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Last chance: Daniel Day-Lewis is ‘Lincoln’ on Netflix
‘American Ultra’ – stoners and spies on Amazon Prime and Hulu
‘The Dirty Dozen’ – the original World War II caper on Netflix
What to stream: indie hit ‘The Farewell’ on Amazon Prime, ‘High Fidelity: The Series’ on Hulu, Oscar-winners on VOD
‘The Pianist’ – the devastating Oscar-winning drama on Netflix

What to stream: indie hit ‘The Farewell’ on Amazon Prime, ‘High Fidelity: The Series’ on Hulu, Oscar-winners on VOD

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The gentle indie comic-drama “The Farewell” (2019, PG, with subtitles) follows the story of a Chinese-American woman (Awkwafina) who can’t understand why her family won’t tell her Chinese grandmother she has cancer. It […]

What to stream: ‘Toy Story 4’ on Disney+, ‘Honey Boy’ on Amazon, ‘Horse Girl’ and ‘Locke & Key’ on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. “Toy Story 4” (2019, G) reunites the toybox gang for a road trip with new friends. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, […]

What to stream: ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ on Starz, ‘Fighting With My Family’ on Amazon and Hulu, Taylor Swift on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019, PG) sends the web-slinging teenage superhero (played by Tom Holland) to Europe, where he takes […]

Steven Spielberg makes compelling drama from the statesmanship it took to pass the 13th Amendment to the American Constitution

Last chance: Daniel Day-Lewis is ‘Lincoln’ on Netflix

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) is a remarkable historical drama. Scripted by Tony Kushner, guided by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book A Team of Rivals, Lincoln casts a spotlight on one of the most important political actions in American history: passing the 13th Amendment to the American Constitution, which abolished slavery. In compelling detail, this film shows […]

Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg in 'American Ultra.' Photo credit: Lionsgate

‘American Ultra’ – stoners and spies on Amazon Prime and Hulu

American Ultra (2015) reworks The Bourne Identity as a slacker comedy with a killer punchline. Jesse Eisenberg is Mike Howell, a sweet, underachieving stoner prone to panic attacks. He gets by as convenience store clerk in a dead-end West Virginia town with a supportive girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart), who is almost impossibly understanding when it […]

‘The Dirty Dozen’ – the original World War II caper on Netflix

The 1960s were full of big budget wartime caper-style films—The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, Kelley’s Heroes, just to name a few—but none of them have the brawny machismo and wily bad boy gusto of The Dirty Dozen (1967), Robert Aldrich’s testosterone-fueled tough guy classic. Lee Marvin is the hard-as-nails Major who is “volunteered” to […]

‘Reprisal’ – Vengeance with style on Hulu

Somewhere in a pulp fiction neverland that straddles World War II-era glamour, fifties hot rods, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and flip phones, Reprisal plays out a tale of vengeance executed by a woman horribly, brutally wronged. Abigail Spencer (Timeless, Rectify) plays Katherine Harlow, who in the opening minutes of the series is dragged to her death for betraying […]

‘Crime Story’ – sixties gangsters free on IMDb TV

After helping turn Miami Vice into the defining neon crime show of its era, Michael Mann turned back the clock and put his stamp on Crime Story: Complete Series (1986-1988). Created by former Chicago cop Chuck Adamson with Gustave Reininger, the Mann-produced sixties-era gangster series made for a fabulous mix of genres (old-time gangster thriller, […]

The original ‘Veronica Mars’ – the high school years on Hulu

Kristen Bell is Veronica Mars (2004-2007), once part of the high school in crowd in the (fictional) LA suburb of Neptune, where the rich and powerful bump up against the working class and the down and out. Then her best friend (Amanda Seyfried) is murdered, her father Keith (the excellent Enrico Colantoni) is disgraced during […]

What to stream: indie hit ‘The Farewell’ on Amazon Prime, ‘High Fidelity: The Series’ on Hulu, Oscar-winners on VOD

