The Upstream: July 2023

10 great movies new to streaming this month.

Welcome to 2H 2023! Barbenheimer approaches, which had better get you out to movie theaters … but if you want to stay home until then, here are 10 good ones to watch at home.

Dunkirk, Max

For all your Oppenheimer prep needs. Remind yourself how Nolan saw the Second World War from the other side of the pond … and don’t forget to breathe as he brings three different stories (operating on their own timelines) to a thrilling crescendo.

Far from the Madding Crowd, Max

I tend to find period pieces and costume dramas, especially if adapted from the era’s literature, suffocatingly stuffy. But Far from the Madding Crowd is the exception that proves the rule. Director Thomas Vinterberg and star Carey Mulligan unearth this text from mothballs to create a work that feels entirely contemporary as the woman of the manor tries to make sense of her obligations to heart and home. I adore this movie.

The Fighter, Amazon Prime Video

I’m tough to please when it comes to sports movies, in large part because they follow such similar trajectories ready-made to please an audience. But the triumph of The Fighter feels all the sweeter because director David O. Russell dwells in the troubles and tribulations that lead up to it. The film that kicked off his so-called “reinvention” trilogy is a movingly acted tribute to American scrappiness, with an emphasis on scrap.

A Star Is Born, Amazon Prime Video

Hey!

What?

I just wanted to take another look at this trailer that played all summer long 5 years ago.

(Smiling, thinking the movie’s still great.)

The Squid and the Whale, Netflix

In my ranking of every Noah Baumbach movie last year for /Film, I sketched out the idea of how the erudite filmmaker has “remade” some of his previous works through new eyes following his partnership with Greta Gerwig. Marriage Story builds on the foundation laid down by his 2005 film The Squid and the Whale, another divorce story. This one feels raw and ground-level because it’s so rooted in his own perspective as a child of divorce. It’s crucial to understand Baumbach’s starting point so you can understand his growth and maturity to see it from the perspective of the split couple.

Summer 1993, Criterion Channel

Though the film’s title might imply that it’s taking you to a time, Carla Simón’s child-centered debut feature is really about a place — an idea, really. This is a film that feels like summer as young Frida frolics about in the Spanish countryside, slightly oblivious to the reason why she’s spending the season with her relatives. “I always think about emotion. Where should we be for the audience to feel the character that I want to portray?” Simón told me earlier this year. “Because children don’t fully understand everything, this point of view always brings more mystery to things, which is very important in cinema.”

Sweet Home Alabama, Hulu

After years of watching bits and pieces of this movie on cable, I can confirm that Sweet Home Alabama is still a rip-roaring good time guaranteed to please. It really functions like somewhat of an origin story for Reese Witherspoon as a brand with her character Melanie balancing her down-home Southern roots with nationwide attention. Rather than sanding down her edges, she learns she has to embrace and share the culture that made her.

Titanic, Netflix

Admit it — you've wanted to watch this again since the whole OceanGate fiasco. I really can’t with all the headlines talking about how it’s “too soon” to have Titanic come on Netflix as if the deal wasn’t done long before the submersible saga. Anyways, great movie! I was as shocked as anyone upon revisiting (in gripping IMAX) that it cracked the top 20 in my Best Picture countdown earlier this year.

Under the Silver Lake, Max

Imagine being so kooky and out there that even A24 has no idea what to do with you. That’s the case with David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake, a film that its distributor sat on for nearly a year following its Cannes premiere and then dumped unceremoniously into theaters. The film feels ironically poised for a real cult classic status because it’s about, well, things submerged in culture that need to be unearthed. Our guide to this sinister, seedy world lurking just under the surface is Andrew Garfield’s Sam, a would-be film noir gumshoe who’s just a conspiratorially-minded loser. The movie’s somewhat of a hot mess by design, but that just makes you lean in to decode it all like Sam does.

The Walk, Hulu

Someone needs to do a big investigative journalism piece on what the heck happened to Robert Zemeckis. The Oscar-winning filmmaker who gave us Back to the Future and Forrest Gump began disappearing into his motion-capture fantasies in the 21st century, but he now feels irretrievable from odd adaptations of fairy tales and Disney movies. We may well mark The Walk as the last time he made something normal. His quas-heist movie details the artistry and adventure that led to the man tightrope walking between the Twin Towers. It’s a thrilling tribute to a time when we looked to the lower Manhattan skies out of inspiration, not just fear.

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.

Whoops, it looks like I’ve fallen (down the Wes Anderson rabbit hole) and can’t get up!

If you’ve got some time to read about the state of the film industry, The New Yorker has published two must-read pieces on Marvel and Mattel in recent weeks that paint a picture of how our corporate overlords are planning their cinematic domination.

Subscribers got to read the full Raging Bull piece yesterday in their inbox.

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

Back next week with something for another country’s July celebrations.

The 400 Blows, 1959. © Janus Films

Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall