The Netflix Stream: Week of May 8th, 2011

Netflix gives us a fair trade this week. A few good flicks may leave Watch Instantly, but a few more come on board for the first time. Among them is a film that earned James Franco a great deal of praise over the last year.

Leaving the Stream
  1. ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ (5/16): As someone who never really watched the TV series, I don’t share the hatred of this 1992 movie that hardcore Whedonites seem to. ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘ is a fun flick that features a very underrated performance by Paul Reubens, and stars, among others, Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Hilary Swank and Thomas Jane.
  2. ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys’ (5/14): Can’t decide whether to put Jeff or Beau Bridges in your movie? Do what Steve Kloves did and cast them both. The pair star in ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys‘ alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in a movie about jazz music, showbiz and love.
Entering the Stream
  1. ‘Howl’ (5/15): James Franco is Allen Ginsberg in ‘Howl‘, a biopic about the famed poet, his infamous poem, and the trials and tribulations surrounding it. The film received a smattering of lukewarm reviews, but few critics had a bad word to say about Franco. This is definitely one that I’ll be watching.
  2. ‘Spartacus: Gods of the Arena’ (5/13): The mini-series prequel to the successful and well-received ‘Spartacus: Blood and Sand’ is available to watch on Netflix now, and it’s well worth your time. If you like sex and violence, you’ll find plenty here. If decapitations and gratuitous nudity don’t float your boat, you’d best stay away from ‘Gods of the Arena‘.
  3. ‘Blue Velvet’ (5/15):Blue Velvet‘ is one of those movies that I’ve never gotten around to watching. I’ve been places where it’s on, but I’ve never actually sat down and watched it. It’s called out as one of the best things David Lynch has done and has earned a spot on AFI’s Top 100 Thrills list. It’s worth checking out when it’s available early next week.

5 comments

  1. KR

    Netflix is still working on the PS3 without the Playstation Network. You get a few popup notifications about not being on the Network. Just “X” through them, and Netflix is still working just fine.

    I’ve been using it pretty much daily the entire time Sony has been having its issues.

  2. Lahrs

    Just by going though posts on Kotaku and some other gaming sites, it seems some have been able to connect to Netflix and some haven’t. Netflix loads up in the background but the messages do not go away and it keeps asking me to connect to the PSN. I have tried for the past two weeks off and on with no luck.

    I have streamed some standup comedy to my PC, but I really do not want to watch my monitor while trying to enjoy a movie. Regardless, the Blu-ray player still works wonderfully and my daughter and I just finished another viewing of Tangled.

  3. Brian H

    Netflix has worked on my PS3 throughout the outage. It usually asks for a PSN login three times during start up, and always replies with the “under maintenance” message.

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