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.
All My Friends Hate Me (Andrew Gaynord)
Pete (Tom Stourton) hasn’t seen his university mates in years. Ten years to be exact. It happens. Life happens. We reach adulthood, mature, and set goals for ourselves that the people who were closest to us during that formidable period simply cannot follow—their own ambitions lie upon different forks in the road. So resentment shouldn’t factor in. Nor should jealousy. Yet Pete can’t help wondering about both. A little voice in the back of his head wonders if a decade was too long to pretend things could pick up where they left off. Would their very posh upbringing think he abandoned them to work with refugees? Do they think he thinks he’s better than them for doing it? What if he thinks that? – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Anne at 13,000 Ft (Kazik Radwanski)
There’s a neat metaphor established at the outset of Anne at 13,000 ft, with its protagonist’s professional and personal life mirroring the freefall she experiences while skydiving at her friend’s bachelorette party. But with Kazik Radwanski’s direction and Deragh Campbell’s fierce performance, this parallel stretches to the breaking point as Anne deliberately chases the same near-death thrill in her daily life on a path of self-destruction. After a brief but successful festival run in 2019 and early 2020, Radwanski’s film had its release delayed by over a year due to the pandemic, hurting its chances of having more people discover one of Canada’s most exciting new filmmakers. – C.J. P.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Godfather: 4K Restoration (Francis Ford Coppola)
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather recently got a new 4K restoration and release, arriving both in theaters and in a new trilogy box set. If you don’t want to shell out for the lavish new set, the new restoration of the mob classic is now available digitally.
Where to Stream: VOD
Jackass Forever (Jeff Tremaine)
Jackass has been in our lives for more than two decades. Since October 2000, when the original show premiered on MTV, Johnny Knoxville and his gaggle of goofballs have appealed to lowest-common-denominator comedic impulses. They’ve slammed their testicles into things and had them slammed into by other things. They’ve gleefully dove into danger and gotten legitimately hurt. They’ve aggravated and disturbed an entire generation of people who got Reagan and Clinton elected. But then, for another generation, they brought laughter and some earnest sense of camaraderie. Since the halcyon days of the show (which Knoxville quickly ended himself after the ire of a boomer nation called for censorship), Jackass has endured in cinematic form. The first film saw surprising box office returns amongst a slew of negative critiques. The reputation of the gang and its stunts only improved while the money continues rolling in. Why is this? – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Paramount+
Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (Frank Beauvais)
After watching over 400 films in the span of just four months, director Frank Beauvais reflects on his life and what led to this cinematic hibernation in Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, an impressive, rapidly edited, deeply personal cinematic essay. Created solely from clips of the films he watched, it’s far from the kind of video essays that dominate YouTube, rather selecting the briefest of moments, and usually the least-recognizable of shots, to craft self-exploration of a reflective, questioning mind. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Philippe Garrel
If you have yet to catch up with the recent output of Philippe Garrel, as he announces his next feature, three of his works from the last decade are now streaming, and all of which we’ve reviewed: Jealousy, In the Shadow of Women, and The Salt of Tears.
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
El Planeta (Amalia Ulman)
In a café in Gijón, Spain, Leonor (Amalia Ulman) sits with a cup of coffee. An older man (Nacho Vigalondo) approaches her and joins her, and the two start discussing some sort of transaction. She’s considering sleeping with him for money, but then she reconsiders. “I’m wondering if it’s worth sucking a dick for a book.” Like Leonor’s own little gig economy she’s come to, this is one of the many vignettes El Planeta finds itself in. She was a fashion student in London before, but now that her father (and cat) has died, she’s home living with her mother (Ale Ulman), who’s facing eviction. The unemployment office has failed them and their time is scarce. Naturally, they start grifting to get meals and lower their bills. If someone else can pay for dinner, that’s great. If Leonor can sit in the hallway to read so she doesn’t have to turn on the lights, that adds up too. I’d be sad if it didn’t have such a droll approach. In some ways, it is. El Planeta isn’t the most thematically consistent, but it’s clever and brisk enough to be a good time. – Matt C. (full review)
where to Stream: HBO Max
Wrath of Man (Guy Ritchie)
While his first two fast-talking, hyper-edited crime dramas, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, hit at the opportune pubescent period of this viewer’s early journey with cinema, I had mostly tuned out of the films of Guy Ritchie in subsequent years. Consider my surprise when Wrath of Man turned out to be an uncharacteristically patient, deliciously mean piece of work not without some sly Jason Statham levity. While half of the fun of this revenge-meets-heist drama would be undone if the narrative was chronological, seeing Ritchie partaking in a down-and-dirty, grotesque S. Craig Zahler approach to filmmaking makes for one of the last year’s high points. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Paramount+
Writing with Fire (Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh)
It’s sometimes easy to forget white supremacy is deeply rooted in religion, race being such a major component of its rise in America. Watching a film that depicts the growing Hindu nationalist movement in India, however, really shines a light on that piece of the puzzle considering how similar their tactics are to what’s been happening here at home. While Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas’ documentary Writing with Fire isn’t specifically about this development, one cannot easily separate it from their actual subject: a Dalit women-run newspaper in Uttar Pradesh called Khabar Lahariya. Not only is it the nation’s only women-run outlet, but its staff is composed of so-called “untouchables.” So rather than use their voices to provide political propaganda, they hold feet to flame. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
You Are Not My Mother (Kate Dolan)
Despite leaving writer-director Kate Dolan’s feature debut You Are Not My Mother with a lot more questions than answers, I don’t think that reality is necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps if better-versed in Irish lore I’d be more familiar with the supernatural elements at play and, thus, less in the dark about the unspoken details the film doesn’t seem to realize it might need to share for better understanding. But it’s not as though knowing would add much beyond context. And if that’s all that’s missing, are we really losing anything? Not when our ignorance helps augment the feeling of anxiety permeating throughout. Perhaps Dolan omitted those answers on purpose. We’re to know things are happening without being chaperoned through each secret. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
HBO Max
Hulu
MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Producers
Jesus Camp
Abouna
Down and Out in America
H Story
Mouthpiece
VOD