NOW Streaming: What to watch this weekend
Doors Open, Toronto
I guess Doug Ford really wants to see Space Jam: A New Legacy in IMAX, huh?
If all goes as planned, this is our last weekend before most of Ontario moves to Step 3, and movie theatres will finally be able to reopen on Friday. Reduced capacity, but still: if you were hoping to see A Quiet Place Part II on a big screen, now you can! (Just make sure you avoid all the spoilers on social media when it drops on Amazon Prime Video Canada on Tuesday.)
But this is good news, and another step towards normal life from my perspective: I can’t wait to trudge back to a 10 am press screening with people I haven’t seen in almost a year, and find out whether the movie’s worth the trip. I know this is a streaming column, but I love movie theatres, and it’s been far too long since I’ve been to one. I want this for everybody. But we can still make the most of our home setups, right? Read on. I’ve got you covered.
Top streaming pick
Edgar Wright is one of my very favourite filmmakers, and the news that he was making a documentary about the band Sparks – a pair of brothers who’ve spent half a century making defiantly weird, amazingly catchy music, and who are reliably mistaken for British art-rockers when they’re actually operatic American popsters – was awfully exciting to me.
I only knew a few Sparks tracks, and knew nothing at all about Ron and Russell Mael. Other than Neko Case’s beautiful cover of Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth, I’ve only encountered their music in the soundtracks of British films, or on BBC’s 6 Music, which my wife listens to constantly. (So, yes, I did think they were English.) But now I know everything.
The Sparks Brothers, which played at Hot Docs and arrived as a premium VOD rental this week, is a two-hour-and-20 minute celebration of the Maels, moving chronologically through their decades of activity, and showing us just how unique their accomplishment has been. Wright speaks to both brothers at length, mixing their commentary into a wealth of archival footage and testimonials from their legion of famous fans, himself included.
It’s a playful, lively look at the tension between creative expression and commercial success, an issue Wright has surely considered in the course of his own career as the maker of Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World… all beloved cult films rather than blockbusters. And the music really is magnificent. You’ll see.
The Sparks Brothers is available as a premium VOD rental on Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play and other on-demand services.
Buried treasure on Netflix Canada
Want to spend an hour and a half in an escalating state of anxiety? It’s okay if you don’t, this last year or so has been anxious-making enough for a lot of people. But I’ve found horror movies to be a really good distraction during the pandemic, especially when they push into the darker corners of human nature. It’s a release valve of sorts: sure, I’m stuck at home with nowhere to go and nothing to do, but at least I’m having a better time than the people on the screen.
So let me introduce you to Saint Maud, a knockout debut from writer/director Rose Glass about faith, determination and the trial a young palliative-care nurse (Morfydd Clark) sets for herself in caring for a dying choreographer (Jennifer Ehle). She’s determined to save her patient’s soul. It does not go well at all.
Glass keeps the focus tight on Clark’s Maud, who we are led to understand has gone through some pretty heavy emotional stuff in recent years, coming out the other side by embracing religion. Her mission is helping people, which is great if they’re open to it; if they show signs of resistance, like Ehle’s Amanda… well, that’s going to be a problem. Amanda is both gay and an atheist; it’s unclear which of those facets Maud sees as the greater provocation. When the movie hit VOD earlier this year, I compared it to The Passion Of Joan Of Arc and Breaking The Waves – “films that present an unbending protagonist whose unshakable faith comes up against unyielding reality.” And if you ever wondered what a horror movie about religious ecstasy would look like, this is that. You won’t forget Saint Maud.
Here’s my interview with Rose Glass if you need a little extra encouragement.
Saint Maud is available to stream on Netflix Canada.
Double Feature by Nicole Dorsey
I saw Nicole Dorsey’s hypnotic first feature Black Conflux at TIFF in 2019, and I’ve been waiting nearly two years for it to get back in front of people; an examination of two young people on a collision course in 1987 Newfoundland, it’s vividly cinematic and queasily immediate in a way few movies are. So I reached out to Nicole to program this week’s double-feature, and she delivered a triple feature’s worth of recommendations.
Her first pick was Janicza Bravo’s brand-new Zola: “I had such a good time watching this film. Everybody brings their A-game to the screen, engulfing you into this wild Twitter story. Matched with Bravo’s mesmerizing direction and poppy editing, it’s well worth the watch. Plus, Nicholas Braun – Succession’s Cousin Greg – will have you happily cringe-laughing.”
For her second choice, Nicole suggests “something a bit more sobering: the Big Pharma doc The Crime Of The Century. I thought I understood the opioid crisis, but this film was eye-opening about its roots, and the family and corporation who purposely manufactured opioid addiction to sell drugs and make big coin. Your jaw will be on the floor when you see the parties they threw.”
