Netflix/YouTube – Sentinelle

Sentinelle. Photo: Netflix/YouTube Five years ago, I undertook a foolhardy mission somewhere between the quixotic and the Sisyphean: to maintain a comprehensive list assessing and ranking every single new Netflix original film, excepting only the documentaries and the shorts for the sake of sanity. My mental fortitude would nevertheless unravel over the coming years as the studio beefed up its production and acquisitions departments, leading to a breakneck rate of a dozen premieres in a slow month.

And even as the article’s page grew past 500 entries to an untenable length, even as I came to fear the thud and hum of the big red N logo like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I felt there was a real worthiness to this mad labor of love. A lot of these releases would come and go with near-zero coverage, if not for this ongoing assignment; someone needed to champion the good stuff and take the bad to task. As a whole, the behemoth of a list forms a bird’s-eye history of a disruptive-industry newcomer’s expansion and evolution into one of the business’s most dominant forces.

We intend to stay on the Netflix beat in a less unwieldy capacity, compiling a monthly digest of the latest titles with accompanying capsule reviews. The big-budget awards contenders and the slapstick comedies imported from Basque Country, the Indian issue pictures and the Hollywood action spectacles, the next Scorsese epic and the output of McG — all will have their fair day in court. Along the way, regular readers may even develop the algorithmic sixth sense I’ve gained over the past half-decade and start to get an inkling of how and why Netflix does what it does.

Essential Streaming Sentinelle The Netflix library has no shortage of sturdy middlebrow Euro-action, but Julien Leclercq’s take on a real-life counterterrorism force in France winnows away the extraneous fat until all that’s left is sinew and bone. With only 80 fleet minutes on the clock, we have time for little more than Olga Kurylenko (splitting the difference between Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde and Claire Danes in Homeland) beating up bad guys like crazy. The plot doesn’t do much more than guide her from one face-off to the next as she hunts her sister’s rapist through the ranks of a Russian organized-crime operation, but those set pieces have a remorseless crunch to them, closer to the low-budget savagery of a latter Universal Soldier installment than the tight choreography of clear influence John Wick.

Bombay Rose In a digital equivalent to the groundbreaking oil-painting-in-motion Loving Vincent, thousands of computerized drawings comprise the novel animation technique of Gitanjali Rao’s ambitious social fantasy. In hazy strokes apt for the film’s constant blending of reality and daydream, she envisions a bustling Mumbai wherein a Hindu flower salesgirl (voice of Cyli Khare) falls in love with a Muslim refugee from Kashmir (Amit Deondi), their differences charging their affaire de coeur with the melodramatic flair of the Bollywood romances to which the film pays homage. Paper Lives Mehmet may not be doing so well, but he wants to do good.

What Is The Name Of The Documentary About The Notorious B.I.G.?

Big talent is headed to Netflix in March. The month kicks off with a new documentary about the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie: I Got a Story To Tell, featuring interviews with the rapper’s closest friends (including BFF Sean “Diddy” Combs). Two days later marks Amy Poehler’s second feature as a director, Moxie, about a shy 16-year-old who publishes an anonymous zine calling out sexism at her school; and later in the month former First Lady Michelle Obama stars in the new children’s series Waffles + Mochi, which follows two puppets as they learn about world cuisine and how to cook with healthy ingredients.

HIGHLIGHTS Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell (2021) 78% Description: In the wake of the Notorious B.I.G.’s landmark induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ahead of what would have been his 50th birthday, Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell offers a fresh look at one of the greatest, most influential rappers of all time by those who knew him best. Made in collaboration with Biggie’s estate, I Got A Story To Tell is an intimate rendering of a man whose rapid ascent and tragic end has been at the center of rap lore for more than 20 years. But when the arrival of a new student (Alycia Pascual-Peña) forces her to examine the unchecked behavior of her fellow students running rampant at her high school, Vivian realizes she’s fed up.

Poehler also directs. Premiere Date: March 3, 2021 Murder Among the Mormons: Limited Series (2021) 89% Description: Salt Lake City, 1985. A series of pipe bombs kills two people and severely injures another, jolting the epicenter of the LDS Church.

Directed by Jared Hess and Tyler Measom, Murder Among the Mormons is the first comprehensive look at one of the most shocking crimes to have ever taken place among the Mormon community and the criminal mastermind behind it all. Premiere Date: March 3, 2021 Waffles + Mochi: Season 1 (2021) 95% Description: Curious puppet pals Waffles and Mochi travel the world exploring the wonders of food and culture while learning how to cook with fresh ingredients. Following encounters with a powerful, ancient eldwurm as well as the noble Princess Mirana on a secret mission of her own, Davion becomes embroiled in events much larger than he could have ever imagined.

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