Instant Picks of the Week 11/11/16
Gone are the days of scrolling mindlessly through your queue! No longer will you have to sift through the vastness of what’s coming to the instant viewing wastelands this month! Whether you’re looking for a stellar film or an exciting new show to binge, Instant Picks of the Week brings you the hottest releases in film and television on instant viewing platforms that we know you’ll love, or at the very least not despise.
BLIND DATE (Netflix)
I watched a lot of films in my high school French class, but none of them really stuck out to me except BLIND DATE. Call me a sucker for love stories, but I love how fate and time intertwine in this film. It follows a pianist, Machine, who moves to Paris, and finds that her neighbor is the sullen, reclusive man, Machin, who hates being disrupted by noise. The two communicate from opposite sides of the wall, and eventually develop feelings for one another. Without seeing the two actually come to face to face for a while, it really puts a spotlight on how words and emotion from the music pull the two together, and depicts the intensity of human feeling without physical interaction. Also there’s a lot of cute piano playing. Nothing draws me in more than that. [Michelle Vera]
GALAXY QUEST (Netflix)
No matter who you are, 2016’s week of November 8th will be remembered as an emotionally draining one — the need for escapism at a time like this is at an all time high. GALAXY QUEST presents the perfect remedy in the form of a fun, goofy, and surprisingly smart parody. Like SPACEBALLS’s broad mockery of STAR WARS, you don’t need to be a Trekkie in order for most of QUEST’s jokes to land — but knowing the ins and outs of STAR TREK will color in the details nicely. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and the late Alan Rickman play washed up actors whose only notable success came years before on the eponymous show-within-the-movie, GALAXY QUEST. They inadvertently discover that an alien race studied the transmission of their second-rate show and modeled a functioning spaceship on their science fiction. Naturally, the trio and their crew get caught up in an intergalactic conflict that also features Justin Long as a heroic fanboy. Best suited for light group viewing (bring the beer and bud), this cult classic is a more than suitable 102 minute diversion from this week. [Phillip Vernon]
