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 (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
Alan Partridge (Declan Lowney)
He may be getting attention for his acclaimed drama Philomena, as well as his entertaining sequel The Trip to Italy, but Steve Coogan also recently returned to perhaps his most iconic role, the fictional talk show host Alan Partridge. The new feature-length film was released in the U.K. last year and now it’s available on Netflix after a theatrical release. The project, coming from television director Declan Lowney (Little Britain, Father Ted), follows hostage crisis of a disgruntled employee (Colm Meaney). Showing at NYFF, I actually got the chance to check it out last fall, and as my first introduction to the character, it was quite an entertaining time. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Black Rock (Katie Aselton)
There’s so much promising talent behind the new thriller Black Rock, that it’s initially disappointing when director Katie Aselton and scribe Mark Duplass reveal their movie to be nothing more than a generic, women-in-peril scenario. The desolate, isolated Maine island the female protagonists find themselves on becomes a kind of stand-in for the ghettoized sub-genre of survival horror, and as they fight or flee the homicidal war veterans who pursue them, these gals seem to be struggling against decades of misogynistic clichés. – Nathan B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Bottled Up (Enid Zentelis)
Bottled Up, the second feature from writer/director Enid Zentelis, is a noble piece of independent filmmaking, determined to explore oft-examined dramatic situations from a new perspective. The situations on display here, at their most basic, are drug addiction and environmentalism. Fay (Melissa Leo) is a quiet small business owner living in a quiet town in the Hudson River Valley, burdened with a pill-addicted daughter named Sylvie (the superb Marin Ireland) and a relatively uninteresting life. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Dom Hemingway (Richard Shepard)
After finding a glut of recent work in television, it’s good to see writer-director Richard Shepard back in theaters with Dom Hemingway. As a big fan of both The Matador and The Hunting Party — despite the somewhat “mainstream” stories to which those films are tethered, their humor is undeniably infectious — to learn that his latest work centered on an extremely short-tempered, alcoholic safecracker just out of prison, all with a vain ego, got me excited. Was he going for broke? Shepherd does that, to a point — every so often to an even greater extent — but while such insanity helps make unique, memorably drawn characters pop off the screen with irreverent hilarity, the story they inhabit needs a bit more depth to captivate beyond the reach of their tomfoolery. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Homefront (Gary Fleder)
For a certain type of moviegoer, the on-paper credentials of Homefront are undeniably encouraging: written by Sylvester Stallone (whose initial intentions here were to adapt Chuck Logan’s novel into a final Rambo entry), and co-starring Jason Statham and James Franco (as, respectively, an ex-DEA agent and a trailer-trash meth dealer), the film has all the makings of an agreeably ridiculous revenge thriller made on the margins of the industry. (The anticipation wasn’t unlike that of the De Niro–Travolta vehicle Killing Season, from earlier this year.) ThatHomefront turns out to be a “bad” movie is one thing; that it’s actually a grim, unpleasant, relatively humorless product is altogether more surprising, and more disappointing. The chances of a movie like this working are astronomically higher if it projects an awareness of its bargain-bin stupidity, or at least just a basic sense of humor, but both Stallone’s dour script and director Gary Fleder’s disposable handling of the material only offers such pleasures in fleeting, all-too-rare doses. – Danny K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra)
After recently dipping his toes into the Hollywood system with The Amazing Spider-Man and Life of Pi, Irrfan Khan has returned to his native land for a new drama, The Lunchbox. Initially premiering at Cannes Film Festival last year, Ritesh Batra’s debut film stopped by Sundance earlier this year along with a theatrical release. A sentimental, but seemingly well-crafted story of married woman looking for a connection and finds it through her cooking skills, it looks like one to watch. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Maidentrip (Jillian Schlesinger)
If one couldn’t buy into the harrowing one-man adventure at sea with All is Lost, perhaps a true tale will be up your alley. At the age of 14, after much struggle with the government, Laura Dekker, became the youngest person to trek around the globe in her sailboat. She thankfully brought a camera with her and the result is Maidentrip, a documentary which is now available to stream on Netflix. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Out of the Furnace (Scott Cooper)
After directing Jeff Bridges to a Best Actor Oscar with 2009’s safe, humble, crowd-pleasingCrazy Heart, it’s admirable for writer-director Scott Cooper to turn around and make something as deathly bleak as Out of the Furnace for his sophomore outing. The movie wanders through its various storylines, ensemble players, and small-town details without a care for conventional structure or logline-friendly narrative developments — neither watching the trailer nor browsing the one-sentence IMDb synopsis will really give you a legitimate idea of how Out of the Furnacemoves and breathes, or where Cooper’s script (heavily reworked from a highly-touted Brad Ingelsby spec) is planning to take its characters. If this resolve, along with some unexpectedly elaborate direction, represents what’s laudable about Out of the Furnace, the weaknesses of the resulting film are almost entirely the result of a wall-to-wall sense of nastiness and faux-gritty miserablism. – Danny K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
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)