Well, not ‘leaked,’ but just in time for the new Transformers movie, Patrick Boivin has posted this video of Bumblebee breakdancing.

Also in line with movies, here’s Bruce Lee p0wning Iron Man:

Click here to view the embedded video.

My nephew checked his email while he was here this morning and this was the first thing in his inbox. Maybe it’s because he’s 17 and my humor is at about the same level, but both of us were cracking up over it.

Miserable attempt at recovering my dignity with serious criticism: Will Farrell and landlord prove there is no meaning (or humor) without context. Would it be as funny without Will Farrell (with full afro!)? Or if the landlord wasn’t an innocent looking young girl?

will farrell, landlord, video, i want my money, funny, movie

I love this flipbook animation on YouTube (jump ahead to about 3:05 for it), even if the live-action preface is somewhat tiresome. And even with that, it still doesn’t rate as bad as some viewers think it is.

This is the “making of” / behind-the-scenes sneak peak at my upcoming movie “Annihilation”.

I had hoped to finish Annihilation in time to turn it in for my Cinema class, but I didn’t… so I had to make a movie about my failure to complete the movie, and turn that in instead.

The full flipbook animation movie will be up soon. Checkout http://www.zacksmovies.com for other movies.

I’m looking forward to the complete movie.

Annihilation, animation, flipbook, flipbook animation, movie, video, zacksmovies.com

TeamTigerAwesome’s Top Gun: A Requiem For Goose is more than funny, it’s the sort of thing a person should mine for insults and one-liners to use later. Of course, the recent Tom Cruise flap doesn’t dampen it any.

From the title cards:

On March 3, 1919 President Harding established the swingenest, scientologist, dew drop of a flight school in all 38.

Now, you boys may think that you are the high-hattenest group of flyboys ever to shoot down a Mrs. Grundy.

I’m gonna make you better.

So I ask of you?

Who among you wish to fornicate with immortality?

I dare say, me and my favorite Irishman, Goose, are the Real McCoy.

See that Sock Dollager over there?

The skirts call him Iced-Man.

She has misplaced feelings of love.

I despise it when she has misplaced feelings of love.

That Jester didn’t have a flapper’s chance against us Protestants!

I dare say you, you could call me Grover Cleveland…For I just orgazimized, on non-consecutive terms.

You’re still a splifficated, piker as I ever saw. But you can be my wing man anytime.

Applesauce. You can be mine.

Grover Cleveland, TeamTigerAwsome, Tom Cruise, Top Gun, funny, high-hattenest, mashup, misplaced feelings of love, movie, piker, remix, sock dollager, splifficated, swingenest

This photo from Tsunaminotes appeared in Ende’s photo stream and reminded me instantly of all the cool things I’d never done because I was born too late and cool stuff is what I saw in black and white photos from years past. Of course, Flickr says the photo was taken July 5th, and the photographers of the past would have burned the bright spot on his cheek during printing, but it still has a classic quality to it.

Anyway, the photo is titled “Two things a man should be able to do: be romantic and smoke his brains out,” and, as it turns out, the line comes from Romance & Cigarettes, a recent film by John Turturro. How’d I miss this? I don’t know, but it’s in my queue now.

romantic, smoke, John Turturro, ende, Tsunaminotes, Romance & Cigarettes, movie, photo

Joe forwarded me a link to Kobb Labs the other day, and I’ve got to admit that the guy has a much better introduction than anything I could have written for my site:

Despite what you may have been told, I am not a mad scientist. (No, no, no, that’s all slander and lies from jealous colleagues.) As you can probably tell from my website, I’m just a man curious about the universe and the order of things.

Please note, we are not offering tours of the labs at this time, as me and my (monkey) assistants are very busy on the S.D.R.P. (Secret Death Ray Project).

Also, be aware, we are no longer shipping out rodents, due to a recent batch being infected with rabies fleas. If you received a rabid weasel from us, please contact customer service for disposal instructions. (Have your invoice number handy when you call.) Do not ship them back to us!

As good as that is, however, is just a build-up to the real deal: Kobb has a list of movies to trade. Most of them are horror flicks, and most of those sound wonderfully bad. Or, I just hope the movies are as good as the descriptions:

BEGOTTEN — Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Creepy B&W horror film virtually devoid of dialogue. Unique. Terrifying.

flicks, flix, funny, horror, horror film, horror flick, kobb, kobb labs, low-budget, movie, movies, trading

I don’t know how I feel about shilling for the california dairy industry, but this cow abduction site is pretty funny. Be sure to watch the movie.

