For a while, the biggest film story of 2020 was what movies
weren’t coming out, as the pandemic closed theaters and bumped release dates for some of the year’s biggest would-be blockbusters (see you later,
Black Widow and
No Time to Die, hopefully) and buzziest awards-bait (or is there another reason Spielberg directed a remake of
West Side Story?). But no more, because it turns out a lot of good movies were still released last year and lots of them have just been nominated for Oscars.
But the biggest difference between this Oscar year and any other is that you can easily (if not necessarily
The Netflix Password-Sharing Crackdown Has Begun
Bad news for streamers mooching their Netflix access.
Netflix is testing a feature seemingly meant to curb password-sharing between users who are not members of the same household. An image of an email message prompting its user to sign up for “your own Netflix for free today” was shared on Twitter and reported by multipleoutlets that confirmed the test. In the Netflix prompt shared on Twitter, the service states that if you do not “live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.” That policy is included in Netflix’s terms of use.
Screenshot: Operation Varsity Blues/Netflix
In the absence of broadly appealing new films and TV series (no Oscar hopefuls this month, I’m afraid), Netflix appears to be looking to the podcast market to figure out how to keep its massive subscriber base happy. Its new offerings in March include a host of documentary series and specials that I would totally listen to, were they podcasts. Will I watch? Well, I will not. (I haven’t even seen
Ted Lasso yet.) But you might.
Operation: Varsity Blues (March 17) is sure to draw eyeballs, fascinated as we all were by the college admissions scandal that toppled such titans of culture as Felicity Huffman, Aunt Becky from
Alerts
L to R: Moxie, Bombay Rose, and Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell (all images courtesy of Netflix)
Graphic: The A.V. Club
Spring is around the corner, and so are a few long-awaited Netflix films and shows to hopefully inspired a much more cheerful feeling all-around. And what better way to mark full year in quarantine than with some shiny new distractions?
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You can start with
Moxie, Amy Poehler’s latest directorial project for the streamer. Ushering in the riot grrrl ethos, this adaptation of Jennifer Mathieu’s novel follows high schooler Vivian Carter, who takes on the systemic sexism at her school and starts a feminist revolution via an anonymously distributed zine. If that’s not your thing, you can dip into some music history with the upcoming doc