Streaming Roulette, July: No 7 Cherry Lane, Tomorrow War, Summer of Soul

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

• The 8th Night
• Air Force One
• Audible
• Austin Powers (all three movies)
• The Best of Enemies
• Big Timber
• Boogie Nights
• Born to Play
• Brick Mansions
• Bureau of Magical Things (Season 1)
• Cat People (Docuseries Season 1)
• Charlie’s Angels
• Congo
• Dennis the Menace
• Dogs (season 2)
• Dynasty Warriors
• Elite (Season 4)
• Fear Street Pt 1: 1994
• The Game
• Generation 56k
• Hampstead
• Haseen Dillruba
• I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (season 2)
• The Karate Kid (all three movies)
• Kung Fu Panda (both movies)
• Life as We Know It
• Love Actually
• Major Grom: Plague Doctor
• Mary Magdalene
• Midnight Run
• The Mire '97
• Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway
• Mortal Kombat (1995)
• Mortel (Season 2)
• No Strings Attached
• Not Another Teen Movie
• Ophelia
• Sailor Moon Crystal (Seasons 1-3)
• She’s Out of My League
• Snowpiercer
• Spanglish
• Star Trek
• The Strangers
• Stuart Little
• Supermarket Sweep (Season 1)
• Sword of Trust
• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• This Little Love of Mine
• Underworld (three movies)
• War Next Door
• We the People
• What Dreams May Come
• Why Do Fools Fall in Love
• Wish Dragon
• Young Royals
• You are My Spring
• Zathura: A Space Adventure

later this month

• Home Again, Midnight Sun, Atypical (Season 4), Fear Street Parts 2 and 3, Virgin River (Season 3), American Ultra, Gunpowder Milkshake, Never Have I Ever (Season 2), The Beguiled, Deep, Twilight (all movies), Sexy Beasts, Django Unchained, The Flash (Season 7), Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, Masters of the Universe: Revelation

 

COLLECTIONS streaming on Criterion Channel

• Carole Lombard: First Lady of Screwball (11 films including My Man Godfrey and Nothing Sacred)
• Neo Noir (27 films including Across 100th Street, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Blow Out, Body Double, Swoon, and Brick)
• Paul Muni (8 films including Scarface, Black Fury, The Story of Louis Pasteur)
• Queersighted: Breaking Taboos (10 queer films including Poison, Cruising, and Freak Orlando)
• World of Wong Kar Wai (7 films and 2 shorts)

Individual films also streaming on Criterion Channel

• Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
• Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer
• A Bigger Splash
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
• Hoop Dreams (1994)
• Othello (1951)
• A Room With a View (1986)
• Slacker (1991)

later this month

• American Movie (1999), Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Clockwatchers (1997), Preparations to be Together for a Unknown Period of Time (Hungary's Oscar submission 2020), You Will Die at 20 (Sudan's Oscar submission 2020), and four films by Chris Marker.