Want more, go look at mailorderchickens.org.

abduction, abductions, advertising, alien, aliens, california milk processor board, cow abduction, cow abductions, dairy, funny, milk, movie

I just popped in The Constant Gardener (trailer) and discovered the preview for Brick. And even though I want to see almost every movie previewed for me, I really want to see this movie.

The Constant Gardener, by the way, is good too.

brick, movie, movies, preview, the constant gardener, trailer

ExxonMobil’s 2005 profits of $36.13 billion are apparently the largest ever recorded by any corporation in America. To celebrate, the folks at SaveOurEnvironment.org put together this funny short: ExxposeExxon.

The movie makes some good points, but let’s face it, high oil prices encourage conservation and research on alternative energy technologies.

exxon, exxpose exxon, movie, cartoon, video, oil profits, profits, energy crisis, global warming

We’ve all heard it before, but we just can’t get it out of our heads. Today’s movies make us feel dumb. Paulina Borsook joins the chorus and condemns contemporary cinema by praising movies of the 60s and 70s:

They were movies made for adults, even if they had been mainstream movies and/or nominally rated PG. They made presumptions about the intelligence of their audience, didn’t need things to be boldly spelled out, and they were predicated on the assumption that their audience was capable of making inferences. No semaphoring! No high-concept! Satire as opposed to scatology! Shades of gray in motive and character! Minimum numbers of car crashes! No fish out of water! No hilarious mixups!

Interestingly, she also found praise for The Interpreter:

The female characters didn’t simper, and didn’t seem like 30 going on 13 (hey, wasn’t there…). They were about themselves, subject rather than object.

The male characters had interior lives that made them seem human, creatures capable of emotional nuance.

So what else does she recommend? She’s made a list. Interestingly, all of this appears at GreenCine.com, a Netflix competitor I’d not heard of before it got a recommendation at O’Grady’s PowerPage.

netflix, greencine, dvd rental, paulina borsook, movie, movie criticism, film criticism, film, films, movies, old movies, good movies, criticism

Remember those guys who rode a Segway cross-country last year? Well, they’ve got a movie coming out. Yup, there’s even a trailer. Possibly more interesting: the photo gallery (from which the photo above came).

Thanks to Engadget for the link.

10 mph, 10mph, cross country, easy rider, movie, movie trailer, on the road again, photo gallery, segway, segways, ten miles per hour

David Edelstein’s review of Werner Herzog’s documentary, Grizzly Man, describes Timothy Treadwell as

…a manic but lovable whack-job who doggedly filmed and obsessively idealized the bears that would ultimately eat him…

The film is made up largely of the bits of the hundreds of hours of video that Treadwell himself shot during his 14 years with the bears. Later, however, Edelstein — probably restraining laughter — calls Treadwell “histrionic” and a “drama-queen” (isn’t that sort of redundant?).

If my tone is insufficiently respectful, it’s only because Grizzly Man itself often plays like a Christopher Guest “mockumentary.”

Not all is to be mocked, however. It seems that all who’ve seen the movie ask the same question: “was Treadwell suicidal?” Edelstein does, then adds “was he bipolar?”

My quoting is probably unfair to Edelstein, who’s six graphs on the movie are a whole lot more balanced and documented than what is represented here. Still, he describes the film as:

an emotional roller-coaster ride. You don’t know whether to celebrate or mock, to laugh or weep.

Finally, Edelstein addresses the audio recording Treadwell mad of his own death:

Herzog shoots himself listening on headphones to the six minutes of screaming… He doesn’t share the tape with us and tells Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend to destroy it. You can respect the way Herzog handles that material and still roll your eyes at his theatrics. That’s very much true of the whole film—and its larger-than-life subject. Too bad he wasn’t larger than bears.

Related: Alaskan Bear Attacks and Grizzly Man on IMDB.

alaska, bear, bear attack, bear attacks, bears, david edelstein, drama queen, emotional roller coaster, film, film review, grizzlies, grizzly, grizzly attack, grizzly bear, grizzly bears, grizzly man, grizzly people, histrionic, movie, movie review, msn, timothy treadwell, treadwell, werner herzog, wilderness

Joe recommended Open Water whole heartedly, but others, like some of these one-star reviewers at Amazon, had equally strong reactions against it.

