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.
The American (Anton Corbjin)
Considering it was sold as a James Bond-esque thriller, it’s not a surprise Anton Corbijn‘s stunning sophomore effort opened to divisive response. While it ended up doing quite well at the box-office (bringing in nearly $70 million, from a $20 million budget), it still doesn’t have the reputation it deserves. Tracking George Clooney (in one of his best performances) as an assassin carrying out one last mission in Italy, it’s a gorgeous, slow-burn thriller that’s one of the finest character studies of recent years. Now available on Netflix streaming, seek it out if you haven’t had the chance yet. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Netflix Instant
Anton Corbijn Inside Out (Klaartje Quirijns)
One only needs to spend a few seconds inside a Anton Corbijn film to glean his boundless knowledge of framing and cinematography. While evidenced in his two features, Control and The American (as noted directly above) the talent actually began his career in the world of photography. This new documentary takes a look at how he became interested the field and his current way of life. Director Klaartje Quirijns followed Corbijn, a normally private figure, around for four years, as he worked with bands such as Arcade Fire (see his recent collaboration with them here), Metallica, U2 and more. The results look to be a comprehensive encapsulation of the artist’s lifestyle and it’s finally available on VOD next month ahead. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Though undoubtedly the most entertaining film Nicolas Winding Refn has ever made, Bronson is not simple pleasure brought at the expense of qualitative worth. The true-to-life exploration of artistically inclined physical violence — something the helmer can relate to, clearly — is given center by Tom Hardy, conveying the agony and ecstasy of a repressed animal through the most primal means: screams, punches, a bare penis, and… affability? It can be difficult to tell where the movie ultimately falls on its central figure, and that’s what makes it so dubiously entertaining. – Nick N.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Crystal Fairy (Sebastián Silva)
It is not before the two-minute mark when we realize that, in Crystal Fairy, something is different about Michael Cera. His feeble, awkward-sad stylings have, by now, become inextricable from the actor’s own public identity, with seemingly every project presenting audiences a take-it-or-leave-it offer before the first shot has been projected onto a screen — player and part always unified into a single whole for the paying mass. But as the film begins with a camera making its grainy, bobby track through a crowded house party, there are already glimpses of a different performer, one with an extra helping of cocksure and more physical sturdiness. By the time he’s snorting cocaine in a backroom, inquiring about the drug’s national status, that well-worn notion of player and part have finally been shattered and reconfigured into something else — simultaneously familiar and divergent, always holding our attention. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix Instant
Fast & Furious 6 (Justin Lin)
After a decade of high-octane car porn, it seemed like it was time to put the parking brake on the Fast and the Furious franchise following the lackluster fourth installment, Fast & Furious. Then director Justin Lin returned with Fast Five, a solid addition that delivered well-choreographed action sequences set in exotic locales. The film would have served as a triumphant finale to this musclehead soap opera, but anyone could see that another sequel was on the horizon. Fast & Furious 6 continues the storyline from the previous film, in which our lovable gang of criminals escaped from Brazil with a drug kingpin’s fortune. – Amanda W. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai)
As The Grandmaster wheels into its third act and the star-crossed male & female of a decades-old unrequited love begin their final exchanges, Wong Kar-wai makes a quick cut through established rhythm, almost directly propelling us into a 20-minute flashback that comes to occupy the entire center of his film’s concluding section. This lengthy structural and narrative digression is not occupied by Tony Leung‘s Yip Man, our ostensible lead, but Zhang Ziyi‘s Gong Er, a player whose prior integration into the work, while not at all insubstantial, provided nary a suggestion of anything with this size and relative scope: it’s not only much of a personal history being filled in with a quick clip, but that it would, too, contain the most technically elaborate and visually sumptuous confrontation this film has in its entire register. For as lugubrious as it may sound and, to some extent, be, the spell cast over these scenes remains ravishing from start to stop, and so clearly the work of a master that its odd implication in all which precedes and what little follows is of ultimately minor concern. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
I Am Not a Hipster (Destin Cretton)
While Destin Cretton is making waves for his tender, stand-out feature Short Term 12, many have overlooked that it’s not actual his directorial debut. He first stopped by Sundance with another indie drama, I Am Not a Hipster, which explores the San Diego music scene. The reception hasn’t matched up to his Brie Larson-led drama, but as we look forward to revisiting that film, one can catch up with this feature, now available to easily stream.
