Table of Contents
Verzuz………………….Netflix vz. Max
Sunday Songs…………………Jazz, Drake, Sia, Shwayze
Sunday Poll……………………...Voting?
Sunday Carrier………………….Headlines! Get your headlines!
Studio Jali …………………………Studio Updates
P.S ……………………………………….One mile of walking covers about 2,000 steps
Here is a list of 21 movies you can watch on Netflix right now:
Heat
Black Swan
Dune
Training Day
Mystic River
Jurassic Park
Prometheus
Chinatown
Old Boy
Uncut Gems
Boyz N The Hood
Prisoners
Stand By Me
Whiplash
Warrior
LA Confidential
The Batman
John Wick
All Quiet on the Western Front
LaLa Land
Cats
I will raise these 21 movies, 20 if we’re not counting Cats……(we’re not counting Cats) against any other 20 movies from any other streaming service.
Max. Hulu. Apple. Peacock. Tubi. None of them are beating those 20 movies in a verzuz. Right?
Real quick, remember Verzuz? It was big during the pandemic. Snoop Dogg vs. DMX. Erykah Badu vs. Jill Scott. Timbaland vs. Swizz Beats. Twenty songs played in a turn-based battle to prove who had the better catalog of music.
Let’s do that.
Here are the rules and guidelines.
I’m only choosing 20 movies from each service. For this battle, it’ll be Netflix vz. Max. Yes, I’m choosing movies I like, but I’m also choosing the movies that have the most rewatchability and the most clout on a streamer. I also did try to include the movies with their most equal pair, to rig the best matchups round by round.
In addition, I didn’t purposely not include any movies to stack the box in favor of one or the other. I.e) I’m not going to not include Parasite to make it easier on Netflix. I wanted a good clean game.
Okay, here we go. Note: bolded movies are Netflix.
NETFLIX VZ. MAX
Heat | Terminator
Black Swan | Parasite
Dune | Ex-Machina
Training Day | Gran Torino
Mystic River | Fargo
Jurassic Park | The Matrix
Prometheus | Aliens
Chinatown | 2001: A Space Odyssey
Old Boy | Pulp Fiction
Uncut Gems | Spirited Away
Boyz N The Hood | Juice
Prisoners | Silence of the Lambs
Stand By Me | (500 Days of Summer)
Whiplash | Good Will Hunting
Warrior | Spirited Away
LA Confidential | American Gangster
The Batman | The Dark Knight
John Wick | The Bourne Ultimatum
All Quiet on the Western Front | Mad Max
LaLa Land | Barbie
The Rundown:
After compiling the list of the 20 best movies from Netflix and Max, I realized that this was going to be a lot closer than I initially thought. There was also a moment after the 4 movie run of Parasite, Fargo, Pulp Fiction, and Silence of the Lambs, that I realized this verzuz might be over a lot faster than I hoped.
In addition, Max has an ‘Oscar Winners’ category that is doing a ton of heavy lifting for its movie selection. But I guess having that category at all is a testament to the service.
Both the Netflix movies and the Max movies are all well awarded, and stacked with prime-time directors, actors, performances, and spectacle. And while there is not a single “bad” movie on either side of the list, both services do have weak spots in the armor. What’s more important, longevity? Clout? Popularity? Performance?
Highlights:
Looking at the best of Netflix’s best, you get arguably one of the best performances ever from one of the best actors ever, Denzel in Training Day. You also get arguably the best summer blockbuster of all time with Jurassic Park, and you round out the top 3 with one of the best and most acclaimed heist movies ever, Heat, starring De Niro and Pacino. Plus, adding in a sprinkle of Boyz N The Hood, Whiplash, Prisoners, and Chinatown, and the starting rotation for Netflix is very very strong.
For Max, however, you can pick 3 different sets of classics. Aliens, Good Will Hunting, Terminator. Parasite, Fargo, Pulp Fiction. The Silence of the Lambs, 2001, Spirited Away. All of which, are not intimidated at all by Netflix’s starters.
Coming out of round 1, Netflix is in trouble. But maybe there’s still an argument to be made.
Lowlights:
Netflix has to carry the weight of Prometheus, Mystic River, Black Swan, and Dune. While all these movies are ‘good’, they are getting blown off the floor next to their competition.
Prometheus | Aliens
Mystic River | Fargo
Black Swan | Parasite
Dune | Ex-Machina
This is a 4-0 sweep for Max. And even if you want to be nice and give Dune the point over Ex-Machina, there are still mismatches all over the board.