I first learned of the events the movie is based on in Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, where he described the events of Thomas and Eileen Lonergan’s disappearance during a dive in the Australian Pacific. The similarity between these true events and the movie’s events likely ends there.

But the notion of being left alone at sea was scary enough for director Chris Kentis, who played it out as a story of personal drama rather than special effects awe. Thing is, when the sharks do appear, they’re real.

tags: abandoned at sea, bill bryson, chris kentis, films, lost at sea, man eating sharks, movie, open water, shark, sharks

I’ve been a fan of Zhang Yimou’s[1] films since, well, for a while now. But I’m also a huge kung fu fan — Jackie Chan especially — so House of Flying Daggers was quite a treat.

It’s not that I didn’t like Hero, or that Daggers was particularly funny. To the contrary, it’s tale of complex characters who don’t end well. That might be story enough, but every scene is richly photographed and styled — a hallmark of so many of Yimou’s films, but wonderfully so in Daggers.

Trivia: Viewers may be surprised to learn it was filmed in Ukraine, but the silver birch in so many of the forrest scenes is not native to China.

[1]: there is some debate about whether it’s “Zhang Yimou” or “Yimou Zhang” and I’m ashamed to say I don’t know enough to know better. I learned it as “Zhang Yimou,” and that’s how Wikipedia has it.

tags: film, hero, house of flying daggers, jackie chan, kung fu, movie, silver birch, ukrain, yimou zhang, zhang yimou

This is old news, but Netflix now offers multiple queues for each account. Queues, of course, are the movie wish lists each Netflix customer keeps; when you return a movie, they send out the next movie in your queue. In the old days, each subscriber got just one queue, no matter how many members of the household had an interest in the movies. Two people, one queue? Marital drama ensued in my home and others.

Netflix heard the cry, and now we can create a number of queues to divide our three DVDs at a time. Each queue gets a separate can be assigned a separate username/password and has most all the same options as the primary queue/account. Of course, only the primary account holder can decide how to split the stack, we can still argue about whether Sandee gets one or two of the three at a time.

tags: consumer interest, dvd, dvd rental, entertainment, films, movie, movies, netflix

Steven Soderbergh has done a number of good films, but The Underneath isn’t among them. It’s interesting to see the director working out his moves, but more entertaining to see them in a more mature form, as in Out of Site.

Eh, I’m ready to give the guy a break. My real complaint has nothing to with this film. Instead, it’s about Kafka, one of his best works. It was released in 1991, and though they’ve still got a few VHS copies in a warehouse somewhere, it deserves a DVD release

tags: film, kafka, movie, steven soderbergh, the underneath

Earlier this year the Idaho legislature passed a bill recognizing the success of Napoleon Dynamite, a film about Idaho life by Idahoan native sons.

LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF IDAHO First Regular Session – 2005

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 29

STATING LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND COMMENDING JARED AND JERUSHA HESS AND THE CITY OF PRESTON FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THE MOVIE “NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.”

Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Idaho:

WHEREAS, the State of Idaho recognizes the vision, talent and creativity of Jared and Jerusha Hess in the writing and production of “Napoleon Dyna- mite”; and

WHEREAS, the scenic and beautiful City of Preston, County of Franklin and the State of Idaho are experiencing increased tourism and economic growth; and

WHEREAS, filmmaker Jared Hess is a native Idahoan who was educated in the Idaho public school system; and

WHEREAS, the Preston High School administration and staff, particularly the cafeteria staff, have enjoyed notoriety and worldwide attention; and

WHEREAS, tater tots figure prominently in this film thus promoting Idaho’s most famous export; and

WHEREAS, the friendship between Napoleon and Pedro has furthered multiethnic relationships; and

WHEREAS, Uncle Rico’s football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics; and

WHEREAS, Napoleon’s bicycle and Kip’s skateboard promote better air qual- ity and carpooling as alternatives to fuel-dependent methods of transporta- tion; and

WHEREAS, Grandma’s trip to the St. Anthony Sand Dunes highlights a long- honored Idaho vacation destination; and

WHEREAS, Rico and Kip’s Tupperware sales and Deb’s keychains and glamour shots promote entrepreneurism and self-sufficiency in Idaho’s small towns; and

