in the tradition of nearly every other movie Stallone, Statham, Lundgren, and Steve “I don’t go by Stone Cold anymore” Austin have ever made.
2. ‘Alpha and Omega’ (8/26): Christina Ricci, Dennis Hopper, Danny Glover… Having these people together in one movie would normally get me excited. But put them in an animated film – especially one that’s cheaply animated and created by Crest Animation Productions, which hasn’t made anything of value ever. At least ‘Alpha and Omega‘ looks better than ‘The Reef’ or ‘Shark Bait’ or whatever that ‘Finding Nemo’ knockoff was called.