Hidden gems found on Netflix?

I haven’t seen it yet, but heard it’s really good: Following, directed by the amazing Christopher Nolan. Last time I checked it was on Instant.

I plan on signing up for Netflix Canada (woot!). I am following this thread.

@Jude – From what I can tell, it’s amazing! Mr. Fiance just signed us up last night, so I haven’t watched anything yet, but looking through the lists there seems to be a ton of stuff out there. I have friends who’ve cancelled their cable after getting Netflix. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for us, because we’re sports people, but still!

“The Best Worst Movie”- A documentary on the movie “Troll 2”. I recommend this for any horror fan.

@Seelix My girl has it (in the US). We love it!!!! Sunday mornings (once we get up), it’s Carl Sagan mornings. :) I am in lurve with a big nerd.

Nothing comes to mind as far as hidden gems or Italian movies, but I absolutely lurve Netflix! Have been a member for over 2 years. I tried Blockbuster for a month just to give it a fair chance and hated it! Have fun with it!

The documentaries are my favorite. Check out The Happiness Space and Exit through the Gift Shop.

I consider Bottle Shock a hidden gem of a movie.

True Romance

The Station Agent—must see to believe.

I’ve fallen in love with a Swedish film called Fucking Åmål (Show Me Love for the friendlier title, but I like the original better) thanks to Netflix. I even went so far as to buy the DVD for myself.
It’s about small town blues and being a gay teen, which is something I can relate to for once. It manages to pull off an antagonist to a gay protagonist in a pretty non-cliché way, too. It’s just delightful.

@Talimze Great flick!

My sister swears by the movie “The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror”....

“Delicatessen” was really delightful in a comically sick and twisted way. It’s one of those movies that reminds you that there’s more possibilities for filmmaking than the Hollywood formula.

“The Story of India” series is also really good. I found it difficult to “want” to sit down and watch it, but once I pressed play, I was pretty mesmerized. The first few episodes, especially, basically wake you up to the idea that there was this huge parallel “golden age” type of civilization humming along during the times of the Greeks and Romans (and before and after). It’s like learning World History all over again (for a typical westerner), and the immense volume of shrines, monuments, historical documents, and political dynasties creates a bewildering experience for someone who assumes they know more or less the story of civilization. For example, India’s nonviolence ethic stretches back thousands of years and resulted in the formation of the world’s first(?) animal hospitals some 2,000 years ago give or take. Six 1-hour episodes.

Great Italian classics:

The Bicycle Thief
La Strada
Cinema Paridiso
Night of the Shooting Stars
Il Postino
Life is Beautiful

If you like artistic smut, definitely check out “The Lover.” It’s just a beautiful, tragic film.

Italian “I am Love” is quiet and powerful and one of those kinds of films that really sucks you in. You should watch it with minimal room distraction.

“My Architect” is excellent. It’s the son of world famous architect Louis I. Kahn trying to resolve the personal damage his father caused through his philandering and inattentiveness to his family with the significant impact he had in the world of architecture and for the people of a chronically-destitute nation.

Two documentarties:

Capturing the Friedmans
Born into Brothels

Also, if you haven’t seen many Woody Allen movies, check out Manhattan.

For Italian films, try The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Lot’s of cheesy gay movies and many exploitation flicks from the 70’s.

Fido – story about a boy and his zombie
Secretary – sweet love story about a sadist and a masochist
City of Lost Children – French, in the vein of a Terry Gilliam or Guillermo del Toro film
The Proposition – very tense western set on the Australian outback

Baxter.

I love Netflix. I’ve been a member for nine years. The first of its kind, Netflix truly is a business that treats its customers right and does what it says it will do. I am a great fan and admirer—and a heavy user.

Once you start renting and rating movies, you’ll see suggestions based on the ratings of others with similar viewing patterns. You can also rate movies you’ve seen before. The more movies you rate, the better job Netflix will do of recommending titles you might like.

You can also look at selections by genre, by following an actor or director, by what’s popular in your area, and other ways. So the hidden gems will be the ones that you find to your particular liking.

@Jeruba, true dat. They credited me (everyone?) 3% recently because they had server problems for one day.

Sadly, many of the movies available in the U.S. are not available in Canada due to copyrite issues with the cable companies. You’ll see when you excitedly click on a movie only to see “not available” pop up.

Also, the service has been really buggy for us these last 3 days. Whole genres aren’t loading.

You can watch Arrested Development, though. It’s pretty funny.

Goodnight Mr. Tom (1998) a British film about a curmudgeonly old man in a small town in England who reluctantly takes in a British refugee child from London during the Blitz of WWII. The man and the boy learn a lot about each other and about love and sacrifice. Great period piece.

The Chorus (2004) a French film about choir director who takes a position at a school for delinquent and orphan boys (in the late 30’s early 40’s) and turns around the lives of the young people at the school, by teaching them how to sing and behave as a group and to avoid the coarse behaviour of ruffians, even though the school’s headmaster would prefer the use of brutality. Marvelous singing by the boys choir.

The Railway Children (2004) about a group of 3 siblings and their mother move to the countryside of Yorkshire, England in the early 20th century because their father has been mysteriously taken away. The children befriend the railway keepers and the townsfolk and become like the adopted children of the town. A sad, unexpected an unfortunate fate has taken the father away from the formerly happy family.