WHEREAS, Napoleon’s artistic rendition of Trisha is an example of the importance of the visual arts in K-12 education; and

WHEREAS, the schoolwide Preston High School student body elections foster an awareness in Idaho’s youth of public service and civic duty; and

WHEREAS, the “Happy Hands” club and the requirement that candidates for school president present a skit is an example of the importance of theater arts in K-12 education; and

WHEREAS, Pedro’s efforts to bake a cake for Summer illustrate the positive connection between culinary skills to lifelong relationships; and

WHEREAS, Kip’s relationship with LaFawnduh is a tribute to e-commerce and Idaho’s technology-driven industry; and

WHEREAS, Kip and LaFawnduh’s wedding shows Idaho’s commitment to healthy marriages; and

WHEREAS, the prevalence of cooked steak as a primary food group pays trib- ute to Idaho’s beef industry; and

WHEREAS, Napoleon’s tetherball dexterity emphasizes the importance of physical education in Idaho public schools; and

WHEREAS, Tina the llama, the chickens with large talons, the 4-H milk cows, and the Honeymoon Stallion showcase Idaho’s animal husbandry; and

WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote “Nay” on this concurrent resolution are “FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!” and run the risk of having the “Worst Day of Their Lives!”

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the members of the First Regular Session of the Fifty-eighth Idaho Legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate concurring therein, that we commend Jared and Jerusha Hess and the City of Preston for showcasing the positive aspects of Idaho’s youth, rural cul- ture, education system, athletics, economic prosperity and diversity.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we, the members of the House of Representa- tives and the Senate of the State of Idaho, advocate always following your heart, and thus we eagerly await the next cinematic undertaking of Idaho’s Hess family.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Clerk of the House of Representa- tives be, and she is hereby authorized and directed to forward a copy of this resolution to Jared and Jerusha Hess, the Mayor of the City of Preston and the Principal of Preston High School.

All of this is fresh now because the Napoleon Dynamite Festival was held just last week.

tags: festival, good sports, idaho, idaho legislature, jared hess, jerusha hess, movie, napoleon dynamite, napoleon dynamite festival, preston, preston idaho

The Fairlee Drive-In Theatre is open with double features on weekends

Details:

1809 Route 5, Fairlee VT 05045 (one mile north of town)
802-333-9192

Notes from Driveinmovie.com:

The usual Hotel/Motel concept of in-room movies is cable TV, this is one of only two Drive-ins in America that have a motel on the premises with a view of a drive-in movie. All rooms have a picture window and speaker, allowing motel guests to watch the movies. The motel has only 12 units, so be sure that you make a reservation well in advance to enjoy this unique drive-in which has been in operation since 1950 in rural Vermont.

But the Meadows Twin Drive-In in Woodsville (NH) appears to have closed at the end of last season (old info at Driveinmovie.com).

tags: double feature, drive-in, drive-in theatre, fairlee, motel, movie, movie theater, new hampshire, theater, vermont, woodsville

The New York Times did a Netflix story. The Author, William Grimes, seemed to like it, but…

[My wife and I] each judge the other’s selections harshly. I scored a major victory with “Mon Oncle” by Jacques Tati, a director I once dismissed as tedious, annoying and far too French. He is now a god in our house. But I have had my back against the wall after “L’Atalante,” a film I had never seen but knew to be, by expert consensus, a towering masterpiece. Less than 10 minutes after the opening credits rolled, the atmosphere in the living room grew frosty. I lost control of the mouse for a week. At least I had the foresight to sneak off and watch “Russian Ark” on my own.

That’s the fun of Netflix. Along with savage recriminations, my home now resonates with high-toned animated discussion of directors, cinematographers and camera angles. Once again I’m the moviegoer I was in college, when Bergman, Fellini and Truffaut were in full stride, and adventure was in the air, and bright-eyed cinéastes could sit through a film like “El Topo” and not demand their money back. It’s not available on Netflix, alas, but the Web site does propose an alternative, a compilation of “Ed Sullivan” shows featuring Topo Gigio. Close enough.

Interesting enough, but Netflix — and services yet to appear — are a sign of things to come: a world of entertainment shaped by the consumer, not by marketers.

