Streaming Roulette, July: No 7 Cherry Lane, Tomorrow War, Summer of Soul
Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 9:00AM
NATHANIEL R in Being There, Judas and the Black Messiah, Memoirs of a Geisha, No 7 Cherry Lane, No Sudden Move, Psycho, Streaming Roulette, Summer of Soul, The Tomorrow War, The Wolf House, animated films, streaming

Yes it's time for another round of streaming roulette where we point out a handful or two of titles that are streaming and just for fun, freeze frame them at totally random places in the scroll bar. Whatever comes up we share. Let's start with streaming premieres...

When I looked out into the crowd, I was overtaken with joy. I just saw so many black people. They were rejoicing.

SUMMER OF SOUL (Hulu)
We've already shared two thumbs up reviews: Murtada's from a long time ago at Sundance 2020 before the world stopped for COVID-19 and Glenn's Take when it reappeared this year. The story behind its making seems so incredible. How was all this footage just sitting here all this time and most people not knowing anything about this concert?

I have a few different titles. I guess when you're down to less than 500,000 people on the planet, you wear a few hats.

THE TOMORROW WAR (Prime)
Yvonne Strahovski looked very radiantly and happily pregnant at the premiere this past week and that's the nicest thing we have to say about this movie. The sci-fi time travel dystopia saddles her with a ridiculous part (just one of many ridiculous roles in the movie) that's crucial to the back half of one of the most ludicrous stories we've ever been told under a sci-fi banner. It appears to be cribbing from multiple sci-fi films but fails to come up with any personality of its own... or even a borrowed personality. Chris Pratt doesn't help with a very stiff leading performance. We'd call this the worst movie of the year except Thunder Force already happened.

Daneille: [Lying about babysitting to the group] It's a great way to pay the bills.
Debbie: [To Debbie, scoffing] Bills? You've never paid a bill in your life.
Danielle: Well that's... I don't. That's...
Debbie: [to others] You know what I mean. That doesn't mean she's not responsible.
Danielle: I've paid bills before. 

SHIVA BABY (HBO Max)
Ben reviewed this one here, and it was also mentioned a few times in our "halfway mark achievements". My heart is just full of love for Polly Draper in this as the concerned but judgmental mom whose daughter is comically frazzled and directionless and keeping secrets which are getting harder and harder to maintain during a shiva where her worlds collide. Really fun movie. And short, too, as more comedies should be at just 78 minutes.

Hi Matt, good morning.

NO SUDDEN MOVE (HBO Max)
Looks like Matt (ubiquitous David Harbour) and his family are in trouble. Raise your hand if you can keep up with Steven Soderbergh's filmography. If you blink he'll have another movie out. This is probably ungenerous to say (given that we haven't seen this one or even heard of it until now) but, like Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood before him, we often feel that just a little more time in the oven for Soderbergh's movies would do them good. 

[no dialogue]

NO 7 CHERRY LANE (Criterion)
We first were gobsmacked by this surreal animated film way back at TIFF 2019. It then sat out 2020 without a distributor only to self-submit for the Oscar race in Best Animated Feature so we counted it as a 2020 release (and gave it a few nominations at the Film Bitch Awards including Best Sex Scene, one of which --a dream sequence -- is glimpsed above)  but really it's just arriving now in an exclusive streaming deal with Criterion. It's 20 minutes too long but otherwise very strong and if you like your animated films daring, enigmatic, and actressexual, this one is for you. 

OTHER MOVIES


Hatsumomo that snake! Quick, turn your attention to Nobu.

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (Netflix)
In this scene Gong Li has entered the room and Michelle Yeoh is scheming. Poor Zhang Ziyi is often just a pawn. Among the many travesties of the Oscars of 2005 was this film taking the Best Cinematography Oscar away from its rightful owner (haha) Brokeback Mountain and/or The New World depending on your taste.

I bet y'all babies gettin' the same bullshit education. Y'all paying the same taxes to get your heads whooped in by the same motherfuckin' pigs. Ain't that a trip. We pay them. We pay the pigs to run us off our corners.

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (HBO Max)
There were too many movies coming at us fast and furious from December through February this past season so you might not have gleaned that I personally didn't care for this one. Oscar voters felt differently showering it with nominations. For me, apart from the cinematography, it was deadly generic and safe and didn't make good on the promise of its fascinating story, focusing way too much on the FBI and procedural elements and not letting us into the minds and hearts of either of its leading men as a result. If you also felt disappointed, I'd suggest reading these insightful reviews from two of the most brilliant critics working, Angelica Jade Bastién and Tim Brayton which get at why. Kaluuya can certainly deliver a speech, though, and he has Oscar clip after Oscar clip as the leading man/subject of the film... so naturally he won in supporting. ARGH. 

 

Mr Rand, the President is arriving. 

BEING THERE (Criterion Channel)
One of my favourite assignments from my time as a Fellow at the National Critics Institute in 2017 was a piece on Oscar favourite Being There (1979). The assignment was to find something in the old film to relate to our current era and I chose its visual motif of the proliferation of screens. It's just a shot of a secretary away from the main action but look. Screens show up in so many shots that I wasn't surprised to land on this image during the streaming roulette game. Here's that review. 

-You could stay here for dinner. I got some nice lobs...
-No thanks, Ma

MYSTIC PIZZA (Hulu)
It's the movie that put Julia Roberts on the map! Some felt she was ungrateful when she refused a sequel but actually for a long time she refused sequels of any kind and Reese Witherspoon, if I recall correctly, also refused them for a time, saying 'if Julia won't do them...' Obviously stardom has changed since Julia's 1990s reign.

[VO] Hitchcock was a Victorian. Victorians thought that a bright white tiled bathroom was "sanitary". That's the term they used. His bathroom in his home was bright white tiles. He thought that invading the sanctity of the bathroom was a cool and subversive thing to do. He did it in his silent films. He did it in Spellbound... 

78/52: HITCHCOCK'S SHOWER SCENE  (Hulu)
I never watched this because the response seemed muted at the time and I have read so much on Psycho and seen it so many times what else could a doc on the scene teach me? Perhaps I should give this a go anyway as Psycho will always be fascinating. I've recommended this book many times but if you love Psycho i can't recommend "What You See in the Dark" highly enough. It uses the filming of Psycho as a kind of inspirational point for a small town drama but Hitchcock and Leigh both get a chapter from their points of view. 

[eery discordant music]

THE WOLF HOUSE (Criterion Channel)
Team Film Experience named this the best animated film of 2020. I didn't love it as much as that but its inarguably a visual jaw-dropper. This is part of the same collection as No 7 Cherry Lane is in which is called "Art House Animation" and includes 31 international treats like Belladonna of Sadness, Watership Down, Mary and Max, Chico & Rita, Rocks in My Pocket, and more.

 


 

also streaming on Netflix

 

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COLLECTIONS streaming on Criterion Channel

Individual films also streaming on Criterion Channel

later this month

 

also streaming on Hulu

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also streaming on Prime...

later this month

 

 

also streaming on Disney+

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also streaming

later this month

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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