Streaming Roulette April: The Dirt, Monster House, and Now Apocalypse

As is our practice we've selected a couple handful of titles and frozen the films at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!) for this quick preview. At the bottom of the page, check out full listings for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and HBO for April 2019. And please do let us know if you're dying to discuss any of the films. Maybe we'll select one to write up? Okay, let's go...

Holy shit. Barnabas!

Now Apocalypse, Season 1 (2019) on Hulu (with Starz add-on)
Pictured there are the four leads of Now Apocalypse all of them gorgeous / funny / frequently naked in the first TV series from Gregg Araki of 1990s new queer cinema fame. Araki's preoccupations haven't changed much (or at all!)  since the 1990s. A twinkish lead with floppy dark hair? Check. Constant drug use? Sex. Filthy language and explicitly sexual humor? Check. A preoccupation with supernatural kinds of rape? Check. A dumb but impossibly sweet and sincere straight hunk? Check. Impossibly hip but somewhat chilly woman with black hair? Check. Sexual fluidity for every character even those with a pronounced label or gay or straight? Check. Slutty female best friend with most of the best lines? Check. End of the world fantasies and paranoia? Check. Older predatory queers in abundance? Check. Aliens or supernatural occurences? Of course! The show is way too repetitive in the early episodes (lots of flashbacks to previous episodes which is weird for streaming shows since you've literally usually just been watching what you're now flashing back to) but about halfway into the season the short episodes start  to come together in fun ways, including a hilarious and much smarter way of folding back in on itself with an in-series webseries, wherein the characters are reenacting the early episodes and playing themselves badly or being played unflatteringly by actors hired to play them. 

She never blinked during the interview.

Click to read more ...

On this day: Hemingway, Falconetti, Clueless, Dunkirk

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

Corey Stoll as Hemingway

1892 Maria Falconetti is born. Delivers one of the best performances ever captured on film thirty-six years later in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
1899 Famous author and real 'character' Ernest Hemingway is born. In addition to his work being made into films and TV miniseries he frequently pops up as a character in cinema played by everyone from Chris O'Donnell (In Love and War) to Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris - robbed of an Oscar nod though we honored him here) and now Dominic West (Genius) ...and that's not even the half of it.
1922 Don Knotts is born. Mugs it up in 70+ film and TV projects including Three's Company, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and The Andy Griffith Show - 5 Emmy wins for Supporting Actor thereafter until his death in 2006

1948 Steven Demetre Georgiu is born in London. He becomes the famous folk singer Cat Stevens of "Peace Train" and "Morning Has Broken" fame. Among his many early classics are the songs from the seminal 70s film Harold and Maude (which ridiculously received zero Oscar nominations). Later changes his name to Yusuf Islam and quits music for many years.
1951 Robin Williams is born
1953 Visual FX man John Nelson is born in Detroit. Gets his first FX gig with Terminator 2 (not a bad way to start) and wins the Oscar on his first nomination with Gladiator (2000)
1955 Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr is born. His best known pictures: Sátántangó, Werckmeister Harmóniák and The Turin Horse
1957 Jon Lovitz, SNL's "Master Thespian" and comic scene stealer of 90s pictures is born
1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to step on the moon; Stanley Kubrick is nowhere in the vicinity at the time.
1971 Charlotte Gainsbourg is born to famous parents in London. Later submits herself to perpetual Lars von Trier torments.
1978 Ridiculously fine looking actors Josh Hartnett and Justin Bartha are born
1981 Singer Paloma Faith is born in London. Plays herself in a weirdly unflattering role in Youth (2015)
1989 Juno Temple is born. Specializes in sexually corrupted childwomen.
1992 Jessica Barden is born. 2016's been a breakout year for her via  "Justine," a bloodthirsty prostitute on Penny Dreadful and her role as "Nosebleed Woman" in The Lobster 
1995 Clueless is 21 years old today. It can drink now though it's always given us a contact high. (Please note: IMDb lists the release date as Wednesday the 19th rather than Friday the 21st but Wikipedia disagrees so I don't know.)
2006 Monster House hits theaters. Receives a well deserved nomination for Best Animated Feature but loses to Happy Feet which... recount!

Well, whichever. At least Cars didn't win!

2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes to market in book form. Sells 11 million copies on the first day before being split in two in movie form to reap an extra billion at the box office.
2010 Orlando Bloom goes off the market when he secretly marries model Miranda Kerr
2017 Christopher Nolan abandons sci-fi for a WW II drama Dunkirk, which will open in theaters on this day. Guess he really is pissed about being denied a single Oscar nomination for directing.