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.
Elvis (Baz Luhrmann)
Few filmmakers embrace artistic dichotomy like Baz Luhrmann. The Australian writer-director known for epic, ornate, long-gestating projects has become synonymous with both extravagant innovation and chaotic fluff. He is a walking, talking, directing state of creative contrast. “Six films into his career” might make it seem like he’s a relative newcomer, but Luhrmann’s been helming giant features since his 1996 tropical Ed Hardy rendition of Romeo + Juliet, which pales in scintillation to Elvis. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
I Love My Dad (James Morosini)
Inspired by actual events, I Love My Dad contains a cringe-worthy premise that should easily fall apart, as Franklin (James Morosini), a young-ish man, should have grown up with an awareness of the term “catfishing.” If a pretty girl with no friends starts talking to you on Facebook that should be an immediate red flag, but the emotionally vulnerable Franklin is willing to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Jane by Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg)
Is it possible for a documentary to be too intimate? If the answer is affirmative, a prime example might be Jane by Charlotte, actress Charlotte Gainsbourg’s study of her mother, the iconic Jane Birkin. Her film is drenched in love, respect, and sweetness, and after spending time with Birkin this approach feels deserved, more than appropriate. Yet the stakes are low, drama minimal, structure formless. It makes for a viewing experience that is occasionally enjoyable and largely unengaging. – Chris S. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (Kristina Lindström & Kristian Petri)
In 1971, Björn Andrésen was the most beautiful boy in the world. In 2019, he’s the elder of a neopagan commune in rural Sweden, whose inability to commit suicide in the fictional ritual of ättestupa forces the other cult onlookers to brutally bash his head in with a rock. In the time between Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice and Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Andrésen lived a life that might have seemed enviable on the surface, but which he baldly describes in this documentary as a “living nightmare.” It was the fateful casting audition in 1970 Stockholm where Visconti met Andrésen and found his beautiful boy that set the wheels in motion for the rest of his life, marred by personal tragedy, substance abuse, and exploitation. At the film’s conclusion, the woman who oversaw Andrésen’s casting alongside Visconti regretfully reflects on the day that shifted the course of his life forever, unable to separate the years that followed from the first moment this minor was forced out of his innocence. – Brianna Z. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Poser (Ori Segev and Noah Dixon)
If one wants their voice heard in the year 2021, start a podcast. So it goes for Lennon (Sylvie Mix), a poser with some delusional behaviors who lies to cultivate her personality to fit into the local art scene. A somewhat familiar story about obsession set adjacent to the unique world of the underground music scene in Columbus, Ohio, Poser is a charming and dark debut from directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon. – Erik N. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Public Toilet Africa (Kofi Ofosu-Yeboah)
Impeccably dressed, eyes shielded by sunglasses and arms dangling from the windows of their Nissan pickup, Ama (Briggitte Appiah) and Sadiq (David Klu) breeze through Ghana like twenty-first century cousins of Anta and Mory, the Bonnie and Clyde couple in Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki. They’re the two young people at the heart of Kofi Ofosu-Yeboah’s Public Toilet Africa, a picaresque, irreverent journey where a model seeks revenge for her childhood traumas. Or at least that’s one of the many films tucked inside writer-director Ofosu-Yeboah’s feature debut. Public Toilet Africa is several things—a revenge tale, a road trip, a tale of a city and a remote village; a courtroom drama—and if the ride isn’t always smooth, the end result is a rebellious and oneiric portrait of a country wrestling with the specters of colonialism. – Leonardo G. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Rogue Agent (Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson)
I’m surprised the studio gives up the game in its marketing materials; Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson’s Rogue Agent is built in such a way that allows the ruse to stand as truth until a midway-point revelation. It’s a case where not watching a trailer probably augmented my enjoyment of the piece—I genuinely didn’t know where things were going or who to believe. Was Robert Freegard (James Norton) really an MI5 agent who fell in love and thus must suffer the agency’s cruel vetting process of throwing dirt to see if his lover will remain loyal? Or was he a conman shrewdly covering his tracks to keep Alice Archer (Gemma Arterton) on her heels before stealing her money? It really could’ve gone either way. – Jared M. (full review)
Thief (Michael Mann)
Thief is a film of flows, one both about and made through them. Because cinema is essentially a medium that communicates the flows of movement over time (even Warhol’s Empire is based on what we see moving), thinking about this might seem a little too broad. The German film theorist Siegfried Karcauer noted his interest in cinema for showing the “flows of life,” here referring to an interest in everyday movement that has been captured in reality as opposed to being designed by a director. But Thief’s flows are, often, of a different nature — they are more attuned toward an elemental sense: the flows of light, water, metal, and more. – Peter L. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
Also New To Streaming
The Criterion Channel
Film Movement
The Early Films of Lee Isaac Chung
MUBI (free for 30 days)
One More Time With Feeling
The Golden Glove
Squish!
I Am Not Madame Bovary
Corpus Christi
Netflix
OVID.tv
Prime Video