Streaming Roulette Aug '22: Akeelah, Belle, Ingrid, and other wonders
Wednesday, August 3, 2022 at 12:22PM
NATHANIEL R in Adoption, Akeelah and the Bee, Carrie, Keke Palmer, Netflix, Not Okay, Sam Raimi, Streaming Roulette, The Gray Man, religiosity, streaming, superheroes

Okay, time for this month's streaming roulette. You know the rules. We highlight new-to-streaming titles by freezing them on the scroll bar at entirely random places and sharing what pops up! Any requests?

-Did you hear the word?
-I'm not sure if you're saying 'imminent' or 'eminent'.

Akeelah and the Bee (2005) on Hulu
Whichever word they meant, we can use it in a sentence! (In 2006) "Keke Palmer's stardom is imminent" (In 2022) "Keke Palmer is an eminent celebrity". Have you seen Nope (2022) yet? Read our review. Don't remember much about this debut other than that Keke was charming as a child actor and that the great Angela Bassett played her mom... which makes Keke's much-shared imitation of Angela Bassett even funnier... 

[no dialogue]

Gaslight (1944) on HBOMax
If you've never seen this brilliant George Cukor movie which was nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture, winning two statues (Best Actress and Best Production Design), you absolutely must. Ingrid Bergman is magnificent as the woman at the center who is being gaslit by her new husband; Yes the term originated here... or here adjacent since this hit movie was based on a 1938 stage play of the same name. We discussed this movie on a lively Smackdown since Angela Lansbury was also nominated in Supporting Actress. 

In related news we're really worried about HBOMax. It's BY FAR the best mainstream steeaming service in existence since they show major classics from all eras on the regular (which no other mainstream service does). But with everything going on with Warner Brothers / Discovery... who knows how long this will last? The Criterion Channel is great but it would be terrible if it was the only option for classic movie lovers (since they're selections lean towards the esoteric, highbrow, international, and auteur niches. All great niches, don't misunderstand, but still niches and there should be something for everyone out there.

Hey, get out of here!

Belle (2021) on HBOMax *streaming premiere*
If you haven't yet seen this visual and sonic wonder from Mirai's Mamoru Hosoda, you should. The story is convoluted and it's probably too long by 15 minutes but the Academy really should have been bopped on the head last season for neglecting it in the Best Animated Feature race. (Raya and the Last Dragon really didn't need that honor!). Not that the film did itself any favors with that extremely typical high risk strategy of not really showing up until a couple of months until the following year.

It's got nothing to do with Satan, mama. 

CARRIE (1976) on Shudder
Shudder is featuring a "Stephen King Collection" this month of which the crown jewel is most definitely Carrie, Brian de Palma's menstruating masterpiece of telekinetic massacres. As for this moment we landed on in Streaming Roulette, don't you miss when fundamentalist religious types were most definitely *not* part of the mainstream but something to be feared / ridiculed given all the trauma they enthusiastically disperse in every direction ? 

[Dramatic music playing]

THE GRAY MAN (2022) on Netflix
Reviewish: This new action film took quite a critical drubbing. Did it deserve it? Not really but the Russo brothers are hard-to-miss targets at the moment due to the pervasive not entirely incorrect feeling that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which made them famous) has decimated adult film culture. Is this is a misunderstood action flick then? Nope! Listen, The Gray Man is no masterpiece but neither is it terribly inept filmmaking (like say, Jurassic World Dominion). There are a couple of really fun setpieces and at 122 minutes it is unexpectedly concise (in terms of this era's more-is-more running time practices). Ryan Gosling, Ana De Armas, and Chris Evans all seem remarkably invested, too, which counts for something in disposable genre pieces and Aflre Woodard and Kollywood star Danush are both lively and extremely watchable in small roles. Yet everytime I want to argue that "no, this is actually good!" some extremely stupid bit (character beats, gaping plotholes, dumb backstory, sloppy choice)  rears up in memory and the defense collapses. C+?

[Dramatic music playing]

FACE/OFF (1997) on Amazon Prime
John Travolta and Nicolas Cage are  both such uneven actors but when they're on as movie stars... they're on! True story: I haven't seen this movie since the tail end of the 90s but I remember it being great camp fun which Nick's recent celebration convincingly confirms. 

🎵 A eux deux ils forment | Le gang Barrow | Leurs noms
Bonnie Parker et Clyde Barrow
Bonnie and Clyde

NOT OKAY (2022) on Hulu
Matt just reviewed this here  but thought it paled in comparison to the similarly themed Ingrid Goes West. But I really liked writer/director Quinn Shepard's debut feature Blame (2017) which I wrote about when it played Tribeca so I should definitely watch this. Fun trivia: Shepard and her co-star in Blame Nadia Alexander (who also appears in Not Okay) started dating after that first film and are now engaged!. Personal trivia note: The song that's playing where our scrollbar stopped in Not Okay above is a French pop song my Francophone ex-boyfriend used to obsess over and I hadn't heard it in years; what a memory jolt when I hit play. 

Freeze! We've got the place surrounded.

