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.
2073 (Asif Kapadia)
Asif Kapadia––the biographical documentary wiz behind contemporary classics like Senna and Amy––opens his semi-fictional film 2073 in a flurry of doc footage. Wildfires, floods, and other such natural disasters set the tone while disturbing clips of cops bashing skulls and riot police brutalizing innocent people cement it for the next 85 minutes. Then comes the fiction: it’s been 37 years since “The Event,” and we’re in the future: the year 2073. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Black Box Diaries (Shiori Ito)
In the middle of Black Box Diaries, journalist Shiori Ito’s debut documentary, Ito grins at the camera as she strolls through downtown Tokyo on the day of her book launch. It’s October 18, 2017. The New York Times broke the Harvey Weinstein news two weeks ago. Alyssa Milano popularized the hashtag #MeToo two days ago. Ito, fresh-faced and 28, happily recounts these events to the camera. The world may finally be ready to listen to her. – Lena W. (full review)
Where to Stream: Paramount+ with Showtime
The End (Joshua Oppenheimer)
In last year’s The Zone of Interest, a final-act retching recalled a key moment in Oppenheimer’s 2012 debut The Act of Killing. The Zone of Interest was frequently mislabeled as an examination of the banality of evil, and it would be incorrect to categorize The End as that too. At Telluride this past weekend, Oppenheimer discussed his fascination with the lies we tell ourselves and how dangerous that can be. Humans are uniquely equipped to compartmentalize and keep going––it is perhaps our primary survival skill. With The End, Oppenheimer pushes beyond subconscious involuntary retching, forcing his characters to more squarely come to grips with their actions and their lingering effects. It’s not subtle, but the film’s complete lack of cynicism shines brightest in these direct moments. It is undeniably provocative to present a wealthy white family directly responsible for the world’s end, whose supreme wealth has made it so that they have experienced little-to-no consequences for this destruction––then to say these people deserve love, the chance to reconcile their past and move forward with renewed hope. – Caleb H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)
Being a pet owner, depending on your personality, comes with a fair level of anxiety. For example: after leaving my apartment to go see the film I’m writing about, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I hadn’t shut my bathroom door. If so, my two beautiful senior cats could potentially get inside and consume flowers toxic to them. For some people this is just the anxiety they have regarding, I don’t know, leaving the oven on whenever they head out in public, but for a certain kind of animal-loving softie, intrusive thoughts will be bound to hover. After reassuring my anxiety about whether my cats got into the bathroom, it transferred to the pixelated critter at the center of Flow. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Look Into My Eyes (Lana Wilson)
Ask enough people what they think about psychics and clairvoyants, and you’ll probably get eye-rolls. Whether referencing the storefront tarot readers or the more seriously minded seers who perform seances and communicate with those who have transitioned into the afterlife, the impression of this spiritual trade is generally disbelief. What’s unique about director Lana Wilson’s latest documentary, which primarily highlights seven psychics living in various parts of New York City, is that it never aims to persuade you against that reaction. In this deeply moving, compassionate exploration, determining whether this small and goofy group actually has real powers is beside the point. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Max
Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski)
Kazik Radwanski’s misty-eyed, mostly improvised tale of friends-not-quite-lovers excels at capturing intricacies of the unspoken. There’s a warming tenderness and quiet sadness to Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson’s restrained interactions. In the final moments, Mara places a crumpled receipt inside a book and returns it to its shelf. Sometimes that’s what a good film is: a leaf through our feelings. Matt and Mara is there on the shelf now, for when we feel like opening that book again. – Blake S.
Where to Stream: VOD
Meanwhile on Earth (Jérémy Clapin)
“They’ve gone into their dream.” That’s what the non-corporeal extraterrestrial entity (voiced by Dimitri Doré) says through a highly malleable seed that Elsa Martens (Megan Northam) places in her ear. The words are meant to comfort her when the first of its victims is imperceptibly replaced by one of its companions––that the person she knew the body to be didn’t die. It was instead painlessly sent away to exist in a realm we can assume will bring it joy. Does this fact make it easier to deal with the task she’s been asked to undertake? Nothing about choosing four more people for this alien to use as vessels in exchange for bringing her brother back to Earth is easy, but she’s going to try anyway. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Pepe and Cocote (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias)
Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ 2017 fiction debut Cocote was the dazzling, textured arrival of a new voice; the director doesn’t disappoint with his invigoratingly peculiar follow-up. Pepe, which premiered at Berlinale and comes to MUBI at the start of the new year, takes us inside the mind of one of Pablo Escobar’s dying hippos. Anything close to The Lion King or Dr. Dolittle, this is not, thankfully, as the director uses his ambitious conceit to explore global political strife, ecological dangers, and animal cruelty. In what would make for a great double feature with another Berlinale highlight that gave sentience to the unexpected, Mati Diop’s Dahomey, Pepe is a formally radical odyssey that’s hard to shake. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Seeing Mavis Beacon (Jazmin Jones)
In her debut feature, Jazmin Jones and collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross are looking for answers. They turn to the divine, the public, and, of course, the Internet for guidance. Their holy grail is Mavis Beacon (or, more accurately, the woman who first portrayed her), the virtual instructor who led one of the most popular learning games of all time. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is a font of nostalgia for those who played it in its heyday, and Black fans like Jones saw Mavis as an especially important pioneer for their digital representation. – Lena W. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez)
It was Mark Twain who said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” which is one way of approaching Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez’s sprawling, jazz-infused Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. The political essay revisits 1960, a turbulent year in global affairs: Patrice Lumumba rises to power in Congo just as the United States, through the CIA-backed Voice of America radio network, aims to soften America’s image aboard, sending jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, and Max Roach to tour the world. The film positions the jazz musicians as a kind of political cabinet while Gillespie envisions his own run for the White House on TV talk shows back home. It proceeds with a rather kinetic, defiant tone in which the jazz, breaking news, citations, and quotes interrupt the historical footage a more standard documentary may have primarily focused on. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
65
Fall
Stopmotion
Kino Film Collection
Exhibition
The Tree
Prime Video
Ball of Fire
Dragged Across Concrete
Haywire
The Nature of Love
The Universal Theory