Netflix Challenge Update

Oscar season has taken up all of our movie-watching time, so it's been slow going on the Netflix Challenge.

Here's a quick recap of what's been taken off the list since December.

I'll Believe You
This one made the queue because I saw Chris Elliott on the cover. It was horrible. I couldn't finish it.




Taps
A good cast featuring Sean Penn and Tom Cruise early in their careers, but its only value today is as a document of the crazy return of "tough guy" military war mongering of the Reagan '80s. Sucked.




Kicking and Screaming
Finally, one I sort of liked. Not to be confused with Will Ferrell's very funny film of the same name, this is writer Noah Baumbach's (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) first movie. It's about a group of guys in the mid 1990s who can't quite move away from their college campus after graduating. It's one of those, "I wish I'd written that" movies. There's definitely room for improvement, as a lot of the dialogue sounds very written in the way that Kevin Smith's movies always sound very written.




Capitalism: A Love Story
A good Michael Moore movie. If you like him, you'll like this.




Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams
I remember seeing this a long time ago and thinking it was funny. Stone sober, the comedy has not aged well.


Downtown 81
The real Jean-Michel Basquiat hangs out with artists and musicians in New York in 1981. Super cool with good music.



Others removed from the list before viewing:
Paloma de Papel
Dirty Harry

Just 25 titles remain.