What to stream: Chris Pine is ‘Outlaw King’ on Netflix, ‘Incredibles 2’ and ‘BlacKkKlansman’ on VOD

Chris Pine in in the film by David Mackenzie

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 …

Chris Pine stars in Outlaw King (2018, R) as Robert the Bruce, the 14th century Scottish nobleman who claimed the crown of Scotland and rallied his country to battle the occupying British army of King Edward I. It’s directed by David Mackenzie, who previously collaborated with Pine on Hell or High Water, and shot entirely on location in Scotland. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Florence Pugh co-star.

Outlaw King tells a story that is both old and old-fashioned but does it in a decidedly modern way,” writes Kenneth Turan for Los Angeles Times, who suggests “it gives hope to moviegoers who value venerable action genres and will be pleased to see them showing signs of life.”

Manohla Dargis has a dissenting view: “At least in old Hollywood, filmmakers would also try to entertain you amid the clashes and post-combat huddles, giving you something more to watch and ponder than this movie’s oceans of mud, truckloads of guts and misty, unconsidered nationalism.”

It made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in select theaters the same day it debuts on Netflix.

Pixar’s inventive superhero adventure/comedy Incredibles 2 (2018, PG) celebrates courage, family, and the challenges of raising a baby that can teleport, catch fire, and shoot lasers from his eyes with lots of zippy action and goofy gags. On Cable On Demand and VOD, also on DVD and at Redbox.

Spike Lee returns to form in BlacKkKlansman (2018, R), a savvy take on the true story of a black police officer (John David Washington) who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in 1970s Colorado. It’s provocative, satirical, angry, irreverent, outraged, and very timely. Cable On Demand, VOD, DVD, Redbox.

John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons (2018), a recording of the actor’s one-man Broadway show, distills 3,000 years of Latino history into a 95-minute comic monologue. On Netflix.

Classic pick: Sean Connery and Michael Caine are British soldiers of fortune in The Man Who Would Be King (1975, PG), John Huston’s grand adaptation of the sweeping Rudyard Kipling adventure. Reviewed on Stream on Demand here. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Foreign language pick: Jean Vigo’s anarchic gem Zero for Conduct (France, 1933, with subtitles) celebrates the rebellious spirit of adolescent boys captivated by magic tricks and word games. Set in a strict boy’s school run by creaky, cranky petty tyrants, it’s a strange and wonderful film full of unbridled imagination, flights of fantasy, and delirious images. The first masterpiece of pre-pubescent self-actualization. On Prime Video.

Holiday essential: Every time you watch It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) an angel gets its wings. Prime Video also offers a colorized version but please watch it in the original black and white.

Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand

Ewan McGregor is the grown-up Christopher Robin (2018, PG) who gets a little help from Winnie the Pooh and other childhood friends. Also new:

Available same day as select theaters nationwide are romantic comedy In a Relationship (2018, not rated) with Emma Roberts and romantic drama The Delinquent Season (2017, R) with Cillian Murphy and Eva Birthistle, and Here and Now (2018, R), a drama with Sarah Jessica Parker as a singer facing a cancer diagnosis.

Netflix

Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood go Into the Forest (2015, R) in the apocalyptic science fiction thriller and Matthew McConaughey navigates The Sea of Trees (2015, PG-13) with a Japanese man (Ken Watanabe) lost in a forest near Mt. Fuji.

Streaming TV: Chris O’Dowd and Ray Romano star in the comic gangster series Get Shorty, an Epix original that reworks the Elmore Leonard crime-meets-show business novel and 1995 movie. From South America comes revenge drama The Queen of Flow: Season 1 (Colombia, with subtitles) and animated adult comedy Super Drags: Season 1 (Brazil, with subtitles).

Foreign affairs: extreme action film The Raid: Redemption (Thailand, 2011, R, with subtitles) earned a reputation as one of the fiercest, most brutal crime thrillers of the past decade. Reviewed on Stream On Demand here. Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer (Hong Kong, 2001, PG-13, with subtitles) takes a more humorous approach to action.

Kid stuff: there are new seasons of the live-action series Treehouse Detectives and the animated shows Beat Bugs and Spirit Riding Free.

Non-fiction TV: Medal of Honor: Season 1 tells the stories of recipients of the highest military honor. Also new:

Also new: comedy The Late Bloomer (2016, R) about a 30-year-old man hitting puberty;

Amazon Prime Video

A promoter in Berlin’s techno club scene is recruited as an undercover again in Beat: Season 1 (Germany, with subtitles), a Prime Original spy thriller with a beat. Also this week is the second season of the Prime Original spy comedy Patriot.

