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.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is a film about retribution and redemption. Not just on screen, but in execution. After their last attempt at a blockbuster was shelved in the name of a tax loophole, directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah seem intent on unleashing all their pent-up energy, whether they’re selling us Batgirls or Bad Boys. Even if it bears the baggage of a meta redemption arc for its star, Ride or Die brings enough stylistic gusto to its action in the absence of Michael Bay but has a hard time justifying most other decisions, which adopt the tedium rampant in modern blockbuster filmmaking. – Conor O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Coma (Bertrand Bonello)
A contemporary cliché that weakly attempts to diagnose what ails us in modern life is the idea of being addled by technology––of our minds and attention spans swamped by screens, content, scrolling. But as the pandemic hit this notion gained a new relevance: it’s not that the virtual realm of content and media was luring us away from our reality––faced with an indefinite lockdown, it had finally become our sole one. Even though this can be poorly rendered by some, it’s the more sensitive and aware artists, such as Bertrand Bonello with his new feature Coma, that remind of the urgency to confront it. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Ariane Louis-Seize)
It’s such a wonderfully simple yet utterly unique premise. Ever since Sasha (Sara Montpetit) was a young vampire, she’s been unable to bare her fangs. Maybe it’s the product of PTSD (after a hilarious “clown incident”). Or maybe it’s a result of her body chemistry triggering her compassion center at the sight of human duress rather than hunger like the rest of her species. Thus sustenance comes only from the blood bags others provide her. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
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.
Where to Stream: TUBI
ME (Don Hertzfeldt)
Following up his sci-fi trilogy World of Tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt’s latest project is ME, a 22-minute, dialogue-free musical that pushes the animation extraordinaire’s inventiveness to new heights. Starting as a small-scale family drama before reaching perhaps the widest scope of his work yet, it’s a rhythmically captivating odyssey into the fabric of humanity and the ever-shifting tendrils of communication in the modern age. ME once again proves there is no one else on Hertzfeldt’s precise wavelength of capturing the existential dread of modern society in abstract fashion.
Where to Stream: Vimeo (tonight at midnight)
#missingcouple (Jacques Edeline and Oliver Mauldin)
25 years after The Blair Witch Project and its influence still reverberates through the horror genre. Taking a similar conceit of found-footage thrills but updating for our social media-obsessed influencer age, #missingcouple takes a meta approach in mining scares. Following real-life influencers Austin and Janna Jenkins, who explore the country living in their van, they embark on a project to renovate an abandoned cabin in rural Mississippi when mysterious happenings start to occur. Carrying a sense of authenticity in merging their social media personalities with grounded horror, it’s a compelling gamble that feels a bit repetitive on the script side yet proves scares can still be conjured with the simple conceit of searching for what lurks in the darkness of frames.
Tuesday (Daina Oniunas-Pusić)
If you’re quirk-averse, you might be immediately put off by a cursory description of Daina Oniunas-Pusić’s debut feature, Tuesday, in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus confronts death in the form of a shape-shifting, talking macaw. But from the distressing and immersive opening scenes, it’s clear Tuesday is an unsettling and bold vision that rewards a viewer willing to sit through some flaws (and some cringe). – Gabrielle M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Max
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
Sting
Netflix
Kubo and the Two Strings
Prime Video
The Fog
Jackie Brown
Manhunter
VOD
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Never Let Go