Netflix executives say their edge over the competition is not their library but the way the library is presented to users, who are asked to rate the films they have seen. By sifting through the ratings, about 400 million of them at present, and analyzing buying patterns, a company program called CineMatch generates rental suggestions specific to each user.

“Lost in Translation will outperform most $300 million films for us, and that’s because of our ratings and recommendations,” said Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer for Netflix. “Monster will be huge for us, and that’s not because our subscribers are more sophisticated than the general moviegoing public, but because our merchandising system is much more specific.”

It will be a world of what you want, and only what you want, as clearly marked by your previous purchases and selections. You’ll never be upset by products that you don’t want, even if you didn’t know you didn’t want them, nor will you have to tolerate contrary opinions or debate.

tags: consumer interest, dvd, dvd rental, entertainment, film, films, movie, movies, netflix

Living Room Film Club, a Click Away
By WILLIAM GRIMES

Published: March 19, 2004

It so happens that I have a perfectly valid excuse for watching “Hercules in the Haunted World.” The film, made in 1961, offered brief employment to a slab of beefcake named Reg Park, the British Steve Reeves, and at first glance it would seem to be a two-ton wheel of cheese. But somehow a genuine artist became attached to the project, a director named Mario Bava.

And who is Mario Bava? Why, the seminal influence on Dario Argento, the cult Italian horrormeister. One by one, his stylized, incredibly violent films found their way into my home in a blood-soaked festival organized by my wife, an Argento fan who cannot bring herself to watch the leisurely stabbing scenes that take up about half of every movie. We made our way through “Inferno,” “Deep Red,” “Suspiria” and “Tenebre.” Then it was on to Bava.

Thank you, Netflix.

Netflix, founded in 1998, is an online movie-rental company that could be described as the anti-Blockbuster. It deals only in DVD’s, and customers pay a flat monthly fee of $19.95 to rent an unlimited number of films with no late fees. The sole restriction is that subscribers may keep only three movies out at a time. (The company also offers more expensive five-film and eight-film plans.)

As each movie is returned in its self-addressed, prepaid envelope, Netflix sends out the next film on a list that the subscriber maintains online. Since the company has 23 regional distribution centers, most movies arrive the day after they are sent out. In theory a fanatic customer watching three films a day could go through several hundred DVD’s each year, whittling down the per-film rental cost to a dollar or less. In practice the average user watches about six movies a month.

I became one of Netflix’s nearly 1.8 million users several months ago, and I have never looked back. Overnight, life became much simpler. No longer did I have to make a mad dash to the video store, either to rent a film or to return it by the noon deadline. Late fees vanished and so did the check-out line. I cursed the endless hours spent prowling the aisles in search of misfiled films, or something — anything — to watch. Anything that is, except the dead-enders artfully arranged in the section labeled “staff favorites,” a euphemism for “films that no one will rent, ever.” Best of all, I succumbed to the pure pleasure of browsing endlessly through thousands of movies, making my selections with a click of the mouse and then seeing them slip through my mail slot, in their bright-red envelopes, just a few days later.

Netflix not only changed my routine, it also turned me into a different kind of movie watcher. Culturally, I am no longer the same person.

The flat-fee system elicits two responses: more frequent renting, and more adventurous renting. To justify the cost, you watch more films. But since four films per month averages out to the cost of four films at Blockbuster, every subsequent movie is, in a delusory sense, free, and therefore there is no risk. Why not roll the dice and order, say, “Russian Ark,” a bizarre Russian film, part audioguide and part costume drama, that pulls the viewer through the Hermitage Museum in a single, extended camera shot, skipping from century to century. It’s even more unwatchable than it sounds. But so what? I dropped it in the mailbox knowing that “Naked City” and “Adaptation” were on their way.

So far I have not been sent any damaged discs, and only one has gone astray after being mailed back. I filed a “missing in action” report on the Netflix Web site, and a day later, it either turned up, or Netflix wrote it off. In any case, it was no longer listed as being out.

A Few Catches

There are a few snakes in this cinematic paradise. For one thing, Netflix cannot accommodate the moviegoer who needs instant gratification. If you simply have to see “Scarface” tonight, then only the video store can help you. Cable systems offer movies on demand, but the pickings tend to be slim. My metabolism doesn’t work that way. Browsing through a vast library and clicking as the mood strikes feels plenty spontaneous to me. You see it, you want it, you add it to your queue right then and there.

