What's in your Netflix queue?
Posted: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:00 AM by Paige Newman
Filed Under:
Movies
There’s something about Netflix that feels like a relay race. Or maybe it’s more like a game of Tetris with one movie falling naturally into the nook of another.
MGM |
Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger do their '80-style S&M thing in "9 1/2 Weeks."
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I went to see “The Wrestler” in the theater and really enjoyed it. Then I read Newsweek’s Oscar roundtable (one of the best Oscar features each and every year) and noticed that Mickey Rourke self-deprecatingly compared “9 ½ Weeks” to a Riuniti commercial. (As an aside, the film actually holds up pretty darn well, though it does seem a bit tame compared to the average episode of “Nip/Tuck.” As another aside, I have now had the “Riuniti on ice, Riuniti so nice, Riuniti, Riuniti” song stuck in my head for about a week now.)
And so it began, I simply felt driven to
re-watch old Mickey Rourke films. “9 ½ Weeks” led to “The Pope of Greenwich Village” which took me to “Body Heat” and so on and so on (next up on the list: “Barfly,” “Angel Heart” and “Rumblefish”). The Netflix queue becomes a place in which to indulge in a temporary obsession.
And I don’t think I’m alone. I was talking to
Tabloid Tidbits columnist (and all-around wonderful person) Ree Hines on Monday and we discussed our current renting jags. Ree told me that she’s gone on jags as varied as costume dramas to sci-fi films to
Charles Laughton movies (which instantly encouraged me to add three to my Netflix queue) to
Alan Rickman movies (everybody must add “Truly Madly Deeply" to their queue).
I currently have two going. Rourke films, as I mentioned, and then I’ve also become obsessed with BBC crime series. I watched the fantastic “State of Play” (soon to be a movie starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck), the original “Life on Mars” and “The Last Detective,” and I have “MI-5” and “Cracker” in the queue.
But I’ve gone through other jags. A Peter O’Toole jag led me to rent incredibly great movies, such as “Becket,” “Lord Jim” and “The Lion in Winter.” This all led me to rent films about English kings. I also went through a phase with werewolf movies, which led me to strange places such as the adolescent-panic film “Ginger Snaps” as well as “The Descent” and filmmaker Neil Marshall’s film “Dog Soldiers.”
You can run this race forever. I already feel the pull of Charles Laughton, and “9 ½ Weeks” is making me think I should re-watch “Last Tango in Paris,” which could lead to more Marlon Brando or more Bernardo Bertolucci. Even the current BBC jag stems from an obsession with actor John Simm (who’s the lead in “Mars” and “Play”).
I love how one genre or actor leads me so naturally to the next. It makes me realize how many truly great movies there are. And, now that movie columnist Alonso Duralde has checked in with other great performances by this year’s Oscar nominees, I've already added the Frank Langella film Alonso recommends, and I feel more Netflixing coming on.
Do you have fun renting jags you’ve been on and can recommend? I’m always looking for more stuff to load into my Netflix queue. Share some thematic or actor-based suggestions below.