‘Dawson City: Frozen Time’ – Film/history free on Kanopy

Bill Morrison’s films straddle film history and avant-garde expressionism, mining the wealth of silent film history and exploring the abstract beauty of decaying nitrate film, a particularly volatile medium that breaks down over time. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) celebrates the “Dawson Film Find” of 1978, thousands of reels of film buried in the permafrost, […]

Meryl Streep is ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ – free on Kanopy

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) may sound like a one-joke contrivance—a rich, generous, arts-loving heiress in 1940s New York City gives private recitals to a select group of high society insiders who never let on to the oblivious woman that she is quite possibly the worst singer to ever trod a stage—but it is both a […]

‘Crime Story’ – sixties gangsters free on IMDb TV

‘Das Boot’ – The 2019 series on Hulu

Das Boot (Germany/France, 2019) shares the same title as Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 film (and is technically a sequel), but familiarity with the original is unnecessary to start the series. Also based on the novel Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim as well its sequel Die Festung, the 2019 series is set in late 1942, nine months after the film’s finale, […]

‘I Am the Night’ on Hulu and Hoopla

We can thank Wonder Woman for the miniseries I Am the Night. Director Patty Jenkins not only connected with her star, Chris Pine, over the project, but Pine’s interest inspired a new character in the screenplay her husband, Sam Sheridan, was writing. The result is an “inspired by a true story” six-part TV-miniseries as dark and lurid as […]

What to stream: ‘Dracula’ and ‘Giri/Haji’ on Netflix, Aladdin’ on Disney+, ‘Joker’ on VOD

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. Joaquin Phoenix took home a Golden Globe for his performance as a mentally-troubled man who becomes a psychopathic supervillain in […]

What to stream: ‘John Mulaney’ and ‘The Secret Life of Pets 2’ on Netflix, ‘Judy’ on VOD

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. Renée Zellweger is favored to earn an Oscar nomination for playing Judy Garland in “Judy” (2019, PG-13), which follows the […]

What to stream: Tarantino’s ‘Hollywood’ on VOD, ‘The Expanse’ returns on Amazon, ‘6 Underground’ on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” (2019, R) is another mix of history and fantasy from Quentin Tarantino, a paean […]

‘The Dirty Dozen’ – the original World War II caper on Netflix

Marlon Brando in ‘Last Tango in Paris’ on HBO Now

Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972) was one of the most controversial films of the 1970s, rated X upon its original release for nudity and sexuality (since rerated NC-17). The drama of a widower who escapes his anguish and despair after his wife’s suicide in a purely physical relationship with a free-spirited young beauty […]

Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills star in the Billy Wilder comedy

‘Avanti!’ with Jack Lemmon on Amazon Prime Video

Billy Wilder was one of the great directors of classic American comedy. Avanti! (1972), based on the play by Samuel Taylor, is one of the director’s attempts to adapt his trademark mix of wit, romance, and sex to the more permissive era of the 1970s and one of the best films in the last act […]

Jesse Eisenberg stars in the Kelly Reichardt film with Peter Sarsgaard and Dakota Fanning

Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Night Moves’ on Amazon Prime Video

Night Moves (2013), the fourth film that New York-based director Kelly Reichardt made in Oregon with screenwriter Jon Raymond, was her most commercial project to that, though you won’t mistake this drama of eco-terrorists who blow a dam on a southern Oregon river for a Hollywood thriller. Reichardt and longtime screenwriting partner Jon Raymond focus […]

Shirley Clarke directs this pioneering American independent film

Shirley Clarke’s landmark ‘The Connection’ on Criterion Channel

The Connection (1962), the debut feature from Shirley Clarke, turns a stage play originally produced by New York’s revolutionary Living Theater as a play within a play into an innovative work of cinema. Clarke was a pioneering American independent filmmaker before that label was even invented and her work was unpreserved and largely unavailable until […]

Sanaa Lathan navigates ‘Love & Basketball’ on Netflix

Using sports as a metaphor for life and love is nothing new but filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood, a former college athlete, puts her spin on it with Love & Basketball (2000). Sanaa Lathan is the fiercely driven, hot tempered tomboy Monica, who gives her all for basketball. Omar Epps is Quincy, the son of an NBA […]

Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Night Moves’ on Amazon Prime Video

‘Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter’ – swashbuckling horror on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu

Forget Van Helsing. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) is the great swashbuckling dispatcher of the bloodsucking undead. Hard-faced Horst Janson is the brooding Kronos, a rangy, sword-wielding soldier who hunts the vampire scourge with his jovial hunchbacked partner, Grost (John Cater) and takes time out from his athletic battles and meditative interludes for a few […]

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria

Last Chance: ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ on Netflix

Olivier Assayas wrote this drama about a veteran actress facing a transition in her career after Juliette Binoche, arguably France’s greatest and certainly most ambitious actress working today, challenged him to write a film centered on women. It was a friendly challenge—she had already starred in two films he wrote for director André Téchiné and […]

What to stream: indie hit ‘The Farewell’ on Amazon Prime, ‘High Fidelity: The Series’ on Hulu, Oscar-winners on VOD

Marlon Brando in ‘Last Tango in Paris’ on HBO Now

‘Day For Night’ –a love letter to moviemaking on Criterion Channel

Day For Night (France, 1973), François Truffaut’s Oscar-winning love letter to the cinema, celebrates the glorious chaos and creative heartache of making movies. Truffaut himself reigns over the on-screen cinema circus as director Ferrand, an aloof figure juggling productions delays, budget cuts, and the personal crises of his cast and crew as he tries to […]

Steven Spielberg directs the big screen adventure adapted from the Herge graphic novels

‘The Adventures of Tintin’ on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video

The Adventures of Tintin (2011), Steven Spielberg’s first foray into motion capture filmmaking, turns the legendary boy journalist and globe-trotting adventurer from the early graphic novels of Herge into a big screen hero, complete with trademark cowlick and best friend canine Snowy watching his back. Spielberg and his collaborators (notably co-producer Peter Jackson) chose to […]

Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz star in Martin Scorsese's love letter to the movies and his first PG movie

Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’ on Amazon Prime Video

Hugo (2011), Martin Scorsese’s first family film (it’s PG!) and his first engagement with 3D, is a love letter to the magic of cinema. Based on the novel by Brian Selznick, it is a tribute to early film pioneer George Méliès (played by Ben Kinsgley), a child’s adventure through a grown-up world of loss and […]

Disney’s ‘The Princess and the Frog’ on Netflix

Pixar auteur John Lasseter gave new life to animated cinema with his CGI revolution but he never forgot the old-school art of hand drawn animation that made Disney’s reputation and he courted John Musker and Ron Clements to make the studio’s first new “princess” film since their own The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. The Princess […]

Michael Palin, Carol Cleveland, and the group in 'The Lumberjack Song'

The Essential ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ on Netflix

And now for something completely different. In 1969, five overeducated British comics and an American illustrator ambushed the BBC with the strangest show in British history. How they got on the air is anyone’s guess (rumors of blackmail were quickly hushed, though the Python’s penchant for sheep gags… but enough of speculation), but their irreverent […]

Una Stubbs, Simon Callow, Virginia McKenna, and Bernard Hill star in the British caper comedy

‘Golden Years’ – Senior citizen crime wave on Amazon Prime Video and Acorn TV

Golden Years (2016) – Think of this caper comedy as a British twist on Going in Style with a side of social commentary on the treatment of aging pensioners. Bernard Hill and Virginia McKenna star as retirees who have lost their retirement savings in the financial crisis and turn to robbing banks, targeting the bonuses […]

‘Killing Eve’ – Spy games on Hulu

Killing Eve: Season 1 (2018), BBC America’s clever, compelling, mordantly funny spy thriller, is the network’s first must-see original series since Orphan Black and is even more fun. Sandra Oh earned an Emmy nomination for her performance as Eve Polastri, a low-level security agent for MI-5 who has traced a series of unsolved assassination to […]

‘Crime Story’ – sixties gangsters free on IMDb TV

Antony Starr and Ivana Milicevic star in the Cinemax series 'Banshee'

