January's Lost & Found (2014)

Following last month's mass movie-title massacre, it would be easy to join the chorus of Netflix naysayers and cancel the streaming service in a noisy, indignant huff (see also: Netflix Huff). But a funny thing happened on January 1: a lot of great new and returning titles appeared, going a long way toward filling the gap left only hours earlier. Sure, it's going to be tough to make up for losing the Charlie Kaufman films or the incomparable Miller's Crossing, but this month's additions arguably go toe to toe with last month's departures.

Classic sci-fi fans may have cried foul at the loss of Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain, but in its place we got not only the director's even more classic The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), but the first of the Star Trek films, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Sure, it's not the franchise's best, but it's far from the worst, and it has the distinction of being much closer in spirit to the exploratory/philosophical nature of the original series than the flat-out action-oriented installments to come. And to those of us who saw this on its first release and thought: "Wow, look how old those guys are!" it's refreshing (and a bit painful) to now think: "Wow, look how young those guys were."

Robert Wise fans (and I know you're out there) may also get some satisfaction from the availability of West Side Story (1961), a multi-Oscar-winning musical about star-crossed lovers from the opposite side of the tracks. This should ease the loss of not only Franco Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet, but another award-winning epic about equally mismatched lovers, Titanic. Richard Beymer is no Leo, of course, but then Billy Zane's no Rita Moreno, either (thank goodness).
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New August Titles (2013)

Among the notable titles joining Netflix Instant this month are a stellar example of '70s sci-fi, the Spike Lee joint of Spike Lee joints, an underrated drama from the writer-director of personal fave The Fabulous Baker Boys, Christopher Nolan in his more forgetful, pre-Dark Knight days, and a bit of unabashed filth from the mind (and groin) of Kevin Smith.

Rollerball (1975) - EXPIRED 9/1/13

Once upon a time, in a decade far, far away, science-fiction movies were built on ideas, not special effects. Before Star Wars changed the rules (and box-office expectations), all you needed to make a sci-fi flick were a respectable actor (say, Sean Connery or Charlton Heston or Robert Duvall), a script with some cautionary message reflecting the day's concerns, a newly built, futuristic-looking mall or campus as your setting, a few cool-looking props and/or model space ships, and maybe a miniature of a domed city. Presto�big-screen dystopian future. Those were the days of Zardoz, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and THX-1138, among others. Granted, most are not what you'd call "great" films, but they're all provocative and idiosyncratic (and flawed) in ways that give them an organic charm�something sorely missing from today's machine-stamped blockbusters. Even Rollerball�which posits a future run by benevolent corporations who keep the peace by pitting nations against each other in an internationally sanctioned blood sport�alternates its bursts of violence with hushed, meditative talks about free will and human nature (as well as the random burning of trees as party trick).

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