![]() Internet-hued humor involving cross-eyed pugs and gigantic demonic Furbies can cater to the whole family without dumbing itself down. But when smart devices get a little too smart and stage a hostile world takeover, he and his YouTuber daughter Katie come to appreciate the way the other sees their brightly colored, frenetically edited world. Gravity Falls veteran and first-time feature director Mike Rianda reimagines his own family as a dysfunctional clan of kooks led by an outdoorsy dad (voice of Danny McBride) resentful of how much time his wife (voice of Maya Rudolph) and kids (voices of Abbi Jacobson and Rianda) spend glued to their screens. With the hyperactively playful spirit of The LEGO Movie (from producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller) and the pop-art savvy of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (from studio Sony Pictures Animation), this plugged-in adventure places itself among the finest mainstream animation in recent years. But those attuned to the soaring highs and tear-soaked lows of old-school Indian cinema will luxuriate in the opulently rendered passion. In practice, that classical bent can sometimes come off as heavy-handedness, as in the subplot that sees our gal paying bills by dancing in the employ of a shark-toothed pimp character. 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. ![]() 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. beat-’em-up thriller in from France, a one-of-a-kind animated marvel imported from India, the latest directorial effort from the former Leslie Knope, and Jennifer Garner’s cinematic guide to perfectly-imperfect parenting all fill out the docket, so read on for the full lowdown on your next streaming obsession. Though things at Netflix have cooled off somewhat as it has finished unloading all of its awards contenders before the Academy cutoff at the end of February, this month still boasts an eclectic spread of fresh offerings. 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. ![]() 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. 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. So while the original list has been laid to rest, the great work continues. 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. 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. 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. I saw it all, from the unsung gems of Chinese realist drama to the accursed knockoffs-of-knockoffs baiting the lowest common denominator of viewer. ![]() 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. 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.
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