Welcome back to FlixWorthy, your guide to Netflix streaming! Yet again we're bringing you a handful of new or notable selections from Netflix's Instant Watch catalogue. Some will be classics, some will be little-seen gems, some will be shows you might have missed, and some...some will be crap so awful they simply has to be seen to be believed. Here's what's FlixWorthy this week, kids.
(2010, Rated R, 117 min.)
I’m increasingly skeptical that we’ll ever see a big-screen sequel to Kick-Ass, but if you missed it in theaters, now you can experience all the ass-kickingness via Netflix Instant Watch. Based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr., Kick-Ass postulates what a world with real-life costumed vigilantes would look like (I mean, how far-fetched is that?). No super-powers here, just colorful costumes and good intentions. Sadly, that combination isn’t enough to help Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), who decides to take the law into his own hands with a modified wetsuit and the handle of Kick-Ass. Naturally, his first act of crime-fighting ends with him beaten nearly to death. From there, things get interesting. Kick-Ass is gloriously, ludicrously over-the-top, and it’s also a lot of fun. Nic Cage is as weird as he’s ever been as actual competent vigilante Big Daddy, and young Chloe Moretz steals the show as foul-mouthed whirlwind of violence named Hit-Girl. You can find a list of reasons why it will kick your ass right here.
Double-Feature It With:
(1986, Rated PG, 111 min., HD)
Long before George Lucas was making horrible Star Wars prequels and fucking up Indiana Jones, he was introducing the world to an anthropomorphic alien duck named Howard. Based on the cult comic series created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik, Howard saw the titular fowl accidentally beamed to Earth from Duckworld (yes, Duckworld). While stranded, he fights an evil monster and engages in an unsettling and anatomically challenging romance with a young rocker named Beverly (Lea Thompson).
(2010, TV-14, Three episodes, HD)
Not content with charting an awesome course for The Doctor and company, Steven Moffat decided to turn his creative gaze upon another famous smarty-pants know-it-all…perhaps the smartiest-pants and most know-it-all-ish of all time. Teaming with fellow Who writer Mark Gatiss, Moffat decided to put an updated spin on Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant consulting detective, the one and only Sherlock Holmes. The three episodes of the freshman series keep the basics -- a brilliant, troubled Holmes solving impossible crimes in unexpected ways from a flat in Baker Street -- but here, for instance, the ex-military Watson is a veteran of the current war in Afghanistan. How would Holmes’ methods change in a world with cell phones and the internet and DNA evidence? That’s the question posed by Sherlock, but one thing remains constant across the years: the criminals still don’t have a chance. Sherlock is due to return for a second series in the fall, so you’ve got plenty of time to catch up.
Double-Feature It With:
(2010, TV-PG, HD)
Remember what I said up there about “charting an awesome course for the Doctor and company?” Well, here’s what I was talking about. Season Five saw Moffat take the reins of the long-running franchise with a new Doctor (Matt Smith), a new companion (Karen Gillan as the plucky Amelia Pond), and a hell of a lot to live up to. Thankfully, he has done so with all the style and functionality of a bow tie. Because bow ties are cool.
(1982, Rated G, 82 min., HD)
Kid’s movies were just cooler when I was a kid. You can dismiss that as nostalgia if you like, but I’ll take my Dark Crystals and Neverending Stories and Labyrinths over any number of Harry Potter and Spy Kids sequels. The common trait amongst most of these classic ‘80s kids movies is that they weren’t afraid to be dark, scary, or just plain fucked-up. I still have to suppress a reflexive shudder at the mere mention of the head-swapping witch from Return to Oz. And then, of course, there is the tale of Mrs. Brisby, a shy field mouse who must find a way to move her cinderblock home and her ill son to “the lee of the stone” before plowing time arrives, and with it, a big-ass death tractor. There are so many images indelibly etched into my brain from this movie. The pants-wetting creepiness of the Great Owl. The marvelous rats’ lair inside the rose bush, a place I desperately wanted to visit as a kid. The Secret of NIMH is an unforgettable story wrapped in gorgeous Don Bluth animation, and it’s still one of the best movies I’ve ever seen at suggesting how wondrous and terrifying the world would be if you were only a few inches tall.
Double-Feature It With:
(1998, Rated G, 95 min., HD)
I’ve actually never seen Babe: Pig in the City, largely because I was already two decades old when it came out, and talking-pig movies were surprisingly not high on my list of cinematic interests. Still, the involvement of director George “Mad Max” Miller and the rumors of a surprisingly dark storyline have always intrigued me. Sounds like it might be a worthy double-feature companion to the rats from NIMH after all.
(1988, Rated R, 94 min.)
“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum.” You’ve almost certainly heard that phrase bandied about, whether being tossed about in the blogosphere or while controlling the avatar of a certain Duke Nukem. But what you may not know is that it originated here, in John Carpenter’s most cult-y of cult classics, They Live. A little bit sci-fi, a little bit horror, and a lot bit comedy, They Live stars wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper as a nameless drifter who uncovers an alien conspiracy and a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see through the aliens’ disguises (you heard me). From there, our hero must save the world via ridiculous fight scenes and the conspicuous absence of bubblegum. It’s exactly as cheesy as it sounds, but in a good way. And with a remake in the offing under the stewardship of Let Me In director Matt Reeves, now is a good time to revisit the original.
Double-Feature It With:
(1990, Rated PG-13, 96 min., HD)
When it comes to cheesy horror goodness, it doesn’t get much more deliciously cheesy than Tremors, the story of a handful of townsfolk in an isolated desert town attempting to survive the predations of giant, subterranean, carnivorous worms (or “graboids,” if you will). The cast is solid from top to bottom, including Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, and Michael “Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn’t ya” Gross. It’s endlessly quotable, surprisingly tense, and a helluva lot of fun.
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