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What to stream: ‘One Night in Miami’ on Amazon, ‘WandaVision’ on Disney+, ‘Crack’ and ‘Night Stalker’ docs on Netflix
David Fincher’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ on Netflix
‘Ministry of Fear’ – World War II spy noir on Criterion Channel
Hugh Jackman is ‘The Wolverine’ on Disney+
‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ – Tom Hanks vs. the USSR on Amazon Prime

What to stream: ‘One Night in Miami’ on Amazon, ‘WandaVision’ on Disney+, ‘Crack’ and ‘Night Stalker’ docs on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … In 1964, four legends met up on the night that Cassius Clay became heavyweight champion of the world. “One Night in Miami” (2020, R) imagines what transpired that night between Malcolm X […]

What to stream: ‘Herself’ on Amazon, ‘Pieces of a Woman’ and ‘History of Swear Words’ on Netflix, ’30 Coins’ on HBO Max

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … A hard-working mother (Clare Dunne, who also cowrote the original script) flees her abusive husband and builds a home for her two young daughters—literally, on land given to her by her sympathetic […]

What to stream: the end of ‘Sabrina’ and ‘Vikings,’ new ‘Cobra Kai’ and ‘Letterkenny,’ and more on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Happy New Year! There are no new major movies or TV shows debuting this week (let’s face it, the services brought out their big releases in the weeks leading up to Christmas) […]

What to stream: ‘One Night in Miami’ on Amazon, ‘WandaVision’ on Disney+, ‘Crack’ and ‘Night Stalker’ docs on Netflix

David Fincher’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ on Netflix

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), the American screen adaptation of the Swedish bestseller directed by David Fincher and scripted by Steve Zaillian, is a darker, richer, more compelling adaptation than the original Swedish version. Yes, after all those years of complaining about uninspired remakes of European films, we actually get to see a […]

Hugh Jackman is ‘The Wolverine’ on Disney+

The Wolverine (2013) is both a sequel and a reboot of the solo spin-off from the X-Men movies. Hugh Jackman is back with the abs and the adamantium claws as Logan, the ferocious fan favorite of the team, and the screenwriters draw from the ninja storylines of earlier Wolverine comic books: the dark, brooding loner […]

‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ – Tom Hanks vs. the USSR on Amazon Prime

If you think it was Rambo who led the American support of Afghan rebels against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the early eighties, here’s a hilarious reality check. Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) is the story of an otherwise minor Texas congressman who worked behind the scenes to create a coalition of Arab states, secretly […]

John Carpenter directs the cult movie satire starring Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David

John Carpenter’s ‘They Live’ on Peacock

A year after Oliver Stone elevated the phrase “Greed is good” to a satirical double-edged mantra in Wall Street, John Carpenter put it more bluntly in They Live (1988), a scruffy little genre movie with a subversive subtext. “Why do we worship greed?” asks an pirate broadcaster in the opening scenes, as images of homeless […]

Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard in 'The Immigrant,' directed by James Gray.

‘The Immigrant’ with Marion Cotillard on Amazon Prime

Marion Cotillard earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in the Dardenne Brothers’ Two Days, One Night but I think her best performance that year was in The Immigrant (2014). Cotillard plays Ewa, a Polish immigrant in 1921 New York who, turned away by relatives, is dependent on a mercenary burlesque producer and pimp (played […]

Peter Falk is Lt. Columbo in the iconic detective series

Peter Falk is ‘Columbo’ – free on Peacock

“Actually, there is one thing. Not that it makes much difference, but…” Peter Falk dons the overcoat as the most distinctive detective on TV: the cigar-chomping, eternally disheveled LA police detective, Lt. Columbo. The character was actually created as supporting character in a Broadway play by Richard Levinson and William Link, where Thomas Mitchell played […]

What to stream: the end of ‘Sabrina’ and ‘Vikings,’ new ‘Cobra Kai’ and ‘Letterkenny,’ and more on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu

Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston lead the cast of the mini-series 'The Night Manager'

‘The Night Manager’ – John le Carré on Amazon Prime

The Night Manager (2016), a six-part mini-series from the BBC that played on AMC in the U.S., is a riveting adaptation of the John le Carré’s 1993 novel of illegal arms sales and government complicity and updated from the nineties drug wars on Latin America to the contemporary Middle East of the Arab Spring. Tom […]

‘Ministry of Fear’ – World War II spy noir on Criterion Channel

You could call the conspiratorial wartime thriller Ministry of Fear (1944) Hitchcockian, at least in its play with an innocent man swept up in international intrigue, but the sensibility comes from its director, Fritz Lang. Ray Milland is the wrong man here, recently released from a mental asylum (he was sentenced for the mercy killing […]

