[Weekly Netflix Fix] Amores Perros, Mean Girls Highlight New Additions
After months of consideration, I've finally pulled the trigger on providing weekly Netflix Instant updates. After all, I always wonder what's new on Netflix myself, so this is like killing two birds with one stone. Thankfully, I chose a great week to begin the Weekly Netflix Fix, because the past week saw dozens of titles added to Netflix. Some of my personal recommendations include Amores Perros, Bob's Burgers Season 3, Lars and the Real Girl, Mean Girls, Rocky I - V, and Terminator.
It's about time Mean Girls found its way to Netflix. Say what you will about Lindsay Lohan's downfall, but Mean Girls was a shining moment not only for her and for the rest of the cast (Hey, Lacey Chabert), but also Tina Fey's writing career and general acclaim for female-driven comedies. Hell, just last week, a close friend of mine told me she thinks she has ESPN. Bob's Burgers inclusion is self-explanatory: If you're not watching Bob's Burgers, you're missing out on one of the best animated shows on-air right now. Rocky I-V and Terminator are also self-explanatory. Amores Perros, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel, 21 Grams), is actually the first film in the Death Trilogy that also includes the two aforementioned films. The film is told through three interconnected vignettes that are tied together narratively by a car accident, and thematically by each vignette's characters' relationships with the dogs around them. It's gripping and infinitely better than Babel. Lars and the Real Girl, my left field suggestion, will be expanded on another time...
Check out the full list of updates below. Take note: the Weekly Netflix Fix will be updated every Thursday morning and will have a full list of new additions from the previous week (with the exception of this week where I simply added new titles from the beginning of April). Netflix Pix, where we choose one new title and explain why you should watch it ASAP, will be moved to Fridays to accommodate the Weekly Netflix Fix.
- Act Like You Love Me
- After Porn Ends
- Ali
- Alice
- Amanda
- Ambush at Dark Canyon
- Amistad
- Amores Perros
- Angel Heart
- Ass Backwards
- Axed
- Baby Genius: A Trip to the San Diego Zoo
- Baby Genius: Animal Adventures
- Baby Genius: Favorite Children's Songs
- Baby Genius: Favorite Nursery Rhymes
- Baby Genius: Mozart and Friends
- Bad Company
- Barton Fink
- The Bells of St. Mary's
- Bending the Rules
- Best of TEDx
- Berkeley in the Sixties
- The Black Tulip
- Bob's Burgers: Season 3
- Braveheart
- The Brooke Ellison Story
- Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter
- Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot
- Cheaper by the Dozen
- Chinatown
- Click
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Comic Book Villains
- Commune
- Coneheads
- Cotton Comes to Harlem
- Craigslist Joe
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- Death Wish
- Death Wish 2
- Death Wish 3
- Death Wish 4: The Crackdown
- Decoding Deepak
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Dragonslayer
- The English Patient
- ETXR
- A Fierce Green Fire
- The Fifth Element
- For a Few Dollars More
- Frankenstein's Army
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
- Germ Z
- The Goebbels Experiment
- Going Ape!
- The Graduate
- The Great Train Robbery
- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
- The Heart of the Game
- Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
- The Hive
- The Hive: Season 1
- The Hive: Season 2
- House, M.D.
- House, M.D.: Season 1
- House, M.D.: Season 2
- House, M.D.: Season 3
- House, M.D.: Season 4
- House, M.D.: Season 5
- House, M.D.: Season 6
- House, M.D.: Season 7
- House, M.D.: Season 8
- In the Hive
- The Inexplicable Universe with Neil...
- Inside Out
- Inventing the Abbotts
- Jake Blauvelt: Naturally
- Jane Eyre
- Jumanji
- The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
- Lars and the Real Girl
- Last Tango in Halifax: Season 1
- League of Super Evil: Season 1
- A League of Their Own
- The Legend of Hell House
- Les Miserables
- The Little Prince
- A Man Called Peter
- Man Hunt
- The Man with One Red Shoe
- Mean Girls
- Midnight F.M.
- Mortified Nation
- Moto 5
- Mumfie: Season 1
- The Muppets Take Manhattan
- Murder at the Presidio
- My Bloody Valentine
- My Bodyguard
- The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
- No Holds Barred
- No Way Home
- NotBad
- Now Is Good
- The Odd Couple
- Orgasm Inc.
- The Paradise: Series 1
- The Player: Secrets of a Vegas Whale
- Point Blank
- The Princess Twins of Legendale
- Pumpkin
- The Queens of Comedy
- Rabbit-Proof Fence
- The River's Edge
- The Robe
- Robinson Crusoe on Mars
- Rocky
- Rocky II
- Rocky III
- Rocky IV
- Rocky V
- Roger Dodger
- Royal Pains: Season 1
- Royal Pains: Season 2
- Royal Pains: Season 3
- Royal Pains: Season 4
- The Running Man
- Scary Movie 3
- Secret Things
- Sense and Sensibility
- Shenandoah
- Sommore: Chandelier Status
- Spanglish
- Steel Magnolias (2012)
- Stephen King's Thinner
- Strangers in Good Company
- Stuart Saves His Family
- Survival of the Dead
- Tentacles
- The Terminator
- That Splendid November
- There's No Business Like Show Business
- This Ain't California
- The Thomas Crown Affair
- Titanic
- The Turning Point
- The Undershepherd
- Women Who Kill
- The Wotwots: Season 1
- The Wotwots: Season 2
- The Writers' Room
- The Yards
Netflix considering new pricing, streaming plans
Netflix has faced subscribers' shared account shenanigans for a few years now, but hasn't done anything to combat it. In fact, just a few months ago, they introduced multiple profiles under single accounts so that family/household members would have their own dedicated queues, recommendations, etc. Netflix knows that users will share their accounts with others, and rather than setting restrictions to it, let alone dedicating time, money, and energy to fight it, they've embraced it.
