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arlier this year, Netflix released a star-studded promotional campaign gloating about its upcoming release schedule: The streaming giant would be dropping at least one new feature film every week for the rest of 2021. Take
that, movie theaters! That s all well and good, but Netflix has become almost notorious for its quantity-over-quality release practices. Save for a handful of Oscar-winning prestige projects, the Netflix library is starting to resemble one of those bargain DVD bins you might find in the back corner of a 7-11. For every
Roma or
Cloverfield Paradoxes or unwatchable Adam Sandler comedies. So I want to look at the studio s recent success rate: Is the Netflix machine producing any worthwhile art, or is it all fodder for the mill? Let s look at five of their most recent releases.
James Norton and Amanda Seyfried in
Things Heard & Seen. Rhea Seehorn in
Photo by Anna Kooris/Netflix No matter what type of story any particular movie is trying to tell, success usually comes when a mood is set early. Filmmakers can try all the plot trickery they want, but if they forget about establishing the tone of the film relatively early in the story, the twists and turns can be for naught. Co-writers/co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini make sure to follow that mandate in
Things Heard & Seen, and, just as crucially, let the mood simmer throughout the film’s two-hour running time instead of forcing the issue. The film centers on Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) and George Claire (James Norton), a couple who move with their young daughter to rural New York in 1980 when James gets a job teaching at the local college.
Courtesy Of Anna Kooris/Netflix
Malice Domestic Norton and Seyfried play a couple whose marriage deteriorates in their creepy new home in this attempt at an arty scare flick. Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming and not always easy to sort through. Certain people have a bottomless appetite for haunted-house stories, and Netflix knows I m one of them. But what really convinced me to watch the streaming service s latest glossy gothic was that its opening credits feature a slideshow of Hudson River School paintings, including Thomas Cole s four-part allegory
The Voyage of Life. I saw Cole s haunting series when I was a child at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, N.Y., and it shaped my view of life and death alike. At the time, my family were Manhattan transplants living in a remote, ramshackle farmhouse in upstate New York much
Stranger Things) hit last month. And it has horror movie fans divided.
Check out some reactions and also more info below.
Just watched Netflix s horror-drama THINGS HEARD AND SEEN, so I should be able to answer this question myself, and yet…
What the everlovin hell did I just watch? pic.twitter.com/RC5vcLcEXR Tasha Robinson (@TashaRobinson) April 30, 2021
Things Heard and Seen on #Netflix
I heard.
I did not understand.
Or is it just the post-vax fever and chills making my dumb? Adriana Palanca (@apalanca) April 30, 2021
@netflix please put a content/trigger warning for an eating disorder on the movie Things Heard and Seen
WHAT IT S ABOUT:
Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) and George (James Norton) Claire are a married couple with a young daughter, Franny (Ana Sophia Heger), who move from Manhattan to a very old house in a small town in upstate New York when the latter lands a job at a prestigious art college. It soon becomes clear to Franny and Claire that the house holds dark, supernatural secrets, but those secrets may be far less devastating than George s own web of lies that quickly starts to unravel as his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.
WHAT WE THOUGHT:
Disclaimer: I will, as always, do my best to avoid any actual spoilers in this review, but the real pleasure of this admittedly flawed but compelling film is the ride it takes the audience on by subverting expectations and taking its time before even revealing exactly what kind of story it s telling, so perhaps give it a watch before proceeding with this review. In fact, if you can avoid even Netflix s description of the film, you would prob