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 the interwebs. 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 Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below, and shoot over suggestions to @TheFilmStage
22 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Chris Miller)
There’s not a single frame of Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 22 Jump Street that isn’t acutely aware of its own status as a lazy, cash-grabbing sequel, but after about a half hour of this pleasingly genial and generously silly comedy, such attempts at self-deprecation just look phony. Despite the excessive references to awkward franchise practices — “We’ve doubled the budget, as if that would double the profit” — and studio interference- — “Do the exact same thing as last time, so everybody’s happy”– the truth about 22 Jump Street is that it’s anything but lazy and it takes the time to make us smile and laugh as it retrieves that admission price from our wallets. – Nathan B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn)
Anton Corbijn‘s The American is a restrained, absorbing and visually staggering story of an assassin on his final mission, but the marketing sold it as star-powered, edge-of-your-seat thriller. With his follow-up, an adaptation of the John le Carré novel A Most Wanted Man, those expecting the former might be disappointed, as it sways to the latter, resulting in an above-average thriller that could have used a more unconventional visual approach. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene)
While there’s a handful of horror films now in theaters, we can’t imagine a better use of one’s time than revisiting (or discovering) one of the genre’s first, and best, entries. Robert Wiene‘s seminal German Expressionist feature The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari recently underwent a digital restoration which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and now it’s available for free on Fandor for this weekend only. For NYC’ers, it also available on the big screen this weekend. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Fandor
Child of God (James Franco)
What James Franco tries, valiantly, is the equivalent of attempting to novelize Ingmar Bergman’s Persona or Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. The former is nigh impossible, but the multi-hyphenate took a shot at an equally difficult translation of mediums, adapting William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying into a movie. Persona and As I Lay Dying are so firmly rooted in their specific medium that trying to divorce the story from the setting would ruin the entire aesthetic experience either work is capable of providing. Breathless, by contrast, has a functional narrative and could be seen as just a pulpy gangster send-up, but doing so largely misses the work’s genius — in a certain sense making a perfect comparison for Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God, a book which, as it so happens, is Franco’s latest endeavor. The medium-specificity of each of these four works can be simplified to one thing: syntax. – Forrest C. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
If someone told you Quentin Tarantino’s new film was marked by air-tight direction, razor-sharp dialogue, explosive violence, wonderful performances, perfectly offbeat music cues — and so on, and so on — there may not be a great sense of surprise. Those who’ve already placed themselves in the director’s bandwagon (one, by now, should know where they stand) have, after two decades, fully come to expect as much from the manic film artist. Yet even with his seventh picture, Django Unchained, Tarantino has maintained a capability of expanding his purview, this time out making a rather warm transplant of idiosyncrasies to the western genre. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Fishing Without Nets (Cutter Hodierne)
Survival is one of humanity’s most basic instincts, driving one to unspeakable lengths to persevere in the harshest of conditions. Fishing Without Nets, one of this year’s Sundance Film Festival competition dramas, applies this idea to an entire way of life. Expanding his short of the same name that took home a jury prize at the festival two years ago, director Cutter Hodierne explores Somali piracy and the cyclical economic system in place to mixed results with this feature-length version. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Land Ho! (Aaron Katz, Martha Stephens)
Following his break-out performance in last year’s restrained Sundance drama This is Martin Bonner, the talented Paul Eenhoorn has returned to the festival with Land Ho!, a lovely, hilarious, and beautifully photographed road trip comedy. While Eenhoorn provides the tender, more reserved half of the duo as Colin, it’s his ex-brother-in-law, Mitch (Earl Lynn Nelson), who steals the show as a foul-mouthed, perpetually horny, pot-smoking, recently retired doctor. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho)
The long stateside wait for Bong Joon-ho‘s Snowpiercer has imbued it with an air of mystery and anticipation that often works against ambitious niche cinema. With the final result, however — a bold and brutally perceptive sci-fi actioner that has some of the same visceral insistence found in Blade Runner and Brazil — anticipation gives way to intoxication. Telling the story of all remaining humanity enclosed on an impossibly long train, barreling through an Earth trapped in an Ice Age, Bong gives us dystopic vision in the form of an uncompromising action roller-coaster. So fastidious is Snowpiercer in its world-building that we even know the specifics of that devastated arctic landscape which sits beyond the train window — as well as the surprising contents of each car — as the down-trodden tail residents fight their way to the front, towards the ominous Sacred Engine. One of the most emotionally exhausting and satisfying films of the year thus far, Snowpiercer also offers a treat with its very distinctive cast, led by a Chris Evans performance that redefines the actor’s talents and makes us consider them anew. – Nathan B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
Netflix
Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Koolhaus
Rain Man
HBO Go
What are you streaming this weekend?