November's Notables

One very tasty Delicatessen

November may not have brought the same cornucopia of new titles as September and October, but there are still plenty of worthy additions to hit Prime in the past week. Standouts include a Who's Who of films by significant directors, including Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's Looney Tunes-like sci-fi dystopia, Delicatessen, Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Michael Mann's slick, early Hannibal Lecter tale, Manhunter, Woody Allen's surprising (and very funny) recent hit, Midnight in Paris, and the Tom Hanks (and Oscar) showcase, Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia. Also on hand is Pablo Berger's 2012 silent black-and-white retelling of Snow White, Blancanieves, which is said to be haunting and quite beautiful (it's been in my Netflix queue for ages). The full list of standouts:

Awakenings (1990)
Blancanieves (2012)
Buffalo 66 (1998)
Crash (2004)
Delicatessen (1992)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000)
Gods and Monsters (1999)
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009)
Manhunter (1986)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Philadelphia (1993)

Leaving in October: Docs, Horror, More

Sad to say, quite a few notable titles are expiring from Prime this month, many of which will be leaving as early as October 23 (as opposed to the more typical last day of the month). So if you're looking to celebrate Halloween with a good horror flick, note that several choice selections will be available on Prime only through 10/23, including standouts The Host (2006), Monsters (2010), and Trollhunter (2011).

The visual (and emotional) feast that is Melancholia

Also taking a major hit on the 23rd are documentaries, with the departure of such esteemed nonfictioners as Crazy Love (2007), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Food, Inc. (2008), I'm Still Here (2010), Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012), Magic Trip (2011), and Man On Wire (2008)—the inspiration for Robert Zemeckis' latest, The Walk. Horror buffs may want to check out Birth of the Living Dead (2013), a Halloween-appropriate doc about George Romero, creator of the Living Dead movies—which expires two days sooner, on October 21.

Other titles worth noting: Lynn Shelton's Humpday (2009), Lars von Trier's brilliant Melancholia (2011), the Spanish time-travel thriller Timecrimes (2007), 1992's dark, critically lauded Batman: The Animated Series, the three Back to the Future movies, Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once (1937), Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Joss Whedon's charming Much Ado About Nothing (2013), and the cult sci-fi series, Warehouse 13.

Strangely, this month's genres and expiration dates are mostly in alignment, so I've grouped and sorted them accordingly. See how they all break down on the lists below:

What's Noteworthy in August? A Lot.

Michael Douglas gets glittery

August has turned into an exceptional month for Amazon Prime. And while I don't want to keep harping on comparisons with Netflix (who's currently in my digital doghouse), the fact is, the quality of this month's new arrivals puts Netflix's spotty August list to shame. Whereas there were too few notable titles on that service to even bother listing, here on Prime it's all I can do to track everything. (Funnily enough, last month I had a similar urge to throw up my hands at Netflix—but it was over all the expiring titles.) At the same time, so many of Prime's new arrivals are exclusives, I've broken with my usual practice of labeling them PRIME ONLY and am noting instead those few exceptions that aren't exclusive.

HBO

So, where to begin? The most obvious headliners are the newly available HBO series, Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom: Seasons 1-2, which arrived towards the end of July, and today's debut of all eight seasons of Larry David's cringingly funny Curb Your Enthusiasm. These two high-profile shows will likely get plenty of visibility on the Amazon site, so I don't need to spend much time on them here except to say what a great coup the service's HBO deal continues to be.

If further proof were needed, there was also the late-July arrival of Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra, a 2013 production meant to be the director's final theatrical film but, due to the skittishness of Hollywood's bean counters, was financed and released by HBO. Starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, this biopic of Liberace boasts not only a ridiculously high 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a passel of industry awards including Emmys for Outstanding Movie, Actor (Douglas), and Director. In other words, a prestige production if there ever was one—TV or otherwise.