Short Thoughts: Winners on Netflix

You don't get to say the words "winner" and "Netflix" too often in the same sentence these days.

Anyway.

Here are some movies I've enjoyed on Netflix in the last month or two but that I don't have time and energy to write a full post about.

Salvage. Quiet little British thriller about a military operation gone wrong spilling over into suburbia. Starring the always wonderful Neve McIntosh who gives a stand-out performance in a cast full of pretty damned good performances. Pay attention to the guy playing her boyfriend -- he's doing very nice things in the corner when no-one's looking.

Wilderness. Not-so-quiet British thriller. This is more if you're feeling the need for blood splashing around the screen and lots of yelling. Oh, and "attack dogs."

If you like Sean Pertwee, this one's definitely worth checking out although the whole "juvenile prisoners on a character-building weekend trip" framework is bizarre to the point of unworkability. I'm willing to buy "juvenile prisoners" and I'm willing to buy "character-building weekend trip" --  but maybe not partnered in the same movie? And there's a whole bullying-leading-to-death storyline that is, ostensibly, the trigger for all the violence in the film that appears and reappears at somewhat random intervals.

Don't focus your eyes entirely on Pertwee -- although he gives his usual, slightly exasperated performance here -- there are several of the young characters who are more worth watching. I'm on a network so slow I can't access IMDB (or, indeed, poster graphics), so I can't look up anything like performer or character names but there's Annie from Being Human and the two young (male) skinheads.

Super 8. This one really does deserve its own blog post and I really do want to write one. I put off seeing this because I figured it couldn't possibly be as good as everyone said it was.

Wrong again!

It's totally as good as everyone said it was. I described it to my parents as "the best homage to E.T. and Close Encounters that Spielberg could have asked for on bended knee." And it's better than that, too, because it steps beyond being a nod to bigger and better things and becomes its own thing -- a little awkwardly at times but that doesn't matter because you're so in love with it, you don't care.

Captain America: The First Avenger. Not my fandom. Not my thing. Not going to be my fandom or my thing any time soon.

Thor. Ditto. But a step beyond the above by being directed by Kenneth Brannagh and including Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba. Has the single most wooden kiss that I have seen in a long time.

Graveyard Shift. A film adaptation of a Stephen King story. You already know so much from that phrase alone, don't you? But this is better than most -- if for no other reason than there's Doc from Deadwood in a leading role as a crazy ratcatcher.