With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Closet Monster (Stephen Dunn)
Writer/director Stephen Dunn’s feature debut Closet Monster cares little about convention to tell the story of Oscar Madly (Connor Jessup) growing up with a psychological revulsion to his sexual urges, all thanks to an extremely disturbing event witnessed as a child. This prologue glimpse at his youth (played by Jack Fulton) is a mash-up of tough coming-of-age-dramatics and a dark-edged imaginative whimsy that intrigues to draw you closer. It will be divisive with an idyllic world’s caring father (Aaron Abrams‘ Peter) “pushing” dreams into his son’s head via a balloon, a talking hamster named Buffy (voiced by Isabella Rossellini), and the horrific teenage assault of a homosexual with a piece of rebar in a cemetery. But this tumultuous roller coaster is worth you sticking around. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Camp X-Ray (Petter Sattler)
There’s a noble attempt in Camp X-Ray, written and directed by Peter Sattler, to make a war movie that’s about individuals rather than ideals. Set in Guantanamo Bay, the film is essentially a long conversation between Private Amy Cole (Kristen Stewart) and a GITMO detainee named Ali (Peyman Moaadi). Cole is green, newly transferred to the station. Ali, on the other hand, has been held by the United States for nearly a decade. What begins as a long-form test of Cole’s patience by Ali, who’s already got a history as a uncooperative detainee, slowly morphs into something deeper. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Detour (Christopher Smith)
A gleeful throwback to a genre that unfortunately jumped the shark years ago, Detour harkens back to the ’90s noir that ultimately met its death with one too many Quentin Tarantino knock-offs. Detour is not that. It’s instead a playful shape-shifter (using a split-screen device) that offers a slight element of misdirection to its wild, winding road of unexpected encounters, moral decisions, and a portrait of white-trash Americana. This is lurid film noir at its best. – John F. (review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
If you want to recreate the world of global politics on a small scale, get a nest of vipers, throw it in a burlap sack with a coked-out mongoose, and throw that into the time-out corner of a preschool right after the biggest baby in class just got put away for eating too much post-Halloween candy. The screaming, braying, hissing, and utter fucking carnage of that moment is, on a micro scale, pretty much exactly what politics is. Filmed in a cinéma vérité style and cut with the focus and pacing of a scrap-booker on a meth bender, In the Loop shows this truth with ferocious humor and a black, cracked, oil-bleeding heart. Everyone in the cast excels at both reaching a fever-pitch of comic zaniness while still gnawing their profanity-filled lines like a mad dog chewing on a child’s leg. If the presidential election is making you want to say “what the fuck is going on,” then the Veep creator’s feature is exactly the shot of adrenaline you’ll need to snap your TV in half and, then, beat Wolf Blitzer to death with it. – Brian R.
Where to Stream: FilmStruck
Ixcanul (Jayro Bustamante)
Guatemala’s entry for the Foreign Language Oscar last year is finally available to stream. We said in our review that it’s an “absorbing, beautifully shot drama of cultural ritual and the drive of one young woman to escape a rudimentary social system. Set in a small coffee plantation village under the shadow of a giant volcano (the Ixcanul of the title), we follow Maria (Maria Mercedes Coroy), a quiet, introvert teenager who nonetheless dreams of shaping her own destiny.”
Where to Stream: Netflix
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Edward Zwick)
Generally, it takes a few installments before a film series sees fit to burden its lone wolf hero with extraneous partners, but Jack Reacher has done so on the mere second go-around. Framed for murder (again), Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is on the run with his similarly framed (for espionage) onetime Military Police comrade Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), and 15-year-old Samantha (Danika Yarosh), who may or may not be his daughter and thus is at risk of the bad guys using her to get at him. As in the first film, Reacher storms about glaring at people, telling them how badly he’s going to fuck them up, and then fucking them up, solving a mystery in the gaps between doing so. But it’s a lot less fun this time around. – Dan S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Little Sister (Zach Clark)
Saying Zach Clark‘s Little Sister being called a comedy does a disservice to the film seems like a slight on the genre. I know. But I don’t mean it that way. What this label does — even if it’s clarified with the word “dark” — is build an expectation that’s able to hurt the film’s true appeal. Clark and Melodie Sisk‘s script is definitely a drama first: a tough familial drama consisting of broken souls seeking an avenue to mend fences and remember what it was like to be whole. The humor enhances this drive by lightening the weightiness of the Lunsfords’ struggle as well as endearing them as a relatable group not so different from our own families regardless of our personal issues possibly not matching their immense tragedy. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Trespass Against Us (Adam Smith)
It’s clear within the first few minutes of first-time director Adam Smith’s Trespass Against Us — as a muddy Subaru races after a bounding rabbit in the U.K. countryside, with a young boy at the wheel — that the film to follow will be a disorienting experience. Indeed, it’s one that plunges the audience into thematically murky waters. Crime thriller or offbeat family drama? Darkly funny or way too dreary? Trespass has all of these elements, and ultimately, this thick stew is unsatisfying. – Christopher S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
Alone in Berlin (review)
Antarctica: Ice and Sky
FilmStruck
Le Havre
The Films of Keisuke Kinoshita
A Day With the Boys
MUBI (free 30-day trial)
Exhibition
The Yakuza Papers 3: Proxy War
A Decent Man
Les Ogres
Parisienne
Prejudice
OK, Good
Netflix
An American Werewolf in London
Fatima
Flash of Genius
The Impossible (review)
The Ghost Writer (review)
Sinister (review)