Yoda actually looks more lifelike in the animated “Stars: The Clone Wars” than he did in the live-action “Attack of the Clones.”
Credit: Netflix
Late last February brought two titles to Netflix Instant that subscribers have been clamoring for, if for different reasons: the final batch of episodes of “Breaking Bad” and the French relationship saga “Blue is the Warmest Color.” (We’re sure everyone’s stoked to watch the latter due to its perceptive examination of first big love, not because of a pair of graphic sex scenes between attractive women.)
Both are very long, but regular Instant watchers like to watch things in bulk — because apparently they actually have time to burn through entire seasons in a single weekend, if not day.
March has nothing as earthquaking as either of those, although Netflix has ordered up another fit of original programming. March 7 brings another round of “Star Wars: Clone Wars,” the animated (and therefore cheaper and easier to produce) series that catches the George Lucas faithful up with the tussles that fall in between prequels “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith.”
Otherwise, all it has this month are the old — a bit of a shame if you rely solely on Netflix to keep you abreast of the new. “Dirty Dancing” has hit streaming, as has another bygone smash, “The Blair Witch Project.” The latter has fallen on hard times since raking in the hundreds of millions in 1999 (you know, 15 years ago). Perhaps now people can recognize it for being more than just the first major found footage scarefest.
The Oscars are Sunday, so if you want to revisit one of the more oddball Best Picture winners, “Silence of the Lambs” just cropped up. Audrey Hepburn won her Oscar for “Roman Holiday,” a charming rom-com where her princess gallivants about the city with a cynical journo (Gregory Peck).
Meanwhile, no one, deservedly, won anything for “Over the Top,” Sylvester Stallone’s 1987 ode to arm-wrestling. Then again, the Oscars didn’t fete the 1995 post-collegiate indie “Kicking and Screaming” (not “Kicking & Screaming,” the Will Ferrell soccer comedy) either. That’s a shame, because its screenplay is lousy with killer one-liners. If you enjoyed “Frances Ha,” then you can’t go wrong with the debut of its filmmaker, Noah Baumbach.
Elsewhere, the new offerings are as random as “The Station Agent” — the indie that made a name out of Peter Dinklage, as well as “Blue Jasmine”’s Bobby Cannavale — and “Serpico,” with Al Pacino turning into a longhair buster of corrupt cops. Two Robert Altman films have appeared, namely the career high “The Long Goodbye” — his oddball twist on a Philip Marlowe mystery, whose first 10 minutes find a mumbling Elliott Gould trying to buy his cat cat food — and the career low, “Streamers,” which nonetheless features the pairing of Matthew Modine and David Alan Grier.
The complete list of March newbies is below:
“And Then Came Lola”
“Arthur and the Invisibles”
“The Bad News Bears”
“Beethoven’s 2nd”
“Below”
“The Blair Witch Project”
“Brokedown Palace”
“Capote”
“Dirty Dancing”
“Dirty Pretty Things”
“Flyboys”
“Harsh Times”
“How to Lose Friends & Alienate People”
“The Ice Storm”
“Kicking and Screaming”
“The Long Goodbye”
“The Long, Hot Summer”
“Night of the Comet”
“Night of the Living Dead”
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge”
“On the Line”
“Over the Top”
“Princess Kaiulani”
“Rake” (Seasons 1 and 2)
“Robin Hood: Men in Tights”
“Roman Holiday”
“Serpico”
“Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th”
“The Silence of the Lambs”
“The Station Agent”
“Streamers”
“Summer’s Moon”
“True Grit”
“The United States of Leland”
“With a Friend Like Harry…”
“Valkyrie”
“Vanilla Sky”
“While You Were Sleeping”
“The Wood”
“ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction”
“Sweetwater” (March 2)
“Spy Kids 3: Game Over” (March 3)
“Uptown Girls” (March 6)
“Star Wars: The Clone Wars” – entire series and feature film (March 7)
“American Dreamz” (March 16)
Follow Matt Prigge on Twitter @mattprigge