The Pure Pulp Pleasure of ‘Banshee’ on Amazon Prime Video

I like to think of Cinemax as the grindhouse version of HBO: not as exclusive, not as ambitious, not as high-toned (late night Cinemax wasn’t called “Skinemax” for nothing). And it’s the same when it comes to original programming, the cable TV mark of distinction. Where HBO boasts such impressive productions as The Wire and […]

The Complete ‘Babylon 5’ on Amazon Prime Video

Babylon 5: Complete Series (1994-1998) While it’s not so rare in the contemporary age of prestige cable TV and original streaming shows, Babylon 5 was unique in the annals of 20th century TV space opera: a genuine piece of epic science fiction storytelling. Creator J. Michael Straczynski’s ambitious story took five seasons to tell, more […]

‘The Dirty Dozen’ – the original World War II caper on Netflix

Tilda Swinton in Bong Joon-ho 's 'Snowpiercer'

‘Snowpiercer’ – careening allegory on Netflix

Snowpiercer (2013), an international production from Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho and a French graphic novel, is a high-speed allegory speeding down the science fiction tracks of genre cinema. That’s the way I like this brand of filmmaking: with the symbols big, muscular, detailed, and punchy. You either give yourself over to the metaphor, in this […]

‘Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter’ – swashbuckling horror on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu

Last chance: Daniel Day-Lewis is ‘Lincoln’ on Netflix

Al Pacino stars in 'Serpico',' directed by Sidney Lumet

Al Pacino is ‘Serpico’ on Hulu

“It’s incredible but I feel like a criminal because I don’t take money.” So says Al Pacino in Serpico (1973), Sidney Lumet’s take on the true story of frustrated New York policeman Frank Serpico. As portrayed by Al Pacino, Serpico is the resident nonconformist in the working class New York Police Department, a college-educated street […]

‘Blade Runner: The Final Cut’ – the definitive version of the SF classic on Netflix

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1981/2007) – Ridley Scott’s visionary reworking of Philip K. Dick’s novel, “Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep,” was a box-office flop. Maybe it was too dark for a public flying away on the fantasy of E.T. in the summer of 1982, or too downbeat for audiences looking for a Harrison […]

‘Dawson City: Frozen Time’ – Film/history free on Kanopy

What to stream: ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ on Starz, ‘Fighting With My Family’ on Amazon and Hulu, Taylor Swift on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019, PG) sends the web-slinging teenage superhero (played by Tom Holland) to Europe, where he takes […]

What to stream: ‘Honeyland’ and ‘Justified’ on Hulu, ‘Picard’ on CBS All Access, ‘What Did Jack Do?” on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The weekly column is featured in The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review, and other newspapers. The beautifully-photographed documentary “Honeyland” (Macedonia, 2019, not rated, with subtitles) brings us into the life of a solitary beekeeper in […]

Film Noir on Blu-ray: ‘Moonrise,’ ‘Gun Crazy,’ ‘No Orchids,’ and the restored ‘Man Who Cheated Himself’

The Man Who Cheated Himself (Flicker Alley, Blu-ray+DVD)Moonrise (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)Gun Crazy (Warner Archive, Blu-ray)No Orchids for Miss Blandish (Kino, Blu-ray, DVD) Lee J. Cobb takes the lead as Lt. Ed Cullen, a veteran Homicide detective in a secret affair with socialite Lois Frazer (Jane Wyatt) while she’s in the midst of a divorce, in […]

Blu-ray Animation: Deluxe ‘Totoro’ and the complete ‘Batman’

My Neighbor Totoro: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)Batman: The Complete Animated Series (Warner Bros., Blu-ray) Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan’s living treasures, a beloved filmmaker whose animated films number among the most beautiful and most enchanting productions ever drawn by hand. In this day of CGI productions, the aging artists still personally draws […]

Blu-ray: Orson Welles’ ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ on Criterion

The Magnificent Ambersons (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD) How did it take so long for the sophomore feature from Orson Welles to finally get its Blu-ray debut? I don’t need an answer, I’m just thrilled that it’s finally here, and in such a beautiful edition. The magnificence of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) is apparent from the first […]