also streaming on Hulu

• 127 Hours (2010)
• 28 Days Later (2003)
• 28 Weeks Later (2007)
• 68 Kill (2017)
• A Ciambra (2018)
• The Adventures of Hercules (1985)
• Almost Human (2014)
• Alpha & Omega: Legend of the Saw Toothed (2014)
• American Gun (2005)
• An Acceptable Loss (2019)
• Australia (2008)
• Bad Teacher (2011)
• Band Aid (2017)
• Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest (2011)
• Beetlejuice (1988)
• The Best Man (1999)
• Better Living Through Chemistry (2014)
• Big Fish (2003)
• Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
• Bitter Harvest (2017)
• Blue Sky (1994)
• Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
• Breakdown (1997)
• Bruno (2009)
• Caddyshack (both movies)
• Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999)
• Carnage Park (2016)
• Caveman (1981)
• Chaplin (1992)
• Chuck (2017)
• The Chumscrubber (2005)
• Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2017)
• Cliffhanger (1993)
• The Condemned (2007)
• Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)
• The Conversation (1974)
• Coyote Ugly (2000)
• The Cured (2018)
• Dangerous Minds (1995)
• Dealin’ With Idiots (2013)
• Dealt (2017)
• Dear White People (2014)
• Dreamcatcher (2021)
• Donnybrook (2019)
• Dumb & Dumber (both movies)
• Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (2014)
• Eliminators (2016)
• Enemy at the Gates (2001)
• The Face of Love (2014)
• Factotum (2006)
• Fargo (1996)
• The Feels (2017)
• Fired Up! (2009)
• Foxfire (1996)
• Frank Serpico (2017)
• Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)
• Free to Run (2016)
• From Paris with Love (2010)
• Galaxy Quest (1999)
• The Gift (2000)
• Gimme the Loot (2013)
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
• Gone Girl (2014)
• Gorp (1980)
• Graduation (2017)
• Grandma (2015)
• Hellions (2015)
• Hideaway (1995)
• House of the Dead (2003)
• House of the Dead 2 (2006)
• The House That Jack Built (2018)
• Housesitter (1992)
• I Daniel Blake (2017)
• I Do…Until I Don’t (2017)
• I Remember You (2017)
• Ice Age (2002)
• In The Cut (2003)
• Indignation (2016)
• Intermission (2004)
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
• Johnny English (2003)
• Knowing (2009)
• The Ladies Man (2000)
• Last Days Here (2012)
• Leave No Trace (2018)
• Let’s be Evil (2016)
• Manic (2013)
• The Mask (1994)
• Maximum Risk (1996)
• Mercury Rising (1998)
• Morning Glory (2010)
• The Natural (1984)
• Ode to Joy (2019)
• Open Range (2003)
• Open Water (both movies)
• Passage to Mars (2017)
• Personal Shopper (2017)
• The Polar Express (2004)
• Rabid Dogs (2016)
• Rebel in the Rye (2017)
• Reno 911!: Miami : The Movie (2007)
• Revolutionary Road (2008)
• Robocop (all three movies)
• Rookie of the Year (1993)
• Seabiscuit (2003)
• Shelley (2016)
• Sightseers (2013)
• Sleeping With The Enemy (1991)
• Sleepwalkers (1992)
• Soldier Boyz (1995)
• Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
• Somewhere (2010)
• Sorority Row (2009)
• Space Jam (1996)
• Stand by Me (1986)
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
• Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift (1990)
• The Stepfather (2009)
• Stonewall (2015)
• Stray (2020)
• Sunshine (2005)
• Super Troopers (2002)
• Sweet Virginia (2017)
• Taffin (1988)
• Take Every Wave (2017)
• Take Shelter (2011)
• Taken (2009)
• The Terminator (1984)
• They Came Together (2014)
• Thunderheart (1992)
• Timeline (2003)
• Tooth Fairy (2008)
• Twisted (2004)
• Underworld (all movies)
• Universal Soldier (1992)
• The Unknown Girl (2017)
• Walking Tall (1973)
• Whip It (2009)
• White Nights (1985)
• William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996)
• Wolves (2017)

later this month

• Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Moffie, 47 Meters Down, Bullhead, Pieta, The Artist

also streaming on Prime...

• 30 Days Of Night (2007)
• 30 Minutes Or Less (2011)
• Abduction (2016)
• Absence Of Malice (1981)
• Across The Universe (2007)
• Alien (1979)
• An Education (2009)
• Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid (2004)
• Awakenings (1990)
• Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest (2011)
• Big Fish (2003)
• Burlesque (2010)
• Crimson Tide (1995)
• Fat Albert (2004)
• Frozen River (2008)
• Green Lantern (2011)
• Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967)
• Hellboy (2004)
• I, Robot (2004)
• Irrational Man (2015)
• Jack And Jill (2011)
• Julie & Julia (2009)
• Madeline (1998)
• Marie Antoinette (2006)
• Midnight In Paris (2011)
• Money Train (1995)
• Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)
• Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
• On The Waterfront (1954)
• Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)
• Open Season
• Patton (1970)
• Philadelphia (1993)
• Phone Booth (2003)
• Pinnocchio (2020)
• Premonition (2007)
• Ramona And Beezus (2010)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Riding In Cars With Boys (1988)
• School Daze (1988)
• Snatch (2001)
• Surf's Up ()
• The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland (1999)
• The Animal (2001)
• The Family Stone (2005)
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
• The International (2009)
• The Lady In The Van (2006)
• The Last King Of Scotland (2006)
• The Mask Of Zorro (1998)
• The Messengers (2007)
• The Stepfather (2009)
• The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002)
• To Rome With Love (2012)
• Underworld: Evolution (2006)
• Vertigo (1958)
• When A Stranger Calls (2006)
• Your Highness (2011)

later this month

• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day,  Our Friend, The Pursuit of Love (Season 1), El Cid (Season 2)

also streaming on Disney+

• Luca (2021)
• Sandlot (1993)
• Sandlot (2005)

later this month

• Black Widow (premiere pricing), Flicka, Loki (finale), We Bought a Zoo, Jungle Cruise (premiere pricing)

