Spring forward with the latest offerings on Netflix, which will give you plenty of reasons not to leave the couch—even as the weather warms. Read on to learn what the streaming service is bringing to the screen next month—as well as what to catch now, before it fades into the black hole of the Internet.
Film
What’s Arriving . . .
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (March 1)
Here’s to the movies that are still fresh after all these years. Ang Lee’s modern wuxia epic, with its abundance of international Chinese stars and Hong Kong action-movie alums (among them Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat), was a hit with audiences and critics when it was released, but doesn’t come up in our modern blockbuster conversations nearly as often as it should. It’s time to revisit. The movie, a winding yarn set in 19th-century Qing-dynasty China, ties together multiple threads of love and duty against fantasies about freedom for women, the rejection of marriage traditions, and the embrace of old-school fighting traditions. It was America’s introduction to the likes of perennial stars like Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen and, more broadly, a fabulous introduction to a cinematic tradition that’s spanned the ages.
Junebug (March 1)
Anyone still moping over Amy Adams losing out on an Academy Award yet again this year ought to revisit this 2005 indie classic, which earned the actress her first nomination—and gave her what might still be her richest, most surprising role. Phil Morrison’s movie is about a young Southerner (Alessandro Nivola) who, along with his art-dealer wife (Embeth Davidtz), makes a trip to visit his family back in North Carolina. Hilarity ensues—and so does heartbreak. Adams stars as Nivola’s sister-in-law, who’s as bubbly as can be and as curious about the world as she is naïve about it. Junebug remains one of the best recent studies of family values and loyalty committed to screen, and Adams’s performance remains one of the great heartbreakers of recent movies.
Christopher Robin (March 5)
Some of the great movie delights of 2018 were hiding out in Disney’s Christopher Robin—all in the form of voice acting. It wasn’t just that the wonderfully familiar characters were well-written and nicely realized through computer animation, though both are true. It’s that their voices gave them unique, singular life. Jim Cummings, in particular, does profound work as the voice of Pooh (and his Tigger ain’t bad, either). The movie is yet another children’s entertainment about that pitfalls of growing up and the imagination lost along the way, but with Cummings, the figure of Pooh becomes sadder, wiser, and more yearning than even this plot might have imagined. Ewan McGregor stars as an adult Christopher Robin, who’s more or less forgotten where he’s come from. But thinking back over the movie, it’s the sadness of the Hundred Acre Wood you’ll remember, more than even the boy who left it.
What’s Leaving . . .
Pearl Harbor (March 1)
Remember when movies were big? Blockbusters are of course still being released, but there’s nothing coming out today that quite matches the weepy, overwrought, garish, yet somehow still utterly watchable mania of Michael Bay’s big, bad World War II epic. This was the movie that solidified Josh Hartnett as a boyish romantic lead (something Hollywood too quickly lost sight of) and gave us Ben Affleck as a guy we like but can’t entirely bring ourselves to root for (another role taken for granted by other movies). The men are in a dire love triangle with the likes of Liv Tyler, and this—with all the grand, sweeping, slow-mo-spark romance it takes to dramatize—is what the movie is really about, rather than, you know, Japanese enemy soldiers and Nazis. Recent historical epics are rarely so stupidly fun.
TV
What’s Arriving . . .
Queer Eye Season 3 (March 15)
Netflix continues its relentless assault on your life skills—and tear ducts—by following Tidying Up with Marie Kondo with a third installment of Queer Eye—and based on their Instagrams, it looks like the Fab Five is going to be queering the needy men of Japan. (Is this our diplomacy now? We get Marie Kondo’d as Japan gets Queer Eye’d?) Other updates from the crew: Karamo pumped iron using Bobby as his dumbbell, and Antoni posted a photo with Jonathan’s new handlebar mustache (and his polka-dotted sock). As for Tan? Well, Tan continues to be stone-cold gorgeous.
Delhi Crime (March 22)
Netflix acquired this title at Sundance from Indian-Canadian writer-director Richie Mehta. The series, which reportedly involved six years of research, was inspired by the true story of the brutal 2012 Delhi gang rape that created furor across the country and around the world. After being accosted on her way home from the movies, the victim, a student, was so badly assaulted that she died of her injuries two days later. As Netflix expands into foreign markets, this series is an attempt to deliver prestige drama to a huge and largely untapped market.
