Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki)
Cinema at its most boundlessly imaginative, The Boy and the Heron is a journey of thrilling, pure dream logic chock full of images that feel conjured from the deepest corners of Miyazaki’s mind. Considering the painstaking, hand-drawn labor it takes to pull off an animation this encumbered by standard narrative conventions, the feat of Miyazaki being able to corral such a vision feels miraculous. For the sake of the medium, here’s hoping the 82-year-old legend has one more in him.
Where to Stream: Max
Coup! (Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman)
Let’s talk about the pandemic for a moment. No, not the COVID-19 Pandemic. The pandemic that, 100 years ago, killed millions and shuttered the United States for a time: the Great Flu of 1918. The virus infected roughly one-third of the world’s population, claiming the lives of approximately 50 million worldwide. Coup!, written and directed by Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman, utilizes this all-too-familiar setting to build an intriguingly dark class comedy starring Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Magnussen, and Sarah Gadon. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Deliverance (Lee Daniels)
Lee Daniels wants to do it all. The filmmaker behind Monster’s Ball, Precious, and The Butler has made an endlessly compelling horror movie, The Deliverance, for Netflix, starring Andra Day, Glenn Close, Mo’Nique, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. The Film Stage chatted with Daniels about his new film, never wanting to do the same thing twice, loving filming in Pittsburgh, selling out a bit, being convinced white people will not get the Glenn Close performance, and changing the media landscape with Empire. Continue reading Dan Mecca’s interview.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Dìdi (弟弟) (Sean Wang)
While trying to chat up classmate Madi (Mahaela Park) on AIM, Chris (Izaac Wang) skims her MySpace for an “in”. Then, beneath all the Paramore pictures and low-res GIFs is a list of her favorite movies. Oh, A Walk to Remember is one of them. He fakes loving it; “its helllllla good,” he says. Now he has to maintain that––at least for a few scenes. This sort of thing happens throughout Sean Wang’s feature directorial debut. The character moments flow on a moment-to-moment basis and the period detail is quite good beneath it. Ultimately, Dìdi (弟弟) works despite its untapped potential. – Matt C. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Here (Bas Devos)
For anyone keeping tabs on Bas Devos’ career, it’s notable that the drama of his latest film Here is set in motion by something as benign as a pot of soup. A charming portrait with a flânuerial spirit, the film follows a Brussels-based Romanian construction worker who, having decided to move home, cooks what’s left in his fridge, packages it up, then gifts it to family, friends and––much later––a Belgian-Chinese woman doing a PhD in moss. She is played by Liyo Gang and he is played by Stefan Gota. It’s 81 minutes long, has relatively little dialogue, and tugs the heartstrings in all the best ways. It might be the most benevolent film of this year. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
I Used to Be Funny (Ally Pankiw)
Rachel Sennott continued her impressive run as a quick-witted, creatively vulgar comic in Bottoms, which premiered during South By Southwest’s second night. But she does something more impressive in Ally Pankiw’s I Used to Be Funny, her second starring turn in this festival that highlights her full dimensionality. Though she still gets to show off her standup skills here––Sennott garners laughs in a series of scenes performing in comedy clubs, something movies and television are rarely able to achieve––this character study about trauma’s unpredictable ripple effects doesn’t foreground too many jokes. As the title implies, this is a movie about losing (and attempting to regain) a defining characteristic due to circumstances out of one’s control. – Jake K-S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Knit’s Island (Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, and Quentin L’Helgouach)
Early last year, a theory started doing the rounds: if comic-book movies have lost their sheen, might video-game adaptations take their place? Two of the biggest and most widely discussed entertainments at the time, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Last of Us, began their lives on consoles. One was ostensibly about gaming; the other had things to say about the human condition. Better, I would wager, on both counts is Knit’s Island, a micro-budget film that premiered at Visions du Real in Switzerland around the same time and screened once more at the Luxembourg City Film Festival earlier this year, where I caught it again and found it just as delightful. When it isn’t having fun, it’s a film that reaches for something cosmic. It takes place almost entirely in the world of DayZ, a survival RPG released in 2018. For the film’s production, documentarians Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, and Quentin L’Helgouach spent a mighty 936 hours on the platform––a far-from-unusual number for even the game’s casual players, and of course far less than ardent enthusiasts they encounter. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Metrograph at Home
Long Day’s Journey into Night (Bi Gan)
One of the most staggering cinematic experiences I’ve had was Bi Gan’s transportive, dreamlike odyssey Long Day’s into Night. While much ink has been spilled over its astounding hour-long 3D single take through multiple towns and above, the rest of the film is just as ravishing as we follow (though that word is loosely defined in meditative ways) a detective’s journey to track down a mysterious woman. While influences from Wong Kar-wai to Andrei Tarkovsky are present, this young director establishes a voice all his own, a remarkable feat just two films in. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
My First Film (Zia Anger)
Nick Newman said in his interview with the director, “Zia Anger’s name has been a kind of totem for underground film artistry, to whatever extent that seems to exist anymore. Her presentation-based My First Film made waves in recent years as the ultimate vision / confession of artistic failure and regret, making somewhat peculiar the existence of, let’s see what it’s called, My First Film, a feature debut-of-sorts that tells of her younger self’s failure to launch a filmmaking career. Or someone like her: the lead character is Vita, a shortsighted and temperamental young director failing to control cast, crew, ideas, or impulses; but present in the film is Zia, who reflects on this difficult time in the character’s (her?) life. Fear not any risk of complication: My First Film makes legible––dare I say universal?––thwarted dreams and personal embarrassment vis-a-vis the interplay of Anger’s actual work and Vita’s imagined endeavors.”
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Paragon (Michael Duignan)
For a film about saving the universe from cosmic evil, stakes couldn’t be lower in The Paragon. What begins as a man’s quest for revenge takes a hard left into the occult and psychedelic, but its scope never expands outside of a small-town setting and smaller-minded protagonist. If anything, the film can’t get any bigger if it wanted to; writer-director-editor-cinematographer Michael Duignan shot it in less than two weeks on a budget of $25,000 New Zealand dollars (that’s around $15K in US currency). In other words: the film couldn’t afford corners let alone cut them. But The Paragon gives its all, embracing its DIY nature to deliver a light and breezy sci-fi comedy, and what it lacks in budget it more than compensates for in low-key charm. – C.J. P. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Peak Season (Henry Loevner & Steven Kanter)
From Blake Williams’ Film Fest Knox feature: Henry Loevner & Steven Kanter’s Peak Season, which premiered in South by Southwest’s Narrative Spotlight earlier this year, was a suitable winner, in that it’s almost uncannily in-step with the regional cinema ethos that the festival is geared toward. While the filmmakers are both based in LA, Loevner spent some time living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the two decided to return with his directing partner to shoot a film about a couple of New York yuppies briefly escaping their lives climbing corporate ladders. Amy (Claudia Restrepo) travels to the “little cowtown” with her fiancé Max (Ben Coleman), intending to spend the week taking fishing lessons, hiking, and dipping into their modernist cottage’s hot tub. Unsurprisingly, Max—who compares humans to sharks (”If you stop moving, you die”)—shows no interest in turning away from his work, and doesn’t hesitate to vacate his vacation when an urgent situation beckons him back to the city. Amy, who actually recently stepped away from her job as a managing consultant, sees the value in this rumination period, and continues along nature’s path. In her fiancé’s absence, she quickly forges a friendship with Loren (Derrick DeBlasis), her scraggly fishing instructor who sleeps in his car, and their pronounced chemistry makes it pretty clear where the film is headed. Celine Song’s Past Lives reminded us earlier this year that cinephiles’ appetites for impossible love stories, especially those centered around aimless urbanites desperate for authenticity, is far from sated, making Peak Season probably this competition’s safest choice to deliver an audience-friendly title to Regal’s screens.
