Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
André Is an Idiot (Tony Benna)
There is an unbridled honesty to André Is an Idiot that is admirable, even if all of it doesn’t really work. It’s a simple, stark subject for a documentary: accomplished advertising creative André Ricciardi neglected to get a colonoscopy at the recommended age and when he finally did get one he learned he had Stage 4 Colon Cancer. In response to this death sentence, André decided to make a film about dying. It’s a bold idea, reflective of many of his ideas for commercials and otherwise. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Deep Water (Renny Harlin)
Returning to shark-infested waters a quarter-century after Deep Blue Sea became a cable TV-turned-streaming mainstay, Renny Harlin’s Deep Water feels born from another era, for better or worse. With an ensemble stocked with cardboard yet earnestly crafted archetypes and thrills tightly doled out in simple, roller-coaster structure fashion, this airplane-disaster-meets-shark-thriller could be slotted into a late-night TV lineup and, perhaps outside of its too-clean digital sheen, be mistaken for a rediscovered relic from another time. This back-to-basics homage to disaster pictures of the 1970s has a modest charm, elevated by Harlin’s brisk direction, even if there is little that makes a lasting impression. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Eno (Gary Hustwit)
A film of infinite possibilities thanks in part to a generative AI hook, Gary Hustwit’s Eno is partially a straightforward biopic featuring interviews and archival footage with composer Brian Eno, the experiential musician and artist whose credits include playing the synthesizer in Roxy Music to creating the start-up sound for Windows PCs. The film is assembled at random, with a set beginning and ending, inspired seemingly by a deck of “Oblique Strategies” cards that Eno and David Bowie used to create tension and contractions within their collaborations. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Collection
Finnegan’s Foursome (Edward Burns)
Edward Burns’ new film is a first for the filmmaker: a sports movie! When the golf pro patriarch (Ian McElhinney) of the Finnegan family passes away, his two sons (Burns and Brian d’Arcy James) decide to keep alive the tradition of the annual Finnegan’s Cup, including their kids (Erica Hernandez, Brian Muller) in the contest. Comedy and catharsis ensue, along with some stunning cinematography of lovely, green Ireland. As with much of Burns’ work, this is a playful, charming film that’s got its heart in the right place. – Dan M.
Where to Stream: VOD
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (Gore Verbinski)
From the moment Sam Rockwell busts into a full diner clad in what can only be described as a do-it-yourself time-travel outfit comprising steampunk gadgets covered with a filthy clear raincoat, it’s clear you’re not in for a movie made by committee. What begins as a possible hostage situation quickly turns into a quest to save all of humanity from a rogue AI that is on the brink of total human takeover––if you can believe a word coming out of Rockwell’s mouth, among them a complicated scenario involving resetting the timestream with a very specific combination of companions pulled from this very diner. If he picks the right group of people, perhaps humanity can be saved. If not, he’ll just have to try again and again and again until he gets it right. – Eric V. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu, Disney+
How to Make a Killing (John Patton Ford)
John Patton Ford’s sophomore feature rides the wave of its clever lead from first shot to last, cool and confident that everything will work out in his favor no matter how pitted the odds are against him. The writer-director behind Emily the Criminal introduces us to the ever-smirking Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) in a prison cell where he laments, with a smile, that he ordered vanilla ice cream despite being brought chocolate before embarking upon a feature-length voiceover that begins with the chronicling of how someone with such a stately name (and history) ended up in such an unfortunate situation. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (Joel Alfonso Vargas)
An impressive directorial debut and true New York tale, Joel Alfonso Vargas’ Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) was a selection at Sundance, Berlinale, New Directors/New Films, BFI London, and more film festivals last year. Starring Juan Collado, Destiny Checo, Yohanna Florentino, and Nathaly Navarro, following its theatrical release this spring, it’s now available digitally.
Where to Stream: VOD
The Last One for the Road (Francesco Sossai)
It doesn’t take long to work out where you are in The Last One for the Road––for the backroads of Veneto, Italy, Francesco Sossai’s delightful new movie has the unmistakable specificity of a life spent there. What you instead start to wonder is the when of it all. The protagonists are a pair of rogues in their 50s––one of whom, Doriano (Pierpaolo Capovilla), wears a shirt the color of a tobacco stain, the other, Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano), a style of bushy mustache I’ve rarely seen onscreen since Bruno Ganz sported a similar one in The American Friend. Only after stumbling into a group of Gen Z students––the most visible dressed in the headgear of an Egyptian goddess––late at night along a Venice canal do we realize that our heroes exist in the here and now. If it wasn’t for their innate knack for catching last orders, regardless of the watering hole, you’d almost call them men out of time. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Pressure (Anthony Maras)
Can you make an engaging film about predicting the weather? Pressure, directed by Anthony Maras, answers this question in the affirmative. Set mere days before D-Day is set to commence, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) needs an accurate forecast to ensure the operation will go as planned. The film’s stark opening minutes portray the vicious aftermath of Operation Tiger, a D-Day training exercise gone horribly wrong only months earlier. Hundreds of American soldiers were killed by friendly fire after some deadly miscommunication. We find Eisenhower steadfast but shaken, surrounded by British generals who believe they can do a better job leading the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) to victory. Damian Lewis represents this feeling in his outsized portrayal of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of all D-Day land forces. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Two Pianos (Arnaud Desplechin)
The past rears its not-so-ugly head in Two Pianos, Arnaud Desplechin’s latest film exploring the ways gorgeous people make an even bigger mess out of the messiness of life. Set amidst the world of classical music in Lyon, this tale of a tortured pianist’s reunion with his also-tortured first love contains the literary and melodramatic elements one normally expects from Desplechin, who––having not received a theatrical release since 2017’s Ismael’s Ghosts––has unfortunately fallen out of favor in the U.S. That’s not the case in his home country, where he’s maintained a prolific output that continues attracting some of France’s top actors. With Two Pianos he’s put together a rich, thoughtful look at how we can shape our lives around our biggest regrets. – C.J. P. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Wizard of the Kremlin (Olivier Assayas)
Following up one of his smallest-scale films, Suspended Time, Olivier Assayas’ latest is the epic political drama The Wizard of the Kremlin, based on Giuliano da Empoli. Starring Jude Law as Vladimir Putin alongside Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Tom Sturridge, Will Keen, and Jeffrey Wright, Savina Petkova said in her Venice review, “Audiences resisted Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice because they feared the idea of Donald Trump being a movie’s protagonist, but never in its runtime does The Wizard of Kremlin show any ambivalence towards its main character. Without daring to question Baranov as a narrator, Assayas’ film consents to be interpreted as cynical. Because what is it, if not cynical, to insist on turning a chain of events that are still unfolding into a compact story? We may be used to recognizing films that fetishize something through their form, but we seemingly need to be wary of a content-fetish too.”
Where to Stream: VOD
Yes (Nadav Lapid)
Tel Aviv native, defector, and auteur Nadav Lapid opens his fifth feature in a catastrophic state of carouse. A filmmaker known for his employment of trademark dance sequences, Lapid is back with an equally visceral but uncharacteristically clubby groove in Yes, a work whose sarcastically enthusiastic title points to the relentless ridicule and hometown mockery that defines it. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
Also New to Streaming
Kino Film Collection
Queen Kelly
MGM+
Project Hail Mary
MUBI
God is Shy
Inspector Ike
Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press
Freak Orlando
Ticket of No Return
The post New to Streaming: Two Pianos, The Last One for the Road, Pressure, The Wizard of the Kremlin & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
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