Cricket Fever: Mumbai Indians (March 1)
Speaking of the international market: cricket’s popularity is mystifying to most Americans, but the sport has uncanny power overseas, especially in former Commonwealth countries. Netflix commissioned this eight-part docuseries produced by Condé Nast, V.F.’s parent company, about the Mumbai Indians, the Indian Premier League’s most successful team. It’s like following the Golden State Warriors around after they wiped the floor with LeBron James.
Arrested Development, Season 5B (March 15)
If the roundtable incident didn’t put you off the show entirely, Arrested Development is limping back from the dead—for the third or fourth time now—with the second half of its fifth season, which was a return to form for the show’s humor but backgrounded by a lot of unflattering quotes during the show’s publicity cycle. It’s unfortunate that all that bad press overshadowed the show’s strengths, because the sitcom has been one of the sharpest satirists of the spoiled, rich, and entitled among us—particularly and especially those buttressed by the privilege of race, class, and social standing.
What’s Leaving . . .
Party of Five: Seasons 1–6
Christopher Keyser and Amy Lippman’s coming-of-age drama launched the careers of stars Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love-Hewitt—and seemingly brought together every Gen X actor who ever gave you that confused feeling of, Wait, where do I know them from? The beloved, of-the-moment young-adult drama followed the struggles of the five Salinger kids, suddenly orphaned and trying to grow up on their own. The title is currently being rebooted at Freeform with an immigration angle, too. But if you want to check out the original, you’ll have to look elsewhere—namely, Hulu. The same day Party of Five departs Netflix, it’ll be available on that other streaming service.
Full List of What’s Arriving
March 1
A Clockwork Orange
Apollo 13
Budapest (FR)
Cricket Fever: Mumbai Indians
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks
Emma
Junebug
Larva Island: Season 2
Losers
Music and Lyrics
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Northern Rescue
River’s Edge (JP)
Stuart Little
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Hurt Locker
The Notebook
Tyson
Wet Hot American Summer
Winter’s Bone
Your Son (ES)
March 2
Romance Is a Bonus Book (Korea) (Streaming Every Saturday)
March 3
Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj: Volume 2 (Streaming Every Sunday)
March 5
Disney’s Christopher Robin
March 6
Secret City: Under the Eagle: Season 2
March 7
Doubt
The Order
March 8
After Life
Bangkok Love Stories: Hey You!
Bangkok Love Stories: Innocence
Blue Jasmine
Formula 1: Drive to Surviv
Hunter X Hunter (2011): Seasons 1–3
Immortals
Juanita
Lady J (FR)
Shadow
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
The Jane Austen Book Club
Walk. Ride. Rodeo.
March 12
Jimmy Carr: The Best of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits
Terrace House: Opening New Doors: Part 6
March 13
Triple Frontier
March 15
A Separation
Arrested Development: Season 5B
Burn Out (FR)
Dry Martina (AR)
Girl (BE)
If I Had’t Met You
Kung Fu Hustle
Las Muñecas de la Mafia: Season 2
Love, Death & Robots
Paskal (MY)
Queer Eye: Season 3
Robozuna: Season 2
The Lives of Others
Turn Up Charlie
YooHoo to the Rescue
March 16
Green Door
March 19
Amy Schumer: Growing
March 21
Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend
March 22
Carlo & Malik
Charlie’s Colorforms City
Delhi Crime
Historia de un Crimen: Colosio
Mirage (ES)
Most Beautiful Thing
ReMastered: The Miami Showband Massacre
Selling Sunset
The Dirt
March 26
Nate Bargatze: The Tennessee Kid
March 28
Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey: Season 2
March 29
15 August (IN)
Bayoneta (MX)
Osmosis
Santa Clarita Diet: Season 3
The Highwaymen
The Legend of Cocaine Island
Traitors
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
March 30
How to Get Away with Murder: Season 5
March 31
El Sabor de las Margaritas
The Burial of Kojo
Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series
Full List of What’s Leaving
March 1
Bruce Almighty
Fair Game — Director’s Cut
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters 2
Hostage
Pearl Harbor
The Breakfast Club
The Cider House Rules
The Gift
The Little Rascals
United 93
March 2
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Eighteenth Year
_March 3
Drop Dead Diva: Seasons 1–6
March 4
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
March 5
Newsies: The Broadway Musical
March 8
Click
March 16
Baby Mama
Charlie St. Cloud
Role Models
March 18
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
March 31
Party of Five: Seasons 1–6
The Real Ghostbusters: Seasons 1–5
This story was originally published by Vanity Fair
via USAHint.com
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