Stream This: The Others, The Piano, Inside Llewyn Davis
Sunday, August 7, 2016 at 8:15AM In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And we'll freeze frame select titles at random places just for fun and see what image comes up. You know how we do!
LAST CHANCE AMAZON PRIME
Felton: I look... is distinguished a word?
Lange: It's a word.
In Secret (2014, expires August 18th)
What is this? Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange? Big name casts for movies that don't seem to actually exist that you suddenly realize do, in fact, exist, are kind of unnerving. Like how do movies that never really get released find financing to get made in the first place? Apparently Oscar Isaac plays an artist in this one (they're looking at a portrait he painted of Felton) so that's kind of smudgy hot regardless. Isaac with paint stains I mean.
Men weren't up to the task!
Robocop (2014, expires august 18th)
So that errant quote that popped up when I slid the bar to a random point in this useless movie is as good a quote as any to describe the foolhardiness of remaking a Paul Verhoeven picture. The Dutch auteur is many things but "remakeable" is not one of them. You've lost before you've begun essentially. See also the Total Recall remake and whichever one gets remade after that... maybe Basic Instinct?
seven more freeze framed films, some great/some terrible, after the jump...
NEW TO PRIME
You needn't take it any further, sir. You've proved to me that all this ultra violence and killing is wrong.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
I just will never be a big Stanley Kubrick fan. I know that puts me in the minority but we all have our off consensus pockets of taste.
When we get to California are you going to take me to that Chinese restaurant where all the footprints are out in front?
Kalifornia (1993)
People who didn't live through the early 90s will never know how obsession worthy Brad Pitt & Juliette Lewis were as a couple back in the day, both onscreen and off. Juliette Lewis's then patented disturbed childwoman act was a thing of weird beauty. She's great in this serial killer movie.
[noise / mayhem]
Cloverfield (2008)
When 10 Cloverfield Lane premiered early this year I avoided it for months despite how good people kept saying it was because, as part of this franchise I thought "how is that possible because Cloverfield was T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E!". But people were right and 10 Cloverfield Lane was actually good. I stand by the original being terrible though.
There is something in this house, something that is not at rest. I know you don't believe me.
The Others (2001)
The fun thing about this movie is that it works superbly as a Horror movie the first time you're watching it and the second time you're watching it it works even better as its other genre, Women Who Lie To Themselves™.
[coughing]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (1991)
I have never seen a single movie or TV show from this franchise. Every clip from any of them makes me want to die. Not even The Lovely Laura Linney could convince me to see one.
-I'm not a trained poodle.
-I thought singing was a joyous expression of the soul?
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
I wish I liked this movie more. It has miraculous elements (Oscar Isaac chief among them, and that genius scene with F Murray Abraham) but it's just too miserabilist and misanthropic for me. And the overworked monotonous color palette makes me bonkers, so I wasn't okay with the cinematography nomination at the time.
The Piano (1993)
True Fact: Every time I see a list of "Greatest Movies of All Time" I immediately scan it for this movie. It's a handy key to any such list. If The Piano is absent the list is garbage fire and you can already be assured that there's no real diversity in voice or subject matter. Said list will also assuredly be lacking in other great films about women, too. Jane Campion Forever.
Also New:
13 Assassins on August 29th
Afflicted
American Ultra on August 11th
Blue Ruin on August 24th
Coffee and Cigarettes
The Eclipse
Elvis & Nixon on August 25th
Foot Fist Way
A Good Woman
Goon on August 29th
House of Lies (S4 and S5) on August 23rd
How She Move
The Hunter on August 22nd
Joe the King
The Kicks on August 26th
Marathon Man
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Maxed Out
Melancholia on August 22nd
Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation on August 11th
No Country For Old Men on August 11th
Odd Squad Movie on August 8th
Ong Bak - Thai Warrior on August 8th
A Royal Affair on August 15th
Shattered
Shaun the Sheep on August 10th
Six Shooter
Spices III
Strange Wilderness on August 20th
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Very Good Girls
Wicker Park
The World's Fastest Indian on August 8th
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
You’ve Got Mail
Reader Comments (26)
" The Others" is a perfect ghost story
The more I watch The Others the more I realsie this is the film Kidman should have been nominated for in 2001.
Yeah, Nicole Kidman should have been nominated for The Others, not Moulin Rouge!. Might have changed the outcome of the Best Actress race. Then again, she might have only gotten in for the easier to watch Moulin Rouge! because she was so good in The Others.
Cloverfield is a dumpsterfire of a horror film, especially if you know anything about NYC geography. In between bouts of closing my eyes because the shakycam was so disorienting, I kept thinking how the film didn't make any sense because it jumped from downtown to uptown to the Bronx to Brookyln to Soho to Central Park etc. in a matter of minutes while claiming to be a linear story. No.
And everyone needs to watch Inside Llewyn Davis for John Goodman's amazing performance.
disagree on Nicole's Other performance > Moulin Rouge! She's fab in both but I think the MR! performance is way riskier and more complex. The Others has less notes. But damn, it's too bad they weren't in 2000 and 2001 so she could have been nominated for both.
I think In Secret is a Therese Raquin adaptation, right?
The Others is so GREAT.
Lol for me, the first to scan on such lists is of course The Silence of the Lambs.
In Secret is terrible and over the top. A super melodramatic guilty pleasure.
