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.
Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)
Albert Serra’s new film Afternoons of Solitude is more akin to two hours of Sky Sports than you’d expect from the guy who once made Story of My Death. Following the rules, if not the spirit, of ever-festival-fashionable observational and direct cinema, we spend most of its runtime in long takes observing Spanish bullfighting rings, our eyes focused on Andrés Roca Rey, a Peruvian “exemplar” of the sport engaged in utmost, ritualized savagery. We’re very sensitized to the constructed and artificial nature of documentary now, but Serra’s prime achievement here is to achieve an objectivity of perspective. Commanded by DP Arthur Tort, it’s not a leering camera, and the editing patterns don’t cut to close-ups coercing us into disapproval, to achieve a a rapport where we can agree “this is awful, isn’t it.” It suggests an anthropological record of a pastime deserving our deference and grudging respect, yet equally an indictment of something barbaric and finally absurd. Roca, shown in power stance with his eyes focused and vulnerable like the poor bull’s, seems both hero and villain of the piece, but those categories also fail to apply here. Framed sculpturally and monumentally, as a body in cinematic space, he merely is. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Baltimorons (Jay Duplass)
A return to form for Jay Duplass, who’s also making his solo-directing debut, The Baltimorons is a charming throwback to the low-budget indies he directed with his brother Mark. Written and starring burly stand-up comedian Michael Strassner, the Baltimore-set film follows the mis-adventures of an unlikely romantic duo: Strassner’s Cliff, a stand-up comedian six months sober, and his older workaholic dentist Didi (Liz Larsen). Cliff is bantering with his fiancée Brittany (Olivia Luccardi) when he falls and chips a tooth, sending him frantically searching for a dentist who will take him on Christmas Eve. Didi is the only one who takes his call, agreeing to meet him in her empty office for surgery. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
We might not be quite into late-period Kurosawa just yet, but after four decades behind the camera there are already signs of that same lack of fuss to his filmmaking. Just watch the opening sequence of Cloud, which delivers a full psychological profile of the film’s protagonist before even a title card appears. This sequence sees our dubiously motivated reseller flip a haul of medical equipment: ruthlessly haggling the seller down; meticulously setting up the listing; and then the anxious wait, first as he hovers over the sale price and then watching from afar as the products get snapped up, one by one; letting out a small, haunting sigh of ecstasy as the final item turns from white to red. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel, VOD
East of Wall (Kate Beecroft)
The degree of difficulty in making East of Wall must have been enormous: a small budget, a series of remote locations, a slew of non-actor performers, and the incredibly arduous task of working with horses. Written and directed by Kate Beecroft, the film stars Tabatha Zimiga as a version of herself. In real life, Zimiga runs a South Dakota ranch where she raises horses she then sells via social media. Her daughter Porshia also stars here, and is quite good. The film as a whole is a fictional narrative wrapped up in the facts of the Zimiga clan. Following the untimely death of her husband, Tabatha is burdened with significant financial responsibilities as well as a large chosen family that lives at her ranch: a number of older children with no place to go have found a home with her and her biological children. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Henry Johnson (David Mamet)
The abyss stares back––that’s the overwhelming feeling of David Mamet’s new film Henry Johnson. It’s based on his play of the same name from 2023, and with both that date and Mamet’s recent public persona, one would probably have some assumptions about this story’s political bent. Watching the film, you’re reminded that we can come to some kind of mutual understanding with those on the other side. Comprising essentially four scenes in three locations, Henry Johnson has theatrical origins that are always clear but never distracting. The titular character is portrayed by Evan Jonigkeit––Mamet’s real-life son-in-law, who, wearing similar glasses, suggests something of an onscreen avatar that might be revealing of the theater world tough guy’s actual persona. Across the film, Henry is put through three confrontations: a boss (Chris Bauer), a cellmate (Shia LaBeouf), and a prison guard (Dominic Hoffman). – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Hyperboreans (Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña)
