weekly digest: I review two documentaries, both Movies for the Resistance
everything that happened at Flick Filosopher from Monday, April 11th, to Sunday, April 17th
Apologies if you’re getting tired of me trying to drum up paid Substack subscriptions and Patreon patronage. Times are tough all around, including for your friendly neighborhood film critic. I’m doing my best to keep as much of my content free as possible: finding the balance between keeping some of it back and hoping that entices new supporters, and just letting everyone get everything and hoping that entices new supporters is absolutely nervewracking. I still haven’t found the right balance, and I’ll likely be messing around with that again soon.
But one thing my lovely readers can always do to support me at this racket — and it costs nothing! — is sharing my work as far and as wide as you can: on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, your WhatsApp groups, wherever you shout out to the world what you’ve been enjoying. It really does help! So if I’ve put you on to a film that you wouldn’t have known about otherwise, or helped you think about a movie that everyone’s talking about in a fresh way, please do let your friends know by dropping a link in your social media.
Thank you!
—MaryAnn
new at flick filosopher, Apr 11–17
new and ongoing cinema releases, US/Can, Apr 11–15
Fantasy adventure drama Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and science fiction drama Dual are new and exclusively in cinemas; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing cinema releases, UK/Ire, Apr 12–15
Historical religious drama Benedetta and World War II suspense drama Operation Mincemeat are new and exclusively in cinemas; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, US/Can, Apr 12–17
Adventure drama Infinite Storm and horror X are new on premium VOD; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, UK/Ire, Apr 11–15
Historical dramedy The Duke and French romantic drama Paris, 13th District are new on premium VOD; more… [get the full rundown]
Theirs Is the Kingdom documentary review: art is not a luxury
Lovely, gentle look at an artwork honoring the marginalized. A compassionate challenge to cultural assumptions, including those that decenter the poor and insist that art is a luxury, not a necessity. [read the review | streaming US/UK ]
weekend watchlist: a prophetic dystopia (that is also rather comforting)
This is a taste of my Weekend Watchlist emails, which go out on Fridays to my paid Substack and Patreon supporters. [read more]
Navalny documentary review: celebrating the biggest pain in Putin’s ass [pictured]
Spectacularly entertaining. As gripping, as suspenseful as a finely wrought fictional thriller; a sheer delight as a portrait of the man himself. Films don’t get much more daring or crucial than this. [read the review | cinemas + VOD UK; one-off Fathom Events screenings US last week, streaming coming soon ]
loaded question: what’s the best movie ever about magic?
Define magic however you like: could be supernatural magic, stage magic, or any other definition of the word you can defend. [reply at Flick Filosopher | reply at Substack | reply at Patreon]
what I’m bingeing
Call My Agent! Season 3 [Netflix globally except in Austria, Spain, Germany, and Portugal, for some reason]: this may be fictional, and verging on satirical, but it feels so true; it’s fantastic stuff if you’re any kind of fan of how the entertainment sausage gets made
Picard Season 2 [Paramount+ US; Amazon Prime UK]: this week’s episode feels like a filler, which I didn’t think was a thing anymore now that we don’t get 26 episodes a season…
Moon Knight [Disney+]: I love this show wonderful weirdness; it’s so unlike all the other Marvel stuff
Bridgerton Season 2 [Netflix globally]: didn’t get back to this in the past week… at least I don’t think I did; that I can’t recall is a mark of what fluff this series is (not that I mind that, it’s very welcome right now)
Old Enough! [Netflix US/UK/maybe other regions?]: in one of the many episodes I watched this past week, two five-year-olds clocked all the cameras they ran into on their errand together, highlighting the upper age limit for this show; one of the reasons it works so well is that the kids don’t know they’re being observed (their running monologues encouraging themselves are super cute)
Tweet of the week…
coming up at Flick Filosopher…
Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Oscar Best Picture CODA
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, for my sins
adventure comedy The Lost City
historical revenge drama The Northman
WWII drama Operation Mincemeat
Netflix’s Windfall
the Oscar-nominated short films
Deep Water, starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas
horror romance Fresh
Moonfall (new on PVOD in the US!)
time-traveling ghost story Last Night in Soho
Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical Belfast
based-on-a-videogame action-adventure Uncharted
(Deleted some titles here, but not cuz I won’t get to them eventually. The list was simply getting overwhelming!)
And more!
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