And third? “Lastly, there’s A New Leaf. A 70s gem directed by Elaine May, starring both herself and Walter Matthau. I was shocked I hadn’t heard of this film earlier as it is definitely worth cult classic status.” (I think it gets overshadowed by The Heartbreak Kid, myself.) “Elaine’s quirky character and genius comedic timing are a perfect pairing with Matthau’s straight-man delivery. I’d highly recommend popping some popcorn and having a Sunday night in with this film.”
Zola is currently exclusively in theatres but coming to VOD soon; until then, you should check out Radheyan Simonpillai’s interview with the real Zola.
The Crime Of The Century is available to stream on Crave with a Movies + HBO subscription.
A New Leaf is available to rent or purchase on most VOD services, including Apple TV and Google Play.
And Black Conflux is available to rent on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Last chance to stream
This is a fairly dark edition of the newsletter, isn’t it? Maybe it’s the weather we’ve been having, all heavy and overcast. So I’d like to offer Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice to brighten up your weekend. Not only is it a nicely observed little dramedy about a New York City improv troupe that fractures when one of its members lands a gig on a popular TV show, but it’s filled with lively, charming performers like Keegan-Michael Key, who co-stars in next week’s Apple show Schmigadoon!, Gillian Jacobs, currently playing a key role in Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, and Kate Micucci, an all-purpose ensemble player who’s been voicing Velma in the most recent wave of Scooby-Doo cartoons, among other things.
Birbiglia’s in it as well, playing one of the comics left behind when Key’s Jack gets to join the cast of Weekend Live, a sketch comedy show that’s basically just Saturday Night Live with a different hat on. Tami Sagher and Chris Gethard are the other members of the troupe, as characters whose attitudes and circumstances will ring painfully true with anyone who’s spent any time among performers. Really, though, everyone is playing someone very specific: the grandstander, the stalwart supporting player, the emotional wild card, the human support animal. And the movie’s at its best when Birbiglia manoeuvres the characters into positions where their personalities are no longer complementary, and strands them there.
Okay, so maybe it’s a little dark. But “funny people dealing with complex emotional issues” still has the word “funny” in it, right? And Don’t Think Twice does keep its sense of humour, even as tensions mount and relationships fray. Give it a chance. And keep an eye on Gethard; he’s wily.
Don’t Think Twice is available to stream on Crave with a Starz subscription through July 31.
If you like this, you might like that
Have you caught up to Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move yet? A hard-boiled Detroit crime picture starring Don Cheadle as an ex-con trying to extricate himself from a very bad situation, it’s the director’s first film in decades to come close to the sharper edges of his 1999 masterpiece The Limey – which, thanks to various rights issues, has been rather hard to find for a while. But now it’s back in circulation as part of the Lionsgate catalogue, turning up on streaming services like Kanopy and Hoopla and looking better than it has in years. Which is my way of saying that you should really see The Limey.
How good is The Limey? I placed it above Out Of Sight and The Informant! as Soderbergh’s finest film a few years back, and nothing’s changed. Starring Terence Stamp as a British gangster named Wilson, arriving in Los Angeles to find out what happened to his daughter, it’s a straight-ahead revenge picture refashioned into a slippery, mordant study of a man with a moral code and the people who stand between him and his goal, thanks to Soderbergh reshuffling the movie’s chronology in post-production. Lem Dobbs’s screenplay originally unfolded in a straight line, but Soderbergh had other ideas, setting up a movie in which the past and present keep intruding on one another, with Stamp and Peter Fonda – as the quietly debauched record producer Terry Valentine, who knows more than he’s telling about Wilson’s daughter’s death – subtextually reckoning with their own history as 60s icons. And of all the perfectly finessed endings Soderbergh finds for his movies, The Limey has the best one. So, again: you should really see The Limey.
The Limey is available to stream for free on Hoopla and Kanopy, and also streaming on Amazon Prime Video Canada. It’s also available for rent or purchase on Cineplex.
No Sudden Move is available to stream on Crave with a Movies + HBO subscription.
Play us out
And here we are. If you need more reading, I can point you to NOW’s weekly streaming roundup, as well as my longer review of Black Widow, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I’d also like to leave you with a question: if you’re looking forward to returning to the megaplex, what are you going to see for your first trip back? Is it the Marvel movie, or the latest Fast & Furious picture? Space Jam: A New Legacy or The Forever Purge? I’m genuinely curious!
Please don’t bother with The Forever Purge. Life’s too short, and these movies are too long.
Email me at normw@nowtoronto.com if you’re so inclined, or hit me up on Twitter at @normwilner. And keep an eye on nowtoronto.com/movies for content throughout the week, of course.
And “Limey” has those casually brilliant soundtrack moments, dropping in (spoilers, but c’mon, it’s been 22 years) “King Midas in Reverse” and “Magic Carpet Ride”.