Netflix starts 2021 with a few Scorsese classics and a collection of prize candidates like “Pieces of a Woman” and “The White Tiger”.
Netflix enters 2021 with a January slate that is shaped by the persistent strangeness of 2020, as a month that is typically full of franchise films (recently re-licensed) and new seasons of “Sex Education” has turned into a major second-rate shopping bag Oscar nominees, festivals and a handful of home cooking classics that could double as New Year’s Day dishes.
In the award tip, Vanessa Kirby’s vehicle “Pieces of a Woman” is probably the most anticipated newcomer, and the actress makes the most of this incomprehensibly difficult melodrama about a woman facing in the months after stillbirth (she’s even better at next month “The world to come”). Rahmin Bahrani’s “White Tiger” is still under embargo, but its adaptation, Aravind Adiga’s turbulent novel about an Indian driver climbing the social ladder will almost certainly be worth a look when it launches on January 13th.
“Penguin Bloom” may not be much of an Oscar player, but it is a tender family saga in which Naomi Watts is saved by an emotionally supportive bird, and that is also important. Anthony Mackie’s sci-fi thriller “Outside the Wire” and Carey Mulligan / Ralph Fiennes archaeological drama “The Dig” will not be released until the end of the month, but “Enter the Dragon” and a couple of masterpieces by Martin Scorsese should help to pass the time until then.
Here are the top seven movies that hit Netflix in January.
7. “Pieces of a Woman” (2021)
If any Shia LaBeouf film is difficult to recommend – or even to swallow – in light of recent allegations, this is especially true in “Pieces of a Woman” by Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber, which has been a difficult watch since the moment debuted at the circuit festival in September. Mundruczó’s virtuous films tend to open like a burning house only to spend the last two acts painting with ashes by finger (see: “White God”, “Jupiter’s Moon”), and his last is no exception. A tense and fragmented melodrama that is broken in a way that a series of clumsy metaphors cannot hope to fix, “Pieces” begins with a long 30-minute shot that follows an ill-fated home birth in real time as Mundruczó’s camera passes through of a Boston home in a gimbal, overcoming the chaos of a portable camera with a sense of awe and sacred terror.
It is a traumatizing sequence (almost impossible to watch for future parents) that can seem emotionally pornographic if not for the weight that surrounds the rest of the film, which pits the devastated future mother (Vanessa Kirby) against the midwife who supervised her poor delivery ( Molly Parker). The sum may not have the same breathtaking power from its most indelible parts, but Kirby’s sweeping performance remains with you, and the film around it – with all its clumsiness – shines a rare light in places that they are generally considered too dark for mainstream entertainment.
Available to stream on January 7.
6. “Penguin Bloom” (2021)
Netflix has such a monopoly on this year’s awards season that – according to Kate Erbland’s critique of “Penguin Bloom” on TIFF – the streamer is now looking for Oscars that don’t even exist. Still.
In 2011, former Movieline editor ST VanAirsdale suggested – not in a joking way – that the dog who played Uggie in the then Oscar nominee “The Artist” should be considered for his own Oscar. It was not an unprecedented question (Rin Tin Tin was in the running for the first Best Actor award, and he undoubtedly won the award), but it was certainly the most public award campaign for a non-human actor.
Almost a decade later, it’s time for another one: give an Oscar to the bird (s) that star in Glendyn Ivin’s dramatic real-life story, “Penguin Bloom”. This is not to diminish the work of human actors – including an emotional Naomi Watts and an amazing performance by young actor Griffin Murray-Johnston – but there is a reason why this gentle Australian drama about a family destroyed by tragedy is named after its only winged character. Based on the eponymous book by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive, Ivin’s latest feature film traces a very familiar story about injury, suffering and resilience, although wonderfully affected by the unlikely heroine in his heart.
Available for broadcast on January 27th.
5. “Superbad” (2007)
“Superbad,” which MTV and Comedy Central have basically broadcast in a constant loop over the past decade, is returning to Netflix, which means that you can finally watch this high school formative comedy without having to sit 45 minutes away. commercials for “Ridiculous” (or cross the room to get your Blu-ray off the shelf, which is much more difficult than it looks).
A modern, long-lasting and funny classic that reached the peak of Judd Apatow’s power, brought us the decisive role of Emma Stone and consolidated Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as genuine stars, “Superbad” remains so well that it is hard to believe that it almost came out 13 years ago; even the cop’s secondary plot still works if you squint and see it as a parody of white privilege. This is the rare ripening film that grows with you.