‘Enter the Dragon’ – Bruce Lee is supreme on Netflix

Enter the Dragon (1973) – After years of supporting roles in Hollywood, American citizen Bruce Lee became a star in Hong Kong with a handful of hard-edged martial arts thrillers. He returned to conquer his adopted homeland with this American/Hong Kong co-production, a glorified B-movie mix of kung-fu fighting (choreographed by Lee himself) and James […]

Sean Connery and Michael Caine star in John Huston's adaptation

John Huston’s ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ on HBO Max

The Man Who Would Be King (1975) – John Huston originally wanted to make a film of Rudyard Kipling’s grand adventure in the late 1950s with Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable in the leading roles. It would’ve made a hell of a picture. And, as a matter of fact, it did, only with Sean Connery […]

‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ on Netflix and Hulu

A town gets a buffet line for a weather system in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009), a colorful animated feature based on a children’s storybook tale. Director/writer team Phil Lord and Chris Miller cobble a story around the storybook’s premise but it’s the whimsical imagery of raining hamburgers, a Jell-O mold castle, an […]

‘My Neighbor Totoro’ on HBO Max

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 artist still personally draws his key frames and defining characters, with a love and craft that comes through every frame. […]

Johnny Depp is a lizard in the old West in ‘Rango’ on Netflix

Johnny Depp taps into his inner lizard for the animated adventure Rango (2011). He provides the voice of a pet chameleon with thespian ambitions who gets lost in the desert and takes the role of sheriff in a desert town, only find that what he thought was on old Hollywood oater is actually a spaghetti […]

‘Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy’ on Netflix

A spin-off of the popular series of Ip Man martial arts dramas, Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (China, 2019) follows the path of Cheung Tin-chi (Jin “Max” Zhang), the self-described master of Wing Chun who was defeated by Ip Man in Ip Man 3. As Master Z opens, he has turned his back on […]

Jalmari Helander directs this satirical holiday adventure thriller from Norway

‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’ on Prime Video, Hulu, Shudder and more

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (Finland, 2010) comes from the land of the original Father Christmas but he’s no cuddly old man who hands out presents at Christmas. This Santa Claus, who has been buried in a man-made glacier like a wooly mammoth, is a child-snatching demon who punishes the naughty with the help of […]

Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Deneuve, directed by Arnaud Desplechin

‘A Christmas Tale’ – A messy family holiday on Criterion Channel

A Christmas Tale (France, 2008), Arnaud Desplechin’s mercurial, knotty and cinematically vibrant drama of family dysfunction stirred up over a Christmas gathering, was my pick for best film of 2008. Directing with restless energy, Desplechin sketches out a family tragedy, the untimely death of a first-born that precedes the story by decades, and then only […]

Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine , and James Franco star in Harmony Korine's 'Spring Breakers'

‘Spring Breakers’ on Netflix and free on Kanopy and Hoopla

Spring Breakers (2012) is not your traditional fun in the sun spring break movie. But then you wouldn’t expect that from Harmony Korine, the self-appointed agent provocateur of American indie cinema confrontation, even with a cast that includes Disney Channel sweethearts Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens. They play two of the four college girls (Ashley […]

‘Dawson City: Frozen Time’ – Film/history on Criterion Channel and 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, […]

‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’ on Prime Video, Hulu, Shudder and more

Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle star in the 1995 mini-series

The definitive ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on HBO Max and BritBox

Pride and Prejudice (1995) – Movies are great for spectacle but the miniseries format has the luxury of time. This co-production between the BBC and the American cable channel A&E is still considered by Jane Austen fans to be the definitive adaptation of Austen’s most famous novel and her work in general. Jennifer Ehle is […]

‘Escape at Dannemora’ on Amazon Prime and Showtime Anytime

In 2015 Richard Matt and David Sweat, two inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, escaped with the help of Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell, who ran the sewing shop and engaged in sexual affairs with both men. The eight-hour limited series Escape at Dannemora (2018), originally produced for Showtime, dramatizes the true story. Benicio […]

Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Jon Hamm, Christina Hendricks, and the cast of 'Mad Men'

The complete ‘Mad Men’ – free on IMDbTV

Mad Men: Seasons 1-7 (2007-2015) – “Who could not be happy with all this?” That’s the question at the heart of Mad Men, the series that transformed former movie network American Movie Classics into cable channel AMC, home to smart, daring, addictive original TV shows. Set the way-back machine to 1960, a world of cigarettes […]

What to stream: ‘One Night in Miami’ on Amazon, ‘WandaVision’ on Disney+, ‘Crack’ and ‘Night Stalker’ docs on Netflix