Old Boy | Pulp Fiction
Old Boy is a good movie. It’s classic in its own way. Pulp Fiction is Pulp Fiction.
Whiplash | Good Will Hunting
I don’t see a world where Good Will Hunting doesn’t get majority of votes here. Whiplash is great, but in a bad matchup. Is this verzuz rushing or dragging?
Prisoners | Silence of the Lambs
Again, Prisoners is a great movie. Borderline top 10 in the 2010s, but Silence of the Lambs is way too iconic to get beat by Jake Gyllenhaal’s best.
Exclusions:
My primary exclusions from Netflix’s Verzuz 20 were Joker, Jackie Brown, and Silver Linings Playbook. High Plains Drifter was also omitted because I hadn’t seen it, and didn’t want to include it just to have a western classic. Jackie Brown and Silver Linings Playbook are rewatchable, but they fall in at 22 and 23 spots.
The exclusions for the Max side, however, are something to be seriously reckoned with. These were movies I kept off:
Platoon, Moonlight, Flight, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Oof. 2/4 of those movies start if they play for Netflix.
Who Won?
So who wins? While it’s true that Netflix’s best 8 movies can compete with Max’s best 8 movies, their floors are nowhere close. Netflix severely drops off around the 14/20ish movie range, while Max has a legit 20+ great movies that are locked and loaded. Again, take a quick look at the movies I chose to exclude from Max’s Verzuz, and it still felt like an overwhelming victory for the folks at HBO.
My hot take was doused in icy cold water and extinguished. Cold world.
Sunday Songs
Every time young people invent music, everybody hates it
Buzzin is the NBA equivalent of a player who has made a few all-star games but will never be good enough to get into the Hall of Fame.
Still, it’s always a song I like to have in rotation a couple of times a year because it’s something I listened to a lot when I was playing Call of Duty as a teen.
Speaking of time as a teenager, Elastic Heart came out on the radio when I was in high school, and I loved it. There’s something special about Sia’s voice, the vocal sample in the back, and the accompanying Shia Lebouf music video (the one where he was in a cage, remember?) That does it for me. As far as mid-2000s radio hits go, this one is up there.
I know every generation thinks they’re the best generation, (only because they’re the only ones who lived through their generation), but when I tell you what a time it was for the class of 2016 when this dropped. I mean, oh my god what a song.
And if you were going through a break-up when this dropped?!?! Oooooohhhhhhh boy. This song might be hard-wired into your brain like it is into mine.
The lines—
I tried with you There's more to life than sleeping in And getting high with you I had to let go of us to show myself what I could do
—made me realize I needed to break up with someone I was dating. Incredible. Probably one of, if not my favorite Drake song of all time.
Sometimes I hear a song that reminds me of my life on the road. I lived it, but when I tell to myself that I took a bus through Nicaragua, it sounds insane? To the point that I don’t know if 23-year-old me could convince 25-year-old me to do it again without having a really good reason. Because when I did it the first time, I didn’t have a reason. It was only for the experience of doing it.
Anyway, this song reminds me of looking out the windows of the painted school bus as I made my way across the Nicaraguan countryside.
Sunday Poll
Last week, Pen Sunday voters voted that yes, they would vote in the poll. Still, there is a large gap between the average number of reads I get on each edition and the number of readers who vote. I don’t know why this is, but I’m trying to remember everything I can from a college Poli-Sci 200 class I took that talked about why voter turnout in the United States is so relatively low.
Regardless, the polls go on. Vote!
Here’s this week’s Poll. Voting is free and anonymous. All it takes is a subscription. (That’s free too).
You only have one week to vote. Results will be reviewed and discussed in next week’s edition.
Sunday Carrier
Israel-Palestine Human Rights Watch
Long Beach Man Receives Maximum Sentence for Blowing Up a Spa to Kill Ex-Girlfriend
Bay of Biscay: France temporarily bans fishing to protect dolphins
U.S. Feds discourage humorous electronic messages on highways
Japan becomes the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon
The Minnesota Timberwolves are 30-12
Weekly Report:
Casting for Rob Rabbit expected to be finalized this week
Uncredited S2 debut re-scheduled for February
PS
It’s the end of Pen Sunday, edition #64. If you reached the end, thank you for reading. It means a lot.
Pen Sunday is a newsletter about a writer, a dream, and a studio. With headlines from around the world, music, and maybe a poem. Every Sunday and Sunday only. Subscribe for free below.
Until Sunday,
Solomon Lovejoy