Also new: the romantic drama The Whole Wide World (1996, PG) helped launch the careers of Vincent D’Onofrio and Renée Zellweger;

Cult: the ingenious The Usual Suspects (1995, R) turned the crime drama inside out with inventive storytelling. Also new:

More streaming TV: The Durrells in Corfu: Season 3 continues the adventures of a British family in 1930s rural Greece.

Amazon Prime / Hulu

The extremely violent Kick-Ass (2010, R) is both a comic book movie and a superhero satire starring Aaron Johnson as a high school kid whose fantasy of being a costumed crime-fighter meets the brutal reality of urban violence. Reviewed on Stream On Demand here. Prime Video and Hulu.

Hulu

The British horror film Ghost Stories (2017, not rated) pays tribute to the anthology horror films of the 1970s with three tales of unexplained phenomenon. Martin Freeman stars in one segment.

Adam Pally is a former high school hotshot who returns home years later in the indie comedy Most Likely to Murder (2018, R).

Foreign affairs: Juliette Binoche stars as a free-spirited Parisian artist with bad luck with men in Let the Sunshine In (France, 2017, not rated, with subtitles), a romantic comedy from Claire Denis. Also new:

  • Under the Tree (Iceland, 2018, not rated with subtitles), a black-humored satire of suburban life;
  • The 12th Man (Norway, 2017, not rated, with subtitles), a World War II thriller based on a true story.

Streaming TV: Hulu is now the streaming home to the complete series of animated comedy King of the Hill created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels and long-running sitcom Married With Children with Ed O’Neill and Katey Sagal.

True stories: Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story (2017, not rated) profiles the fashion makeup artist.

HBO Now

Fifty Shades Freed (2018, R) concludes the erotic romantic trilogy starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.

The new nonfiction series Axios is a collaboration between the newly-launched news outlet and HBO.

Also new: the second season of the anthology series Room 104 and the short documentary We Are Not Done Yet (2018, not rated).

Available Saturday night is Love, Simon (2018, PG-13), a coming-of-age teenage romantic comedy and coming out story, and Paddington 2 (2017, PG), a funny and charming comic adventure for the whole family.

Showtime Anytime

The Showtime Original series Shut Up and Dribble: Season 1 chronicles the modern history of the NBA and its players. New episodes arrive each Saturday.

Asa Butterfield and Alex Wolff star in the coming-of-age comic-drama The House of Tomorrow (2017, not rated) with Nick Offerman and Ellen Burstyn.

Stand-up: Howie Mandel Presents: Howie Mandel at the Howie Mandel Comedy Club (2018, not rated).

FilmStruck

TCM Select Pick of the Week is The African Queen (1951), which stars Humphrey Bogartas a hard-drinking caption of a sputtering steam-powered boat in Africa during World War I and Katharine Hepburn as a spirited missionary who pushes him to strike back at the Germans who invaded their mission in German East Africa. It’s a classic journey adventure, with a series of obstacles that they meet with resilience and resourcefulness, but the story is how they move from “Mr. Allnut” and “Miss” to Charlie and Rosie, opposites who find strength, support and unexpected love in one another. Bogart and Hepburn stoke the fires of this unlikely romance the way only stars of that magnitude can. Huston shot the film (largely) on location in Africa and makes the location and The African Queen itself, with its big, clumsy, temperamental steam engine, essential parts of the film’s personality and texture. Reviewed on Stream On Demand here.

It’s one of 25 films in the tribute to “Star of the Week: Katharine Hepburn,” a collection that spans six decades, from her first Oscar-winning performance in Morning Glory (1933) through such essentials as Stage Door (1937) and The Philadelphia Story (1940) to her final Oscar-winning performance in On Golden Pond (1981, PG) and her last big-screen appearance in Love Affair (1994, PG-13).

Director of the Week: Aki Kaurismaki” presents eight films from the deadpan Finnish filmmaker, from his early offbeat comedies Ariel (Finland, 1989) and Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Finland, 1989) to his more serious recent dramedies Le Havre (Finland, 2011) and The Other Side of Hope (Finland, 2017), plus five music videos. All films not rated and with subtitles.

Acorn TV

The Simple Heist: Series 1 (Sweden, with subtitles) is a crime caper comedy about two women in their sixties who decide to rob a bank to fund their retirement. The complete six-part series streams on Acorn.

BritBox

BritBox presents the gritty new British crime drama Dark Heart: Series 1 with Tom Riley concurrent with its TV debut in England, plus two of Britain’s most acclaimed comedies, the political satires Yes, Minister and sequel series Yes, Prime Minister from creator Jonathan Lynn.

MHz

The Danish crime thriller Those Who Kill (Denmark, with subtitles) debuts with two episodes available and new episodes arriving Tuesdays.

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Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. He writes the weekly newspaper column Stream On Demand and the companion website, and his work appears at RogerEbert.com, Turner Classic Movies online, The Film Noir Foundation, and Parallax View.

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