What NOW critics are streaming
The King Of Staten Island
(Judd Apatow)
With his latest feature, producer/director Apatow turns his gift for finding the complex depths in a comic’s public persona onto Saturday Night Live player and frequent tabloid figure Pete Davidson. Davidson plays Scott Carlin, a young man trying to figure himself out while also coping with trauma, mental illness and substance abuse. And like its hero, The King Of Staten Island is a bit of a mess… but there’s something real in there that can’t be denied.
Co-written by Apatow, Davidson and SNL writer Dave Sirus, the film doesn’t push Davidson particularly hard as an actor Scott’s a wiseass with poor impulse control, spending most of his time with the friends he’s known forever – and occasionally sneaking off with Kelsey (Bel Powley), with whom he’s carrying on a secret relationship. When his widowed mother (Marisa Tomei) starts dating a fireman (Bill Burr), Scott launches a blatantly obvious campaign to break them up that’s really the closest the movie has to a plot. It’s shaggy and low-stakes, and probably 40 minutes too long, but you can say that about most of Apatow’s films. If you stick with it, it works. That’s all that really matters. 137 minutes. Available to rent on all digital platforms Friday, June 12. Read our full review here. NNN (NW)
But I’m A Cheerleader
(Jamie Babbit)
When But I’m A Cheerleader was first released in 1999, it was blasted by film critics for its kitschy aesthetic, and written off as John Waters-style junk. But those who have appreciation for camp know that anything that comes close to Waters is far from trash, which is how this film quickly became a cult standard. Starring Natasha Lyonne and her unique brand of eccentricity and directed by Jamie Babbit (who recently shot Lyonne in Russian Doll), it follows a cheerleader who gets sent to gay conversion therapy camp (where RuPaul is an “ex-gay” counsellor) by her parents when they begin to suspect she is a lesbian. After all, she’s a vegetarian who loves Melissa Etheridge! A razor-sharp satire that whimsically explores heteronormativity and sexual identity, But I’m A Cheerleader is singular in its approach – and hysterical. A queer classic as relevant as it was 20 years ago, it never speaks down to its audience. And through it all, manages to be an incredibly sweet rom-com. Waters would be proud. 85 minutes. Now streaming on Criterion Channel. NNNN (Sadaf Ahsan)
Da 5 Bloods
(Spike Lee)
Spike Lee has compared his latest joint to a gumbo, the Louisiana soup that mixes up all kinds of ingredients. Da 5 Bloods, which follows four Vietnam veterans as they set out to retrieve buried gold, is alternatively a war movie, a comedy, a melodrama, a caper and an angry look back at the devastation the U.S. has reaped on Black and Vietnamese bodies. Throwing every genre at the audience is nothing new for Lee. That tendency regularly gets the best of him, as with Da 5 Bloods, a bloated, ragged, rambling and occasionally careless movie where the tangents and observations are far more compelling than the whole. Lee doesn’t seem all that invested in the dull treasure-hunting aspect of Da 5 Bloods. That plot may ultimately be a vessel for incisive observations and footnotes about history, and powerful moments where Black soldiers must confront the tragedy of their presence in Vietnam, putting their lives on the line to kill people who were fighting the very fascism that oppresses them. 134 minutes. Premieres on Netflix Canada Friday, June 12. Read our full review here and an interview with Spike Lee here. NN (Radheyan Simonpillai)
Lenox Hill
(Adi Barash, Ruthie Shatz)
Documentarians Barash and Shatz – who’ve built a career producing and directing medical docs for Israeli television – bring their cameras and their total lack of squeamishness to the eponymous Manhattan hospital operation, which runs a surgical hospital on the Upper East Side and an emergency room in Greenwich Village. (The show was shot in 2018 and 2019, well before coronavirus surged through New York City.)
The story is told through the eyes of four doctors: John Boockvar and David Langer, neurosurgeons on the cutting edge of cancer care, chief OB/GYN resident Amanda Little-Richardson, who delivers babies while coping with her own complicated pregnancy, and ER physician Mirtha Macri, who functions as both doctor and counsellor for the disadvantaged and marginalized people of Lower Manhattan.
