Streaming Roulette, September ...now with Criterion Channel! 
Sunday, September 1, 2019 at 11:28AM
NATHANIEL R in American Psycho, Billy Baldwin, Darling, Julie Christie, Lord of the Rings, Sharon Stone, Sliver, The Dark Crystal, The Jungle Book, streaming

As is our practice we've selected a handful plus of new-to-streaming titles and frozen them at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!). After those selections we've listed all the movies from each of the streaming channels. What should you queue up for SEPTEMBER 2019 ?(★ means we definitely recommend catching them.)

OH and also we're very excited to announce that we have added THE CRITERION CHANNEL to this monthly roundup because good god but it's worth the money. Ready? Here we go...

Boy. Boy. Will you come with me?

Jungle Book (1942) on Criterion Channel
True embarrassing story: I've never seen this Korda brothers film which was the first complete movie adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's book (though there were earlier films using portions of it) and it's got to be better than the subsequent versions, nearly all of which I have seen of this oft-regurgitated story. It was nominated for four Oscars: Cinematography (losing to Black Swan though this image above makes me want to restart our Hit Me With Your Best Shot series), Art Direction (losing to My Gal Sal), Special Effects, and Score

Anyway, this is the finish. Me and showbiz. 

Darling (1965) ★ BEST ACTRESS OSCAR WINNER
Oh Julie. You say that but you never really mean it. Or at least we hope you never really mean it. You have been gone for way too long this last bout of retirement though (7 years now, noooo). COME BACK TO THE MOVIE THEATER, JULIE CHRISTIE JULIE CHRISTIE.

Why don't you come over here with me and lie down?

Sliver (1993)
You don't have to ask us twice Billy Baldwin!!! Remember this quick follow up to Basic Instinct (1992) with Sharon Stone involved with her pervy voyeuristic landlord? We miss the long-dead genre of the erotic thriller and really wish they'd have a comeback. Imagine how much sexier these movies could be now that there's more understanding of the male gaze and we might get a movie that's more gazey for everyone. Baldwin was that rare actor that could (theoretically) match Sharon Stone's florid sexual heat onscreen but the camera is mostly content to ogle just her save for a few random shots like this one, where the movie considers being horny for the both of them simultaneously before quickly retreating.

This task was appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) on Netflix
Galadriel's french tips! I used to argue that this was the best of the LotR trilogy but now many moons later they all truly blur together like one season of a really expensive fantasy show. I don't remember them well at all. Fair or not the existence of the The Hobbit trilogy really dampened enthusiasm for these as classics. At least chez moi but I suspect chez others, too. 

Disaster!

Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (season 1) on Netflix
A bit puzzled by the breathless raves thus far. On the visual imagination scale it's a wonder (thankfully) but for one small detail: it's perplexing that the pilot introduces us to three separate important female gelflings of roughly the same age from three separate tribes. They're ALL blonde with the same hairdo! This seems akin to those CW or WB shows back in the day where every girl would be a brunette with the same-ish hairdo. What gives? You want your characters to read visually as their own entities! Since the gelflings faces aren't super expressive (puppetry limitations) this reads like a significant misstep. At first I chalked it up to "well, perhaps all female gelflings are blonde in the same way that all female gelflings have wings... only to then notice in the crowd scenes that gelflings come in multiple hair colors. Curious. And perhaps I'm a purist (i grew up on an obsessed over the 1982  The Dark Crystal and was briefly convinced I was going to grow up to be a puppeteer) but I don't like the change in narrative that the Skeksis are from another planet... and that their appear to be no "mystics" or UrRu, their polar opposite counterparts in the film, as those singing/droning pacificist were my favourites from the original film. Both of these details disrupt the otherwise very bold and not at all subtextual liberal politics about the opressive evil of the ruling class and the way the general populace works against their own interests having been hoodwinked by those in power. If the ruling class are aliens and not distortions brought on by our own basist instincts, it kills some of the power of the messaging. But I'm only one and a half episodes in so perhaps it improves rapidly?

I don't like checks. 

The Amityville Horror (1979) on Hulu
For some reason, as a non-horror-buff, I was under the impression that this was a major classic so I was surprised to read in Jason's well received new series "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" that this film isn't very good. It must have been the box office success (the second biggest hit of its year, behind just Kramer vs Kramer) confused for quality. But love this random streaming roulette shot we landed upon with Margot Kidder peaking through the door at an altercation between her husband and someone he owes money.

-Where did Craig go?

- Well Gorbachev is downstairs. So McDermott went to sign a peace treaty between the United States and Russia.

American Psycho (2000) on Netflix
This is the "What do you do? / Murders and Executions, mostly" scene. It's so easy to forget how loaded the American Psycho cast is (Witherspoon, Dafoe, Theroux, Leto, Sevigny, Josh Lucas who they're talking about in the dialogue above, etcetera) when Christian Bale's indelible Patrick Bateman hogs so much of the cultural real estate. If you ever doubt the ability of a movie you happen to love at the moment that other people don't care about to become an inarguable classic later on, just think of this one and have hope. It was only a modest success in theaters, received mixed reviews, and no major awards play (an NBR special citation, an OFCS nomination for Bale and of course some Film Bitch citations right here but that was about the extent of it) and much of the discourse was about how it would have been a bigger hit if Leonardo DiCaprio hadn't bailed. (The latter is probably true and also utterly beside the point as it would not have become the classic it is without the magic combo of Mary Harron in the director's chair and Christian Bale staring into the abyss of Patrick Bateman's reflection.) And now look at it. Everyone knows it. Quite a lot of people love it. And it's mostly way more people than any of the Best Picture nominees or blockbusters from that year now.

ALSO STREAMING IN SEPTEMBER...

 

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We've found from months of doing this that the Amazon Prime listings provided are the least accurate in terms of what's actually available for free with a membership so take some of the titles with a grain of salt. 

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