Hidden Gems of Netflix's Watch Instantly

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I'm having a great time discovering new shows & movies through Netflix's Watch Instantly integration with the 360. What I'd like to see is if anyone out there has found some awesome gems on the service they'd recommend.

One hidden gem that I have to recommend is a TV series called Dead Like Me, a rather unique dark comedy. I completely missed out on this when it originally ran and my wife & I are completely hooked on it now. Basically, it's the story of a young woman who dies and becomes "undead" as a grim reaper tasked with removing souls of people who are about to die. As Georgia tries to deal with her soul taking responsibilities, you are also shown what happened to her family trying to cope with losing her. It's a pretty bleak show at times but the witty dialog and constant surprises really hooked us in.

Dead Like Me is a really cool show. I watched many of the episodes on SciFi. I think you can catch it in HD on HDNet now. The creator went on to produce Pushing Daisies, so I'm guessing he has a thing about death.

I'm on the fence, considering a switch to Netflix. I've really been happy with Blockbuster Online, but using my 360 for streaming shows is a huge plus.

Netflix Streaming has a ton of documentaries, 30 Rock seasons one and two are available on it as is the live action version of The Tick which is gold. I've been having fun mucking about with it, even if most of the series have some episodes marked as "available on disk only."

I can't say how much I feel it's worth because I'm totally mooching off my parent's Netflix account, but it's still nice.

My wife loves Dead Like Me and has been eagerly awaiting the straight to DVD movie that was delayed by the writers strike. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1079444/

Watch "The First Turn-On!!". Trust me!

So far the wife and I have watched Heroes season 2&3 and liked them. It was nice to catch up after seeing season 1 when they came out on TV. Other then that we watched the stand up comedian Bill Burr who rocks. Watched the documentary called Supher High Me. Sucked. People have told me to watch the TV series Weeds so I think that will be our next series.

I highly recommend Reprise, a Norwegian film from a couple years ago.

Does anyone else have any "notes" next to their Instant Queue choices?

I added Dead Like Me to my Instant Queue and there's a message next to it that says "Available Until Dec 31, 2008." Dates like this one have appeared on almost half of my Instant Queue choices. What the hell? The last time I updated my queue those messages weren't there. Is Netflix taking items off their Instant list? Are we going to be left with crap now?

I watched Vanishing Point last night on Netflix/XBL. What a great car chase movie.

Several of the 'Masters of Horror' minimovies are available for instant viewing as well, some real gems there. Maybe stay away from Imprint though. It was so brutally violent I actually got queasy. That was a first for this jaded, jaded viewer.

Mystic Violet wrote:

Does anyone else have any "notes" next to their Instant Queue choices?

I added Dead Like Me to my Instant Queue and there's a message next to it that says "Available Until Dec 31, 2008." Dates like this one have appeared on almost half of my Instant Queue choices. What the hell? The last time I updated my queue those messages weren't there. Is Netflix taking items off their Instant list? Are we going to be left with crap now? :(

I think they had a deal with STARZ that is falling through/ending.

The King of Kong
Word Wars
All the Nature episodes
The Comedians of Comedy
Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Fido

Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lydon
Doctor Who.
Chuck Heston's awesome 1970s SF flicks Soylent Green and The Omega Man.
The Wild Bunch (classic late 1960s western)
Kolchak: The Night Stalker (classic 1970s TV horror series)

Now that I see those expiration notices, I'm going to have buckle down and watch more before they go MIA.

lunabean wrote:

Fido

Yeah that is a good one!

Amazing Stories Season 1 and 2
Quantum Leap
Sliders

Is Weeds Season 3 on there? If so, I'll probably sign up for it tonight.

Primer and Six-String Samurai are worth watching on Netflix streaming.

God I love Primer.

I didn't know about the DLM movie, nice to finally have some closure. Now if only they'd make ones for Deadwood and Carnivale, I'd be set.

The Protector - Awesome martial arts movie with Tony Jaa. There's a great 8 or so minute continuous fight scene in the middle. Muay Thai is awesome.

Distric B13 - A great Parkour movie starring the originator himself, David Belle.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show - Yeah...A classic. :p

Captain N: The Game Master - Another classic.

I'll also second Barry Lyndon. A really amazingly shot film.

*Legion* wrote:

Watch "The First Turn-On!!". Trust me! :D

Sounds dangerous... =)

Mystic Violet wrote:

Does anyone else have any "notes" next to their Instant Queue choices?

I added Dead Like Me to my Instant Queue and there's a message next to it that says "Available Until Dec 31, 2008." Dates like this one have appeared on almost half of my Instant Queue choices. What the hell? The last time I updated my queue those messages weren't there. Is Netflix taking items off their Instant list? Are we going to be left with crap now? :(

I've been using their Instant Queuing for a while and there have always been movies/shows that would only be available for a short time, disappear, and then come back, without notice.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

Is Weeds Season 3 on there? If so, I'll probably sign up for it tonight.

Nope. Just 1 & 2.