“We humans are capable of greatness,” reads the first line in Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña’s The Hyperboreans as the narrator’s voice beams from an old TV set. On the screen, a hypno wheel spins and spins; the voice speaks of evolution and “the energetic charge of ancestral blood.” These ominous themes already suggest that the Chilean stop-motion animator / filmmaker duo continue to explore religious symbolism and the ritualistic nature of their Latin American heritage. Before premiering The Hyperboreans in this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection, their 2021 short The Bones was awarded the Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film in Venice and proposed a fictionalized legacy to address colonial trauma. Now, their second feature (after 2018’s The Wolf House) continues to mix fact and fiction as a means to allegorize the past. – Savina P. (full review)
Where to Stream: Film Movement+
A Little Prayer (Angus MacLachlan)
A lovely film that’s had quite a path to distribution finally arrived this summer. Junebug writer Angus MacLachlan’s latest feature A Little Prayer premiered back at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. After undisclosed reasons, the deal fell apart and now Music Box Films came to the rescure for the drama starring David Strathairn, Jane Levy, Will Pullen, Celia Weston, Dascha Polanco, and Anna Camp. As Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his review, “In the quiet, peaceful mornings that ease your way into writer-director Angus MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer, a woman belts out gospel songs that echo down the block. They’re a bleary-eyed nuisance to many waking in this small, North Carolina neighborhood, but Bill Brass (David Straitharn) and his daughter-in-law Tammy (Jane Levy) have a mutual fascination with them, rising early with curiosity and wonder. Why does she sing them? Where do they come from exactly? The pair eventually attempt to investigate their leafy streets to find the source, yet as the spirituals dissipate and leave them alone in bird-chirping silence, they seem to revel in their beautiful, unsolved mystery.”
Where to Stream: VOD
Love, Brooklyn (Rachael Abigail Holder)
You can feel the warm breeze filtering through Love, Brooklyn, a gentle, dream-like summer movie that often teeters on the edge of reality. Rachael Abigail Holder’s debut feature, written by Paul Zimmerman, doesn’t necessarily drift in and out of abstract fantasy, but her vision of this rapidly evolving borough sometimes looks like it belongs to an alternate dimension. The night streets, the parks, and the bars are all practically empty. The Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy neighborhoods look pristine, uncluttered, undefined. And everyone involved in this triangular romantic drama has a vague vocation that allows them an altogether luxurious lifestyle. Everything is a little too good to be true. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Lurker (Alex Russell)
If your psychological thriller is centered around a man obsessed with a pop star on the cusp of superstardom, then the music itself had better sound believable enough––the musician be charismatic enough––to buy into this artist as a source of hyperfixation. The biggest, most obvious failure of Lurker, the directorial debut of Alex Russell (writer on series including The Bear and Beef) is that it treats the actual music made by its mononymous pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) as an afterthought, so out-of-step with current trends that it’s near-impossible to buy into the idea that he’s about to have a breakthrough, or that anybody would care this much about him. Admittedly, I’m at my most pedantic when seeing movies about pop music that don’t understand the sounds of their specific eras; I’ve never been able to warm to Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux when all the tracks sound like the Sia-inflected electro pop of the mid-teens and not the bubblegum, Max Martin-produced pop prevalent in its early-2000s setting. Lurker has the opposite issue: Oliver’s music feels about a decade out-of-date, most reminiscent of the late-2010s R&B star Khalid, whose broad, anthemic tracks about American teenage life proved to have no staying power beyond their pre-COVID era. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI
Realm of Satan (Scott Cummings)
Made in collaboration with the Church of Satan, as stated in its opening titles, Scott Cummings’ Realm of Satan doesn’t seek to expose hidden secrets of the religion, investigate the church’s place amongst belief systems, or, for the most part, even hear from those who may oppose its teachings. Rather, solely through a series of inspired cinematic tableaus, we are invited to take a look from the inside to witness the practices and everyday lives of those who follow this atheistic path. Due to the welcome decision of not delving deeper into the minds of the subjects––as well as displaying little input on the part of the filmmaker apart from the frames he chooses to capture––Realm of Satan becomes a compelling Rorschach test for how one may perceive the religious. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI
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