SPIDERMAN TRILOGY (2002-2007) on Netflix
It's always a shock when Netflix has a curation moment (maybe happens once a year?) and delivers a whole set of movies, in this case Sam Raimi's mostly still beloved trilogy about the webslinger. They hold up via their simplicity of purpose and stakes, strong direction (Sam Raimi), and earnest performances. They also accidentally illuminate what we've lost in the modern superhero genre wherein the stories all got needlessly complex, less and less visually interesting, and are now mandated to involve several movies, franchises, and easter eggs, within each picture. We recently discussed Spider-Man 2 right here. 

ADOPTION (1975) on Criterion Channel
This seminal Hungarian film by Márta Mészáros became the first film from a female director to win the Golden Bear at Berlinale after which Hungary submitted it as their annual Oscar play (it was not nominated). It's recently been restored which is how we managed to see it last year. It's a hard-eyed but involving look at a childless woman in 1970s Hungary who wants to adopt and a willful teenager she meets who lives nearby in an orphanage with other wards of the states. And it's under 90 minutes, the best kind of lost classic!


What is streaming in August? 

★ indicates movies or series of note though sometimes hidden gems have no buzz until you see them.
🔸 Indicates that the movie was Oscar-nominated in some category or another

 

also new on Netflix in AUGUST

 

Later this Month (a sampling)

 

 

 

★🔸COLLECTIONS now streaming on Criterion Channel

Other individual films streaming

Later this Month - a Sampling

 

 

 

also streaming in AUGUST

later this month - a sampling

 

Caution: Prime tends to be the least accurate service in terms of what internet listings report as available and what is actually available. So consider this "supposedly streaming on Prime" in our experience many of them will be rentals rather than Prime offerings or require an "add-on" to view but we haven't yet determined how to find an accurate listing...

later this month - a sampling 

 

 

later this month - a sampling

 

streaming in August

later this month - a sampling

 

 

later this month -a sampling 

 

also streaming 

later this month - a sampling

 

also streaming in August

  • 1 Buck (2017)
  • 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
  • 5 Star Day (2010)
  • ★🔸A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
  • 🔸A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
  • Aaron's Blood
  • Acid Horizon
  • Already Gone
  • Alright Now
  • Anguish
  • Any Day
  • Assimilate
  • Awakened
  • ★ Baby Boom
  • Bad Frank
  • Bad Therapy
  • Basic
  • Battle Scars
  • ★ Beautiful Girls
  • Before Midnight
  • Big Brother Volcano
  • Bridget Jones's Baby
  • ★🔸 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • Cake
  • Clockstoppers
  • Derek's Dead
  • Dimland
  • Dinner For Schmucks
  • Don't Click
  • Dora and the Lost City of Gold
  • Downhill Racer
  • Escape From Alcatraz
  • Evil Dead
  • The Exorcism of Emily Rose
  • ★ Face/Off
  • The Feels
  • Follow the Prophet
  • Friday The 13th – Part II
  • Friday the 13th – Part III
  • Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
  • Getting to Know You
  • Goodbye, Butterfly
  • Grand Cru
  • ★🔸 The Graduate
  • ★ Grease
  • ★ Grease Live!
  • Happy Yummy Chicken
  • Hardball
  • Here On Out
  • I Am A Ghost
  • I Like Me
  • I've Got Issues
  • Iceland is Best (2020)
  • Insight
  • International Falls
  • Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
  • Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero
  • Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain
  • The Killer Elite (1975) - James Caan movie
  • King of Knives
  • Kingpin
  • Letter from Masanjia
  • Lost and Found
  • Lost Bayou
  • Making Waves
  • Man From Reno
  • McLintock! (Producer's Cut) - John Wayne & Maureen O'Hara western
  • The Middle of X
  • Neil Young: Heart Of Gold
  • Never Heard
  • New Money
  • Obey
  • ★🔸Once
  • ★ Once Upon A Time In The West
  • One and the Same
  • Paradox Lost
  • Perfect Sisters
  • ★ Planes, Trains and Automobiles
  • Prophecy
  • Respite
  • ★ River's Edge
  • Rockaway
  • ★ Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
  • Scrapper
  • Shooter
  • 🔸 The Shootist (1976)
  • ★ Single White Female
  • Still Today
  • Surrogate Valentine
  • The Wrong Todd
  • The Yards
  • ★🔸 There Will Be Blood
  • To Tokyo
  • Trail of Ashes
  • Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
  • Trickster
  • Trigger
  • Two Ways Home
  • Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
  • Urban Cowboy
  • Varsity Blues
  • Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
  • Weepah Way for Now
  • Wild Honey Pie!
  • ★ Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!
  • Writer's Block

later this month

 

FINAL FOREVER NOTE You may notice that there are several films repeating across platforms. We're never sure exactly why this is except for that perhaps studios lazily bundle various movies from their catalogues for streaming rights and everyone buys the same bundles? Or perhaps it's due to so many streaming services being part of conglomerates. It's a pity there's not more variety and no curation outside of the purposefully servicing a niche audience like Criterion Channel and Shudder.

* People never believe this but it's true. The only exceptions are when the image is too fast to look good in still frame (we usually use a gif in those cases) or if it's too transitional (dissolves, fadeouts, etcetera) or an establishing shot of a building or something... 

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