The Upstream: September 2024
10 great movies new to streaming this month.
Nothing says a timely post like “new to streaming” that arrives a full third of the way through a month, but such is being away from home to start the month! Hope you’re having a good start to your month as Brat Summer begins to give way to Meg Ryan Fall. (She’s not trendy — she’s evergreen.) And if you haven’t already figured out what’s new on streaming stateside, here are 10 titles worth your time.
Aloha, Netflix
I see that this once-maligned Cameron Crowe rom-com has entered the top 10 most watched on Netflix … appreciate the congrats for being right! I went to the mat for Aloha last year during Decider’s “Take 2” week and encouraged readers to give the movie a second chance. While it’s far from perfect (and was certainly not right for the moment of its release in 2015), there’s some potent studio-era screwball energy coursing through this movie’s veins. And nothing with Rachel McAdams can ever be all bad.
Bad Press, Criterion Channel
For reasons that should be entirely obvious, I’m a sucker for a great journalism movie — especially if it takes on the ambiance of a thriller. Bad Press feels like a canary in the coal mine as it documents the struggles of a reporter within Muscogee Nation to maintain her freedom of expression. Holding power to account is a dangerous business in these tribes where power often operates corruptly in the shadows, and it’s nothing short of infuriating to watch leaders rig the game against the film’s subject Angel Ellis.
Dead Poets Society, Hulu
I was not going to raise a fuss, but I did wonder why Ethan Hawke was giving a masterclass in Venice last week despite not having a movie at the festival. (I got to go, and it was an expectedly rejuvenating and reinvigorating experience.) As it turns out, Hawke was there to present the lifetime Golden Lion prize to Peter Weir, the man who directed his first on-screen role in Dead Poets Society. Knowing now that the bonds between a teacher and his pupils did not only take place on-screen in this boarding school drama gives me an even greater appreciation for its sincerity. While I’m always tempted to write this one off as saccharine sentimentality, I feel like it comes about that emotion earnestly.
Dressed to Kill, Amazon Prime Video
Erotic thrillers don’t get much better than Dressed to Kill, which sees Brian De Palma in full Hitchcock’s Psycho tribute mode … but far more unleashed to be subversive. He’s in full sicko mode here as he follows a New York prostitute who witnesses a grisly murder and tries to solve it with the victim’s son. Pro-tip for perverse enjoyment: perhaps it’s best not to hold this one up for analysis of representation and just enjoy it as something of an elevated snuff film.
The Fall Guy, Peacock
Unfortunately, Universal moving The Fall Guy into the pole position opening summer — a slot owned by Marvel for over a decade — will always give this relatively modest action movie an aura of disappointment it doesn’t deserve. While the script lets the movie down somewhat, this still has so much to offer from the stuntwork of the titular character’s profession to the dynamite chemistry between leads Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. (There’s an extended version on Peacock, too, that manages to smooth over some of the roughness.) But more than anything, this is a movie about the movies for people who love their making. Its noblest characteristic may be the generations of young filmmakers it lures into the profession through the Trojan horse of a silly summer blockbuster.
Joint Security Area, Criterion Channel
I had a hard time tracking down Park Chan-wook’s debut feature Joint Security Area last year ahead of my conversation with Hoai-Tran Bui about his international breakthrough, 2003’s Oldboy. So now that it’s on Criterion Channel, I must implore you to utilize this easy access! Since Park is better known for his squirm-inducing horror films, this is probably not the movie you’d be expecting as an auspicious start to a career in genre filmmaking. It’s a political thriller about a murder along the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas that fixates on the arbitrariness of such a border with a strong whiff of satirical irony.
Not a Pretty Picture, Criterion Channel
There is always so much more in cinema history than we realize. I wasn’t aware of Martha Coolidge’s hybrid docudrama Not a Pretty Picture until Criterion put it out, and it feels like a missing piece of a puzzle making sense of the medium just locked into place. This personal piece from 1976 tries to make sense of the director’s sexual assault in college by having her stage it for the screen. The film cuts back and forth between the recreation and rehearsal, putting the two in fascinating dialogue and raising the question of the form’s limitations in conveying the lingering memory of such a horrible occurrence. It’s a shame this didn’t become a part of the canon much sooner.
The Princess Diaries, Hulu
If you don’t shell out for Disney+, you may have won. The Mouse House just opened up the vault and shared some of their classic titles with Hulu. So if you’ve been feeling a rewatch of The Princess Diaries of late, now’s your moment. Family movies don’t get much better than this — knee-slapping humor, nonstop quotables (including the greatest line reading of all time), as well as a touching spirit of love and acceptance. I feel lucky that this was in the cultural bloodstream when I was 8 years old!
The Shining, Max
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is such a dense, rich text that it inspired an entire documentary, Room 237, about fan theories trying to explain it. I don’t descend into full conspiracy theory territory like some of those subjects — one of them dissects the film as the director’s apologia for allegedly faking the moon landing. But maybe with one more watch, I’ll have my grand unifying theory of the film ready. Seeing it on 35mm a few summers ago began to clarify my thinking on how The Shining ties together a lot of disparate threads about the American tendency to wash away sins of suppression with bloody outbursts. I’ll bring my notepad next time to elucidate it better.
Snack Shack, Amazon Prime Video
I snuck in a reference to Snack Shack in my recent essay for Crooked Marquee on teen movies, mostly in the hope that more people will one day catch up with this gem that flew under the radar on its release earlier this year. This slice of nostalgia serves up the ‘90s not as a series of obvious cultural signifiers but as a feeling of rebellious teenage freedom. As two buddies get in over their heads buying a poolside snack shack to turn into a cash cow, the film effortlessly channels their boundless energy and enthusiasm for living life to its fullest. And my goodness, Gabriel LaBelle of The Fablemans has the juice! Kid’s going to be a STAR.
Believe it or not, I had some non-Venice coverage run last week! I reviewed Look Into My Eyes, a documentary about psychics in NYC that doesn’t operate on the expected axis of real/imaginary, and interviewed director Lana Wilson for Slant Magazine. As she directed the Taylor Swift documentary, Miss Americana, you bet I found a way to relate this movie to the most famous woman on earth.
You can keep track of all the freelance writing I’ve done this year through this list on Letterboxd.
Ciao!
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.
If you’re not too festival-brained out from my recent coverage, you might find this talk with the chairman of Focus Features on how to find the right festival to premiere a movie:
Here’s a great walkthrough of an underappreciated garment and all it can signify on screen: the white tee, from Marlon Brando to Glen Powell.
I thought this New York Times feature (gift article) on the evolution of depictions of Asian men as romantic leads offered a lot to chew on, too.
Hoping to have a fun conversation for subscribers over the weekend!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall