It’s been three weeks since I posted this feature… and it’s metoric return requires some amazing television. I could also post about ten other things that between now and when last I updated you guys Netflix had added (MASH included), but let’s just leave it here and hope that future weeks are this interesting, especially for women in film/TV.

Passion (2012)

Here’s a film that I saw in 2012 at TIFF and haven’t yet had a chance to revisit. Brian De Palma is a filmmaker that I feel requires more examination. His work always falls into this middle ground that I adore so much where he’s allowing for the narrative of his films to be simple enough and fun enough for everyone to enjoy but at the same time he adds such a great visual and mood sense to his films that they become so much more than any typical film going experience. While I didn’t fall head over heels in love for what he did here (and I’ve yet to see the original so I can’t throw that bullet of negativity at the film) it was a movie that had me for it’s full runtime. However, when you’re looking for that pulpy genre film that has so much sexual tension and teasing us throughout that it becomes more than just titillating (if at all) this might be the right film for you

Somewhere (2010) 

I love Sofia Coppola. She’s one of my favourite working female directors (you could even knock female off of that to make you understand how much I like her work) and I feel that this film, more than even Lost in Translation, may be her best. It’s a quiet film that focusses on the progression of this estranged father who happens to be a famous actor and is forced to take on his daughter when her mother goes AWOL one day and he has no idea of when this nightmare/oasis of being with his daughter could/will end. It doesn’t ask much of it’s characters or us as a viewer in trying hard to hate, but at the same time I see it as a small window into a weird life that we would never have… or I hope I would never have. We watch the famed actor who we see has little options in life have to force options in the smallest of ways as he must now live for two rather than for an aimless one.

House of Cards Season 2

So this is my blind recommendation. I adored Season 1 and have been meaning to rewatch it for the last two weeks and therefore have yet to even begin running through the chronicles of Frank Underwood a year later. We all can just agree that this is 80% of the reason we love Netflix this much today and we’re all (good or bad) are going to be committing 13 more hours of watching instant viewing sometime this month.

Is Frank Underwood the Congressman we deserve? Or the one we just always had?