New March Titles: Exiles' Return (2014)

So many new and returning titles this month! Whether by accident or design, Netflix seems to be making up for some of its recent deletions. Already back from the January 1 "great purge" are a number of classics including Easy Rider (1969), Roman Holiday (1953), Serpico (1973), and True Grit (1969), along with popular favorites The Bad News Bears (1976), Dirty Dancing (1987), and As Good As It Gets (1997). Fans of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman will also be pleased to see Capote (2005) return to the fold.

Also returning: a veritable slew of Robert Altman films, from the good to the great to the misguided, bringing the director's total number of streaming titles to an impressive nine. No telling how long they'll stick around this time, but must-sees are The Long Goodbye (1973) and Thieves Like Us (1974); should-sees are Streamers (1983), a stark, underappreciated adaptation of David Rabe's play, and the Tim Roth tour de force, Vincent & Theo (1990). In the "misguided but rarely seen" category is O.C. & Stiggs (1985), Altman's satirical attempt at a teen comedy that remains fascinating despite its flaws. This intermittently funny oddity is worth watching for Dennis Hopper alone, who seems to be reprising his stoner-photographer character from Apocalypse Now, complete with a "Ride of the Valkyries" attack. Martin Mull, Ray Walston, and Jane Curtin also join the fun. Bizarre? Entertaining? Misunderstood? I can guarantee you at least two.

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Fell In Love with a Girl: KISSING JESSICA STEIN

If Woody Allen in his prime had made a lesbian romantic comedy that avoided the usual Woody neuroses and verbal tics while remaining immensely funny and likable, it would be pretty close to Kissing Jessica Stein�that is, a valentine to love, New York City, and old jazz tunes, only with two girls kissing. Cowritten and produced by its stars, Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen, the film was a hit on the indie and festival circuits back in 2001 and remains the perfect antidote for anyone feeling nutrient-deprived by the formulaic slop served up with the likes of Kate Hudson, J-Lo, and Katherine Heigl (whose three names in succession summon up in me a kind of indigestion of the soul).

Juergensen and Westfeldt

But calling Kissing Jessica Stein a lesbian romantic comedy isn't entirely accurate, since both the main characters start out straight and with only a bout of bicuriosity. Westfeldt plays Jessica, a magazine editor and self-described "Jew from Scarsdale" who's a hyper-articulate Diane Keaton/Lisa Kudrow type with standards for men as exacting as her standards for words. When, after a dispiriting series of blind dates, her attention is drawn to a personals ad quoting Rilke (her favorite writer), she finds herself intrigued even though the quoter is a woman. That woman, a free-spirited art gallery director named Helen Cooper (Juergensen), has grown fed up with the hairier sex and wants to try the other side of the fence for a change.
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