Watch at Home (as if you had other options currently)
Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 10:30PM Happy St Patrick's Day! It hasn't really felt like that holiday without bars open, has it?
Time for our bi or tri-weekly listing of new titles to DVD and BluRay... plus a little new-to-streaming thrown in for good measure. Given that most of us are trapped at home withe coronavirus pandemic blu-rays and streaming are necessary.
New(ish) to Blu-Ray and DVD
• Black Christmas - horror remake
• Bombshell - Oscar winner for Best Makeup
• Charlies Angels - another iteration
• Dark Waters - Todd Haynes legal drama
• Jumanji the Next Level - hit sequel
• Queen & Slim - polarizing crime romance
• Richard Jewell - Eastwood dud
• Spies in Disguise - animated
• Uncut Gems - critical darling
• 5B - a doc on the AIDS crisis in 1980s San Francisco.
New to streaming recently
We've freeze-framed a few titles at entirely random places...
[In Unison] GOOD MORNING!
Orlando (on Criterion Channel)
Tilda Swinton is brilliant as the gender non-conforming (literally) hero/heroine in this arthouse classic. It's when we fell in love with her. It was nominated for two Oscars (Costumes, Production Design) for 1993 but it should have been many more including Best Actress. In this sequence Orlando, the young nobleman, has been asleep for 7 days and wakes up a woman. "Same person... just a different sex."
Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen... friendly ole girl of a town.
Hans Christian Andersen (on Criterion Channel)
Funny. If we're going to gender cities, I never thought of Copenhagen as particularly womanly, though it's one of my favourite places on earth. Have you ever been? This is a Danny Kaye musical about the fairy tale author.
Sorry Infinity [vomits]
Hello I Must Be Going (Hulu)
This is a rare and fine leading lady showcase for Melanie Lynskey who usually has to shine (and shine she does) from the sidelines as a supporting actress. Melanie guest-blogged right here to celebrate the film's release. That was such a good time.
ALSO NEW TO STREAMING
• Last Ferry (Netflix) gay thriller on Fire Island
• Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu) PREMIERES TOMORROW
• Lu Over the Wall (Netflix) TOMORROW
• Monos (Hulu) the Colombian Oscar submission
• Silver Lining Playbook (Netflix) A peculiar Oscar fixation, no?
• Starring Rita Hayworth (Criterion Channel) a selection of 8 films starring the love goddess
• Summer Night (Netflix)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Netflix)
Which of these titles will you be watching / purchasing?
P.S. Please remember to check out our reader's choice streaming film club for community watches and discussions. Next up is Only Angels Have Wings (1939) streaming on Criterion Channel.
Reader Comments (13)
Not sure if you have written about it, but that movie "Upgrade" about the paraplegic who becomes an AI driven revenge machine who can walk and run again is very entertaining. It's a B movie on Amazon Prime, but great for sci fi or Terminator fans. Logan Marshall-Green is very easy on the eyes. They are pitching a sequel and I am all for it.
aww - look at baby toby jones in his film debut - looking pretty much like middle-age toby jones
I just bought a 4K bluray player! Not sure which 4K discs I should pick up. Anyone have any recommendations? I’m thinking Arrival (Amy!) and Batman Returns (Michelle!)...
Just your daily (sporadic) reminder that Renée Zellweger is a two-time Academy Award winning Actress.
Boo! Get Orlando’s name out of you mouth until you bring back Actressland or at least some of your art. You’re drowning amongst the quality content provided by your team and who knows how long the Reader’s Choice life raft can save you.
Yes watch Hello I Must Be Going, but only after I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore on Netflix. That’s the true Lynskey lead tour de force!
Being stuck in a foreign city due to this virus contagion, I started watching Netflix using my old account but, is it just me, some TV shows and films that I know are available on Netflix when I am in the US are not available when I am in another country. For instance I wanted to re-watch Altman's Cookie's Fortune but I can't locate it. Does anyone have the same experience?
I love Orlando which was the first time I saw Tilda Swinton in a film. Love that maze run she did where decades and decades pass by and before you know it she's (sorta) modern (more modern than the one she was before the maze run). Plus the film features an actor I admired for many years -- Lothaire Bluteau. "Orlando" was the first Virginia Woolf novel I read and one of the things that stuck with me was how British skies grew more orange and colorful in modern times presumably because of pollution.
Of the new films on Blu-Ray and DVD, my two favorites are Queen and Slim (my 2nd favorite film from 2019 after Portrait of a Lady on Fire) and Dark Waters (which I thought was undervalued--hopefully it will have an afterlife in academic settings).
I will defend RICHARD JEWELL - not to the death, because it certainly isn't one of last year's best. But it is worth a watch (and, IMO, Bates should've won the Supporting Actress Oscar this year - even if her big scene was standard Oscar catnip, it was powerful).
Owl - you are correct. When I was in Japan and opened my Netflix and realized that they get way more titles than my countries (and also all of those Japanese anime on it as well!).
@ Golden
Thanks. I thought so too. Now that you mentioned it, I will see if there are additional shows that were added.
I found out that I am okay with the lockdown. I wish I am not alone though, but so glad for streaming movies.
@Owl and @Golden. Yes, different titles in different countries. For example, all Studio Ghibli available on Netflix EXCEPT in the US, where it will be on HBO Max beginning in May. Rabid fans now isolated in my house have found that out. Feels like we should go back to owning actual media of all of our favorite things.
I watched A Hidden Life - bit long but very beautiful. Loved the scenery and the lead actor and score. More narrative than most recent efforts.
I enjoyed Richard Jewell it had problems Bates and esp Rockwell not being one of them.