Listen, I was as excited as anybody else to learn that Netflix was about to release a Cloverfield movie right after the Super Bowl. To boot, the streaming giant announced it during the football game itself with a 30 second spot that used the first two movies as points of reference. I was suckered. The anticipation got the best of me, I had to work the following day at 9am but I still decided to stream the damn thing. The idea was alluring, historic even. Paramount and Netflix collaborated on the project in secret and nobody had a clue this was about to go down. A $40 million blockbuster was about to be released in our living rooms without a single trailer, teaser or photo released. As far as marketing goes, this was a game-changer, a brilliant move from Netflix, but as far as the movie went, those adjectives could never be used to describe the mess that was unfolding onscreen.
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Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.