It'll be a snow day in much of the Northeast, thanks to a blizzard walloping the region with snow, ice and wind, causing travel bans and hazardous conditions in streets.
So if your office or school is closed and the snow is piling up against the front door, why not indulge in a little binge-watching of all those series and Oscar contenders on your watch list?
If you've still got power and/or the Internet (fingers crossed for both!), you've got a great excuse to ignore that snow shovel and hunker down on the couch in front of a big screen.
Oscar Contenders
With the Academy Awards only weeks away, 2015 will go down as the year many of the nominated films are available on-demand before the ceremony on Feb. 22. Of the best picture contenders, "Boyhood" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" are already available on-demand, as are fellow nominees in other categories including "Gone Girl," "The Judge," "Ida," "How to Train Your Dragon 2," "The Boxtrolls," "The Lego Movie," "Maleficent," "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," "X-Men: Days of Future Past" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."
Returning Series
Entertainment News
"The Fall" is a Belfast-set psychological crime drama starring Gillian Anderson ("X-Files") and Jamie Dornan ("Fifty Shades of Grey") as a police detective and serial killer, respectively. Season one landed in 2014 and left viewers on the edge of their seats waiting to see if Stella Gibson can track down murderer Paul Spector before he kills again. Season two arrived on Netflix Jan. 16, and with only six one-hour episodes per season, you can get through them all as the snow continues to accumulate.
It's also perfect timing to catch up on the political thriller "House of Cards" ahead of the season three Netflix premiere set for Feb. 15.
"The Interview"
After all the "will we or won't we get to see it?" back-and-forth, the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy about bumbling would-be assassins heading to North Korea that was momentarily shelved by Sony is now on track to become the biggest online release in history, thanks to a growing $40 million haul. If you haven't had a chance yet, a snow day is the perfect excuse to find out what all the fuss was about. Available on multiple on-demand platforms, including Netflix.
Old (and New) Favorites
Unless the snow completely isolates you from civilization for the next week, we doubt you'll be able to make it through all 10 seasons of "Friends" on Netflix. But you can always give it a try. Other awesome series currently available to watch include "Breaking Bad," "Orphan Black," "Sons of Anarchy," "30 Rock" and "The Office."
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Also available on-demand are recent Golden Globe winners "Transparent" (Amazon Prime), about a dysfunctional family learning to accept their transgender dad, and "The Honorable Woman" (Netflix/SundanceTV), starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as an Anglo-Israeli baroness who is thrown into a political game of cat-and-mouse as she tries to reconcile Israelis and Palestinians.
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