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.
Asphalt City (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)
I entered Asphalt City at last year’s EnergaCAMERIMAGE festival with nothing but morbid curiosity. Having engendered some rank responses from its Cannes premiere and not secured any known U.S. distributor, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s film had the right kind of bad-object energy one needs at the jetlagged start to their week in a small Polish city. (Or just the comfort I personally get from a Brooklyn-shot feature featuring two Club Random guests.) I walked away boasting complicated, fascinated enthusiasm: nearly every second is ridiculous and never boring, and it doesn’t not deserve to play at a cinematography festival––having the most cinematography counts for something. Starting and ending with a blatant homage to The New World before thanking Terrence Malick in its credits; Michael Pitt relaunching a troubled career by billing himself Michael C. Pitt and asking Tye Sheridan “you believe in Heaven, bro?” with a mile-thick Noo Yawk accent; Mike Tyson’s genuinely affecting turn as far and away the sanest character; Sean Penn looking like the American Vincent Lindon and almost surely adding the line calling a Russian goon “Putin”; needless to say this had a stronger Bozo Who Kind of Owns vibe than any movie in years. – Nick N.
Where to Stream: VOD
The Beekeeper (David Ayer)
It’s the time of year for smooth-brained relaxation. Moviegoers can recover from the holidays with the comfort of knowing Gerard Butler, Liam Neeson, or Jason Statham will be here to satisfy their mid-budget, action-programmer needs. Is it really the new year if one of those cherished Kings of January doesn’t appear on the release slate? There’s no Gerry or Liam, but the ever-reliable Statham dons a trucker hat and blue jeans to grit his way through David Ayer’s The Beekeeper, an overall valiant, occasionally fun attempt to take us out of Q1 doldrums. – Conor O. (full review)
Where to Stream: MGM+
DogMan (Luc Besson)
Whatever one may think of Luc Besson’s oeuvre, his films work best when they live up to their trashy potential. The director’s cinema is littered with all-out demented interludes and comic-book exaggerations. Think of Rihanna quoting Paul Verlaine’s poem “A Poor Young Shepherd” while gyrating on a stripper pole in his intergalactic romp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets; or, more recently, Russian supermodel Sasha Luss mowing down throngs of thugs inside a restaurant in Anna. Besson’s always been particularly fluent in the art of the unreal, and Dogman, his latest, is engineered as one such tale: a pulpy story of an outcast who turns a whole pack of dogs into loyal allies in his fight against injustice. But the film never owns up to its deranged premise, and a staid, predetermined script sands off its most shamelessly ridiculous moments––the only moments when Dogman truly comes to life. – Leonardo G. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
This is less a movie that feels incomplete than one that has achieved its questionable goals––a diligent follow to a diligent adaptation, a brilliant build upon a brilliant physical manifestation. By my count, though, that makes two projects––maybe, possibly a bit hack to lean on this point, but just for the sake of context: about $300 million––spent in debt to another’s work or promise of some other film. A strange instinct for notoriously burdensome material. Myriad allusions to Dune Messiah, Villeneuve’s promised adaptation of Herbert’s far smaller follow-up, yield promise: flashforward images are stark, and Part Two’s climax finds its actors already selling the pieces set in motion. I can’t pretend I don’t want to see it, that it won’t look and sound great. But enthusiasm’s turning a tad dry. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
A film that more than delivers on the promise of its title, the plot of Hundreds of Beavers couldn’t be simpler: an applejack salesman attempts to outsmart, yes, hundreds of pesky critters to break into the fur-trapping game. That simplicity makes for a sandbox of endless imagination as we witness escalating hijinks that often find our lead on the losing side of the battle in hilariously agonizing ways. With an enduring love for silent-era slapstick comedy set against a homespun landscape that could be pulled from a Guy Maddin feature, it’s rather remarkable that the aesthetic only wears slightly thin. Rather, one comes away from the adventure with an invigorating sense that with enough creativity, the time-worn tricks of classic cinema can feel new again.
Immaculate (Michael Mohan)
Convent-set movies occupy a storied place in cinema history—one too vast to attempt summarization in this review. But it’s no matter: Immaculate stands to be a minor entry in both the crowded genre and in Sydney Sweeney’s present ascension to movie stardom. Sweeney produces and recruited Michael Mohan to direct Immaculate after their previous collaborations on TV series Everything Sucks! and erotic-thriller throwback The Voyeurs. Narratively, Immaculate owes more to Dario Argento’s Suspiria than any nunsploitation picture. The setups are essentially identical: wide-eyed American girl (Sweeney as Sister Cecilia in this case) heads to an all-girls dormitory in Italy. Nefarious plotting by shadowy leaders is unveiled over the course of the narrative. – Caleb H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Problemista (Julio Torres)
The term “unique voice” gets thrown around a lot. But how else do you describe Julio Torres? Over several years as a writer for Saturday Night Live and actor on HBO’s Los Espookys he’s quietly cultivated his own fresh, distinguished comedic sensibility, highlighting the surreality and humanity in the perfunctory. That’s most evident in the variety of digital shorts written during his time at 30 Rock, where he captured, for example, the nightmares and paranoia of a graphic designer tortured by Avatar’s papyrus font, or the inner life of an oddly shaped glass sink in an otherwise bland linoleum bathroom. You picture him looking at the world with his head slightly bent. – Jake K-S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Film Movement+
Beautiful City
Dancing in the Dust
Metrograph
Three by Joanna Arnow
Netflix
The Killing Fields
The Thin Blue Line
Shudder
Late Night with the Devil
VOD
In the Land of Saints and Sinners