There are two other weaknesses in the Netflix system, one unavoidable, the other understandable. First, the company does not rent videocassettes, so its library does not include thousands of films, some of them obscure, but many of them recognized classics. Anyone hoping to binge on Barbara Stanwyck will have to do without “Ball of Fire.” Preston Sturges fans will look in vain for “Easy Living.” Even within the more limited universe of DVD, Netflix is not totally comprehensive. Its mainstream orientation has left an opening for GreenCine (pronounced GreenScene), an online rental company that specializes in art-house films, documentaries, Japanese anime and cult films. It does not have multiple distribution centers, but it does have “Cane Toads,” an Australian documentary about, not surprisingly, cane toads. I scanned the first 20 titles listed under “film noir” and found six films not offered by Netflix.

Wal-Mart, which entered the online DVD rental business last June, undercuts Netflix with a three-movie plan priced at $18.76 per month. Its library of about 12,000 titles passed the Dario Argento test with flying colors. Wal-Mart has 10 of his films, compared with five on Netflix. GreenCine, despite its alternative profile, offers only two Argento films, although it has two documentaries about the director.

Netflix, too, has its niche side. An innovative program called Netflix First makes a small number of independent films available exclusively to Netflix subscribers for a limited period. The program, which started with “Croupier,” has grown to include about 20 films.

Netflix executives say their edge over the competition is not their library but the way the library is presented to users, who are asked to rate the films they have seen. By sifting through the ratings, about 400 million of them at present, and analyzing buying patterns, a company program called CineMatch generates rental suggestions specific to each user.

Polishing the Profile

“`Lost in Translation’ will outperform most $300 million films for us, and that’s because of our ratings and recommendations,” said Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer for Netflix. “ `Monster’ will be huge for us, and that’s not because our subscribers are more sophisticated than the general moviegoing public, but because our merchandising system is much more specific.”

My experience of CineMatch makes me an agnostic. Right now my account page tells me that, based on my rentals and ratings, I might like to rent “Aguirre, Wrath of God,” “Stagecoach” or “The Vicar of Dibley.” I see the logic, and it is primitive. The “Stagecoach” recommendation reflects my rental of John Ford’s “Searchers,” just about the only western I’ve seen in my adult life, unless you count “Blazing Saddles.” CineMatch got lucky here. I found “The Searchers” riveting, and I put Howard Hawks’s “Red River” on my queue. “Stagecoach” is indeed a viable candidate. “The Vicar of Dibley,” a gentle and not very funny British comedy series, shows up because I rented two other British series, “Full Bottom” and “Thick as Thieves,” both of them a lot less funny even than “The Vicar of Dibley.” Three wrongs do not make a right.

In theory, as I generate more ratings, CineMatch will develop a more complex taste profile for me, but I’m doubtful. I think it will just get confused.

I don’t blame it. At the moment, a domestic battle rages for control of the Netflix queue, which can be revised and reshuffled at any time. It is disputed territory. My wife likes very fat films or very slow films. It’s either nonstop action, with a lot of gunplay, or painstaking, exquisitely nuanced psychological dramas, like the interminable “I Capture the Castle,” a British film about an eccentric family living in Wales in the 1930’s. My weakness is for pretentious foreign films. At the moment, I feel a creeping urge to rent “Andrei Rublev,” a three-hour film about a medieval Russian icon painter.

Frost Warning

We each judge the other’s selections harshly. I scored a major victory with “Mon Oncle” by Jacques Tati, a director I once dismissed as tedious, annoying and far too French. He is now a god in our house. But I have had my back against the wall after “L’Atalante,” a film I had never seen but knew to be, by expert consensus, a towering masterpiece. Less than 10 minutes after the opening credits rolled, the atmosphere in the living room grew frosty. I lost control of the mouse for a week. At least I had the foresight to sneak off and watch “Russian Ark” on my own.

That’s the fun of Netflix. Along with savage recriminations, my home now resonates with high-toned animated discussion of directors, cinematographers and camera angles. Once again I’m the moviegoer I was in college, when Bergman, Fellini and Truffaut were in full stride, and adventure was in the air, and bright-eyed cinÈastes could sit through a film like “El Topo” and not demand their money back. It’s not available on Netflix, alas, but the Web site does propose an alternative, a compilation of “Ed Sullivan” shows featuring Topo Gigio. Close enough.