Oscar talk aside, one of the best things that happened to cinema in the last two decades was the glorious 2001 introduction to Nicole Kidman. One two punch drunk love! Evidence of the genius was there before but with her two movies that year, she showed the world she meant business.
Nicole Kidman was nominated for the Others by BAFTA and she must have only just missed out on also being nominated for Moulin Rouge seeing as they allow double nominees in the same acting category and there can be ties resulting in more than 5 nominees.
I always thought I was the only one not that fan of Stanley Kubrick.
Till your confession. We are two.
Kidman should have been nominate for " The Others" and what the hell happened to Alejandro Amenabar?
"True Fact: Every time I see a list of "Greatest Movies of All Time" I immediately scan it for this movie. It's a handy key to any such list. If The Piano is absent the list is garbage fire.... "
Whoah. Not much I can say to that but, wow.
Shout out to Michelle Forbes in Kalifornia. In a film filled with good performances (maybe except Duchovny) she was the one that stood out for me.
I still am so sorry that I do not, along with the majority of the public it seems, find Kidman a great actress). Her movies are hard to come by...?
I did like her performances: The Others , To Die For and Moulin Rouge. I think I need to go back to her earlier roles and rewatch... I'd love to change my mind. Her recent movies have not gotten to theaters , straight to TV, or not good at all.So I am not interested in those.
Rick, I actually think her best work is Eyes Wide Shut, Birth, Dogville and Margot at the Wedding. She brings a quality to her work that makes it look like it cannot be performed by someone else. The variety in her work has made it that after all these performances and many many years in the business, there is still a debate as to her worth as a good actress.
@Tony T
Thank you the movie list ... I have seen Margot at the Wedding, but I do not really remember it very well.
I will try to find the others you mentioned... I also saw one of her first pics to hit America that I really liked... it was suspense on a boat??? Title????
Dead Calm
Like you Rick, I can't seem to find the brilliance in Nicole Kidman. She was great in The Others, Rabbit Hole and To Die For, but I've not been totally impressed with her. Perhaps we are in the minority when it comes to Nicole.
To this day, I am still baffled how she won an Oscar for The Hours.
I loooooove The Others! Kidman's fantastic in it. Amenabar went on to win an Oscar for best foreign language picture with The Sea Inside. Then he also directed Rachel Weisz (and Oscar Isaac in a very early role!) in Agora... which was certainly interesting: an epic about a philosopher and religious intolerance. Worth watching. And Weisz is sensational in it! Then he made that thriller with Emma Watson and Ethan Hawke, which I havent seen but reviews werent great.
THE OTHERS is one of my favourite films of all time. Love the atmosphere it creates.
IMHO I think Fionnula Flanagan deserved a nomination (and win!) for her wonderfully subtle and restrained work. And the sound design, costumes, art direction and score (by director no less!) should have been nominated as well.
On the whole, I prefer The Others to Moulin Rouge!, including Kidman's Grace Kelly realness performance. She's one of those actresses whose artistic ambition may be greater than her talent and her luck. But she definitely won me over with To Die For and I'm a fan of her work in the two aforementioned films, as well as in Dogville (which is saying a lot, because von Trier's women are anathema to me), Birth, The Human Stain, Rabbit Hole and The Paperboy.
I think that 2002 Oscar should have gone to Julianne Moore (of the nominees). But I doubt Kidman would have stood more of a chance against Halle Berry if she'd been nominated for The Others.
I too am not a Kubrick fan - except for The Shining, which I think is great.
Nathaniel: The cinematography in Inside Llewyn Davis is my winner for 2013! The colour palette and the 'thickness' of the lighting are central to how the film creates Llewyn's chilly world. I wasn't too much a fan of Delbonnel's work at first (I think Amelie is overdone), but is Harry Potter film was beautiful and Llewyn Davis really made me feel that Delbonnel is one of the best - and boldest - modern-day cinematographers.
Can't quite agree on The Piano - its absence from a 'best of' list does not mean that that list is not diverse!
I do very much agree on Verhoeven - remake him at your peril! People had better not dare re-do Basic Instinct - you can't improve on trashy perfection!
Agreed on Juliette Lewis too - she's so good so often.
Agree with Flatbeat about Michelle Forbes in Kalifornia. While Brad Pitt has the showiest role, the relationship between Forbes and Juliette Lewis is the one to watch. Forbes consistently delivers and elevates the material in everything she's in.
Kidman shld've won for The Others or even Moulin Rouge! in 2001, thus allowing Zellweger to win for Chicago in 2002, thus allowing Clarkson to win for Pieces of April in 2003...
The Hours is a make-up Oscar and so is Cold Mountain
Amenabar seems to be suffering from some post Oscar winning curse- yes " The Sea Inside" is a great film but he made "Agora" which looks impressive but was not a big hit.
Basic Instinct was remade with its sequel. Kubrick is cinema. Halle Berry's Oscar win had a curious domino effect for the unrewarded white actresses in her category. Strangely enough the resistance to Kidman from the Academy is frustrating and cruel. Sick world to live in where the marginal talents of the women O Russell are juggernauts to Oscar.
Paul -- i doubt it too. That race was always Sissy vs Halle. Kidman was getting the "you've arrived as a superstar" nomination, as worthy as she was.
Claran -- hmmm. i've never thought of Zeéeeee's Oscar as a makeup Oscar. To me it was more Momentum Oscar. And also people LOVED that performance. Early on the haters of that terrible performance were fewer.
Flatbeat -- that was the first time i remember noticing Forbes and agree that she's always good.