Aubrey Plaza's 84%-fresh 'Ingrid Goes West' hits Netflix today

Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen's social-media-stalker satire leads a quiet Sunday that also premieres a weekly Japanese airport-customs drama, drops new episodes of two weekend K-dramas, and puts the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy on last-call notice, while the massive August 1 catalog drop is now live.

The pick of the day: Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West is the only title Netflix lists under today's date on its August calendar, and it lands as the most recognizable addition of a slow Sunday. The 2017 dark comedy, directed by Matt Spicer from a script he co-wrote with David Branson Smith, follows an unstable young woman (Aubrey Plaza) who cashes out her inheritance after her mother's death and moves to Los Angeles to insert herself into the life of an Instagram lifestyle guru (Elizabeth Olsen). What begins as a string of staged encounters curdles into something darker.

What it is: A pre-influencer-era satire that has only grown into its subject matter, pairing Plaza's deadpan menace with Olsen's sunnily vacant influencer. Wyatt Russell, Billy Magnussen, Pom Klementieff, and O'Shea Jackson Jr. round out the cast. It's rated R and runs a tight 98 minutes, a Neon film that premiered at Sundance in January 2017.
Who it's for: Anyone who liked The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Single White Female, or Plaza's run of toxic-weirdo turns. The filmmakers pitched it as exactly that cross, and it holds up as one of the sharper films about turning yourself into a "brand."
The consensus: It holds an 84% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (197 reviews) against a 71% audience score, with critics singling out its "smart, topical humor" and timely social observations. (comingsoon.net)

Also new today: GATE24: The Border

GATE24: The Border premieres its first episode today, kicking off a weekly Sunday rollout for a 10-episode Japanese airport-customs drama. Headlined by award-winning actress Shuri as a quirky customs officer who can read the truth from luggage but is hopeless with people, it follows an underdog Cabinet-secretariat unit that gets parked in a tiny inspection booth far from the main gates. It has aired Thursdays on TV Asahi in Japan since July 23 and now arrives on Netflix globally on Sundays. TV-PG, and squarely in the J-drama lane this feed has tracked all summer alongside 25 Years of You, The Vacation Principle, and The Apartment Job. (whats-on-netflix)

New episodes of ongoing shows

Spooky in Love drops episode 6 today (Park Eun-bin's ghost-seeing hotel heiress romance, Sat/Sun weekly through Aug 23, Netflix). Episode 5 drew a 5.54% nationwide rating on Saturday, off slightly from episode 4's 5.81% record, and the series just ranked fifth on Netflix's global Top 10. (MyDramaList)
The Apartment Job drops episode 8 tonight at 10:30pm Korea time (Ji Sung's HOA-president heist comedy, Sat/Sun weekly through Aug 16). Episode 7 dipped to 4.4% nationwide on Saturday, down from episode 6. (KStarTrend)

The August 1 drop is now live

Yesterday's massive first-of-month catalog drop has landed, the one previewed Friday as "arriving tomorrow." If you're picking over the weekend, the two prestige titles to start with are Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy's 95%-fresh Los Angeles crime-journalism thriller with Jake Gyllenhaal, Oscar-nominated for its screenplay) and Selma (Ava DuVernay's 99%-fresh Martin Luther King Jr. drama with David Oyelowo, a Best Picture nominee). The full Fast & Furious collection (the first seven films) and the six-film Chucky collection are also up for marathon viewing.

Leaving this week

The Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007), has its last full day on Netflix Tuesday, Aug 5, with all three Tobey Maguire films departing together. Spider-Man 2 is the critical standout if you only have time for one. (Tudum, PCMag)
Labyrinth (1986), Jim Henson's David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly musical fantasy, has its last full day Friday, Aug 7. (Tudum)

Coming this week

Two titles some trackers had bunched under today actually land later this week, per Netflix's own calendar. Monday, Aug 3 brings Spoiler Alert (Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge's 87%-fresh romantic weepie, RT), Bo Burnham's 99%-fresh Eighth Grade (RT), and the Peacock-jump horror sequel Five Nights at Freddy's 2. Tuesday, Aug 4 brings Best Medicine Season 1, all 13 episodes of Josh Charles's Fox adaptation of the British series Doc Martin (Netflix), ahead of its season 2 return on Fox September 22.