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.
Country Gold (Mickey Reece)
The cost of fame sits in the living room wondering aloud whether dad will be home for Christmas. Why these two young boys’ voices have been deepened to sound like they’re 40-year-old drunks slurring through a bender is beyond me (an assumption of it being a dream or game is squashed once mom enters without the effect being called out), but their words have meaning. Troyal’s (Mickey Reece channeling Garth Brooks) star has risen to unimaginable heights and he’s embraced it to the point where his “good ol’ boy” demeanor can’t quite hide the growing ego beneath a cowboy hat. While Jamie (Leah N.H. Philpott) tries toeing the line of admiring his accomplishments and being frightened about what they mean for the family, he’s already miles away. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Fandor
Emily (Frances O’Connor)
Emily, the directorial debut for Mansfield Park and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence star Frances O’Connor, is one of the more remarkably assured first efforts in recent memory. Shot with breathtaking beauty and acted with extraordinary emotion and grace, this exploration of the life and development of Emily Brontë is tremendously enveloping. Emily looks deep into Brontë’s life story for evidence of what that really means. While it is unclear how much of the film is historically accurate and how much is conjecture, O’Connor’s account of the author of Wuthering Heights feels respectful and well-reasoned. – Chris S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Flux Gourmet (Peter Strickland)
Flux Gourmet is arguably the first instance where Peter Strickland, the British genre specialist who’s always seemed inches away from a real career breakthrough, has had the storyline and structure—the real, solid content, basically—to make something as good as his posters and loglines promise. Making reference to promotional material is not superficial: more than anyone associated with arthouse horror (or “elevated horror,” to stir the pot) currently working, he is absolutely soaked, marinated in more disreputable sides of the genre: to be blunt, the softcore, Europhile, blood-soaked exploitation kind. Where the goal, some decades ago, was to just make you buy a ticket for the thing… so you could see all that. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Linoleum (Colin West)
If we lived in an alternate universe where Bill Nye never got his big break, relegated to shooting his lo-fi children’s show from his garage and submitting tapes to a local affiliate in hopes he’d advance to a prime Sunday morning slot, it would look something like the one Cameron Edwin (Jim Gaffigan) occupies. As his marriage is also on the brink of collapse, his midlife crisis conveniently dovetails with an old Russian rocket falling in his backyard. Edwin decides to make the most of the opportunity and attempt to fulfill his dreams of being an astronaut. An effective concoction of cosmic mystery and earnest emotion to elevate its small-scale, homespun design, Colin West’s Linoleum evolves into a nifty, heartfelt sci-drama. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Making Do the Right Thing (St. Clair Bourne)
For eight weeks during the sweltering summer of ‘88, unrelenting documentarian St. Clair Bourne turned his camera on Spike Lee’s now-famous and then-controversial Do the Right Thing. Intimate and probing, it expands the view of production to capture its effect on a neighborhood in transition.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
No Bears (Jafar Panahi)
It begins twice, all in the same shot. A couple wandering the streets of Turkey learns that only one of them can safely emigrate to Europe; meanwhile, Jafar Panahi directs them remotely from across the (physical and digital) border, working surreptitiously in a small Iranian village to avoid government interference. He’s acting too––reprising his role as himself––yet the danger is real, just as it has been for every project Panahi has undertaken since his state-mandated ban from filmmaking in 2010. The circumstances of No Bears’ production render it a compelling political object, though it is equally compelling as a film. Its pervasive sense of unease, already present at the outset, only mounts as the villagers gradually turn against Panahi, their actions replicating state oppression in miniature. Even thornier, though, is the film-within-a-film, which forces its participants to confront head-on the dangers of protest art and the ethical snags of docufiction. Few directors are so qualified to reckon with their own work, and it’s heartening that said work is as vital and searing as ever. – Cole K.
Where to Stream: VOD, The Criterion Channel
One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)
If there’s ever a Mia Hansen-Løve film I don’t admire, I will be surprised. Like Éric Rohmer before her, her vision is one of such formal effervescence and emotional acuity that the lie of cinema is never felt. Her latest work, following the intertwining romantic and personal journeys of Léa Seydoux’s character, is the perfect film: one that is so immersive you only realize you’ve been completely swept up when the bittersweet final frames appear, and being pulled out of this world brings a unique kind of heartbreak as the spell is broken. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD
The Plains (David Easteal)
The year’s most astonishing exercise in world-building did not take place in some faraway planet but in the confines of a Hyundai Elantra. For over three hours, David Easteal invites us to eavesdrop as two co-workers share a journey home. Well, several. A montage of car rides (eleven total) recorded over the course of a year, the camera placed in the backseat so that all we see of the two is a slanted reflection in the rearview mirror, The Plains is a soul-replenishing road trip that turns us from spectators into passengers. A richly textured portrait of a life, epic in size and probing in scope. – Leonardo G.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Also New to Streaming
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Orlando
In a Lonely Place
Burst City
Shakespeare Walla
Between The Lines
Haywire
Tubi
The Exiles