The Barchester Chronicles (1982) One of Alan Rickman’s (of Harry Potter as Severus Snape fame’s) first appearances. A Masterpiece Theater production in its finest sense. This is a yummy, melodramatic story about a old folks home (for retired musicians) church warden and how some legal mis-information and troubles dogs the kind and wonderful Donald Pleasance and the wranglings of his son in law, Nigel Hawthorne, his oldest daughter, the new chaplain, Alan Rickman, who is in love with his youngest daughter, his youngest daughter, a lawyer that the youngest daughter is in love with, the new arch bishop, the archbishop’s wife and everyone in the small town of Barchester. This is delicious! It’s not exacltly a comedy, but there is some fast paced, witty and often hilarious dialogue and some very sweet and touching scenes.

Bleak House (2005) an exquisite adaptation of Charles Dicken’s novel by the same name. There is romance, drama, intrigue and fantastic acting by all of the principles as well as the secondary characters. I could not get enough of this! Denis Lawson, who plays the patriarch, John Jarndyce, and his orphan charge, Esther Summerson, played by Anna Maxwell Martin are magnificent. There are a couple of “minor” characters that are more than memorable. I can’t stress this enough, about the secondary characters. You will soon be repeating the line, “Shake me up Judy!” to everyone who will listen. Great dialogue, great costumes, great set design, great landscapes. This is probably the most perfect miniseries I’ve ever seen. If you enjoy British period pieces, you will swoon over this one and never forget it.

My First Mister (2001) starring Leelee Sobieski as a precocious, emotionally damaged, teenaged punk girl who falls into an unlikely, but sweet and quirky romance with the much older, and much more repressed, but wise, Albert Brooks. This is a movie and a plot that I never expected, never saw coming and fell head over heels in love with. You will laugh, cringe and cry if you watch this movie. But after all is said and done, you will want to watch it again. It’s very unusual, but very sweet and romantic and wonderful, and unxpected. There’s a few odd turns. This movie makes chubby, older, balding Jewish men seem remarkably sexy, sweet and desirable. I wept during certain scenes of this movie.

I don’t know how much of a “hidden” gem it is, but I thoroughly enjoyed White Oleander… I also like “Middle of Nowhere” which stars Susan Sarandon and her daughter.

Thanks for all of your suggestions, everyone!

@tranquilsea – I hadn’t really thought about that, but it makes sense that there might be issues with certain movies/shows being available in Canada. I’ve been looking at the lists on Netflix.ca, so I’d imagine that anything I see there would be available, no?

We actually postponed our zombie movie that was planned for last night because we were watching Arrested Development. We never watched it while it was airing, and the DVDs are too expensive, and although it’s in syndication we wanted to watch it from the beginning. It’s so our sense of humour!

I’m also excited to see a couple of Terry Pratchett BBC miniseries (The Colour of Magic and Hogfather) that I know I’ll be watching soon!

@Seelix The strange thing is that they list all their movies. I don’t think they list the ones you can’t play on the screen where you can flip through 32 movies per genre. But if you go into search their database a LOT of movies are unavailable.

Also, we need to enjoy this while we can because the cable companies are cramming a request through the CRTC to charge you and I per MB/GB for down loadable material. If you love Netflix you are going to end up paying through the nose for it. Go to OpenMedia.ca and sign their petition. With enough people we’ll be able to stop them.

I’m glad you like Arrested Development. It’s my humour too.

Sorry none of my picks are Italian, but here are some more that you might like:

Babette’s Feast. It’s about a French woman who comes to a small town in Denmark and finds that the locals only eat this very limited diet of brown bread gruel, every day and don’t seem to care. She is horrified and disgusted that they don’t embrace delicious food. Babette came from France where there is every kind of food imagineable and people embrace it as a great pleasure. The townsfolks lives are forever changed for the better when Babette arrives and gives them a culinary feast they will never forget.

Mrs. Henderson Presents. Judi Densch and Bob Hoskins take on an old theater in late 1930’s London and as a leap of faith (and hope that it will cheer up the British troops, some that have never seen a naked woman because they were drafted into the army before they could partake of the pleasures of the flesh) they open it up as a nude Burlesque theater. They have to alter the way in which their ladies are presented so as not to go against the laws of decency (at that time period) but their venture is a great success. There are lots of bittersweet scenes of the Blitz of London that show the kindness and resilience of the British people. There’s an interesting scene in which you get to see a great deal more of Bob Hoskins than you are used to. I loved this movie.

Love Actually, with Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant. It’s a story about 5 or 6 different couples in modern day England and how their situations are quite different from each other, but it turns out that there is a common thread amongst them all. There are very funny scenes, great dialogue, and very sad scenes and very romantic scenes. This is one of the most delicious movies I’ve ever seen.

Thanks, @Kardamom! I’m not looking only for Italian suggestions, but I do like Italian movies, and they’ll help me to keep up my conversational skills when school’s out.

Again, thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. Keep ‘em coming!

Better Off Ted is pretty good too—another great show like Arrested Development that was axed way too early.

I’ve been going through the award winners and picking out the ones on instant to watch. Right now I’m going through some old Academy Award Best Picture winners.