Leigh Paatsch previews the best movies to stream
TIRED of aimlessly trawling your streaming services for something to watch? Let Leigh Paatsch do the hard work for you. Here are the latest movies to stream this week.
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LEIGH Paatsch previews the best new movies on your streaming services this week.
THE WEEK OF
★ Netflix
SOME pundits believe Netflix will have shelled out in excess of 100 million bucks to be the home of Adam Sandler comedies by the time the polarising funnyman’s 8-picture output deal comes to an end in 2021.
If you end up watching the lot, you too will have paid a hefty price. With your sanity.
The latest box of flagging gaggery to fall off the assembly line at Sandler’s Happy Madison production house is one of his laziest efforts on record. Which is really saying something.
Sandler pays a broke, working-class dad determined to pay for his daughter’s wedding, even though the groom’s rich doctor dad (a wasted Chris Rock) is more than happy to chip in
for the bill.
What follows is a lot of shouting, the occasional group hug, some more shouting, a lot of jokes at the expense of an 80-year-old uncle with no legs, even more shouting, and some random jokes at the expense of the obese, the culturally clueless, the mentally ill, anyone who is not from America and, umm, anyone who is not played by Adam Sandler.
Co-stars Steve Buscemi, Rachel Dratch.
ARTHUR MILLER: WRITER
★★★½ Foxtel Now
The late, great American playwright Arthur Miller (Death Of a Salesman, The Crucible) is the subject of this engrossing HBO-produced documentary by his daughter Rebecca.
A skilled filmmaker of some considerable experience, Rebecca has pieced together this revealing portrait of her father from 20 years of candid interviews conducted on the family’s beautiful rural estate.
Miller lived quite a life — writing some of the most influential plays of the 20th Century, standing up to anti-Communist witch hunters, and marrying Marilyn Monroe — and is refreshingly open about it all, despite his enigmatic reputation.
TANGERINE
★★★★ Stan
Quite rightly, there has been a big fuss made over how the recent Hollywood studio thriller Unsane was filmed entirely on an iPhone 7.
However, this feisty, edgy US indie did the same thing — arguably even better — a few years back, using nothing but an itty-bitty iPhone 5S.
The talent behind the handset is the key here: young filmmaker Sean Baker’s next movie was last summer’s sublime heart-tugger The Florida Project.
He’s in brilliant, rough-and-ready form here, tracking a rambunctious night on the streets of Los Angeles as experienced by two trash-talking (and most amusing) trans sex workers.
CANDY JAR
★★½ Netflix
A sweet middle-of-the-road movie with a message, sure to be received loud and clear by its teenage target audience.
Bennett (Jacob Latimore) and Lona (Sami Gayle) are ambitious high-schoolers who are all about polishing their respective resumes for the best colleges in the US.
The pair become intense rivals when named co-presidents of their school’s debating team.
Though supposedly on the same side, Bennett and Lona will stop at nothing to one-up each other until ... well, what do you reckon?
A pleasingly predictable romance ensues, of course. Co-stars Christina Hendricks, Helen Hunt.
ALSO OUT NOW
THE BIG SICK ★★★★ (Stan)
MR HOLMES ★★★½ (Google, iTunes)
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE ★★★½ (Foxtel Now)
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES ★★★★ (Foxtel Now)
50/50 ★★★ (SBS On Demand)
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