With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
América (Erick Stoll, Chase Whiteside)
Their bittersweet music box of a film is enamored with its title character, a 93-year-old Mexican woman caught in an unwilling limbo. Her son has been sent to prison for failing to take care of her, elder neglect, leaving her unprepared adult grandsons to look after her, perhaps in the same way she looked after them when they were children. – Jose S. (full review)
Where to Stream: iTunes
Birds of Passage (Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra)
It probably says more about Ciro Guerra’s last film than this inimitable new offering (which he co-directed with his long-serving producer Christina Gallego) to suggest that fans of Embrace of the Serpent might find Birds of Passage just a little on the linear side. However, to compare the two is surely akin to comparing the varying potency of two strains of class-A hallucinogens. Set in Columbia in the 1960s, this violent, operatic, and sparsely trippy film follows the early days of marijuana trafficking in the region. Don’t worry if that all sounds a touch familiar. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO
Creed II (Steven Caple Jr.)
There’s no better way to recognize what a filmmaker brings to the table than a sequel without him/her. This isn’t to say Ryan Coogler wasn’t involved in the making of Creed II—he is a producer on the project after all. No, it’s simply to point out how different Creed was to the Rocky films that came before it. Yes, it was pretty much a redux of the original installment that put Sylvester Stallone on Hollywood’s map as both a leading actor and screenwriter, but it relived those beats with a depth of character and emotion that transcended the nostalgic love we have for the Oscar-winner. Coogler and co-writer Aaron Covington lent a modern authenticity that moved beyond boxing to living life itself in the shadows of greatness. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
Love, Antosha (Garret Price)
From international stardom with Star Trek to roles in films from Jeremy Saulnier, Paul Schrader, and Joe Dante, Garret Price’s new documentary Love, Antosha, covers all sides of Anton Yelchin, an actor taken too soon. We spoke with Price and producer Drake Doremus, who collaborated with the actor in Like Crazy, at the Sundance Film Festival about making their documentary shortly after Yelchin’s death. We also discussed the ethics of sharing his private diaries and erotic photos he took, along with industry-wide contributions of Yelchin material for the project.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)
The Souvenir melds two well-trodden subgenres and through Joanna Hogg’s refreshingly unique vision makes each feel entirely original. Her much-anticipated return after 2013’s Exhibition tells both a painful addiction story and a behind-the-scenes look at film school struggles as we follow Julie (a beautiful debut performance by Honor Swinton Byrne). The daughter of Tilda Swinton (who also briefly turns up), Swinton Byrne is in every scene, and steals them all. Akin to the revelatory introduction to Tom Hiddleston in Hogg’s first two films, Unrelated and Archipelago, she is the lifeblood of The Souvenir, which follows doomed lovers in a story that is conveyed with feels mined from achingly personal memories. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
This Is Not Berlin (Hari Sama)
It opens in slow motion with teenage bodies wrestling and punching inside chaotic dust swirls, one boy (Xabiani Ponce de León’s Carlos) caught isolated in the middle of the frame. He’s not looking to hit any of the others. In fact he’s barely dodging out of the way when they come too close. It’s almost as though Carlos isn’t even there, his mind and body separated as two halves of the same conflicted whole. He knows he should be present with his friends to show his machismo and do Mexico proud like the soccer team soon to hit the 1986 World Cup pitch, but something is calling him in the distance that he can’t quite see. It’s punk metal versus new wave blues, hetero-normative conformity versus queer counter-culture. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: iTunes
Vision Portraits (Rodney Evans)
An evocative meditation on sight, cinema, and the tools of filmmaking, Rodney Evans’ latest feature documentary Vision Portraits is an intimate and generous look at what it means to reconfigure your art practice to accommodate your own disability. For Evans, who suffers from a rare retina condition that’s slowly eroding his peripheral vision, it’s using the landscape of the face to tell his stories rather than the traditional tools of mise-en-scene which considers all elements within the frame. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: iTunes
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
Aquarela
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (review)
Crown Vic (review)
Don’t Let Go
Midnight Traveler
Amazon Prime
Anna and the Apocalypse
Darlin’
The Criterion Channel
7 Films by Suzan Pitt
Directed by Peter Greenaway
HBO
The Kid Who Would Be King (review)
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Deep Water
The Possessed
Alice T.
A Paper Tiger
Honeygiver Among the Dogs
Neds
Time of the Wolf