Streaming Roulette: Mister Tibbs, Maria Braun, Alfred Kinsey

by Nathaniel R

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful (or two) of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating. Sadly despite the so-called "streaming wars" there just isn't much out there to suggest that any of the channels (barring the must-have Criterion Channel) want any viewers who are obsessed with anything other than decent to lame movies made between 2002-2019. Even the 1990s are getting fairly uncommon to see on streaming services. Ready? Let's play...

I think we should go very soon... like... RIGHT NOW."

Outbreak (1995) on Netflix
What better time to watch this oldie but right now in the midst of another massive global health scare. (In truth I barely remember this picture other than finding it ridiculous at the time. But then, I was younger and it's a truth that young people dont scare as easily as older people when it comes to their mortality.)

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: School's Out Forever

Jason from MNPP here with our weekly "Beauty vs Beast" -- tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Wes Anderson's film Rushmore, and so you celebrate the battle between Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and Herman Blume (Bill Murray) we shall. This was Anderson's second film (after Bottle Rocket) and an instant cult hit - it only made 17 million dollars in theaters (it ranked 97th at the box office, between The Big Lebowski and 54) but I was in college at the time and believe you me, us youngins loved it right out of the gate.

Now it's rightly heralded as a classic - you're not going to hear an unkind word from me on the hermetically crafted direction that Wes started taking his film-making after this (Moonrise Kingdom is my favorite of all his films, after all) but Rushmore does feel airy in a way that he's moved far far away from (especially with the to the millimeter specificity of his animated efforts) and it might be nice to see him sample some of this looseness again?

picture polls

PREVIOUSLY I'm real glad that Judith O'Dea got to beat back the zombie horde this one time with last week's Night of the Living Dead anniversary edition - poor Barbra has had enough to deal with. Said Nick T:

"Without getting into details, I'd say this answer was a NO BRAINER!!! Hyuk hyuk hyuk"

Beauty vs Beast: She's Got the Brainnnsssssss

Jason from MNPP here for another round of "Beauty vs Beast" and on a very special day at that - not only is today the first day of October, marking my favorite season of the year (the spookey season) but today is also the 50th anniversary of George A Romero's masterpiece Night of the Living Dead! There were "zombies" of a sort before NotLD came out - mostly folks put under "voodoo curses" or the like - but Romero refined the monster to its modern form and created billions upon billions of dollars for entertainment executives in the process. But nothing's gonna top the stark simplicity of that original 1968 nightmare.

Facing down the horde I was torn between choosing our hero Ben (the magnificent Duane Jones) or his leading (comatose) lady Barbra (Judith O'Dea) - I went with the latter because Barbra gets a bad rap if you ask me. Ben is the hero we'd like to be - Barbra is the we we're probably gonna be. People don't like to want to think we'd go into total shock in an apocalyptic situation but you know what? Watch your sibling get eaten by a strange man in a cemetery and get back to me.

web survey

PREVIOUSLY And speaking of siblings (and now I'm picturing a zombie rampage at the March house) last week's Little Women off brought the expected results, because Amy's awful, that little book burning witch, we hate her. Jo with 80-plus percent, huzzah! Said chasm301:

"Evil finds a human form in Amy March. Only Kiki stans are voting for her. But wow I love everything about this movie. I watch it multiple times a year. Winona is perfection and the score is one of my faves."