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.
Costa Brava, Lebanon (Mounia Akl)
What can you do when your homeland’s falling apart? The easy answer is stay or leave, but both options carry too much complexity to simply choose and be done. For starters, not everyone has that choice—whether due to finances, family, or myriad other reasons. And those who are able must dig deep within themselves to rationalize why. Do you leave because of greater opportunity? Do you stay because you want to be part of the solution? Or do you find yourself in a sort of purgatory—one foot planted on each side, only to discover your fear of losing out on the benefits of one for the potential of the other has you locked in stasis? That’s where Walid (Saleh Bakri) currently exists. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Now
The Ken Jacobs Collection
Filmatique is exclusively streaming work by Ken Jacobs, one of the most wildly creative and influential artists in cinema history. The 20-title curation spans Jacobs’s nearly 70-year career: early films using New York City as a poetic landscape (Orchard Street) and as a setting for Smith’s carnivalesque performances (Little Stabs at Happiness and Blonde Cobra); experiments with found footage (Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son); and an embracing digital tools to create stroboscopic effects that turn silent shorts and Victorian stereoscopic photographs into mind-expanding 3D investigations (Capitalism: Child Labor).
Where to Stream: Filmatique
The Legend of Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell)
A favorite of Leah Purcell’s as a child, Henry Lawson’s short story “The Drover’s Wife” was always at the front of her mind when growing into adulthood as an artist. It only makes sense, then, that she would take that 1892 tale and reimagine it as an Australian western that would bring her own ancestral history as a fair-skinned Aboriginal woman to light. First she had to give the titular wife a name: Molly Johnson. Next it was fleshing out a dramatic narrative beyond that of a devoted mother staying up all night to protect her children from a hidden snake while reminiscing about all the other times for which she did the same (fire and flood) with her husband consistently away. A legend was born. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Media Man (Danny Lyon)
Over the next two weeks Le Cinéma Club will stream, for free, Media Man. Filmed by Danny Lyon over the course of five years with his wife Nancy Weiss, it barrels across cities and countrysides, quilting together a warm study of America’s many faces. This patchwork portrait of overlooked people and their passions encapsulates Lyon’s ability to immortalize fleeting histories through momentous encounters.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
On the Count of Three (Jerrod Carmichael)
Considering the raw, uncomfortable truths found in Jerrod Carmichael’s comedy, the logline of his directorial debut shouldn’t come as a surprise: two friends make a pact to end their lives and experience one final day together before plans to carry through with the dual deeds. Though not scripted by Carmichael himself, The Carmichael Show writer-producer Ari Katcher and his Ramy co-writer Ryan Welch have crafted a character-focused story with layers of necessary darkness and pathos while still injecting humor that mostly feels like a natural fit considering the subject matter. As to be expected, Taste of Cherry this is not, but with its layers of despair and dark comedy mixed with genuine friendship, Carmichael owes a bit to Mikey and Nicky in this ride-or-die, last-day-in-a-life outing. Even if the last act doesn’t succeed as intended, On the Count of Three threads the difficult task of finding the humor in hopelessness while not exploiting the genuine pain of severe depression. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Orphan: First Kill (William Brent Bell)
Screenwriters Alex Mace and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick gave their character Leena Klammer, aka Esther Albright, a complete back story at the end of Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan. A victim of a rare hormone disorder known as hypopituitarism, causing proportional dwarfism, had made it so this 33-year-old woman looked as though she were only nine. The condition obviously prevented her from being seen as a mature adult; thus she used it to her manipulative advantage. What began as thieving, however, eventually escalated to murder once her desire to sleep with her adopted “fathers” reinforced that finding love, while unquestionably difficult, proved impossible when her targets initially believed themselves to be her dad. At least seven people were left dead in her wake alongside their homes’ charred remains. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Princess (Ed Perkins)
By design, Ed Perkins’ The Princess keeps a healthy, mediated distance from its subject, the late Princess of Wales. After all, the news is the first draft of history, and the film restricts its view to what we knew at the time. In doing so Perkins orchestrates a film that demystifies the lore and media obsession with Princess Diana, in essence pointing its gaze inward—towards the media covering the adoring fans in the moment. They sometimes turn against the media, defending the People’s Princess in shouting matches on talk shows and sometimes in the streets, yet the economic incentives for rabid paparazzi persist. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Shadow (Zhang Yimou)
With its gorgeously choreographed sword duels, sabers slicing through paddles of blood and rain, watercolor bi-chromatic palettes and sumptuous costumes, Zhang Yimou’s Shadow (Ying) is a film of visual charms. To enter into the Fifth Generation maestro’s latest period piece is to be invited to marvel at a 116-minute long dance – a stunning return to form from a director who’d previously ventured into semi-autobiographical terrain with the 2014 moving Coming Home, and later veered into the bombastic Chinese-cum-Matt Damon blockbuster epic letdown The Great Wall (2016). Shadow brings heart and spectacle together, and the result is a bombastic martial arts wuxia replete with duels of breath-taking beauty that will please longtime Zhang acolytes and newbies alike. – Leonardo G. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Spin Me Round (Jeff Baena)
There are a number of reasons to recommend Spin Me Round, a winning comedy about the manager of an Olive Garden-style restaurant who gets chosen to attend a training program in Italy. The film features a shockingly stacked supporting cast of comedy titans: Aubrey Plaza, Tim Heidecker, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Lil Rel Howery, The Office’s Zach Woods, Looking’s Lauren Weedman, and High Maintenance’s Ben Sinclair. The latest from director Jeff Baena, whose strange and wildly diverse filmography includes Life After Beth and The Little Hours, Spin Me Round stood out as one of the better comedies in a strong SXSW lineup earlier this year––even its Harlequin romance novel-aping poster is a gem. – Chris S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Vengeance (B.J. Novak)
Despite its generic title, B.J. Novak’s feature-directing debut Vengeance is a smart, subversive fish-out-of-water comedy about a stereotypical coastal elite that gets intellectually catfished into traveling to a remote Texas town complete with a rodeo and Whataburger, seemingly the defacto town meeting place. Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a Brooklyn-based writer for the New Yorker and Bumble power user who dreams of branching out into podcasting, though he just hasn’t had his big break. After trading witty quips with famed ladies’ man John Mayer at a rooftop party about the first-world problem of having too many beautiful women in your phone to keep track of, he meets Eloise (Issa Rae), a producer at a podcast network modeled on NPR. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
MUBI (free for 30 days)
I Am Love
Between Two Dawns
Cycling the Frame
Easter Eggs
Caballerango
Babysitter
Prime Video
VOD