As per our usual, we watched a slew of movies and television shows via Netflix this past holiday season.  Just in case your queue (I love spelling that word) needs a little inspiration, these stand out from the crowd.

Slings and Arrows – In this utterly delightful Canadian television series, watch the behind the scenes drama (sometimes melodrama) at a small town Shakespeare festival after the much heralded artistic director Oliver Welles dies (hit by a ham truck, of all things) and his one time protégé takes the helm.  Geoffrey does his best to navigate the often tricky waters of putting on a play – the actors and their idiosyncrasies, the buffoonery of the man in charge, and his personal demons, not to mention Oliver’s ghost, eager to interfere at every turn.  Each season is centered around the production of a Shakespearean play, and the drama often follows a similar course.  It’s fun, serious, sometimes quite sad, very entertaining, and a great reminder of the genius of Shakespeare.  Plus those Canadian accents, sore-ee!

Jason Schwartzman plays Jonathan Ames, a writer, who, in a fit of desperation after his girlfriend leaves him and a lack of motivation to work on his novel (ahem), decides to become an unlicensed private detective in New York City.  After all, he’s read plenty of crime novels, so it can’t be that difficult, right?  As you might imagine, what ensues is an often madcap and wacky adventure to find lost family members and skateboards, among other things.  His sidekicks and good friends are a comic book writer (funny man Zach Galifianakis) and a rather vain and sometimes slimy, yet totally likable magazine editor George (Ted Danson).

A very fascinating look at the life of Genghis Khan before all of that conquering.  At this stage in his life he simply is Temudjin:  from a boy learning to choose a bride, to an exile and slave.  He is honest, loving, fiercely loyal, and decent, despite all that surrounds him.  A gorgeous film of determination and perseverance.  This is part one of a trilogy, I believe.  I am curious to see the transformation.

A taut thriller, it had my stomach in knots.  Jackie is a CCTV observer in Glasgow, every day watching over the same small sliver of the city, getting to know its inhabitants and protecting them from crime.  Then one day, she sees a man she wasn’t expecting, one part of a tragic past, though we don’t know exactly.  She begins to follow him, to accomplish who knows what, and we’re along for the scary ride.

Imagine how different your childhood would be if you lived in an old folk’s home: parents more keen on taking care of the aged than you, difficulty talking with people your own age, a near pathological obsession with death and the afterlife, and a mad desire for normalcy and a space of your own.  This is Edward’s (Bill Milner – also great in Son of Rambow) existence until Clarence (the brilliant Michael Caine) comes along and teaches him a thing or two about living, magic, love, and loss.

A strange look at the world were it possible to have your soul removed, the 95% of it not critical to existence, anyway.  Paul Giamatti plays himself, an actor overwrought with his latest role.  In a desperate act to ease his burden, he decides to extract his soul for a few weeks, just to take the edge off.  Unfortunately, it gets stolen, and what ensues is a rather complicated journey into his own life and marriage, the soul of the woman he’s taken in the meantime,  and a cold Russian winter.

The not always funny but nearly always entertaining life of the comedienne and workaholic of the first degree, neuroses and insecurities front and center.  I hope to have half of her energy and drive at seventy-five!

Jeff Johnson, a man inspired by the epic 1968 South American adventure of Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (the founders of Patagonia and the North Face, respectively) finds himself traveling south in the same spirit.  Sailing, surfing, and climbing his way through dilemmas personal, environmental, and technical, it is a visually stunning, interesting and thoughtful look at the ways we find fulfillment and redemption, the degradation of the planet, and our desire for more.

After the requisite Thanksgiving feasting was over and the hubster and I could not fathom any sort of activity that required serious use of mind or body, we headed upstairs to watch a movie.  Something light, I thought.  Yes, that would be good.  After a search of our Netflix queue (I love streaming video!), we found what looked to be the perfect choice:  Phoebe in Wonderland.  The description says it is about a girl who starts to see the characters from Alice in Wonderland after she takes a role in the play.  Silliness and fun!  Let’s do it!

Though there is some silliness and fun, the film is hardly that, but in a good way.  Phoebe, superbly played by Elle Fanning, is a beautiful and slightly peculiar young girl, frustrated by sameness and rules that make no sense.  She lives with her parents, Peter (Bill Pullman) and Hillary (Felicity Huffman), and a rather precocious younger sister, Olivia (Bailee Madison).  On the outside, they have what seems to be the perfect life: happy and successful writers that live in a gorgeous home with two whip smart and lovely daughters.

Truth be told, Phoebe’s behavior is troubling, more and more so (obsessive hand washing, hopping, and uncontrollable spitting, among others).  Olivia wishes her sister weren’t such a weirdo while being a bit of an angry radical leftist herself.  Karl Marx as a Halloween costume, anyone?  Hillary is struggling to keep up with the increasingly difficult duty of being a mother to two such precocious children, is jealous of her husband’s success, and can’t seem to find a moment to write herself.   While Peter, happy for his own modest achievements, can’t disguise his hopelessness at his inability to help anyone in the family.  Things take a turn for the better and worse when Phoebe meets the lovely and equally eccentric Miss Dodger (Patricia Clarkson), tries out for the school play, Alice in Wonderland, and finds sanctuary, however small, whenever she jumps down the rabbit hole, so to speak.

It is a beautifully filmed story, filled with gorgeous locations, saturated colors and rich, complex characters.  At it’s heart, it is an earnest film about life.  It is scary, confusing, and unpredictable, and filled with rules, questions, cruelty and unreasonable expectations.  It is also filled with love, acceptance, imagination, infinite kindness, and honesty.  The best way to survive it is to embrace it (and yourself), just how it is, without shame, and forge headlong into the unknown.  Jump!