Where to Stream: VOD
Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)
A ruthlessly efficient thriller fueled by boiling rage, Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge wastes no time setting the stakes. Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) is listening to metal music on his headphones, biking into the fictional small town of Shelby Springs, Louisiana, when a police cruiser crashes into him, forcing a tumble to the ground. He sold his car and a stake in a restaurant he had. With the resulting $36K in cash, he was on his way to bail out a cousin incarcerated for possession of marijuana. From the police’s point of view, he had been evading arrest over the two miles they’d tailed him. Despite only giving him a traffic violation, they enact civil asset forfeiture, seizing all of his cash under the suspicion it may be drug money. This sets the mysterious, resourceful, strong-willed Terry on a mission of combating this police corruption and overreach by any means necessary to make things right. Continue reading my full review.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Snack Shack (Adam Rehmeier)
Evolving the zippy, punk aesthetic in his previous feature Dinner in America, director Adam Rehmeier’s Snack Shack is an entertaining Dazed and Confused-esque summer comedy, bolstered by the spirited performances of its leads, Conor Sherry and The Fabelmans‘ Gabriel LaBelle. Following the always-scheming best friends’ journey as they attempt to strike rich when they take over the snack shack of the local pool, the narrative ends up hitting some expected beats, but there’s a comfort in its familiar nature––conveying a throwback nostalgia that doesn’t overshadow its characters.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang)
The apartment complexes making up what used to be Kowloon Walled City effectively sealed it off from the rest of Hong Kong. Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In imagines Kowloon as a kind of steampunk ghetto controlled by an aging gangster known as Cyclone (Louis Koo). – Daniel E. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
. . . And Justice for All
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Angry Men (1997)
All the Colors of the Dark
An American Werewolf in London
Anatomy of a Murder
Apocalypse Now Redux
Back Street
Bad Press
Bed of Roses
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Blaze
Blondie of the Follies
Blood and Black Lace
Bonnie and Clyde
California Split
Days of Heaven
Death Walks at Midnight
Deep Red
Dinner at Eight
Dog Day Afternoon
La dolce vita
Don’t Torture a Duckling
Empire Records
The Evil Eye
Fear City
Finishing School
Five Easy Pieces
French Wedding Caribbean Style
The GoodTimesKid
The Graduate
Hallelujah
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
Hold Your Man
House on Haunted Hill
In the Folds of the Flesh
Inherit the Wind
Joint Security Area
Klute
Kramer vs. Kramer
The Last Detail
The Last Picture Show
The Lovers
Make Way for Tomorrow
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Marriage Italian Style
MASH
Midnight Mary
Mist Melodies of Paris
Momma’s Man
My Cousin Vinny
Not a Pretty Picture
Old-Fashioned Woman
The Old Sorceress and the Valet
One from the Heart
One from the Heart: Reprise
Open Mic Solitaire
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Philadelphia
Queen of Earth
Red-Headed Woman
Rockabye
Runaway Jury
Sadie McKee
The Sleepy Time Gal
Strip Nude for Your Killer
Terri
Torso
Tugboat Annie
The Verdict
Watermelon Man
We All Loved Each Other So Much
What Have They Done to Your Daughters?
What Price Hollywood?
Who Saw Her Die?
Witness for the Prosecution
Working Girls
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
You and Me
Kino Film Collection
A Faithful Man
Metrograph at Home
Air Doll
Damnation
The Headless Woman
I Am Not a Witch
Jauja
Let the Wind Carry Me
Millennium Mambo
Sátántangó
The Stolen Man
They All Lie
The Turin Horse
Viola
Zama
MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Human Surge
I Am Not a Witch
Madeline’s Madeline
Mysteries of Lisbon
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV
Phoenix
The Rules of Attraction
Three Sisters
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Wildlife
Prime Video
After Yang
Barbarian
C’mon C’mon
Drag Me to Hell
Dressed to Kill
First Cow
The Green Knight
The Master
Open Range
The Souvenir Part II
VOD
Skincare
Sweet Dreams
The post New to Streaming: Rebel Ridge, My First Film, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, Dìdi (弟弟) & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
