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.
Peter Hujar’s Day (Ira Sachs)
When I look at Peter Hujar’s portrait of poet Allen Ginsburg, taken on December 18, 1974, it’s strikingly nonchalant. Ginsberg is standing on the sidewalk, one hand in pocket and the other looped through the straps of a bag draped on his shoulder. He’s looking right down the barrel of the lens with an “okay, you’re taking my picture” expression on his face. Ginsberg is perhaps the most recognizable name to come out of the beat generation of poets but he looks like he could be anybody––he could be your buddy Carl. It was taken for the New York Times but certainly doesn’t have the gloss and sophistication of celebrity portraits we see in major publications today. The austere street beside him is on the Lower East Side, a neighborhood now flooded with tourists, boutiques, and banality. Just as Hujar’s photo is indicative of an era of artistic renaissance in New York City, so is Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day. – Kent M. W. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Predator: Badlands (Dan Trachtenberg)
Dan Trachtenberg returns once again to the land of Predator in his most slickly entertaining ride yet. The two-hander action adventure follows a young Yautja who teams with Thia (Elle Fanning), a Weyland-Yutani Corporation synthetic, as they attempt to survive against the surrounding danger. While there’s a certain pre-programmed, digital feel to the film’s Avatar-lite design, Trachtenberg’s direction is so propulsive that even if a certain weight is missing, the popcorn-munching fun delivers. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD
Zodiac Killer Project (Charlie Shackleton)
What would a feature-length director commentary look like when the film was never made? This is the slippery, fascinating conceit of Charlie Shackleton’s rather brilliant Zodiac Killer Project, which finds the director walking through his failed attempt to adapt Lyndon E. Lafferty’s book The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge into the first major documentary on the unsolved case. What emerges, one could argue, is even more intellectually stimulating than the original intentions: a sui generis, often humorous stream-of-consciousness journey highlighting the ever-mounting mass of repeated cliches of various true-crime documentaries and series. Instead of a simple hit piece, however, Shackleton investigates why such familiarity often works on the viewer while ensuring you’ll never watch such a program the same way again. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Disney+
Tron: Ares
Kino Film Collection
Machuca
Story Ave
Netflix
Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway
Under the Silver Lake
Shudder
Chain Reactions
VOD
Hallow Road