Invincible complete series 1? For a certain type of moviegoer, any film where Nicolas Cage says the word “alpacas” multiple times is worth seeking out. Luckily, Color Out of Space, a psychedelic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story from 1927, offers more than just furry animals and unhinged Cage theatrics. Mixing hints of science-fiction intrigue and bursts horror movie excess, along with a couple splashes of stoner-friendly comedy, Richard Stanley’s proudly weird B-movie vibrates on its own peculiar frequency. Cage’s Nathan, a chatty farmer with a loving wife (Joely Richardson) and a pair of mildly rebellious kids, must contend with a meteoroid that crashes in his front yard, shooting purple light all over his property and infecting the local water supply. Is it some space invader? A demonic spirit? A biological force indiscriminately wreaking havoc on the fabric of reality itself? The squishy unknowability of the evil is precisely the point, and Stanley melds Evil Dead-like gore showdowns with Pink Floyd laser light freak-outs to thrilling effect, achieving a moving and disquieting type of genre alchemy that should appeal to fans of Cage’s out-there turn in the similarly odd hybrid Mandy. Again, you’ll know if this is in your wheelhouse or not.
A few words about streaming services : Netflix’s originals are generally more successful than Hulu’s, including mega-budget productions like The Crown, animated hits like Bojack Horseman, genre pieces like Stranger Things, and adaptations such as The Witcher. Other streaming services also outclass Hulu. For example, Amazon has a growing list of top-notch originals, including Bosch, Fleabag, Patriot, Hunters, The Boys, The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Undone. HBO Max offers a substantial catalog of quality past and current shows including Barry, Big Little Lies, Deadwood, Silicon Valley, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, The Wire, Westworld, and VEEP. Hulu’s library of movies is decent with mainstream movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, High Fidelity, Parasite, Rocketman, Superbad, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Twilight at the time of publishing. Things are looking up in 2021, however, with Hulu snagging the same-day release premieres of Nomadland and The United States vs. Billie Holiday, both of which won Golden Globe awards. That said, movie fans will likely want to subscribe to one of the available channel add-ons.
Dramas don’t come much bleaker than Beanpole, director Kantemir Balagov’s wrenching story about the damage caused by war, and the exceedingly high cost of survival. In a 1945 Leningrad still recovering from the end of WWII, lanky Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), aka “Beanpole,” works as a nurse even though her military service has left her with a condition in which she becomes temporarily frozen. Iya cares for Pashka (Timofey Glazkov), the young son of her frontlines friend Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), and when Masha appears to reclaim her child – only to learn of an unthinkable tragedy – their relationship buckles under the weight of grief, guilt, regret, resentment and need. Cruel blackmail soon proves to be Masha’s means of coping with loss, but healing is in short supply in this ravaged milieu. Shot in alternately tremulous and composed handheld, director Balagov’s long takes place a premium on close-ups, the better to convey the dizzying anguish of his subjects, who are as decimated as their environment. Overpoweringly desolate and moving, it’s a vision of paralyzing individual, and national, PTSD – and, ultimately, of women banding together to forge a new future. See even more info on invincible season 1.
Director Kitty Green’s scripted debut depicts a long day in the life of a low-level drone at an unnamed New York film studio not unlike the Weinstein Company. Jane (Julia Garner) takes calls and makes copy and scrubs the bodily fluids off the couch in her boss’ office, all with the same look of grim understanding that this is what she has to endure to get ahead in her dream industry. Spare and devastating, The Assistant serves up a portrait of an abusive workplace in which the behavior of the unseen man at its head trickles down to inform the power dynamics and behavior of the rest of the company. That includes HR, to which Jane pays a visit in a brutal centerpiece scene that emphasizes what it’s like when the only choices open seem to be to become complicit or to give up.
Hell hath no fury like a religious zealot scorned, as demonstrated by writer/director Rose Glass’ feature debut, which concerns a young hospice nurse named Maud (Morfydd Clark) who comes to believe that her mission from God – with whom she speaks, and feels inside her body – is to save the soul of her terminally ill new patient, famous dancer Amanda (Jennifer Ehle). What begins as a noble attempt to share pious belief and provide comfort for the sick swiftly turns deranged, as Maud is possessed by a mania impervious to reason, and enflamed by both the slights she receives from Amanda and others, and her own mortal failings. The sacred and the profane are knotted up inside this young woman, whom Clark embodies with a scary intensity that’s matched by Glass’ unsettling aesthetics, marked by topsy-turvy imagery and pulsating, crashing soundtrack strings. A horrorshow about the relationship between devoutness and insanity, it’s a nerve-rattling thriller that doubles as a sharp critique, punctuated by an incendiary final edit that won’t soon be forgotten. Read more details at https://www.dvdshelf.com.au/.