Instant Picks of the Week 2/5/16
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.
WORLD OF TOMORROW (Netflix and Vimeo)
In the right light, Don Hertzfeldt’s WORLD OF TOMORROW just might be the best original cinematic work to be released in 2015. Boasting an excellent script and beautiful minimalistic animation (Hertzfeldt’s first attempt at digital), TOMORROW creates a world of staggering emotional depth in the span of 12 minutes, something that many more “adult,” more “professional” films failed to do in the past year. Creator Hertzfeldt crafts a dystopian future in which people live forever through cloning, the internet has consumed the lives of many, and the only salve for the coming apocalypse are long-forgotten memories of past lives. It’s frankly fantastic, with the same sharp observations of the pains of being human that have characterized his previous work combined with a bright and youthful absurdist humor delivered by the film’s young protagonist Emily (played wonderfully by Hertzfeldt’s niece). WORLD OF TOMORROW deserves your attention and now, thanks to wonders of tomorrow, you can watch it online. [Ian Campbell]
MAN SEEKING WOMAN (Hulu)
The brainchild of Novelist Simon Rich and frequent TIM AND ERIC (AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB!) collaborator Jonathan Krisel, MAN SEEKING WOMAN takes the concept of modern romance, does a bunch of mushrooms, and presents it to you for your viewing pleasure. Starring Jay Baruchel and Eric Andre (who is almost disappointingly sane despite his behavior on THE ERIC ANDRE SHOW), the show follows Baruchel’s character Josh as he searches for companionship at 27 in a New York where a text can mean the difference between a nice evening with a lady and an evening being chastised by your jackin’ off hand that happens to have the voice of Sarah Silverman. This and other fears of the single and awkward are routinely represented in a bizarrely magical realist fashion, one that is painfully accurate and results most often with cries of “No, but it’s REALLY like that though!” It’s almost worth watching solely to inspect the costume and prop budget of FXX. If you’re feeling melancholic but can’t quite relate to Louis C.K. due to his age and your lack of red hair, MAN SEEKING WOMAN is here to tell it like it really is. [Steven Porfiri]
