WatchInstantly Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I've ranted once or twice about some of the geekier goodies I've found through Netflix, but somehow this one got by me. It'd been a while since I'd visited Hacking Netflix, which is an excellent blog by the way, and it was there that I read ... huh, what's this? I can now view ALL* my "Watch Instantly" titles through my Xbox 360? Really? Well I just had to check that out.

My system needed to update to the jazzy new 360 dashboard, but introducing my Xbox to my Netflix queue was remarkably easy. Now, you can't exactly browse through the Netflix website -- in fact the 360 system only accesses your WI queue. But I watched two episodes of Heroes (Season 3) and the whole of Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (starring James Caan AND Robert Duvall!) in one enjoyable sitting. (Yeah, I'm a good sitter.) Just another reason that Xbox is cooler than Playstation ... says the guy who plays games with his console maybe five times a year.

In other Netflix news, I've discovered a few more obscurities that might be worthy of note: In addition to the aforementioned Peckinpah film, I recently watched a few Gene Hackman ones from 1977: March or Die and The Domino Principle. Both uneven, but dang I love Gene Hackman. Other recent flicks include George C. Scott in The Hindenburg (meh), Marooned (more Hackman!), and THX 1138 (more Duvall!) And I finally saw the mega-weird Spider Baby. Sheesh. Frankly the Netflix Watch Insantly service has improved exponentially since they partnered up with Starz. Now there's NO excuse for me not to have a movie on at all times.

(* Nope, not all. Some of your queued titles will NOT be available via your 360. According to the HN blog, looks like it's all the Sony-owned titles.)

Someone over at Netflix (and, more specifically Netflix's 'Watch Instantly' department) has been digging into my brain and pulling out some really strange and obscure movies that (as far as I know) aren't even available on DVD! The last time out, I was gushing over titles like Rolling Thunder, The Squeeze, and Planet of the Vampires -- but this time the Netflix VHS Stack is overflowing with wierd little flickers. Get a load of these ones:

The 1986 comedy Modern Girls, starring Cynthia Gibb, Daphne Zuniga, Virginia Madsen, and Clayton Rohner. I actually saw this one during its theatrical run. Some of the Animal House guys (Tim Matheson, Stephen Furst) team up with one of the Porky's guys (Dan Monahan) and the ESP hottie from Ghostbusters (Jennifer Runyon) to deliver one of the more fondly-remembered sex comedies of 1984: Up the Creek! Also features a cool Cheap Trick song and a great performance by a dog.

J. Lee Thompson's The White Buffalo (1977) is a bona-fide curio for fans of semi-forgotten cinema. It's an odd mixture of adventure, western, and horror in which Wild Bill Hicock (Charles Bronson) and Crazy Horse (Will Sampson) match wits with, yep, a large buffalo. Remember back in 1981 when "Klinton Spilsbury" was introduced as the legendary hero in The Legend of the Lone Ranger? Most people don't, but the movie does exist as proof. Martin Short and Danny Glover in the silly comedy Pure Luck (1991), which is a remake of the French farce La Chevre.

Now this was a strange little discovery: If you're a Netflix member then you get to watch movies online for free as part of your membership fee, which is great for people like me because one never knows when he'll suddenly need to watch My Blue Heaven or The Mask of Zorro or six consecutive episodes of Heroes S2. It's not like you'll ever find any "buried treasure" on Netflix's 'insta-watch' list because if they're on that list ... they're also available on DVD! To own if you like!

So I thought it was a little bit weird that, as I was scanning through Netflix's latest online offerings, I noticed a flick called Rolling Thunder. Hmm, I vaguely recall that movie NEVER being released on DVD, so what gives? Well heck, it sure looks like Netflix has released some "instant watch only" titles that are simply not available on Region 1 DVD yet. (Just a reminder: Rolling Thunder is a 1977 action flick that's built up quite the cult following over the years. Apparently it's one of Tarantino's favorites too.) So there you go, movie freaks: If you belong to Netflix already, here's your chance to check out Rolling Thunder -- which I'll be doing later tonight. They're even using the old VHS cover, ha!