With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we believe it’s our duty to highlight the recent, recommended titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, and more. Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below, and shoot over suggestions to @TheFilmStage.
42 (Brian Helgeland; 2013)
With a high production value, wonderful late-40s aesthetic, and great background detail the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 does its subject justice. While the result languishes in the purgatory of well-crafted by-the-numbers biopics, I do have to single out Chadwich Boseman for trying his very best to push it beyond. Credit the filmmakers for giving this television actor a shot at embodying a legend because he has the physique, tempestuousness, humor, and determination to pull it off. Boseman brings number forty-two to life, helping us remember—and teaching those too young to know—exactly what he did for America. – Jared M.
Where to Watch: Amazon Video
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney; 2002)
File this one under WTF: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind tells the story of Chuck Barris (flawlessly played by Sam Rockwell) who, as it turns out, was/maybe/is an international man of mystery, a CIA hitman fronting as the host of Dating Game (and producer of the Gong Show). He’s recruited by the CIA’s Jim Byrd, (George Cloony, also the film’s director) to live a double life. Co-staring Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and even a young Michael Cera, the screenplay by Charlie Kaufman keeps the energy level up in a story that is stranger than fiction — that is, if it’s true. – John F.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz; 1963)
The original Hollywood bomb. Starring the Brangelina of the ‘60s, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton play the titular Last Pharoah of Egypt and the Roman general Mark Antony, respectively. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who would take downers at night to fall asleep, then uppers in the morning to work another 20-hour day on set), the production went astronomically over-budget (it ended up costing around $50 million, nearly $350 million by today’s standard), grossing only $26 million when it finally came out, nearly forcing its studio, 20th Century Fox, to close. And though it be an insane mess of a film, every dollar is up on the screen as well as some of the most over-the-top performances in both Taylor and Burton’s storied careers. – Dan M.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Evil Dead (Fede Alvarez; 2013)
There’s nothing quite like hearing 1,600 people roar, cheer, scream, cringe and laugh for a film premiere. Evil Dead nearly blew the roof off of the Paramount when I saw it during its SXSW premiere, with fans of all ranges going bananas. That’s a roaring thumbs up for a film that was initially met with a large amount of skepticism. One thing is for sure: if you dug the tone of the red-band trailer that swayed a lot of fans’ minds, filmmaker Fede Alvarez‘s redo is going to rock your world. Everything about this film is about elevation –the gore and violence are challenging, and can quickly move from over-the-top hilarious in the extreme, to cringe-worthy and visually pungent. In 90 short minutes, Evil Dead gives you an emotional workout, and it’s a blast to experience. – Bill G.
Where to Watch: Amazon Video
The House I Live In (Eugene Jarecki; 2012)
The Grand Jury Prize winner for documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Eugene Jarecki‘s look at American drug policy culls together a series of intimate vignettes depicting the men and women caught within the stifling system behind America’s War on Drugs. Whether it’s Maurice Haltiwanger facing a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years despite a judge who would love to reduce the punishment to ten, twenty-eight year old Anthony Johnson staring at a five to ten stint after doing the only thing he’s ever known, or Kevin Ott and the life sentence he received for possessing three ounces of meth on a prior offense, it’s not hard to see the disparity between crime and punishment. Jarecki can throw statistics at us all day about the number of non-violent drug offenders incarcerated alongside rapists and murderers, but actually seeing them will always hit hardest. With talking heads spanning doctors, judges, activists, and investigative reporters—including The Wire creator David Simon—we begin to understand the genesis of where everything went wrong and The House I Live In proves to be an important tool for educating the country on just how bad things have become. – Jared M.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
Perhaps the most interesting and subversive “remake” ever made, Douglas Sirk’s masterful final film takes what was an intensely racist 1934 drama and turns it into a beautiful-looking, beautifully-observed statement on the growing civil rights movement of the time. Starring Lana Turner as an aspiring actress who befriends a black woman and her mixed-race daughter, Imitation of Life explores race and what color means in American society. It also cemented Sirk as one of the most important filmmakers in cinema’s history. – Dan M.
Where to Watch: Netflix
The Longest Yard (Robert Aldrich; 1974)
Before the disgraced quarterback called Paul Crewe was played by the buffoonish Adam Sandler, the character was taken on by a very game Burt Reynolds in his heyday. Directed by Robert Aldrich, the original sports comedy was gritty and raw and full of actual dramatic stakes. Reynolds has rarely been more charming or dynamic and here’s a film that illustrates what a movie star looked like in the Golden Age of the 1970s. – Dan M.
Where to Watch: Netflix
One From the Heart (Francis Ford Coppola; 1982)
The stories behind the production all but disappear as one dives head first into the passionate romance captured by Francis Ford Coppola. The camera flies through the streets, colors pop off the screen (3D without the glasses), and superimpositions move characters toward their romantic destiny. If Martin Scorsese made New York, New York as his homage to Vincent Minnelli, Heart owes itself to the surreal musicals of Busby Berkeley. The romantic narrative — five years married couple Hank (Frederic Forrest) and Frannie (Teri Garr) go on separate quests for love on an Independence Day night in Vegas — is more of a pretense for the film’s 45-minute show piece, a musical that attempts to top Astaire and Rodgers (and subsequently crashed American Zoetrope). The lovers find their idealized partners amongst the strip — a circus girl and a pianist — all set amongst constant dazzling neon. The lights explode behind the characters, igniting the passions and lust of the night as camera dollies its way through automobiles and pedestrians, all who join in on the musical action. But one night of American glitz cannot sustain a relationship, the longings for those with both the good and the bad. If the film’s heartache feels somewhat leaden by the time it comes crashing down to reality, the dulcet tones of Tom Waits sustain the beauty of the 1982 box office flop and misunderstood modern classic. – Peter L.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Pusher (Luis Prieto; 2012)
Closely resembling the Danish original, the UK version of Pusher is an impressive creation that has similarly engaging characters and taut, frenetic action. Based on executive producer Nicolas Winding Refn’s original trilogy — one that launched the Drive director’s career — this version employs a seamless script that works surprisingly well. Director Luis Prieto conjures creative visual moments that highlight some of the simpler elements and bolstering this aspect is the sound design and score, including touches that one wouldn’t expect to stand out. – Bill G.
Where to Watch: Netflix
River of No Return (Otto Preminger; 1954)
Marilyn Monroe brought along her acting coach and insisted on additional takes. Robert Mitchum, the male star of the picture, was struggling with alcoholism in a big way. Otto Preminger – the infamously mean Ukrainian film director – was too old to care, as he was under contract with Fox to make the film, marking his only western. In the middle of post production, Preminger left for Europe, leaving his editors to finish the film. Monroe would later deem it the worst film of her career. – Dan M.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Trance (Danny Boyle; 2013)
If you didn’t go for the twisty delights of Steven Soderbergh‘s recent Side Effects, there’s a distinct probability that you’ll be left similarly displeased with Trance, the fantastically depraved new film from Danny Boyle. Like the Soderbergh picture, Trance twists itself until it can’t see straight, discharging clots of backstory and split-second character distortions that are sure to enrage as many viewers as they satisfy. I fall firmly in the latter category, because the head-spinning narrative spirals are always excitingly complemented by the film’s surrounding elements: the shrewdly committed trio of actors at the story’s center (Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson,James McAvoy), as well as Boyle’s increasingly electric display of craft, from Anthony Dod Mantle‘s deceptively shimmery cinematography to the pounding thumps of Rick Smith‘s original score. Add in the kinetic flow of Jon Harris‘s editing, and Trance starts to play like a handful of 2013 releases — Simon Killer, Stoker, Upstream Color, even Spring Breakers — that appear to encourage sensory absorption above all else. – Danny K.
Where to Watch: Amazon Video
The Truman Show (Peter Weir; 1998)
One of the first dramatic turns for Jim Carrey was as Truman Burbank, the star of a reality TV show featuring a fiction town built inside a climate controlled dome so large it can be seen from space. Arriving in 1998, perhaps well before the NSA and Google tracked out every phone call and email, The Truman Show is a fasinating study of what was to come. While he lived a seemingly “normal” life scored and edited by the enterprises’ mastermind Christof (Ed Harris), his every move is manipulated, screened on TV 24/7 and monetized through ads (hey, that sounds a lot like the internet). The Truman Show is an entertaining, funny and sympathetic follow up to director Peter Weir’s Fearless (another film about a man who defies his destiny and temps fate). Written by Andrew Niccol, it’s quite simular to his other works of social commentary and would make an excellent double feature with Ondi Timoner’s chilling doc We Live in Public. – John F.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (Francis Ford Coppola; 1988)
This little-seen, little talked-about late 80’s biopic, directed by one Francis Ford Coppola, concerns Preston Tucker, an automobile designed determined to produce the 1948 Tucker Sedan, also known as the Tucker Torpedo. In many ways a reflection of Coppola himself, Tucker (played here by an excitable Jeff Bridges) is a dreamer living in the cold world of dollars and cents. Like so many of the filmmaker’s “minor” works, Tucker is an epic misfire that wears its outright ambition like a badge of honor. – Dan M.
Where to Watch: Netflix
What are you streaming this week?