weekend watchlist: the stunning movie about race in America that is both subversive and universal
plus a bonus Netflix recommendation!
Don’t spend hours scrolling the menus at Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other movie services. I point you to the best new films and hidden gems to stream.
Apologies for the extreme lateness of this weekend’s edition. I’ve been sick — not COVID, thank goodness — with a fever and an infection that required antibiotics, so I’ve spent the last 48 hours pretty much immobile and brain-fogged. (Maybe this will finally teach me not to leave everything for the last minute and prepare stuff like this in advance?) I’m on the mend now and able to focus enough to put this together for you.
But my misfortune is your small bonus. For here is an extra Weekend Watchlist recommendation for you: Queer Eye, the life-makeover series streaming globally on Netflix. As I said when I reviewed Seasons 1 and 2, this is:
The nicest, kindest critique of toxic masculinity imaginable. The makeovers aren’t only about new clothes and a haircut: they’re about men waking up to a new sense of self, and a new participation in their own lives.
I’ve been lying in bed binging Season 6 for the past two days, and it was exactly what I needed: distracting enough to keep me amused, but not too demanding. And its niceness and kindness were true palliatives.
Because the series is not a narrative, if you’ve never seen any episodes before, you can watch them in any order. You might even start with Series 6, because it deals with some of the emotional trauma of the pandemic, and work your way backward from that. (The Fab Five, as the makeover gang is known, are also making women over now more regularly than they did in the beginning, and they’ve figured out how to make that work when it didn’t quite at first.)
both sides of the pond
Actor Rebecca Hall makes a stunning debut as a writer and director with Passing, streaming globally on Netflix, and one of the best films of 2021.
This astonishing film, set in 1920s New York City, is the story of Irene (Tess Thompson), a Black woman whose life is upended when she reconnects with an old school friend, Clare (Ruth Negga), who is also Black but whom, Irene is surprised to discover, is passing for white. (One of Hall’s grandfathers was a Black man who passed for white, so she has a personal connection to the tale.)
This is a movie not only about race but also about class, motherhood, and marriage. It’s about how all the many things that are expected of us from the world become things we embrace, or push back against, or struggle to reconcile within ourselves. Which makes the bone-deep subversiveness of Passing also incredibly universal. (Read my review.)
US
HBO Max hidden gem
Some movies paint themselves into a corner. Buried opens there, with a man trapped in a rough wooden coffin. We don’t know who he is at first: all we know is that he’s bloodied, he’s gagged, his hands are bound, and he’s terrified. The entirety of this audacious, creepy, marvelously nail-biting film takes place within these tiny confines. This is a grueling cinematic experience — Ryan Reynolds makes the man’s terror so palpable it becomes unbearable — but a thrilling one. (Read my review.) Streaming on HBO Max. Also available for rent or purchase on Prime US and Apple TV US.
Prime hidden gem
Tilly Dunnage (Kate Winslet) is like a gunslinger riding back into her hometown in the Outback. Except the year is 1951, and she is armed only with a Singer sewing machine, her Parisian-inspired haute-couture style, and a superpowered ache for revenge. Australian genre-busting dramedy The Dressmaker — simmering with wit, pathos, humor, and calamity — is so entertaining, so unexpected, so wonderfully oddball, so damn good. (Read my review.) Streaming for members only on Prime US. Also available for rent or purchase on Apple TV US.
UK
leaving BBC iPlayer soon
If you’ve enjoyed the robust smashing of toxic masculinity that Netflix’s The Power of the Dog engages in (my review coming soon), then you might love 2018’s woefully overlooked The Sisters Brothers, French filmmaker Jacques Audiard’s first English-language film. This quirky crime drama, set in 1850s America, pits brother assassins (John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix) against the private detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) and the inventor (Riz Ahmed) who’ve teamed up on a very intriguing quest. Western-genre clichés of men as rough, damaged, and spreading their pain around get a thorough kicking, though not always in expected ways. Streaming on BBC iPlayer for 9 more days. Also available for rent or purchase on Prime UK and Apple TV UK.
Take a movie like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Starman, slow down its final act, and put its primary players under an emotional microscope: that’s what Midnight Special is doing. The always riveting Michael Shannon stars as a dad on the run with his very special young son from the religious cult that has some strange ideas about him, and from the government agent (Adam Driver) who has some urgent national-security questions for the kid. This is an intensely gripping drama — full of smart, thoughtful, personal twists on some familiar science-fiction ideas — about the driving forces of paranoia and self-preservation, but also about the power of love and hope. (Read my review.) Streaming on BBC iPlayer for 8 more days. Also available for rent or purchase on Prime UK and Apple TV UK.
find lots more movies to stream at Flick Filosopher
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