NETFLIX IN JULY

New on Netflix in July....which begins tomorrow.

• For the 50th anniversary, you can binge on Jaws 1, 2, 3 and 4, from July 1.  I already did this last year.  Yes, it got worse and worse.  Saw them during Shark Week on the Discovery channel.

Title                       Domestic Gross    Rotten Tomatoes    Year

Jaws                        $260,000,000                  97                   1975

Jaws 2                       $81,000,000                  52                   1978

Jaws 3-D                   $45,517,055                   10                   1983

IV:  The Revenge      $20,763,013                    2                   1987

• 
  Rotten Tomatoes rated all the shark films.
• Jaws is #1 at 97.
• #2 is Playing with Sharks (2021) at 96.  On Disney+.
• #3 is Dangerous Animals (2025) at 85.  On Amazon Prime, but not free.
• Jaws 3-D is #44 at 10.
• #45 is Jaws the Revenge at 2. 
• #46 is a tie, Shark Attack (1999) and Dark Tide (2012) both at ZERO.  So it can get worse than Jaws 4.
• 
  Netflix will release a new series they just produced, All the Sharks.  
• Episode 1 will be available on July 4.
• There will be six episodes, following shark researchers competing for a $50,000 prize while diving with shark species.
• Too new yet for any Rotten Tomatoes rating.
• 
  About the seas, today is your last chance to watch on Netflix Oceans 11, 12 and 13, plus 33 other films.
• 31 newly added films on July 1, including four Karate Kids and five Mission Impossibles.

I've been relaxing at home a lot since we returned from our trip to the Osaka Expo and a cruise on the Oceania Riviera from Yokohama to Vancouver.  Not much sports on TV anymore except for Major League Baseball.  I don't have any fantasy teams in basketball nor ice hockey, so don't watch their games.  At night I have turned to Netflix....a lot.  Here are just some of the flicks I saw.

• 
  I last night watched Close (2019), with Noomi Rapace.  I thought it was fine, mostly because I first checked Rotten Tomatoes, and saw ratings of 91/88.  Turned out I had found another Close (2022), the same title, which got that score.  Not on Netflix.  The Rapace film, only 35/35.  So maybe not so good a film.

• 
  Saw that Red Notice had Rotten Tomatoes rating of 37 from reviewers and 92 from audiences.  I usually side with the masses, so clicked on it.  Rock Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.  Excellent, with many twists.

• 
  Reached back to the 1988 Robert de Niro Midnight Run.  RT of 95/87.  Kind of an odd couple with Charles Grodin.  Good.  I can recommend.  Comedy and action.
• Another old film, Heat (1995), with Robert de Niro as the criminal and Al Pacino as the cop.  RT of 84/94.  If I had written and directed this movie, I would have turned things around at the end.  Instead of being killed, it would have been a different touch for de Niro to have successfully escaped to New Zealand with his new girlfriend.  This would have been morally unacceptable to Hollywood, but so what.  Watch it and see if you agree with me.

• 
  Plane (2023) with Gerard Butler.  RT of 79/94.  White-knuckle action film.  Agreed with audience.  Go watch it too.
• I saw that Rebel Ridge (2024) got Rotten Tomatoes scores of 95/73, so I watched it.  Was fine.

• 
  Noticed a 2017 film Our Souls at Night, with Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern.  RT of 91/76.  Can't remember anything about this film.  So I watched the trailer.  Still drew a blank.  Maybe I never got around to watching it.  
• Similarly, I viewed The American, a low-keyed George Clooney as an assassin hanging out in Italy.  Can hardly remember the details.  Only got 64/39 scores.  Must not have been much.

• 
  I noticed Enola Holmes (2020) had ratings of 91/71, so I went straight to the sequel (2022), rated 93/79.  Got totally bored.  Flippant, lame, so forth. Thought it had promise, Enola being the younger sister of Sherlock. Nope.  I dropped out at around the 20-minute mark.  I must be missing something because #3 is being made in the UK and will someday be on Netflix.
• Runaway Jury (2003), 73/75, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack, Gene Hackman and Rachel Weisz.  Okay, but deserves those rankings.

• 
  I earlier had seen The Accountant (2016) with Ben Affleck, and even with a score of 53/77, seemed okay to me.  So I went to the sequel, which got 77/92.  The original was better.  And there will be an Accountant 3.

• 
  Big mistake, for I saw Now You See Me 2.  Almost quit, but stayed to the end.  Shouldn't have.  RT scores of 34/53, which was about right.  I wasted my time because the original, which only scored 51/70, I thought was good.

On my list for the future includes  a lot of Korean productions.

• When Life Gives You Tangerines, RT 100/99.  From South Korea, first season of 16 episodes, each an hour long.  Time magazine said of this series, devastatingly profound.  No production has ever gotten 100/100 scores by Rotten Tomatoes.  So this series is the highest I've ever seen.  Just about my very favorite all-time film is Seven Samurai.  Received scores of 100/97.

• 
  Mercy for None (2025).  Also from Korea.  RT 100/90.  
• But first, Season 3 of Squid Game.  However, only RT scores of 80/50.

• 
  South Korea productions are by far the best today in the world.  No other country is even close.
• Here are the best 14 films currently available on Netflix. 
• #1 is 20th Century Girl (2022).  RT 86/87.

• 
  #2, Ballerina (2023).  RT 91/73.  By the way, there is another Ballerina (2025) with Keanu Reaves with RT scores on 76/93 in movie theaters.
• #3, The Call (2020).  RT 100/79.  Said to be a twisty Korean production.
• #9, Parasite (2019).  RT 99/90.  Thisis the film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020.
• #11, Silenced (2011).  RT 100/93.

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