I've been having a good time with Jericho; it details the struggles of people in a small Kansas town after a nuclear disaster strikes. I haven't watched TV since MST3k went off of the air so it's kind of fun to catch up on some of the interesting looking ones.

Surface is also good harmless sc-fi fun so far; think E.T. meets Godzilla meets Outbreak.

The Signal is a pretty darned good, disturbing take on the whole 'epidemic that makes people go bonkers' fad. There's some (at least to me) truly distressing scenes of torture.

Primer for sure.. it deserves several viewings. Trying to follow that movie seems to have taken on a life of it's own on the interwebs. Here's a visual time line that may or may not help make sense out of it.

http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_time...

If you haven't seen it, and checking out that time line doesn't somehow excite you.. it may not be for you. It admittedly is a pretty self-indulgent affair.

nukacola23 wrote:
Mystic Violet wrote:

Does anyone else have any "notes" next to their Instant Queue choices?

I added Dead Like Me to my Instant Queue and there's a message next to it that says "Available Until Dec 31, 2008." Dates like this one have appeared on almost half of my Instant Queue choices. What the hell? The last time I updated my queue those messages weren't there. Is Netflix taking items off their Instant list? Are we going to be left with crap now? :(

I've been using their Instant Queuing for a while and there have always been movies/shows that would only be available for a short time, disappear, and then come back, without notice.

Yup. Some movies and programs cycle through availability. I'm sure it's some esoteric negotiation point in the contract because the studios are paranoid about having their IP streaming on the Interwebz. Whatever you had on your queue will just move to your saved list and then pop back on when it's available again.

I have about 400 items in my Instant Queue. Some of the gems are:

-- Doctor Who
-- Alfred Hitchcock Presents (plus a lot of his movies)
-- News Radio
-- Red Dwarf
-- League of Gentlemen
-- The Outer Limits
-- Day Watch / Night Watch (Russian vampires, baby)
-- A Very British Gangster (doc)
-- Antibodies (German take on "Silence of the Lambs", very mind-fukcy)
-- Scratch (doc on DJing/scratching)

nukacola23 wrote:
Mystic Violet wrote:

Does anyone else have any "notes" next to their Instant Queue choices?

I added Dead Like Me to my Instant Queue and there's a message next to it that says "Available Until Dec 31, 2008." Dates like this one have appeared on almost half of my Instant Queue choices. What the hell? The last time I updated my queue those messages weren't there. Is Netflix taking items off their Instant list? Are we going to be left with crap now? :(

I've been using their Instant Queuing for a while and there have always been movies/shows that would only be available for a short time, disappear, and then come back, without notice.

Yeah, you see this on Xbox live marketplace too, likely has to do with licensing, gets renegotiated periodically.

Just remembered...

The Secret of Nihm

It hasn't aged well but it brought back some great childhood memories. Whoo hoo Jeremy the Crow

Is there a list or searchable database somewhere for non-NetFlix subscribers to see what's available for streaming? I'm considering signing up, but I'd like to know what's available first.

Yoreel wrote:

Just remembered...

The Secret of Nihm

It hasn't aged well but it brought back some great childhood memories. Whoo hoo Jeremy the Crow

$5 dollar dvd bin at Wal-Mart. Best impulse buy I've ever made.

Yoreel wrote:

Just remembered...

The Secret of Nihm

It hasn't aged well but it brought back some great childhood memories. Whoo hoo Jeremy the Crow

Oh hell yeah. It was that special kind of animation, right during when Disney started shipping things overseas and the quality turned to crap and before computers changed animation completely. Bluth went out on his own to preserve that old-school Disney handdrawn style and Nimh was the first result. It's really dark in that way that children's movies are afraid to be anymore and some of the animation is really beautiful. I thought it actually aged really well as an example of that style of animation.

PyromanFO wrote:
Yoreel wrote:

Just remembered...

The Secret of Nihm

It hasn't aged well but it brought back some great childhood memories. Whoo hoo Jeremy the Crow

Oh hell yeah. It was that special kind of animation, right during when Disney started shipping things overseas and the quality turned to crap and before computers changed animation completely. Bluth went out on his own to preserve that old-school Disney handdrawn style and Nimh was the first result. It's really dark in that way that children's movies are afraid to be anymore and some of the animation is really beautiful. I thought it actually aged really well as an example of that style of animation.

Let me clarify. I still love the animation. The story itself hasn't aged well as it is such an abridged version from the book that I loved. I filled in quite a few holes and such when I was a kid, and didn't mind them then. If I remove the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia though, the plot is pretty thin, and quite a few things are not really explained.

The scene with the Great owl makes up for most of that though.

Planet Bboy - Excellent documentary on the break dancing world championships.
Street Fight - Another excellent documentary on the 2002 Newark mayoral race (more interesting than it sounds).

I really dislike Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature. It is poorly implemented, and the selection is just terrible. I couldn't watch anything without it messing up 2-3 times while watching something, which made it necessary for me to close down IE (convert to FF, backwards jackasses) and reload the movie. When I want to watch movies online, I'll check out Hulu. Sure, the selection may not be as large, but it works better and it is free. I

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