The storytelling is clean and fleet, Barash and Shatz making sure to present both their subjects and the people in their care as fully dimensional human beings, flawed but striving. They also understand exactly what drops into their laps when another member of the hospital staff gets a devastating diagnosis halfway through the series, shattering the veil of professional detachment and making Lenox Hill feel painfully, personally real. All eight episodes now streaming on Netflix Canada. Read our full review here. NNNN (NW)
Artemis Fowl
(Kenneth Branagh)
Given the general quality of Branagh’s directorial efforts – up to and including the big studio ventures like Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Murder On The Orient Express – the sheer mess of the YA fantasy adventure Artemis Fowl is genuinely shocking: he’s never made a movie this disjointed and ugly, with narrative rhythms so scattered and frantic. I suspect heavy post-production tampering, which would explain the compressed running time, the laboured voiceover from Josh Gad’s comic-relief thief, and the complete lack of a third act. (I’m also betting on reshoots intended to fill in the details of the magical underworld at the heart of Eoin Colfer’s mythology, which would explain why multiple characters are introduced to the viewer more than once.)
But even if there’s a longer cut somewhere that lets the story breathe and makes sense of the world, I doubt anything can overcome the void at the project’s heart: as the ostensibly brilliant young hero, newcomer Ferdia Shaw is a black hole, unable to find the character’s genius or to communicate the playfulness that’s absolutely essential to selling the adventure. He just comes off as a blank-faced sociopath, which is not a good look for a kid who’s trying to save the entire human race from an invasion of magical creatures.94 minutes. Premieres on Disney+ Friday (June 12). N (Norman Wilner)
What’s new to VOD
Available now
Infamous
Bella Thorne, Jake Manley, Amber Riley directed by Joshua Caldwell
The King Of Staten Island
Pete Davidson, Pamela Adlon, Kevin Corrigan directed by Judd Apatow
iTunes rental, Google Play rental
The Soul Collector
Garth Breytenbach, Tshamano Sebe, Inge Beckman directed by Harold Hölscher
The Surrogate
Jasmine Batchelor, Chris Perfetti, Sullivan Jones directed by Jeremy Hersh
Available June 16
Buffaloed
Zoey Deutch, Jai Courtney, Judy Greer directed by Tanya Wexler
iTunes pre-order, Google Play pre-order
My Father The Spy
Documentary directed by Jaak Kilmi and Gints Grube
iTunes pre-order
The Rest Of Us
Heather Graham, Jodi Balfour, Sophie Nélisse directed by Aisling Chin-Yee
iTunes pre-order, Google Play wishlist
Rogers Waters: Us + Them
Concert documentary directed by Sean Evans and Roger Waters
Google Play wishlist
The Short History Of The Long Road
Sabrina Carpenter, Danny Trejo, Maggie Siff directed by Ani Simon-Kennedy
iTunes pre-order
Shoot To Marry
Documentary directed by Steve Markle
iTunes pre-order
You Don’t Nomi
Documentary directed by Jeffrey McHale
iTunes pre-order, Google Play wishlist
Disc recommendation of the week
Columbia Classics: 4K Ultra HD Collection, Vol. 1
(Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K, available June 16)
What do Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, David Lean’s Lawrence Of Arabia, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, Penny Marshall’s A League Of Their Own and Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire have in common? Well, they’re six of the best-selling titles in the Columbia Pictures catalogue – and now they’re all available in exquisite new 4K editions in this handsome boxed set.
The black-and-white Mr. Smith and Strangelove crackle with new life, and while I’m obviously biased, the Lawrence Of Arabia upgrade is a particular dazzler, finally capturing the signature contrast of Peter O’Toole’s blue eyes against the sandscape that proved so iconic in the 70mm presentation. (That said, the added detail of Ultra High Definition does no favours for the Brownface makeup on Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn, an artifact of the early 60s that isn’t getting any better with age.)
The films are packaged with an 80-page hardcover book and accompanied by some 30 hours of supplemental material, most of it produced for earlier Blu-ray and DVD releases, although there is some new material here and there, like the international prologue for Lawrence – which is more of a curiosity than anything else – and three episodes of the first attempt to turn A League Of Their Own into TV series, with Carey Lowell and Sam McMurray in the Geena Davis and Tom Hanks roles. Those are curious, too.
