Movies to stream on Netflix, Foxtel Now, Stan this weekend
Two recent Aussie classics — the best local movie of 2018 and an apocalyptic zombie thriller set in the outback — top the must watch list this week. Here are the best (and worst) movies on your streaming sites.
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The best Australian movie of 2018 headlines this week’s streaming guide.
The claustrophobically compelling Sweet Country unfolds across wide open scrublands on the wrong side of Alice Springs.
There’s also an Aussie zombie flick set in the South Australian outback and the most recent offering from master director Martin Scorsese.
ONE OF THIS YEAR’S GREAT CRIME FILMS
MENDELSOHN SAVES NEW ROBIN HOOD MOVIE
The one that is Australian cinema at its best
SWEET COUNTRY (MA15+) *****
FOXTEL NOW
This world-class period drama is clearly the best Australian movie of 2018. If it doesn’t dominate at the AACTA Awards next month — for which Sweet Country drew 10 nominations — then there is something very wrong with the system. A claustrophobically compelling experience unfolds across wide open scrublands on the wrong side of Alice Springs.
The year is 1929, and the soft-spoken Aboriginal stockman is the most wanted man in the NT. As a blackfella who’s shot dead a whitefella, Sam has no choice but to make a run for it. No-one cares that psychopathic homesteader Harry March (Ewen Leslie), was about to kill him. Or that March had recently raped Sam’s wife. Justice, when it comes, will possibly only be for show, but certainly for keeps.
Not a frame, sound, look or gesture is out of place in this brutal, beautiful and bitterly insightful experience. Mark that down as two feature films for two undisputed masterpieces on the CV of filmmaker Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah). Co-stars Bryan Brown, Sam Neill.
The one that is Australian zombie cinema at its best
CARGO (MA15+) ***1/2
NETFLIX
This eerily effective Australian hybrid of zombie thriller and apocalyptic odyssey — now sitting exclusively on Netflix after a brief run in cinemas mid-year — deserves to be seen by a wide audience.
Martin Freeman stars as Andy, a man who has just 48 hours to deliver his infant daughter to safety before an irreversible infection strips him of his humanity forever. Much of Andy’s funereal journey across the South Australian outback is conducted on foot, while his chirpy little baby remains perched in a backpack, oblivious she is actually hanging on for dear life.
The film’s singular command of mood — always floating somewhere between the desolate and the delicate — is assuredly deployed by first-time directors Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling.
The one where tom hanks saves the day
BRIDGE OF SPIES (M) ****
GOOGLE, ITUNES
Tom Hanks stars as an American lawyer defending a Russian spy on treason charges as US-Soviet relations escalate towards the no-go zone in a divided Berlin in the 1960s.
A highly immersive drama which resonates strongly on both an intimately personal level — thanks to the potent screen chemistry of Hanks and co-star Mark Rylance as his despised client — and on a wider, political-historical scale. Yet another classy history lesson from master filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
The one that raises the baa
RAMS (M) ****
STAN
While devotees of world cinema should be all over this one, there is a local angle too: an Australian remake is coming out next year. A worthy winner of 2015’s Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, Rams’ subtle blend of bleak comedy and human drama is far more appealing than it first looks.
The story unfolds inside a close-knit sheep-farming community in the north of Iceland, where two brothers living on adjacent farms have not spoken to each other for over forty years. Who will be the first to thaw in this two-man Cold War?
The one so sad it’s good
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (M) *****
NETFLIX, FOXTEL NOW
A superbly written and acted American drama about grief. Lee (Casey Affleck, a Best Actor Oscar winner for this) is a handyman by trade, and a loner by choice. Something sad has happened to Lee in the past. Something that has widened and heightened his solitary nature.
Now his older brother has died, and Lee must reluctantly begin the process of settling his sibling’s affairs. There is just one item that cannot be scratched off Lee’s to-do list: the immediate welfare of his teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). This inspired, funny and emotionally authentic production extracts so many perfect moments from one man’s imperfect mourning process. Co-stars Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler.
The one that’s a quiet achiever
SILENCE (M) ***
NETFLIX, SBS ON DEMAND
Themes of faith, devotion, sin and salvation have been constant threads in master director Martin Scorsese’s cinematic DNA. Perhaps never more so than here. Alternately punishing and rewarding throughout, the story is set in a 17th century Japan ruthlessly repelling all attempts by the Catholic Church to perform conversions on their soil.
With thousands of priests already dead or missing, two young Portuguese priests (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) secretly journey inside the country to find out what has happened to a long-lost mentor (Liam Neeson). A long-term passion project for Scorsese that you really must be in the mood for (this ain’t no Wolf of Wall Street, that’s for sure!).
The one that has its art in the right place
BIG EYES (M) ***1/2
STAN
The art of Margaret Keane could never be accused of imitating life. Her signature style — morosely cloying portraits of small children about to weep with eyes triple their usual size — became a kitsch sensation in the 1960s.
However, in this absorbing, tragi-comic biopic from director Tim Burton, we experience a true story just as unworldly as those paintings. At the height of her works’ massive popularity, Margaret (subtly, yet strongly played by Amy Adams) discovered her shamelessly self-promoting husband Walter (another winning display from the great Christoph Waltz) had taken all the credit for himself.
The bizarre dysfunction afoot in the Keanes’ marriage brings the best out of Burton as a filmmaker, who knows he is working with sensational material here.
Originally published as Movies to stream on Netflix, Foxtel Now, Stan this weekend
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