Sanaa Lathan navigates ‘Love & Basketball’ on Hulu

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 […]

Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray in Sofia Coppola's 'Lost in Translation'

‘Lost in Translation’ on Amazon Prime

Lost in Translation (2003) – Bill Murray is Bob Harris, a former movie star and minor film icon in Japan to shoot a whisky campaign (for which he’ll earn more than he’s seen in many a movie). Set up in a modern hotel the size of a small city while his marriage back home ossifies […]

‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ – Tom Hanks vs. the USSR on Amazon Prime

John Carpenter’s ‘They Live’ on Peacock

‘The Immigrant’ with Marion Cotillard on Amazon Prime

‘The Night Manager’ – John le Carré on Amazon Prime

The definitive ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on HBO Max and BritBox

Ian Richardson stars in the original BBC mini-series

The original British ‘House of Cards’ on Amazon Prime and Hoopla

The original The House of Cards Trilogy, a series of BBC mini-series produced in the 1990s, stars Ian Richardson as Francis Urqhart (F.U. to his friends), the Machiavellian Chief Whip of Britain’s conservative party and the most seductively ruthless politician you’ve ever had the pleasure to watch claw his way to the top (over the […]

‘The Wire: Complete Series’ on HBO Max and HBO Now

“Follow the drugs, and you’ll find dealers and users. Follow the money, and you have no idea where the case will take you.” So began the first season of HBO’s compelling tale of cops, crooks, and the social and bureaucratic forces that both divide and bind them, and the begining of an epic series that […]

Ricky Gervais stars on the BBC comedy 'The Office'

The original British ‘The Office’ on HBO Max

“You can’t put a price on comedy.” In the original The Office (2001-2003), creator/co-writer/co-director Ricky Gervais stars as David Brent, the insufferably self-satisfied office manager of a paper company branch who fancies himself a born comedian and a natural leader. He’s wrong about both, naturally, but his yes-man team-leader Gareth (Mackenzie Crook), a brown-noser with […]

The cast of NBC's 'Hannibal,' starring Hugh Dancy, Caroline Dhavernas, Laurence Fishburne, and Mads Mikkelsen

‘Hannibal: Complete Series’ on Netflix

Hannibal (2013-2015) reimagines the universe created by author Thomas Harris in the cycle of novels that began with Red Dragon and introduced Dr. Hannibal Lecter to the world. Freely drawing inspiration for the novels and characters, creator and showrunner Bryan Fuller images the relationship between Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played with enigmatic intensity and cool charm by Mads […]

‘Enter the Dragon’ – Bruce Lee is supreme on Netflix

John Carpenter’s ‘They Live’ on Peacock

‘Spring Breakers’ on Netflix and free on Kanopy and Hoopla

Peter Sellers stars in Stanley Kubrick's political satire of mutually assured destruction

‘Dr. Strangelove’ – the screwball satire of mutually assured destruction on Amazon Prime and Criterion Channel

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Stanley Kubrick’s screwball satire of cold war posturing and mutually assured destruction, is the funniest film ever made about nuclear holocaust. But it didn’t begin as a comedy. The source novel, Peter George’s Red Alert, was a grave contemplation of the […]

Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Larry Fishburne in 'The Matrix'

‘The Matrix’ trilogy on VOD and Blu-ray/DVD

The Matrix (1999) has become such a touchstone of American pop culture—referenced, copied, parodied, and parroted—that it’s hard to remember just how new and different and distinctive it was when it debuted in 1999. Which is not to say that it is completely original. Image Tron as a Greek Myth, or Sim City as an […]

Robert Hays and Julie Haggerty lead the cast in the disaster movie farce from David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams

‘Airplane!’ on VOD and Blu-ray/DVD

Airplane! (1980, PG), the directorial debut of the writing/directing team of David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams (who apprenticed on the screenplay of Kentucky Fried Movie), has my vote for the funniest film ever made. Ostensibly a goof on the barely remembered 1957 aviation thriller Zero Hour! (note the exclamation mark) by way of […]

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

What to stream: ‘Boys in the Band’ on Netflix, ‘Monsterland’ and ‘Wilderness of Error’ on Hulu

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, and Matt Bomer star in “The Boys in the Band” (2020, R), a new revival of the groundbreaking 1968 play about the lives of gay friends in the era […]

What to stream: documentaries ‘All In’ on Amazon, ‘The Fight’ on Hulu, ‘Challenger’ on Netflix, plus ‘We Are’ on HBO

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Election season brings out the political documentaries. “All In: The Fight for Democracy” (2020, PG-13) takes on the rights of American citizens to vote and the issue of voter suppression, guided by the […]