Available for broadcast on January 1st.
4. “Enter the Dragon” (1973)
In addition to being the quintessence of Bruce Lee’s film, one of the most formative (and successful) martial arts films ever made, and an increasingly canonized flashpoint in the modern history of Asian American representation, “Enter the Dragon “It’s also the perfect new Day of the Year visualization for anyone looking to start 2021 with an important masterpiece that features Bolo“ The Chinese Hercules ”Yeung being kicked in the balls with such force that his soul leaves his body. And if the name Bolo Yeung doesn’t mean anything to you, it just makes “Enter the Dragon” a more urgent clock.
As much as the film is obviously a showcase for Lee’s unique personality on the screen, it is also packed with one of the biggest supporting casts ever assembled for his genre, and following any of them through the rabbit hole of his IMDb page will lead to wide rewards. Jackie Chan’s cameo is just the tip of the iceberg: the highlight of “Black Christmas” John Saxon rules like a Sean Connery from Brooklyn, Blaxploitation legend Jim Kelly bites the dust with unforgettable style, Robert Wall is a big slab of Bearded masculinity of the 70s, Ahna Capri brings Barbarella to Earth as the femme fatale, and Shih Kien – even nicknamed – manages to cut an iconic villain. None of them can compare to Lee, of course, but it is an explosion to see them all trying to get to his level.
Available for broadcast on January 1st.
3. “The Naked Gun: From the Police Squad Archives! ” (1988)
Frank Drebin: “It’s the same old story. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls die in a tragic blimp crash at the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day. “
Jane Spencer: “Goodyear?”
Frank Drebin: “No, the worst.”
The last time “The Naked Gun” found its way onto Netflix was in January 2020 and proved to be very prescient. Now, Netflix is playing with fire and bringing it back to the top of 2021. Good year? Time will tell, but the fact is, there won’t be many funnier ways to start.
How brilliant is David Zucker’s ridiculous police parody? It will make you laugh with OJ Simpson. Very. Probably the funniest movie of all time, this hyper-silly parody did for procedurals what “Airplane!” made for, uh … planes, I think. Leslie Nielsen is the perfection of comedy as the impassive detective Frank Drebin, as he leans into the uninterrupted parade of nonsense with an upper lip so rigid that every pun, joke and unbridled stupidity (the bribe scene on the docks!) Bounces on him and deviate back to us. Simpson is perfect as Drebin’s resilient hunter, Ricardo Montalbán plays the villain with a bite at Khan’s level, and Priscilla Presley divides the difference between Michelle Pfeiffer and Marilyn Monroe as a romantic protagonist with her own comic pulse.
Available for broadcast on January 1st.
2. “The Departed” (2006)
It’s not “Goodfellas”, but don’t let the rat, Oscar and Wahlberg do it all, fool you into thinking that Martin Scorsese’s 2006 police epic doesn’t deserve to be mentioned at the same time. A virtuous tale of cops and thieves that gives remakes a good name, “The Departed” takes the skeleton of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak in “Infernal Affairs” and fills it with Dropkick-addicted Murphys Dunkin ‘Donuts testosterone that becomes impossible to release this 151-month ultraviolent giant from its ultra-Boston environment.
Golden boy Matt Damon doesn’t get enough credit for subverting his American charm in a bustle of playing sociopaths and / or idiots throughout his career (see: “School Ties”, “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, the last season of ” Project Greenlight, ”etc.), but he is spectacularly hateful as a rogue police officer in a country full of them and a perfect counterpoint to the predatory hedonism of what appears to be Jack Nicholson’s last great performance.
Playing the policeman disguised on the wrong side of the tracks, Leonardo DiCaprio is just as visibly stressed as anyone would be trying to replace Tony Leung, and he is irritated by the same basic anxiety that he even brought to the rest of his collaborations with Scorsese when the film buries him under a litany of killer support loops stacked higher than the Bunker Hill Monument (Alec Baldwin could probably use a good Google Alert these days, but it’s the Ray Winstones and James Badge vouchers that really give the movie its special flavor ). In addition, the mouse is good. If you put up with four hours of the mysterious De Niro in “The Irishman”, you can handle four seconds of the mouse. That’s it.
Available for broadcast on January 1st.
1. “Goodfellas” (1990)
It’s “Goodfellas”.
Available for broadcast on January 1st.
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