Another week, another Netflix original series dropping for us all to bingewatch. But that isn’t all worth noting, with a number of new films and classics coming to or returning to streaming services this week. Check out the new batch of selections from Netflix, Amazon Prime and VOD below.

Netflix

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 1)

Originally developed by Tina Fey as an NBC pilot, the first season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt will be released by Netflix on Friday. The show stars The Office vet Ellie Kemper as the title character in an excellent premise for a series: Kimmy Schmidt is a beautiful young woman struggling to survive in the big city (you know, like every television character ever), but she’s unique having recently been rescued from a doomsday cult living off-grid. There have been a number of excellent dramas revolving around cults in recent years, but the prospect of a comedy taking on this usually very serious subject has a lot of potential. The show also co-stars 30 Rock favorite Jane Krakowski as a wealthy woman who hires Kimmy to be her child’s nanny.

Stream on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 1 on Netflix

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
The ABCs of Death 2 (Anthology, 2014)
Billy Madison (Tamra Davis, 1995)
Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
Harmontown (Neil Berkeley, 2014)
You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)

Amazon Prime

Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)

Overshadowed by a great year in movies, Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip one was one of the best comedies of 2014. With three excellent performances from Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, and Jonathan Pryce, the film follows an egotistical writer and his relationships with his girlfriend and his writing mentor-idol. Its wry, biting edge is unique from the mainstream broad comedies at the multiplexes, so if you are looking for something a little more character driven and ruthless in the portrayals of these characters, Listen Up Philip comes as a strong recommendation. Listen Up Philip is currently exclusive to Amazon Prime, so you won’t find it streaming elsewhere.

Other titles new to Amazon Prime this week:
Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell, 1997)
Drunk History (season 2)
The Kill Team (Dan Krauss, 2013)
The Nanny Diaries (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, 2007)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

Video On-Demand

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (Francis Lawrence, 2014)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 was the highest grossing film of 2014 and hits blu-ray and VOD March 6. Its follow up and the final film of the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, is predicted to possibly be among the top grossing films of 2015. Even as only the first part of a two-part film plenty of you will be needing your fix of Katniss and Peeta to tide you over until Part 2’s release on November 20.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
Faults (Riley Stearns, 2014)
Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, 2014)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 (Francis Lawrence, 2014)
Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (Daniel Alfredson, 2015)
The Last of Robin Hood (Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland, 2013)

Following the money-doubling strategy that maximized the lucrativeness of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises, the third book in Suzanne Collins’ dystopian-epic Hunger Games series has been split into two movies, the first of which, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, hits theaters today. Halving the franchise’s third act is a smart business move no doubt, but there’s an artistic compromise involved that Mockingjay‘s shortcomings can largely be attributed to. This doesn’t feel like a fully-formed movie; it feels like an episode, a placeholder, a transient experience that’ll get you excited for the series’ explosive conclusion, but doesn’t offer much sustenance on its own to encourage revisiting (unlike its excellent, re-watchable predecessor, Catching Fire). The movie’s abrupt, randomly-placed ending is frustrating and off-putting because, well, it happens in the middle of the book. It’s not an ending at all, really. But hey, in the big-budget landscape of Hollywood, where two tickets are better than one, them’s the breaks.

Mockingjay is the darkest entry in the series, in more ways than one. Gone this time around are the glitz, pageantry, and blood-soaked spectacle of the games themselves, with fierce rabble-rouser Katniss Everdeen’s defiance of the tyrannical President Snow instead taking center stage. Katniss has been positioned (whether she likes it or not) as the symbol for the brewing insurgency sparked by her survival of two Hunger Games in a row, and throughout the film we follow her as she grows into her new role as “The Mockingjay”, the rebellion’s goddess of war.

The film largely takes place within the bowels of District 13, a forgotten, underground compound that looks like a dreary doomsday silo and now acts as headquarters for the rebel forces. Running the show down below are the benevolent President Coin (Julianne Moore, a series newbie) and Capitol turncoat Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who together use Katniss and her image to stoke the flames of the revolution. Also roaming the halls of District 13 is former Hunger Games fashion consultant Effie (Elizabeth Banks), who misses her giant wigs and is none too pleased by the drab jumpsuits she’s now forced to wear.

J-Law’s casting as the durable, tormented Katniss continues to be the franchise’s greatest boon. She has a knack for making scenes that, while perhaps silly on the page, come off as totally convincing on screen. In a scene that serves as both an exhibition of her acting skills and a meta examination of the franchise’s mass appeal, Katniss, dressed in warrior-queen armor and standing in front of a green screen, awkwardly postures and regurgitates cheesy lines for a rebel propaganda video. It’s all good for a laugh, but it also succinctly expresses how unready she is to be a revolutionary symbol, as well as how distressed and divided she is on the inside. Also affecting are recurring scenes in which a watery-eyed Katniss is tortured by broadcasted videos of baker boy Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), who’s being held captive by President Snow (again played by the naturally dastardly-looking Donald Sutherland) and is looking more sickly with each televised appearance.

Moments like these–in which the characters act in front of a camera to further a political agenda, echoing the duplicitous nature of politics in our own society–are a trademark of the series. The device is growing a little stale, but the message still rings true. The key theme here, though, is liberation from oppression. Peppered throughout the film are sequences of citizens fighting back against Capitol forces, as well as images of mass slaughter (a rebel raid on a Capitol dam is breathtaking). The amount of action in Mockingjay is considerably less than its predecessors, as the focus here is more on the larger costs of war rather than intimate acts of violence. (That isn’t to say the film isn’t violent, though: a multi-district execution scene’s lurid presentation is particularly startling.) The stakes feel high, and that’s a good thing.

What isn’t so good, however, are the film’s momentum-less pacing and shapeless plot. The story never finds its purpose, because its purpose lies in another movie, which we won’t see until next year. The climax we’re given around the series’ most insipid sub-plot: the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale (Liam Hemsworth). The thing that appeals to me most about Katniss as a character (besides her being a legitimately dangerous badass) is that, unlike most other Hollywood heroines, her existence isn’t defined by her romantic life. In fact, she barely has one! She’s more than compelling enough on her own, and to be honest, it’s hard to think of more uninteresting characters than Gale and Peeta, whose personalities are virtually interchangeable. They’re both heroic, they both really love Katniss. One’s tall, one’s small. Blah, blah, blah. Who needs ’em? To be fair, the the story isn’t so fascinated with the boys. But in this film more than the others, I questioned whether or not I care about them at all.

There’s a lot of talking in Mockingjay: talking in rooms, talking on rubble, talking at TV screens. No one is given much to do besides skulk and strategize in their drab living quarters and war rooms. It’s obvious that underneath all of the motivational speeches and propaganda videos, what this movie is really meant to do is bide time until Part 2 hits next year. I’m willing to bet that, in the grand scheme of things, Mockingjay won’t be viewed as such a trudge of a movie. I’m hoping Part 2 blows us away and gives Part 1 some much-needed context and payoff. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to gulp down the chaser for this bland, bitter drink of a film.