The following titles are available right now on Netflix.
dir/scr: Noah Baumbach
Three siblings (but mostly the brothers) and their prickly relationship with their self-centered artist father. Baumbach's perfected familial patois - the repetitive conversations, the interruptions, the assumptions. Great performances all around, but especially from affable asshole Dustin Hoffman and Elizabeth Marvel, who's a...well, marvel...as the oft-overlooked sister. Two wonderful ditties, too! Two!
Cannibal horror, Redford-Fonda romance...and some non-streaming titles like Only the Brave after the jump....
Cannibal horror, Redford-Fonda romance...and some non-streaming titles like Only the Brave after the jump....
The Bad Batch
dir/scr: Ana Lily Amirpour
The Void
dir/scr: Jeremy Gillespie/Steven Kostanski
Raw
dir/scr: Julia Decournau
French horror about a vegetarian in vet school who begins to develop a taste for raw, bloody meat. Stomach-churning at times, impossibly sexy at others. Garance Marillier is the feral leading lady - darkly funny, superb. Fantastic score by Jim Williams.
Our Souls at Night
dir: Ritesh Batra
scr: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, based on the novel by Kent Haruf
Pleasant drama about a widow and widower who begin dating. It's that simple, and that aimless. Nice to see Robert Redford and Jane Fonda together again, and they're wonderful together. But then it quickly focuses more on Fonda's family and Redford's relationship within that milieu, and honestly I couldn't care less about that. Kind of a whiff.
Buster's Mal Heart
YAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWN.
This is an extremely bizarre movie, but I like all the actors in it. Julianne Moore's best-in-show as the villain - she plays it like Diane Keaton in that scene from The First Wives Club where she buys out her ex-husband's partners' stake in their advertising firm. Why are the VFX always so cheap-looking in these movies, though? Probably the worst offender in that category since Wonder Woman.
Girl relives the day of her death until she can solve her own murder. Great fun, neat denouement. Rachel Matthews the standout as a sorority mean girl. See it, have a good time!
True story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of wildfire firefighters from Preston, Arizona - a story I didn't know, so I was unprepared for the gravity. The dialogue is often very written, but the cast pulls it off. The filmmakers respect the subject matter, and while there are plenty of harrowing scenes, they never feel milked for false sentiment. No clunky exposition describing what they're doing or why, just men going about their jobs.
What stands out the most, though, is the relationship between those men, the extended family. They help with your newborn, stay up with you in the hospital, hold your loved ones when you can't; they push you beyond your limits, know just what buttons to push, and mock you louder than anyone. It's a brotherhood. Great performances across the board, with Josh Brolin leading as the Hotshots supervisor.
Buster's Mal Heart
dir/scr: Sarah Adina Smith
In Cinemas
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
dir: Matthew Vaughn
scr: Vaughn & Jane Goldman, based on the comic series Mark Millar & Dave Gibbons
This is an extremely bizarre movie, but I like all the actors in it. Julianne Moore's best-in-show as the villain - she plays it like Diane Keaton in that scene from The First Wives Club where she buys out her ex-husband's partners' stake in their advertising firm. Why are the VFX always so cheap-looking in these movies, though? Probably the worst offender in that category since Wonder Woman.
Happy Death Day
dir: Christopher B. Landon
scr: Scott Lobdell
Girl relives the day of her death until she can solve her own murder. Great fun, neat denouement. Rachel Matthews the standout as a sorority mean girl. See it, have a good time!
Only the Brave
dir: Joseph Kosinski
scr: Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, based on the GQ article "No Exit" by Sean Flynn
True story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of wildfire firefighters from Preston, Arizona - a story I didn't know, so I was unprepared for the gravity. The dialogue is often very written, but the cast pulls it off. The filmmakers respect the subject matter, and while there are plenty of harrowing scenes, they never feel milked for false sentiment. No clunky exposition describing what they're doing or why, just men going about their jobs.
What stands out the most, though, is the relationship between those men, the extended family. They help with your newborn, stay up with you in the hospital, hold your loved ones when you can't; they push you beyond your limits, know just what buttons to push, and mock you louder than anyone. It's a brotherhood. Great performances across the board, with Josh Brolin leading as the Hotshots supervisor.
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