Where to Stream: Netflix Instant
Killing Season (Mark Steven Johnson)
Killing Season is Redbox-level trash that gives two storied American actors—Robert De Niro, 69, and John Travolta, 59—their first-ever opportunity to share a movie screen. The movie’s screenplay, written by Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman), places the two of them in the wilderness, where a game of brooding philosophizing and cat-and-mouse torture ensues. The movie’s director, Mark Steven Johnson, has a few expensive credits to his name (2003′s Daredevil, 2007′s Ghost Rider), so, at the very least, he knows how to film a scene without stumbling into focus problems or sound-clarity mishaps. For me (and, I suspect, for a lot of people that love movies), these ingredients add up to form something that has an inherent measure of entertainment: of all the one-sentence pitches I can imagine for films that have been released this year, few are as remarkable as, “Robert De Niro and John Travolta (sporting a thick, outrageous Serbian accent, no less) torture each other in the woods for a brisk 90 minutes.” – Danny K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix Instant
Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Aleksandr Sokurov’s Russian Ark is primarily noted and referred to for its formal trickery — a single take composed over roughly 100 minutes, not at the expense of visually lavish designs and choreography — which is too bad, given the unusual handling of historical material. It’s a windy first-person journey that attempts to immerse us in sights and specters of Russian history; even if, in this writer’s view, Russian Ark doesn’t fully succeed in doing so, a (technically) real-time jump between various periods weaves a disorienting web that stands apart from just about anything you’ve ever seen. – Nick N.
Where to Stream: Netflix Instant
The To Do List (Maggie Carey)
Above all, the To Do List announces the arrival of Aubrey Plaza, movie star, with a role that takes full advantage of the awkward persona she’s now best-known for. Her character, Brandy Klark, is an over-achiever — not just president of her high school Math Club, but also the founder and publisher of Womyn Magazine (yes, it’s spelled with a “y”) — and hasn’t had time for dating. Her family is a fascinating mismatch, including her conservative — he reads Rush Limbaugh’s The Way Things Ought Be in bed — father (Clark Gregg), her open minded mother (Connie Britton), and her experienced / engaged sister, Amber (Rachel Bilson). – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Wolverine (James Mangold)
Fox seems to be at a crossroads with its X-Men franchise, gearing up for something genuinely interesting with X-Men: Days of Future Past and moving beyond what we have seen from the series thus far. In order to properly orchestrate this, they have brought one of their star players back to the big-screen in The Wolverine, an unmistakable effort to wash the flop sweat off Hugh Jackman’s Logan before sending him once more into the franchise fray. After a summer full of tedious, long-winded comic book exercises, does James Mangold’s film offer up the action zest we’ve been waiting for? As any defender of this summer’s Pacific Rim will tell you, it rarely pays to put the demands of a whole season on a single film. The same is true here of The Wolverine, which isn’t the knockout comic-book drama that previously attached director Darren Aronofsky likely would have delivered, but still amounts to a solidly entertaining showing on its own terms. – Nathan B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
World’s Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait)
The title of this movie is definitely meant in jest with regards to Robin Williams’ title character, and yet there is some truth in the application of the moniker to him. After all, the fact that he hadn’t murder his detestable son long ago goes a ways towards proving his love and tolerance, and the fact that he attempts to give his son a less ignominious death than the autoerotic asphyxiation that really claimed him is darkly admirable. However, riding the death of his son and using it as a platform to bolster his own flagging writing career… well that’s a bit less excusable, though it does lend this black comedy a dark well of material to draw from, which writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait does with aplomb. Not for the sensitive, but if your sense of humor is just as deranged and demented as this film’s, you won’t be able to stop laughing. – Brian R.
Where to Stream: Netflix
What are you streaming this week?