As usual… These aren’t necessarily recommendations. Consider the list more of an FYI – films we’ve talked about on this site, at one time or another, that are now streaming on Netflix, that you might want to check out for yourselves.
Without further ado, here’s this week’s list of 5:
1 – Otto Preminger’s adaptation of Oscar Hammerstein’s 1943 stage production, Carmen Jones, itself inspired by the 19th-century French novella Carmen. Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll, and Pearl Bailey star in this beloved classic.
2 – Douglas Sirk’s 1959 adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s novel Imitation of Life. It is the second film adaptation of the novel. The first film was released in 1934. Sirk’s version stars Lana Turner as Lora, a white widow with a daughter, and Annie (played by Juanita Moore), a black single mother, who move in together and the challenges they face in trying to raise their children. Annie’s daughter, Sarah Jane, is struggling with her mixed-race identity and opts to pass for white because of its societal privileges, and comes to resent her mother’s black identity. Mahalia Jackson is also featured.
3 – Usain Bolt: The Fastest Man Alive, a doc that centers on the track phenom whose name is in the title, and which follows Usain as he prepares for last year’s Olympics, where he defended his crown. Director Gael Leiblang was granted exclusive rights to follow Bolt around for over a year, filming him (both the personal and the professional) as he prepared for the London 2012 Olympics.
4 – 30 Beats co-stars Condola Rashad in an ensemble drama that’s inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde. It follows the lives of 10 present-day New Yorkers, in different stages of love and sexual attraction, spanning across 10 different neighborhoods of the city.
Written and directed by Alexis Lloyd, the cast also includes: Jennifer Tilly, Paz de la Huerta, Lee Pace, Justin Kirk, Vahina Giocante, Thomas Sadoski, and several others.
