Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, FilmStruck, video-on-demand, and other streaming services …
The Netflix original half-hour dramedy Atypical: Season 1 adds a new family to the sitcom world, this one with Keir Gilchrist as a high school teenager on the autism spectrum struggling to navigate the social cues and emotional turbulence he doesn’t quite understand. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michael Rapaport costar as his parents and Brigette Lundy-Paine plays his protective sister.
The reviews have been mixed on this. Maybe it’s deliberate that Atypical feels out of phase — sort of a comedy; almost a drama; its narrative storytelling occasionally interrupted by voice-overs that seem as if they belong in another show,” writes New York Times TV critic Neil Genzlinger, who finds the show “amusing, but it’s also pretty familiar.”
Lorraine Ali, TV critic for Los Angeles Times, is more impressed: “the series is as compassionate as it is snarky, pairing a deep understanding about everyday life on the spectrum with a sense of humor rarely found in productions that deal with autism. Atypical risks offending some, but it does more good than harm by demystifying a sensitive and painful subject with an unapologetic candor.”
8 episodes. Queue it up!
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand
Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn are Snatched in the comedy of a mother-daughter South American vacation gone horribly wrong (R). Also on DVD and Blu-ray.
Guy Ritchie adds monsters to the great British myth in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword starring Charlie Hunnam (PG-13). Also on DVD and Blu-ray.
Also new: family comedy Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, which sends the Heffley family on a road trip (PG), drama The Dinner with Richard Gere and Laura Linney (R), and historical drama Cezanne et Moi from France (R, with subtitles).
Available before theaters is the young adult romantic fantasy Fallen (PG-13). Available same day as select theaters nationwide is Pilgrimage, a medieval road movie starring Tom Holland and Richard Armitage as monks escorting holy relics from Ireland to Rome (not rated), and shark-infested Australian thriller Open Water 3: Cage Dive (not rated).
Netflix
Jonás Cuarón (Gravity screenwriter and brother of Alfonso) directs the border thriller Desierto with Gael Garcia Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (R).
Adam Rayner is The Saint in the direct-to-VOD action reboot with Eliza Dushku and a cameo by Sir Roger Moore (not rated).
Netflix debuts the feature comedy Naked with Marlon Wayans reliving a nightmarish wedding day on a repeating loop (not rated)
Streaming TV: Netflix also snags the U.S. debut of BBC comedy White Gold starring Ed Westwick and Joe Thomas as cutthroat window salesmen in 1980s Essex (6 episodes).
Disney Channel star Shia LeBeouf broke into movies with Holes (2003), the family-friendly adaptation of the award-winning young adult novel. It’s a fitting late-summer film for kids (PG).
Ringo Lam’s Sky on Fire (China, 2016) and Dante Lam’s Operation Mekong (China, 2016) are adrenaline-charged thrillers from two veteran Hong Kong action directors (not rated, with subtitles).
More kid stuff: for young children there’s the debut of the animated series True and The Rainbow Kingdom plus Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh: Season 3 and the pun-filled 22-minute LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: Avengers Reassembled! (2015).
Amazon Prime
The romantic drama The Ticket (2016) stars Dan Stevens as a blind man who regains his vision and loses his way when he throws himself into his work (not rated).
From Britain comes the black comedy Barney Thomson (2016) with Robert Carlyle and Emma Thompson (not rated, with gruesome violence) and historical mini-series To the Ends of the Earth (2005) with Benedict Cumberbatch.
Foreign affairs: After the Storm (Japan, 2017) transforms from dysfunctional comedy about a fractured family to a touching drama of redemption (not rated, with subtitles).
Classics: Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford star in the classic British comedy The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) as aging employees of a flea pit cinema (not rated) and the Roy Rogers collection features 28 full-length oaters from the 1930s and 1940s with the singing cowboy star (not rated).
The Complete Superman Collection (1941-1942) collects all 17 gorgeous Superman cartoons produced and directed by the Fleischer Bros. (not rated).
Cult: Jack Hill’s Spider Baby (1967) with Lon Chaney Jr. is one of the great B-movie horror comedies (not rated) (reviewed on Stream On Demand here).
Streaming TV: from the 1960s comes the first seasons of the sitcoms The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and The Doris Day Show and from the 1980s comes five seasons of the college sitcom A Different World.
Hulu
Marion Cotillard earned an Oscar nomination for her raw performance as a woman struggling to save her job in Two Days, One Night (Belgium, 2014), directed by the Dardennes Brothers (with subtitles, PG-13). Reviewed on Stream On Demand here.
The second big screen version of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web (2006) features Dakota Fanning and the voices of Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, and Sam Shepard (G).
Streaming TV: new episodes of the comedy Difficult People: Season 3 with Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner arrive every Tuesday. Also new: TruTV series Billy on the Street: Season 5 with Eichner and FX comedy You’re the Worst: Season 3.
HBO Now
Will Smith is a grieving father in Collateral Beauty (2016), a spiritual drama co-starring Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Helen Mirren (PG-13).
The documentary Brillo Box (3¢ Off) considers the value and appeal of art through the journey of an Andy Warhol sculpture from living room decoration to record-breaking auction sale (not rated).
Stand-up: George Lopez: The Wall — Live from Washington, D.C. (not rated).
Arriving Saturday night is the Harry Potter spin-off / prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), which sends British magic scholar New Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to 1920s New York and unleashes magical creatures into the human world (PG-13).
Showtime Anytime
Hell or High Water (2016) puts the great American anti-hero outlaw story into the modern world of financial crisis and mortgage foreclosure. Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster star (R). Reviewed on Stream On Demand here.
Ray Donovan: Season 5 is now underway. New episodes arrive Sunday nights.
FilmStruck / Criterion Channel
Debuting on Criterion Channel is the Tampopo (Japan, 1985), the inventive foodie comedy that billed itself as “a Japanese noodle western” (not rated, with subtitles)
New on FilmStruck are John Huston’s classic “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975) with Sean Connery and Michael Caine (PG) (reviewed on Stream On Demand here) and a collection of films about life in Tel Aviv, including the acclaimed dramas For My Father (Israel, 2008) and Or (My Treasure) (Israel, 2004) (not rated, with subtitles).
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