Blackhat
Last week’s installment in my ongoing list of recommended streaming titles journeyed into catharsis and delved deeply into dark emotional places, but things are mellower this week. I cannot speak for reality, and due to deadlines, you’re reading this more than a week after I wrote it. So let’s just say that I am trying to conduct things along the lines of those great German philosophers, Alphaville — “hoping for the best but expecting the worst.” Check out recent issues of the Scene (March 26, April 2, April 9, April 16, April 23, April 30) for more recommendations of what to stream while in quarantine.
Hightide on Tubi
Get an early start on your Mother’s Day viewing with this little-seen 1987 Aussie drama. Lilli (Judy Davis!) is a small-time backup singer/dancer for an Elvis impersonator who finds herself stuck in a small coastal Australian town. That happens to be where Ally, the daughter she had to give up several years prior, is living with the mother of Lilli’s late husband. This is Douglas Sirk-level drama, playing out in a completely relatable fashion. Director Gillian Armstrong (she did the 1994 Little Women) does incredible work with the three lead actresses, and the performances add a degree of specificity to the story. Imagine Secrets and Lies mixed with a little bit of Tender Mercies and you’ve got the idea. Hat-tip to friend and colleague Alonso Duralde (of the Linoleum Knife podcast empire), who let me know that this rare gem had surfaced out there in the big electronic subconscious of the internet. Film critics: Even in this time of cinematic uncertainty, we’re still working to make sure you’ve got something amazing to experience.
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years on Amazon Prime
Or as we like to call it, the fun one. Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization series is an essential trilogy for anyone interested in the social history of the Los Angeles music scene. Part I is the essential punk rock document. Part III is a devastating look at a blank generation abandoned by all social structures. And Part II is a blissful soak in the sweaty crevices and flammable stank of the period of time when hair metal held sway over the goals and gonads of L.A. after dark. Like Heavy Metal Parking Lot, like American Movie, like 101, this is one of those documentaries that even people who couldn’t care less about documentaries love, and rightfully so. If you dream in metal, this is every fantasy come true. If you want to put on some thigh-high boots and spray your hair to the heavens, you may certainly do so. If you want to mock the aspirations of delusional drunks, you can do that as well. Spheeris is one of our great documentarians, getting at the truth behind the camp and the melancholy just behind the mascara. If you’re interested in other exceptional second installments, there’s also Addams Family Values and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (both are on IMDb TV, and both improve upon their predecessors).
Blackhat Director’s Cut on FX
Michael Mann’s 2015 hacker epic Blackhat just sort of disappeared in theaters. That’s despite having all the Chris Hemsworth (with a great physical presence but an uneven performance) that audiences could want, as well as one of our great weirdo directors continuing to innovate in the realm of digital cinematography. This director’s cut does some shifting of the timeline, refocuses some aspects of the plot, and fixes some (deeply) sloppy overdubs. If you’re not a hardcore Mann fan (would the proper portmanteau of “Mann” and “devotee” be “Mannatee”?), it’s entirely possible you might not even notice the differences, but it feels like a sleeker and more organic narrative in this incarnation. The abstracted sequences depicting the transfer of data are still theme-park avant-garde (using microphotography like those first few shots in Pink Floyd — The Wall, which I just saw for the first time recently but isn’t streaming anywhere, and y’all ...). Also, Mann is probably a fan of How to Get Away With Murder, because this film understands that Viola Davis’ performance and Viola Davis’ wig are not the same thing. This is a 2015 film yet it feels like a lifetime ago, because one of its central tenets is multinational cooperation.
Coma on TCM
One of the great ’70s suspense thrillers (with a peerless Jerry Goldsmith score), this Michael Crichton film of a Robin Cook novel is one of the most influential mysteries of that decade. Coma has secret institutions, black-market mayhem, a resilient and determined protagonist (Geneviève Bujold, charming and unconventional), and spectacular key images — bodies, suspended by wires, stretching as far as the eye can see. Sadly, the conspiracy that provides the book and film’s skeleton is pretty much business-as-usual these days, which just helps illustrate how completely fucked-up modern life is.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter / I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House on Netflix
If you missed Oz Perkins’ exquisite Gretel & Hansel back at the end of January, it is currently on VOD services; it’s one of the year’s best offerings, equal parts Bruegel, Caravaggio, Carter and Bettelheim. But Perkins’ first two films are both streaming on Netflix, and both are worthy of your attention. The Blackcoat’s Daughter (also known as February), is a bleak and cold film about temporal uncertainty, possession, murder, madness and a sadness that comes from a place of spiritual emptiness that we don’t yet have words for in the English language. It’s also the step between Mad Men and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for Kiernan Shipka. I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is the slowest of slow-burn ghost stories (featuring the return to cinema of the incomparable Paula Prentiss after ages) about a young woman working as a caregiver and attendant for a reclusive novelist. Blackcoat has the more visceral thrills of the two, but every film Perkins has made so far in his career has been exceptional, and you simply can’t go wrong with any of them.