also streaming

• 8 Mile 
• All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 
• All Dogs Go to Heaven
• Behind Enemy Lines 
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes
• Bio-Dome 
• Black Panthers
• Blackhat
• Brubaker
• Cantinflas
• Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (Extended Version) 
• Cousins 
• Dark Water
• Darkness Falls
• Demolition Man
• Dirty Work 
• Disturbia 
• Doctor Who Holiday 2020 Special: Revolution of the Daleks
• Duplex 
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes 
• Eve’s Bayou
• Firestarter
• First
• For Colored Girls 
• For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada 
• Gandhi
• Ghost in the Machine
• The Good Lie 
• Gun Crazy
• House on Haunted Hill
• Identity Thief (Extended Version) 
• Ira & Abby
• Joe Versus the Volcano
• Laws Of Attraction 
• Let Him Go
• Lucky
• Maid in Manhattan
• Married to the Mob 
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• Mississippi Burning
• Monster-In-Law
• Mousehunt 
• My Brother Luca 
• Nancy Drew (Season 2)
• Planet of the Apes 
• Pleasantville
• The Prince of Tides
• Project X 
• The Punisher
• Punisher: War Zone
• Rambo (Director’s Cut)
• Reds
• Reservoir Dogs 
• The Return of the Living Dead 
• Return of the Living Dead III (Extended Version)
• Rounders (HBO)
• Saturday Night Fever (Director’s Cut)
• Scream (all 3 movies)
• Semi-Tough 
• The Sessions 
• Set Up 
• Shiva Baby (was supposed to start streaming today but hasn't shown up yet. hmmm)
• Snake Eyes 
• Staying Alive 
• Stuart Little
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• Tom and Jerry in New York (Max Original)
• Trick ‘R Treat 
• Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls 
• Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman 
• Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself 
• Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail 
• Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family
• Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion 
• Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too 
• The Watcher
• The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
• Westworld (1973) 
• White Chicks (Unrated & Uncut Version)
• The White Stadium
• Won’t Back Down 
• Zero Days 

later this month

• Gossip Girl, Human Capital, The Hunt, Tom & Jerry, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Empty Man, Freaky

Comments

[Amy Camus]

I loved Judas and the Black Messiah. The main fault for me was discovering how young the two protagonists really were. Both Kaluuya and Stanfield are excellent, but were at least ten years too old and looked it. I think Jesse Plemons also deserves a special shout out. That said, I found the film exhilarating and about fuckin' time. The state-sponsored massacre of the Black Panthers should have been made into a film 25 if not 50 years ago. The film was so incendiary and exciting, I practically wanted to go out and off a pig when I came out of the theatre. I'd rank it just behind Nomadland and The Father on my Best Picture ballot. Paul Raci is my choice for Supporting Actor.

Also Memoirs of Geisha gets an undeserved bad rap. Part of the problem were the expectations that the film - or its publicists - had set up as the front-runner for the Oscar, just begging for people to bring it down. Well, it wasn't the masterpiece it was promoted as. But just because it wasn't great doesn't mean it wasn't good. I thought it a very entertaining and intelligent mid-tier movie. People should enjoy it for what it is.

[Jesus Alonso]

OFF TOPIC...

"Encanto"'s trailer just dropped. Looks a lock for Animated Feature / Song / Score nominations (and maybe wins). One begins to wonder, for how many Oscars is going to be nominated Lin-Manuel Miranda... and how many he's going to win.

[Arlo]

Brokeback Mountain can have its cinematography Oscar if Santaolalla gives his to John Williams for his wonderfully moody score for Memoirs of a Geisha.

[StephenM]

I didn't really mind Kaluuya as supporting after I saw the film. It seemed more like Stanfield's story - he was the one pushing the plot into motion.

Stanfield as supporting seemed kind of silly though.

[Sawyer]

Chris Pratt is fast becoming his generation's Bruce Willis - an interesting actor that's also a boring action star.

[markgordonuk]

MOAG deserved it's Cinematography Oscar the film is a beauty.

More Julia please.

[thevoid99]

Memoirs of a Geisha was dull as fuck. I like Dion Bebe but it was overly-stylized as it should've gone to either Rodrigo Prieto for Brokeback Mountain or Chivo for The New World as those are standard bearers of mood and naturalism.

[Tom G]

Why would you show a clip and caption of the movie mentioning Hatsumoto and not show Gong Li? She was the best part of the movie. As i stated during the smackdown, she should have been nominated.

[NATHANIEL R]

Tom -- the gimmick of the series is i just show whatever comes up on the scroll bar randomly. ;) Gong Li is obviously the best part of the movie.

[Ryan T.]

Slightly un-related insofar that it's not mentioned above, but will you be talking about HBO Max's Genera+ion starring Martha Plimpton and Justice Smith? I think you praised it on twitter and the (imo great) finale just aired yesterday. More people should know about it!

[Jaragon]

Chris Pratt was more interesting when he had a dad bod and was funny

[NATHANIEL R]

Ryan T -- i mentioned it on our Emmy vodcast a couple of days ago but that's a good idea. It's such a great show.