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.
Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)
Shot largely on location in Queens, Blue Sun Palace explores a hidden culture and milieu. Amy and Didi, two friends at a massage parlor, are struck by violence that throws their lives into disarray. Director Constance Tsang grew up in New York, which helps explain her script’s authentic feel. Alongside Lee Kang-sheng as a Taiwanese immigrant looking for connection, the real star here is cinematographer Norm Li, who gives the film’s massage parlors, fast-food joints, and convenience stores––all seen in grungy fluorescent lighting––a universal currency that makes just as much sense in Korea or Mexico as in the U.S. – Daniel E.
Where to Stream: VOD
Bob Trevino Likes It (Tracie Laymon)
A crowd-pleasing film inspired by director Tracie Laymon’s experience talking with a stranger online at a low point in her life, Bob Trevino Likes It is a moving story that proves good people do exist in this world. With two wonderful performances from Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo––playing two strangers who share the same last name but are otherwise unrelated––the film progresses into a moving yet somewhat predictable affair. And that’s okay. It’s also not just a work of cinematic comfort food: Ferreira expresses an incredible amount of emotional vulnerability, humor, and at times a youthful naivety in a performance that’s more complex than initially meets the eye. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Jia Zhangke’s is often a cinema of déjà vu: “We’re again in the northern Chinese city of Datong,” Giovanni Marchini Camia wrote for Sight and Sound back in 2019, “it’s again the start of the new millennium, Qiao is again dating a mobster, yet no one else makes a reappearance and there are enough differences to signal that this isn’t a sequel or remake.” Camia was writing about Ash Is Purest White yet much of the same could be said for Caught by the Tides, the director’s latest experiment in plundering his archive––indeed his memories––and spinning what he finds into something new. The protagonist of Tides is again named Qiao and is again played by Zhao Tao, appearing here in more than 20 years of the director’s footage and allowing the viewer to watch that singular creative partnership evolve in real time––one of the great treasures of contemporary cinema. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel, VOD
Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari)
An unnamed village, an unknown time; somewhere in Britain, sometime in the Late Middle Ages, something is about to end. Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest sees the twilight of an old social order, but is not mourning a paradise lost. That would be too simplistic a comparison for a filmmaker whose work has always succeeded in weaving the allegorical with the political, such as gender constructs in Attenberg or Chevalier. Nine years after the latter, the Greek director returns to feature filmmaking with an adaptation of Jim Crace’s acclaimed book of the same name, making Harvest her third film and first period piece. – Savina P. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Jurassic World Rebirth (Gareth Edwards)
If you’ve kept up with right-wing tech oligarch Peter Thiel (or at least his interviews) you’ve probably noted his obsession with the term “stagnation.” While I don’t want to give too much credit to a thoroughly evil individual whose company, Palantir, is currently concocting a database of every single American citizen for nefarious government means, I must do a bit of a stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day admittance. Stagnation, not innovation, is the norm in modern mainstream cinema––hence why I’m reviewing Jurassic Park 7, which runs off the fumes of a 32-year-old blockbuster. Frankly, one wonders what the world would be like if John Sayles’ rejected script for a Jurassic Park 4 (featuring gun-wielding mercenary dinosaurs sent on rescue missions) had been made. It’s not a high standard to ask, but a single risk-averse decision may have pointed towards Hollywood moving at least incrementally forward. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Monkey (Osgood Perkins)
There’s no beating around the bush: The Monkey is a vessel for capturing cinematically cool kills. But not just cool kills––cool kills with an eight-figure budget, from the mind of Stephen King, developed by an offbeat team of creatives, and under the direction of an ever-maturing Osgood Perkins, who seems to have relatively strong freedom from the pulpit with his congregation of semi-independent studio backers. When’s the last time you saw a well-funded, artfully crafted, no-frills, self-secure “1,000 Ways to Die” horror comedy? – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
Agnes’ (Eva Victor) life is defined by a sense of stagnancy. Four years after completing grad school in rural New England, she’s living in the same house and going to the same building, only now as a professor. Whatever true joy she seems to experience is infrequent visits from her best friend and former roommate Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who has moved on, starting a family in New York City. As Victor assiduously peels back the layers of her sharp, unnerving, witty feature debut Sorry, Baby, the reason for being stuck in time becomes clear: in her final days of grad school she was raped by her advisor, who quickly deserted the town, leaving no culpability and even less sense of justice or closure. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Kino Film Collection
The Forger
Mademoiselle Chambon
Max
Freaky Tales