With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra)
With its focus on the effects of exploration by white men on foreign lands, Ciro Guerra’s Oscar-nominated Embrace of the Serpent will inevitably be compared to Werner Herzog’s stories of savage nature, and while Guerra is investigating some of Herzog’s most well trodden themes, the chaos of man exists in the background, while the unspoiled sit front and center here. Embrace of the Serpent centers on two explorers, separated by decades in time, searching for Yakruna – a fictional sacred plant with hallucinogenic qualities – but the movie is more about how outsiders – whether consciously or unconsciously – exert control. The repercussions of colonialism hover over the text even as these characters have “noble” intentions. – Michael S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Gods of Egypt (Alex Proyas)
It’s tempting to want to give too much credit to Alex Proyas’ Gods of Egypt for sheer invention. Not since last year’s polarizing belly flop, Jupiter Ascending, has a blockbuster been so filled to the brim with intricate, nonsensical, transcendently stupid world building. Within the first twenty minutes, an amber-encrusted Egypt obsessed with pageantry and grand gestures becomes a fiery hellscape ruled by winged mechs with designs based on dense Egyptian mythology shooting laser beams at each other. – Michael S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Mermaid (Stephen Chow)
Stephen Chow is the rightful successor to David Zucker and Mel Brooks. He doesn’t possess the same mainstream cachet, but the Chinese auteur has built a career on films that, at their best, work as story-driven slapstick. Chow’s films find the liminal space between madcap Looney Tunes cartoons and Eastern-indebted melodramas. As much an apostle of Douglas Sirk in his penchant for languid romance as a yuk-crazy prankster like Brooks, he knows how to mine the heart of relationships as often as he can find the natural (or unnatural) intersection of comedy and drama. Chow’s latest, The Mermaid, is an anomaly in a few respects. – Michael S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Other Side (Roberto Minervini)
Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini has long held his ever-fascinated gaze on America’s unwanted, isolated or forgotten people. Last year, he finalized his Texas trilogy – a series that included The Passage and Low Tide – with Stop the Pounding Heart, a highly nuanced coming-of-age portrait focused on two Christian teens with very different home lives. With his unobtrusive camera and careful balance of narrative and documentary elements, Minervini produced a well-crafted, sensitive examination of how backwoods faith shapes his young subjects (see my review for more perspective). For his latest effort, he moves east to Louisiana for The Other Side, an unflinching look at the unwholesome underbelly that, to the rest of the country’s chagrin, defines the Deep South. – Amanda W. (full review)
Where to Stream: Fandor
Triple 9 (John Hillcoat)
John Hillcoat is going to make a great film someday. Each of his last three films (Lawless, The Road, The Proposition) have skirted this quality to various degrees, bringing together top-tier casts, evocatively oppressive atmospheres, and muddied, morally-compromised perspectives, but they’ve never quite coalesced into something spectacular. Triple 9 is Hillcoat’s latest trip into the gray, and despite a pedigree of able performers in front of the camera, it’s an exhaustively cynical, morally-empty crime film that has neither the pacing to work as a B-film or the loftier ideas in place to work as a serious investigation of corruption. – Michael S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
We Are Still Here (Ted Geoghegan)
Throwback horror film We Are Still Here never loses a sense of quiet fun running underneath it. Clearly a loving send-up to films of the past, writer-director Ted Geoghegan’s feature debut is rarely subtle yet still manages to create a thorough sense of dread. With a well-established setting and stunning creature effects, there are some genuine moments of terror. Additionally, once the frights really begin, Geoghegan shows a healthy love of gore as he smears the quiet landscape with red. Even the actors are in on the fun, giving solid performances through their schlocky lines. – Bill G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
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Netflix