The Downstream: October 2022
10 great movies to watch before they leave streaming this month.
Hey everyone! Back after an unanticipated week-long hiatus post-NYFF and 30th birthday. Not entirely sure how I kept it together through one of the busiest stretches of my life … might have almost collapsed during an NYFF screening of Bones and All and left to splash my face with water 🙃 but excited to get back to basics this week!
Now … this you?
Don’t get caught scrolling aimlessly! Watch one of these films about to leave its respective streaming service.
The Descent, Amazon Prime Video
I had never seen The Descent until I got assigned to watch it last month … good movie! It’s effective at building character and suspense as a group of spelunkers get caught in a cave before it introduces some supernatural elements. Director Neil Marshall makes a persuasive argument for why you need to hire good directors to make genre films — his command of color, sound, and movement adds so much to a film that could otherwise be schlock.
Final Destination, HBO Max
My favorite horror franchise keeps it simple — someone has a premonition of all their friends dying, and then the Grim Reaper stalks down everyone in that vision. I enjoy it every time, and I’m not alone in this:
Anyways, the whole series leaves HBO Max on Halloween. Hard to go wrong with any of them, but if you haven’t seen any of them, start with the original (before they got self-aware).
God’s Own Country, Hulu
I am, once again, begging you to watch God’s Own Country. This rural romance about two farmhands learning not only love but how to be emotionally open and honest with another person split me open as few movies have. If you liked Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name, Josh O’Connor is basically giving an even more advanced version of that performance. Let this movie make you weep!
Meet the Parents, Hulu
If you’ve taken the heavy cable rotation of Meet the Parents (and its great sequel, 2004’s Meet the Fockers) as a sign that these movies are just lowest common denominator humor — you’d be wrong. These movies are wicked funny, still, in large part because De Niro commits to the bit of being stern just as Stiller goes over the top with his neuroticism. It’s got not only great lines but some genuinely hysterical situational setups, too.
Moneyball, Hulu
How can you not get romantic about baseball? With the World Series around the corner, it’s an even better time than normal to get caught up in the charm of Moneyball. Leave it to the sturdy direction of Bennett Miller and the soulfulness of star Brad Pitt to make statistical analysis of sports interesting and emotionally involving! I’d say certain (smart) quarters know this movie is brilliant, but it’s time for that understanding to become even more widespread.
The Notebook, HBO Max and Netflix
If you have two minutes to spare, watch this:
But if you’ve got two hours, you might as well watch where the passion began between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams: 2004’s The Notebook. It’s the rare sappy romance that earns the swooning it gets, and we’ve dealt with nearly twenty years of movies now trying to recapture what only two stars like this can bring. In the words of Succession’s Roman Roy, “Ugh! Hot. Ugh!”
Spy, Peacock (free with ads)
The Melissa McCarthy wave was starting to crest at the release of 2015’s Spy, which is a shame because … I think this movie is quite funny and good! Like many a Paul Feig movie, it’s a bit overstuffed with jokes, characters, and situations. Some of them don’t hit, but a good chunk of them do! And the ones that hit, HIT.
Thief, Amazon Prime Video
We’re just exiting film festival season in the Big Apple, and that’s not just from the New York Film Festival, mind you. Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image just finished their latest edition of the Caan Film Festival in honor of the late star James Caan (himself a Queens native). I caught Thief at last year’s festival, and talk about a crowd-pleaser! Caan enters into somewhat of a conscious late period as a grizzled cat burglar biting off a job that might be more than he can chew. If nothing else, you’ve got to love the throbbing techno score from Tangerine Dream (not available on Spotify so racking a massive view count from yours truly).
Touch of Evil, The Criterion Channel
Orson Welles, an asshole overachiever who made one of the greatest movies ever (Citizen Kane) at just 25 years old, is perhaps an example of someone who peaked too early. Some people point to his 1958 thriller Touch of Evil as evidence that he had a later-career inflection point. I don’t entirely know that the entire film comes together for me, but it’s worth watching for the stunning opening tracking shot alone.
Up in the Air, Amazon Prime Video
You should probably expect I’ll log Up in the Air in the next week or so. I check in with the film during moments of transition and upheaval (hello 30), not because I think the movie changes — but because I know I have. I love growing alongside a movie to see how it shows a different face to me from a new vantage point. Jason Reitman’s recession-era romantic dramedy might have its flaws, but the film is uncommonly vulnerable in the way it wears its heart on its sleeves.
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.
Eddie Redmayne has become something of a punching bag online, which I both do and don’t understand. I’ve always enjoyed his work, and I find his craftsmanship quite impressive as well. It’s an added bonus that he’s quite articulate in explaining it (a rarity among actors, I find). If you liked my 2019 interview with Redmayne, you’d love this Talk Easy episode that really gets to dig in with him around his upcoming release The Good Nurse:
There’s no more eloquent advocate for cinema’s history than Martin Scorsese, and he really came through with this eulogy for the late Jean-Luc Godard in Cahiers du Cinéma.
Two Substacks I pay for are The Reveal by Scott Tobias/Keith Phipps and Culture Study by Anne Helen Petersen. Below are posts that I think show why.
My New York Film Festival interviews are going to trickle out over an extended period of time, but we’ve got a strong crop right out of the gate for Slant Magazine:
Director/co-writer Claire Denis and stars Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn about Stars at Noon (out now in theaters/on VOD)
Director/co-writer Park Chan-wook about Decision to Leave (out now in select theaters and expanding)
Writer/director Charlotte Wells about Aftersun (out now in select theaters and expanding)
For Decider, I advise…
Stream It: Matriarch (Hulu), See for Me (Hulu)
Skip It: Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake (Netflix)
I also ranked the most prominent Amityville Horror movies for Decider, which was an interesting assignment given that … I had never seen one prior! If nothing else, it was a fascinating look at how American attitudes toward family and property have and haven’t changed over the last forty-some years.
Hoping baseball schedules cooperate enough for me to have the mental energy to get that delayed NYFF recap out this week!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall