The Downstream: July 2023

10 great movies to watch before they leave streaming this month.

The time had come, the day is here! Happy BARBENHEIMER day to all who celebrate. I won’t make you scroll all the way to the bottom to get my take on them — I was fortunate enough to review both for The Playlist. Here’s my A- review of Barbie … and here’s my A- review of Oppenheimer. Movies, they’re great!

But for those who are more couch-bound for the rest of the month, here’s some good stuff to watch from the comfort of your own home before it flees its current streaming home.

American Sniper, Max

I suspect Oppenheimer will face a lot of the same discourse traps that defined American Sniper around the representation of war, namely in the way it erases the enemy almost entirely. Whether you buy it or not, I think the elimination of consequences from the cinematic frame works for both movies because they are such intensely subjective portraits of single-minded men. Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of Chris Kyle, locked into his worldview, is far more nuanced and thorny than the cultural conception of this film gives it credit for being.

Bottle Rocket, Max

You know, I think this Wes Anderson fellow has a future in movies! For many years, I let his debut Bottle Rocket linger at the bottom of my rankings from the filmmaker out of a lazy ascription to never judge a director by their first film. But this lo-fi buddy heist flick about two friends trying to pull off a robbery well beyond their capacity proved a pleasant surprise when I got to see it with a crowd in Los Angeles back in January. Don’t make my mistake of reflexively dismissing it!

But I’m a Cheerleader, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel

What if conversion therapy camp … was, in fact, camp? 2000’s But I’m a Cheerleader still feels revelatory for queer cinema and only finally getting its due. As I wrote during the pandemic when watching for the first time:

“What makes But I’m a Cheerleader stand out in the genre is the refusal to indulge the clichéd storylines of LGBTQ+ youth: traumatic bullying, the pain of the closet, the fearful coming out. Babbit warps established notions of gender and sexuality through a funhouse mirror, presenting rigid concepts of either as strange and harmful.”

The Eyes of My Mother, Hulu

Paid subscribers might remember a post from last October when I talked about Nicolas Pesce’s The Eyes of My Mother, “a terrifyingly slender tone poem with a macabre outlook toward death told in haunting black-and-white.” It was mostly an excuse to share a previously unpublished interview with the filmmaker for a larger piece I never wrote … and realize that I’ve gotten a lot better at conducting such conversations in the 7 years I’ve been doing them.

The Kids Are All Right, Amazon Prime Video

The real modern family is here in 2010’s The Kids Are All Right as the teenage children of two mothers (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) go find their sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo). The understated normalcy upon which filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko insists feels like a reaction to California’s then-recently passed Proposition 8, but this never seems entirely reactive to its moment. It doesn’t feel dated because it can see the broader picture — family structures are changing, introducing new problems but amplifying old ones. Julianne Moore’s aching ode to the pains of marriage could be delivered by just about anyone at any time.

Little Shop of Horrors, Max

Even before the SAG-AFTRA strike, it seemed iffy that a remake of Little Shop of Horrors was going to happen. But in this vacuum, allow me to just say … recast the very good Chris Evans because we cannot have any more attractive Seymours! You’ll see from watching Rick Moranis in the film that the mild-mannered dweebiness he brings is essential to the character’s journey. The deep-seeded (pun intended) need for attention and adulation is essential to explaining why he’d allow a sentient Venus fly trap that feeds on blood to grow to such dangerous extents in the first place.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Max

Look, the third movie is happening whether you like it or not. Heck, there’s probably a chance you didn’t even bother seeing My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, a 14-years-later sequel to the 2002 surprise hit that my family still quotes on a daily basis. Is this movie anywhere near as good as the original? Of course not, but I still found it quite fun to revisit the Portokalos clan all the same.

Skyfall, Netflix

While I’m still partial to Casino Royale as the platonic ideal of a perfect James Bond movie, I’ll allow that Skyfall is the better examination of the character’s legacy at large. The Bond who bleeds reaches his breaking point as he stands at the crossroads between being stuck in amber as a relic of the past and sacrificing core elements of his persona to remain relevant. It’s The Dark Knight for spy movies, really.

Traffic, Netflix

There are fully TWO new Steven Soderbergh series releasing this month … do try to keep up! I’ve only seen two episodes of Full Circle — and might have more to say on it later — but it harkens back to the “hyperlink cinema” style of the film that won him the Oscar for Best Director in 2000, Traffic. His border-spanning saga shows how the drug trade splits people apart and yet ties them together in fascinating, unexpected ways.

The Wretched, Hulu

I know plenty of people for whom a movie like E.T. is plenty scary — blame it on early childhood exposure, I suppose. But if you want to take a Spielbergian premise like that film into outright horror territory, then you might want to check out The Wretched. (It was actually #1 at the box office during the early days of the pandemic simply by virtue of being one of the only new releases doing drive-ins!) A child of divorce visiting his dad at the beach stares with longing envy at the traditional family next door, only to find that gaze catches a small-town terror only he can see. The Pierce Brothers combine retro filmmaking appeal with decidedly gnarly contemporary effects.

You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd. I’ve also compiled every movie I’ve ever recommended through this newsletter via a list on the platform as well.

A little something topical…

…and some evergreen listens.

This IndieWire article was a fascinating deep dive into the ramifications of AI in acting, which has proven to be a real sticking point in the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Always read Matt Zoller Seitz, but his Vulture essay analyzing the throughline in Harrison Ford’s revisiting three iconic characters in the past decade is really quite extraordinary.

For Slant Magazine, I interviewed Christian Petzold, the German director who (with all my disregard for All Quiet on the Western Front) is arguably at the forefront of his country’s cinema. Especially if you think the term “German comedy” is an oxymoron, you should check this one out when it comes to your city. I loved talking about dystopia, screwball comedy, and sex scenes (or lack thereof) with a very animated Petzold.

For Decider, I said stream it to The League (available on VOD) and skip it to Hotel Artemis (available on Max).

Subscribers also got a fun reflection on seeing the new Indiana Jones film in the ScreenX format and how it made me better appreciate great cinematic composition.

You can keep track of all the freelance writing I’ve done this year through this list on Letterboxd.

Have a great weekend at the movies!

Barbie, 2023. © Warner Bros.

Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall