Newflix is our weekly look at notable new titles available on online streaming sites.
Tales Of The Grim Sleeper (2014)
Directed by Nick Broomfield
Free for HBO subscribers on HBO Go
Tales Of The Grim Sleeper is an unequivocally terrifying movie, not only because it tracks the history and movement of one of our country’s most prolific serial killers, The Grim Sleeper (allegedly Lonnie Franklin, who still awaits trial but is subject to mountains of damning testimony here), who tortured and murdered hundreds of women in L.A. over the past few decades. What’s most haunting about this documentary is that director Nick Broomfield speaks to dozens of witnesses—escaped Grim Sleeper victims, neighbors, and family members of Franklin—all of whom paint a picture of an at-best apathetic and at-worst vengeful LAPD who turned a blind eye to The Grim Sleeper’s crimes for much of the 1980s, 1990s, and early aughts. The cops were, by all accounts, grateful to Franklin for picking off women on the margins of society, drug dealers and addicts, prostitutes. Despite detailed testimony from a woman who was raped and shot by Franklin, then went so far as to ID his car and home, the police only captured him 20 years later and practically by accident. In other words, the most disturbing message conveyed by the doc is that black lives—particularly the lives of black women, and particularly the lives of black female sex workers—don’t matter, not to law enforcement and not to much of their own community. Now more than ever, it’s a prescient and heartbreaking message, one echoed near the end of a film by a woman who barely escaped Franklin's clutches. “Yeah, I was out there [on the streets]. That doesn’t mean I’m nothing. That doesn't mean I’m nothing.”
Lovely & Amazing (2001)
Directed by Nicole Holofcener
Free for HBO subscribers on HBO Go
In a dark cinematic landscape where female directors are still being sidelined because of dated and offensive stereotypes like “lack of ambition” and “inability to command a large crew,” Nicole Holofcener remains a beacon of hope. Lovely & Amazing, Holofcener’s second feature film, is an understated, touching, and trenchant study of a family of women in L.A.— quirky artist Michelle (Catherine Keener), timid actress Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer), and selfless matriarch Jane (Brenda Blethyn), who’s preparing for elective plastic surgery and raising an adopted African-American daughter (Raven Goodwin) who’s dealing with insecurities of her own. A previous Movie Of The Week, Lovely & Amazing is one of Holofcener’s best, marked by her signature true-to-life dialogue, witty and unrelentingly frank worldview, and fully drawn female characters. Plot-wise, not much happens; the candid—occasionally painfully so—relationships between the Marks family, married with Holofcener’s insights on what it means to be a woman in the world (and in L.A.), drive and carry the film. As Noel Murray put it in his Keynote, “Holofcener’s movies are defined by their talk. Her characters rarely sit quietly with each other; if there’s more than one person in a room, they’re chatting, rapidly and incessantly, and usually without much of a filter.”
Angels In America (2003)
Directed by Mike Nichols
Free for HBO subscribers on HBO Go
Angels In America isn’t teeechnically a movie, but I’m including it in here because it feels like one. Technically, it’s a play, a critically acclaimed masterpiece written by Tony Kushner as a response to the 1980s AIDS crisis and our country’s accompanying gay panic. This early-aughts HBO iteration adapts Kushner’s play into a six-hour, two-part miniseries, one that won five Golden Globes, two SAG Awards, and I think, like, 500 Emmys. Its cast list (and director credit) reads like a who’s-who of BFDs: Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, Mary-Louise Parker, Patrick Wilson, James Cromwell… okay, now I’ll stop. Without giving much away about the plot—partly because it’s impossible to do it justice—Angels is heart-wrenching and surreal, a sweeping, gorgeous epic full of interweaving tales of love and loss, stunning dialogue, and bold performances that retain Kushner’s sense of theater. I’ve seen it several times now, and watching it remains an experience—it’s seriously transcendent. Carve out a Saturday and binge-watch the whole thing (don’t forget to have at least 18 tissues on hand).
Legally Blonde (2001)
Directed by Robert Luketic
Free for Netflix subscribers on Netflix streaming
I am recommending Legally Blonde to you as an important counterpoint to all of the other movies we’ve just discussed. I want you to enjoy life again post-Grim Sleeper and post-Angels In America, and this movie is a calming and edifying force. Just ask Sarah Koenig, who watches it on planes to keep her existential panic at bay. That’s probably because, even nearly 15 years later, Legally Blonde holds up as a lighthearted, casual stereotype-smasher, an unabashedly earnest comedy, and an early-ish example of what Reese Witherspoon was capable of—it hinted at flintiness and grit beneath her grinning, Southern-Belle exterior. It’s not as incisive or darkly funny a performance as Tracy Flick in Election, but it’s goddamn delightful, and sometimes, you just need delightful.
Also new to streaming:
Shit gets weird, as usual, in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (Netflix)…Gwyneth Paltrow sets up her pals in Emma (HBO Go)…Julianne Moore will break your heart in Still Alice ($14.99 to buy on Amazon)…Here we are now, entertain us with Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck (HBO on May 4)…It’s almost Mother’s Day, so, er, why not watch Xavier Dolan’s Mommy? ($3.99 to rent on Amazon)…Sit back and relax in Mark Duplass’ The Puffy Chair (Amazon Prime)…Nicolas Cage IS Left Behind (Netflix)…Al Pacino and Greta Gerwig adapt Philip Roth with The Humbling (Netflix)…John Slattery is far from Mad Men in Bluebird (Netflix)…The Band’s final concert is captured in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz (Netflix on May 3)…Go Salmon Fishing In The Yemen with Emily Blunt (Amazon Prime)…Watch the unrated version of Fifty Shades Of Grey every day for the rest of your life ($14.99 on Amazon)…