However, Netflix is still a business, and businesses need to make money. To greet the new year, Netflix is testing new pricing and streaming plans for users. The cheapest of the plans is $6.99/month that allows SD streaming on one screen. This is for users who don't care about standard or high-definition video quality and don't share their accounts. The next proposed tier is $7.99/month that allows HD streaming on two screens. $9.99/month would allow HD streaming on three screens, and $11.99/month would offer HD streaming on four screens.
Which option sounds like the best for you?
[via /Film]
Drew Goddard is writing Netflix's Daredevil series
Last week, Marvel and Netflix announce their amazing (and equally surprising) partnership for four exclusive Netflix series based on various Marvel characters. Today, it was announced that Drew Goddard will be taking over writing duties for the Daredevil series. Goddard has had a very successful career so far, directing and writing Cabin in the Woods, but also serving as a writer for Cloverfield, World War Z, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Lost, Alias, and more.
Goddard actually understands how to balance action-heavy scenes with deep, dramatic character arcs. Plus, he's a notably huge fan of Daredevil, so his take on the character won't be the mishandled mess that was 2003's Daredevil film adaptation starring Ben Affleck. For those unfamiliar with the superhero, Daredevil is about Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who uses his other enhanced senses to moonlight as the titular vigilante. Noted writers that have helped established the Daredevil mythos are Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns), Kevin Smith (Clerks), and Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man).
As if I wasn't already excited for the Marvel/Netflix series, Goddard's involvement raises my expectations exponentially.
[via Badass Digest]
Netflix wants to produce movies, more original content
Netflix has evolved from a DVD mail-order service to a formidable online streaming service to a hot spot for original series. With the success of original shows like Arrested Development and Orange is the New Black, Netflix has shown that it can weather their transition away from the aforementioned DVD service to an alternative platform for high quality shows. Recently, the company announced that they hit over 40 million subscribers worldwide.
In an effort to further expand upon the company, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has expressed his interests in producing original movies and documentaries. Using HBO as a sort of blueprint for Netflix to follow, Hastings has pointed out that spending on original content for 2014 will only be 10% of their total content spending, which pales in comparison to HBO's 40%. However, with Netflix constantly adding new titles and TV series to their services, it's only a matter of time before their budget can expand.
I've been a huge advocate for Netflix for years. My summers after I graduated from high school would involve watching up to 2-3 films a day just so I could quickly pick up more DVDs from my Netflix Queue. It's great to see the service continue to prosper with nothing but promise in their sights.
[via Variety]
Netflix Follows Pirating Trends
There is a reason Netflix is so comfortable with the Hollywood bigwigs and it's got little to do with bringing Arrested Development back, or maybe it does. CNET reporter Steven Musil wrote an article for the site detailing how Netflix mines illegal pirating sites for what their most popular programs are. It makes sense, Netflix can do better business with the studios if they are helping them to regain lost profits elsewhere. Piracy sites essentially act like the minor leagues for the online streaming behemoth. Like the Yankees keeping an eye on one of the Cubs players before picking him up late in the season, Netflix waits to see which shows are doing well in the illegitimate free download spectrum before bringing them into their own red army. In the piece, Musil cited Kelly Merryman, the company's vice president of content acquisition in Europe as saying, "With the purchase of series, we look at what does well on piracy sites," Merryman told Amsterdam-based tech site Tweakers, noting that that information contributed to its decision to pick up the hit TV show "Prison Break." "'Prison Break' is exceptionally popular on piracy sites," she said. It is an interesting strategy that harks back to the NSA issue in Washington, just how much are they watching? For now, Netflix is simply concerned that you are watching.
First Netflix-for-Ebook App
Oyster has launched the first viable subscription service for E-books for your favorite handheld device. Comparable to a Spotify or Netflix, services that allow users to access millions of media items with the click of a mouse, Oyster's app will allow users to read from over 100,000 e-books for just under $10. Currently, the company is in the process of raising the necessary funding for the behemoth undertaking and plans to unveil the app to the public soon. For now, it is available on a first-come, first-serve, invitation-only basis. Who knows, it could be a game-changer: think of the kid who knows everything about Heisenberg suddenly having access to Chaucer. Pictures below.
[via Mashable]
Viacom and Amazon enter multi-year agreement, spurning Netflix in the process
Today, Viacom and Amazon announced their multi-year agreement to stream Viacom TV shows exclusively on Amazon's Prime Instant Video service. Viacom is one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, comprised of a large number of TV networks including MTV, BET, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central. The agreement also comes at Netflix's expense whose own agreement with Viacom recently expired.
It's a huge blow for Netflix subscribers, as shows broadcast on any of the aforementioned networks (like South Park, Rocko's Modern Life, Workaholics, Teen Mom, etc.) will be unavailable to them. At the same time, it's a huge gain for Amazon, as Prime Instant Video hasn't had access to worthwhile content. Does this mean Netflix, who's experienced a bit of a subscription bump with exclusive series like Arrested Development premiering, will lose a large number of its 20-something demographic with this huge exodus of shows? We'll see. I know one thing: I finally have a good reason to actually use my Prime Instant Video subscription.
[via Deadline]