Streaming guide: The best movie just about everybody missed
The pick-up of this modern classic by streaming services is definite cause for celebration for watchers craving something new, dangerous and utterly memorable. Here’s what else to watch while self-isolating.
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The one exploring the code less travelled
EX MACHINA (MA15+)
*****
FOXTEL
Over the past five years, this could well be the best movie just about everybody missed. Since its brief run in cinemas in 2015, Ex Machina has proven mighty hard to find on the major streaming services. So Foxtel’s pick-up of this modern classic is definite cause for celebration for movie fans craving something new, dangerous and utterly memorable. Ex Machina is best described as searing slow-burner of a drama about technology, innovation, and the point where the need to break the rules is overpowered by a desire to play God. Oscar Isaac plays a reclusive search-engine genius whose latest project is implanting perfectly-programmed artificial intelligence inside eerily lifelike robots. The experiment goes increasingly haywire once a young research assistant (Domhnall Gleeson) loses his heart to a beautiful new prototype (Alicia Vikander). First-time director Alex Garland (a noted screenwriter and novelist) exerts a clinically conniving control over events that captures the complete attention of the viewers. The three leads are equally effective at conveying the ethical perils posed by a future that could be closer than we are prepared to admit.
The one caught trespassing in a gatored community
CRAWL (MA15+)
***1/2
FOXTEL, AMAZON
Here’s the nastiest of nice surprises a horror fan can hope for this spring: a lean, mean fright machine that just doesn’t let up from go to whoa. While it might be generic in terms of outward appearance, Crawl is gut-wrenchingly effective when it comes to getting under your skin and staying there. The beyond-basic premise runs something like this. A Category 5 hurricane swirling all over Florida is heading for a house in a pre-evacuated town near the south coast. There should not be any occupants inside, but there is: a father (Barry Pepper) and his adult daughter (Kaya Scodelario). For reasons best not revealed here, they are trapped beneath the floorboards of their family home. Surging floodwaters from the storms outside are not the only threat to the pair. They must also share this very damp, very confined space with a congregation hungry, angry alligators. What follows is a genuinely rousing, faintly ridiculous survivalist thriller where all those lapping waters and snapping jaws combine to induce a state of claustrophobic delirium.
The one that just drifts along in a happy hipster haze
PATERSON (M)
****
SBS ON DEMAND, NETFLIX
If you have Paterson high up on your must-see list, there are a few matters that are best dealt with ahead of time. Firstly, lead actor, Adam Driver is playing a bus driver. Secondly, his character is named Paterson, and lives in the city of Paterson, New Jersey. Over the course of one week, we witness Paterson, a man in his early thirties, go through the cycle of a typical day. However, the more this rigid schedule is repeated in the film, the more deep, meaningful and amusingly moving does Paterson’s fixed way of living his life become. A real gem from veteran American indie master filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers).
The one (re)playing the game
JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL (PG)
***
rent via GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
The core premise of this quality sequel has been refreshed just enough to keep Jumanji fans leaning forward and ready for anything. Naturally, there are a new set of player-to-avatar switcheroos to be executed, the standouts of which are Dwayne Johnson subbing for Danny DeVito (very amusing work from The Rock) and Kevin Hart channelling his inner Danny Glover circa Lethal Weapon (uncannily on the money). Co-stars Jack Black and Karen Gillan do not have as much to do as they did before – and the same goes for the younger cast of regulars – but it doesn’t really matter that much. The action-adventure sequences are given more emphasis to build some consistent momentum this time around, and it lends The Next Level a slight edge over its well-regarded predecessor.
The one where the wrong way was the reich way
DOWNFALL (M)
*****
SBS ON DEMAND, NETFLIX
In this riveting recreation of Adolf Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker, master German actor Bruno Ganz eerily channels the truly depraved brand of evil the late German dictator still represents to this very day. Most impressive of all is how, with the world closing in on the ranting, paranoid monster, Ganz ratchets down his performance from towering to cowering in minute increments.
The one with bore bits, more pieces
THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (PG)
***
NETFLIX, FOXTEL
First, the good news: The Lego Movie 2 is a marked step up from the tired, try-hard Lego Ninjago Movie. Next, the so-so news: The Lego Movie 2 rarely finds a way to break free of the series’ now-entrenched formula. It is definitely fun, but just as definitely less memorable than that first unforgettable instalment. The initial vibe is all a bit Mad Max: Fury Road, as naive hero Emmet Brickowski tries to keep everything upbeat even though his old home town of Bricksburg is now a bombed-out wasteland named Apocalypseburg. If order is to be restored, Emmet needs to reconvene the Master Builders, currently in far-flung exile. Starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett.
The one going too far, getting nowhere
THE NIGHTINGALE (MA15+)
**
FOXTEL
Both defiantly confronting and decidedly incoherent, this is an ordeal from start to finish. Feel free to suffer through it if compelled by an admittedly atmospheric setting (1825 Van Diemen’s Land, aka Tasmania). Just don’t say you were not warned. The story is a thematic dirge played out upon the never-ending misfortunes of Clare (Aisling Franciosi), a young ex-convict whose tenuous grip on freedom is controlled by a reprehensible British officer, Hawkins (Sam Claflin). He rapes her a few times, as do others (sexual assault is deployed as an intimidating motif throughout). After her husband and newborn baby are killed during one attack, Clare plots her revenge while following Hawkins across the wilderness. More senseless murder and rape ensues (mostly at the expense of an indigenous population already on the verge of total annihilation). A base exploitation movie masquerading as a bold artistic statement, The Nightingale is disturbingly upfront about what it wants to show you, but frustratingly elusive about what it might be wanting to say.
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