The Upstream: February 2023
10 great movies new to streaming this month.
Happy February!
Make the most of the short month by streaming some quality cinema that’s newly dropped. (FWIW: Some people might tell you to watch Skinamarink, the lo-fi horror sensation, now that it’s dropping on Shudder tomorrow. I found it frustrating more than anything else, a short film that convinces itself into deserving feature length, but an editor of mine had this charitable take that I thought was worth sharing.)
Amour, Hulu
Save this one for Valentine’s Day — KIDDING! This is a very different kind of love story and about as bleak as they come. This film comes courtesy of Michael Haneke, the Austrian auteur who’s undoubtedly inspired the cinema of cruelty that spread to many of your favorite young filmmakers. After many deeply unpleasant outings, he faces down the most imposing thing of all — the unstoppable ravages of dementia as experienced by an elderly couple. It’s austere and airtight as all his movies are but also contains a perversely compassionate touch, too, that makes the film all the eerier.
The Art of Self-Defense, HBO Max
I’ve lost track of how many movies I’ve sat through that do the most obvious satires of “toxic masculinity,” but The Art of Self-Defense actually cuts through the clutter and to the heart of warped machismo. This oddball comedy about Jesse Eisenberg’s sadsack office drone who enrolls in karate classes to better protect himself has such a specific deadpan tone that only works if everyone commits. They do, and it’s glorious. (When you’ve finished watching, I’d highly recommend the spoiler interview I conducted with filmmaker Riley Stearns about the film back in 2019.)
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Amazon Prime Video
Back in the news! Or is it ever really gone? The Enron documentary by Alex Gibney is still a gold standard in depicting corporate grifters. It’s worth watching because apparently people are still seeing this as a blueprint. (Shoutout to Houston for doing it first and best!)
Inside Man, Amazon Prime Video
A satisfying heist movie is really hard to beat, and Spike Lee delivers with his Dog Day Afternoon tribute Inside Man. It works as a cat-and-mouse thriller between Clive Owen’s bank robber and Denzel Washington’s investigator, each of whom begins to realize that they’re part of a bigger game than even they realized. It also works as a great post-9/11 NYC movie as tensions between different ethnicities among the bank hostages color the proceedings in undeniable ways.
The Last of England, Criterion Channel
One of the Criterion Channel’s big curated selections for the month of February centers around British avant-garde filmmaker Derek Jarman, one of the filmmakers most responsible for introducing us to Tilda Swinton. I’ve admittedly only scratched the surface of Jarman’s work and look forward to catching more. If you want a good place to start, his oblique response to how Thatcher’s England sullied the country’s legacy in The Last of England gives you a great taste. In some ways, it’s as much gallery art as a narrative feature — so adjust your bearings accordingly to follow motifs rather than plot.
The Monster, HBO Max
You’ll probably be hearing a lot about distributor A24 in the coming days as the company approaches its tenth anniversary. One film that probably won’t rise to the top of many best-of lists in their formidable filmography is Bryan Bertino’s The Monster — but don’t let that stop you from streaming it. If you want good, old-fashioned creature feature horror with simple stakes and strong execution, this is a perfect pick. It’s also got a standout central performance from Zoe Kazan as an alcoholic mother enduring an external horror that’s all too reminiscent of her internal one.
Nacho Libre, Amazon Prime Video
I don’t envy anyone who has to follow up an out-of-left-field cultural sensation like Napoleon Dynamite, so Nacho Libre was always doomed to disappoint upon release. But I do feel like it’s one of those movies that has picked up somewhat a cult appreciation — I mean, that earnest love song is a real barn burner. But I think this might be the pinnacle of Jack Black's physical comedy, and I hope we can give him the kind of appreciation we are now lavishing on Brendan Fraser one day. Perhaps no one else in contemporary Hollywood can do the body burlesquing quite like Black.
Person to Person, HBO Max
I know a series of loosely connected stories unfolding in New York that alternate between comedy and drama sounds like boilerplate Sundance stuff. But if you’re like me and predisposed to like this kind of thing, you might give the underseen Person to Person a watch. I found this film by Dustin Guy Defa recounting a single NYC day to be really astutely observed and attuned to the quiet things that often evade the camera’s eye. (Abbi Jacobson is in fine form stretching her repertoire into more serious territory if you’re a Broad City fan.)
TÁR, Peacock Premium (requires subscription)
Peacock announced this week that they’re discontinuing new sign-ups for their ad-supported free tier, meaning that if you haven’t already … you’re going to have to cough up some dough. Still, $5/month is a great deal — probably less than you’d have to pay to rent Best Picture nominee TÁR from Apple or Amazon! Come see what all the fuss is about with the Internet’s favorite incredibly real conductor:
(But if you want something more serious, my review is here.)
Thank You for Smoking, Hulu
Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking is a pitch-black sendup of the lobbyists who wield their wordsmithing influence to control the levers across society. It only plays as a more potent warning in a post-Citizens United America where corporations are people and money is speech. But not only is this satire not as toothless as our recent crop of films — it’s not heartless, either. At the core of Aaron Eckhart’s Nick Naylor and his ironic journey toward the light is the desire to win his son’s admiration. While he initially thinks he can achieve through combative rhetoric, his flouting of moral codes ends up snapping his internal compass back.
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.
Also, last week, I had a night where I came home and only watched extended press tour videos on YouTube. The highlight was Channing Tatum, earnest king, keeping it honest on his lie detector test for Vanity Fair:
One of my absolute highlights of the podcasting year just dropped: This Had Oscar Buzz’s immediate post-mortem on this year’s Oscar nominations. Presenting the class of 2022…
I feel completely lost for words on how to convey the way in which I was gobsmacked by Bernardo Bertolucci’s influential 1970 film The Conformist. Luckily, Bilge Ebiri has an excellent contextualization and appreciation at Vulture. Keep an eye out for if this restoration opens near you — or comes to streaming.
Friend of the newsletter Chris Feil breaks down a particularly odious set of prestige movies and their faux empathy — The Whale, The Son, and Close — for The Daily Beast.
I had thought about writing something about J.Lo’s odd obsession with rom-coms involving weddings, but then Rachel Handler came around and wrote the ultimate piece on it for Vulture: “An Attempt to Make Sense of the Jennifer Lopez Wedding Industrial-Complex Canon.”
If you’ve got the time for a longer read, this New Yorker profile of Netflix’s global head of television is a great look at the medium’s past, present, and future.
Subscribers got this post in full:
Nothing new to publication in the last week, so I suppose I’ll take this opportunity to plug my Decider streaming guides that get an update at the top of every month. These are always good to bookmark if you need a rec on the fly.
Paid subscribers will be getting a little something about my viewing at virtual Sundance over the weekend!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall