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‘just mercy’: film review | tiff 2019.

THR review: Before entering the Marvel universe with 2021's 'Shang-Chi,' Destin Daniel Cretton offers 'Just Mercy,' an Earthbound story of justice starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

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A straightforward biopic that views one American’s long career of fighting injustice through the lens of an early victory he won in Alabama, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Just Mercy stars Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, founder of that state’s Equal Justice Initiative. Having spent three decades overturning the convictions of the wrongly imprisoned and defending anyone on death row, Stevenson has been at the vanguard of a righteous fight. So it’s not surprising if the film’s edge is somewhat dulled by respect for its subject, who’s drawn here as more hero than man. A sturdy example of this genre, in which persistence and faith lead to the righting of terrible wrongs, it will likely move younger viewers who haven’t seen many like it. Those of us who have seen truly exceptional examples (in both feature and documentary form) will be content to admire Stevenson himself, and to enjoy a rich performance by Jamie Foxx as the man he saved from the electric chair.

Foxx plays small-town entrepreneur Walter McMillian, introduced to viewers in a moment of transcendence through labor: Having just felled a tall tree, he gazes up at the hole he has just opened into the sky. It’s the closest he’ll get to freedom for a long time, as he’s arrested on the drive home by cops who are longing for an excuse to shoot him on the spot. McMillian is accused of the long-unsolved murder of a local white girl and, in a parody of justice, he’s quickly sentenced to death — despite there being no physical evidence and a multitude of witnesses (all black, unfortunately) backing up his alibi.

Release date: Jan 10, 2020

Around the same period, Stevenson, a Harvard law student, is working as an intern in Georgia, where he shares a human moment with a death-row inmate whose background is similar to his own. He finishes school and, over the protests of his fearful mother, moves south to defend death-row inmates free of charge. (The script, by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, might have tossed us two lines explaining how he manages to support himself.)

In Alabama, Stevenson quickly learns how resistant the white establishment is to those who sympathize with felons. In scenes that occasionally echo some of Sidney Poitier’s onscreen confrontations with bigotry, he is stalked by men in police cruisers, kicked out of the office he has rented and even strip-searched when he first visits new clients in prison — demeaned by a bland-faced guard who grins at his humiliation.

A local who has signed on as his paralegal, Eva Ansley (frequent Cretton collaborator Brie Larson , in a throwaway sidekick role), lets her boss move into and work out of her home, sharing work space with her son’s toys. But as their work raises eyebrows in town, the situation becomes difficult: Older viewers will immediately know that when a phone rings at night, and a young boy says, “It’s for you, Mom,” there’s about to be a racist on the line issuing death threats.

Of all the incarcerated men whose cases Stevenson takes up, McMillian’s a holdout — sure that fighting his conviction is pointless and that this young lawyer will be no better than the last, who disappeared as soon as the family’s money ran out. (Bryan hears lots of variants of “that’s exactly what the last guy said.”) But when Stevenson arranges a meeting with Walter’s wife (Karan Kendrick) and supporters, his seriousness is impossible to deny. Walter agrees to work with him, setting the film on its largely familiar procedural trek through shocking evidence of malfeasance, thwarted legal maneuvers and eventual triumph in a courtroom bathed in sunlight.

The story is most involving at its margins: Walter’s friendships with the men (O’Shea Jackson and Rob Morgan) stuck in the cells next to his, for example; or scenes in which Stevenson tries to get the felon whose false testimony got McMillian convicted (Tim Blake Nelson) to admit that he lied. And in one or two harrowing moments, the film communicates the way Stevenson’s up-close interaction with the institution of capital punishment informed his work. But as played by Jordan, this crusader is more Boy Scout than Erin Brockovich — a steadfast champion of the downtrodden with none of the complications that make characters breathe onscreen.

Jordan serves as straight man for the beaten-down magnetism of Foxx, whose character understands things about the world the younger man can’t fathom. A couple of Foxx’s scenes are transfixing enough to make you hold your breath without realizing it. The big courtroom moments the pic constructs for Stevenson, by contrast, sound like prepackaged American idealism. That’s not to deny that everything he says is 100 percent true; but speeches don’t always make for great movies, even in courtrooms where they beg to be delivered.

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Production companies: Gil Netter Productions, Outlier Society Distributor: Warner Bros. Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Rafe Spall, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Karan Kendrick Director: Destin Daniel Cretton Screenwriters: Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham Producers: Gil Netter, Asher Goldstein, Michael B. Jordan Executive producers: Mike Drake, Daniel Hammond, Gabriel Hammond, Michael B. Jordan, Charles D. King, Niija Kuykendall, Bryan Stevenson, Jeff Skoll Director of photography: Brett Pawlak Production designer: Sharon Seymour Costume designer: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck Editor: Nat Sanders Composer: Joel P. West Casting director: Carmen Cuba Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations)

Rated PG-13, 136 minutes

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Review: ‘Just Mercy’ shines brightest when painful truths are exposed

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Bryan Stevenson, an attorney whose exceptional work is dramatized in “Just Mercy,” does not take the easy way out in his professional life, and this film tribute to him and what he’s accomplished also chooses a challenging path.

As the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson has dedicated the past 30 years to, among other things, providing legal services to death row inmates and has saved more than 125 unjustly sentenced people from execution in the process.

As directed by Destin Daniel Cretton , “Just Mercy” focuses on Stevenson’s legal beginnings, on the first seemingly impossible case he took on.

But though it features Michael B. Jordan as the man himself, “Just Mercy” is not simply about bringing a hero to life. (Those looking for a sense of who Stevenson is and the entirety of his career should check out the fine documentary “ True Justice : Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality.”)

Rather, the film is at its most convincing when doing something more difficult: allowing us, emotionally, to feel the extent of the crisis Stevenson has made his life’s work.

As co-written by Cretton and Andrew Lanham based on Stevenson’s memoir, “Just Mercy” calmly presents a world where entrenched racism, suffocating intimidation and an all but closed legal system stack the deck, to a terrifying extent, against impoverished defendants of color.

TORONTO, ONTARIO - SEPTEMBER 06: Michael B. Jordan attends the "Just Mercy" premiere during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 06, 2019 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)

Michael B. Jordan says Bryan Stevenson is the ‘real-life superhero’ of ‘Just Mercy’

Michael B. Jordan produced and stars in the biopic “Just Mercy,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival to great acclaim.

Sept. 7, 2019

It is not for nothing that one of Stevenson’s most quoted remarks is that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice.”

A powerful asset in making these points is the film’s impressive group of supporting players (Carmen Cuba was the casting director for the film, as she was for “Queen & Slim”).

Especially effective is the group of actors (Jamie Foxx, Tim Blake Nelson, Rob Morgan, Darrell Britt-Gibson, J. Alphonse Nicholson and O’Shea Jackson, among others) who portray individuals whose lives have been mangled beyond recognition by being trapped in the machine.

Introduced first is Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian, a pulpwood worker strongly played by Foxx (who already earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his work), initially almost unrecognizable behind a thick mustache.

Almost as soon as we meet McMillian in 1987, we watch as he’s arrested in Alabama’s Monroe County by Sheriff Tom Tate (Michael Harding) on charges of murdering an 18-year-old white woman in Monroeville, which happens to be the hometown of Harper Lee, who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Though there is a brief prologue of Stevenson as a student, he’s introduced more fully as a recent Harvard Law graduate who gives his family pause when he turns down big jobs to go to Montgomery, Ala., and “fight for people who need help the most” — death row inmates.

Though he has the assistance of local activist Eva Ansley (Brie Larson, who starred in Cretton’s previous “Short Term 12” and “The Glass Castle”), Stevenson doesn’t initially understand what he’s up against with the local power structure.

A visit to Holman prison and its death row, where he endures a humiliating strip search, and a stonewalling conversation he has with the seemingly affable district attorney, Tommy Champan (a spot-on Rafe Spall), begin a process of education for both Stevenson and the audience.

Though “Just Mercy” spends time with several of the death row inmates Stevenson has represented, most of its focus is on McMillian, and the film truly comes alive when the two men meet. Foxx, throwing himself into the character, explosively expresses a total lack of confidence in, and near contempt for, this young attorney.

“What you going to do different?” he all but sneers after listing the failures of the lawyers who represented him in the past. “All they going to do is eat you alive and spit you out.”

McMillian, as it turns out, is not the first person to underestimate Stevenson’s grit, ferocious perseverance and passion for justice. Not one for grandstanding, he simply refuses to be discouraged or even consider backing down.

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Stevenson eventually realizes that all roads in the McMillian case lead to Ralph Myers, a white career criminal whose questionable testimony was valued more by the jury than the numerous African American alibi witnesses the defense produced.

Myers is played with compelling eccentricity by Tim Blake Nelson , who recently starred for the Coen brothers as the very different Buster Scruggs . Myers’ shifty, twitchy, damaged personality holds us completely, and his interactions with Stevenson provide some of the film’s high points.

Another strength of “Just Mercy” is its refusal to tiptoe around what it took to make McMillian the first man ever freed from Alabama’s death row — a long, tortuous and difficult process despite compelling evidence of his innocence.

The film portrays the ferocious resistance of some people to the possibility that this man had nothing to do with the crime. And that’s when “Just Mercy” is at its best.

'Just Mercy'

Rating: PG-13 for thematic content, including racial epithets Running time: 2 hours, 17 minutes Playing: Opens Dec. 25 at AMC Century City, Arclight Hollywood

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just movie review

  • DVD & Streaming

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In Theaters

  • December 25, 2019
  • Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson; Brie Larson as Eva Ansley; Jamie Foxx as Walter “Johnny D” McMillian; Rafe Spall as Tommy Champan; Rob Morgan as Herbert Richardson; O'Shea Jackson Jr. as Anthony Ray Hinton; Tim Blake Nelson as Ralph Myers; Karan Kendrick as Minnie McMillian; Michael Harding as Sheriff Tate

Home Release Date

  • March 27, 2020
  • Destin Daniel Cretton

Distributor

  • Warner Bros.

Movie Review

Deep in Alabama, just a 90-minute drive north from Mobile, you’ll find the small town of Monroeville, home of To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee.

The folks of Monroeville, circa 1991, are proud of their literary heritage. Ask anyone, and they’ll point you to the To Kill a Mockingbird museum down the way. Or to the courthouse, where Lee had Atticus Finch make his fabled defense of a black man falsely accused of rape. It’s a civil rights landmark, they’ll tell you.

Perhaps a few—too few—would see a sad irony, too.

Walter McMillian, better known as Johnny D, is on death row. The black man was convicted of killing a white woman named Ronda Morrison: Prosecutors said that he walked into a laundromat on Nov. 1, 1986, and shot her several times in the back. In a trial that took just a day and a half, he was tried and convicted by an almost all-white jury, which recommended life in prison. Not harsh enough , the judge decided, and slapped Johnny D with the death penalty.

Never mind that the crime’s main witness was a convicted felon himself who had plenty of reason to frame McMillian. Never mind the lack of motive or physical evidence. Never mind that a score of witnesses said he was at a fish fry when the crime took place. (The fact that those witnesses were black, apparently, made their testimony unwanted.)

Enter Bryan Stevenson, a graduate of Harvard Law School who rejected a position at a posh law firm to head a non-profit legal team called the Equal Justice Initiative—an organization that gives convicted felons (particularly those on death row) the sort of legal help that might’ve escaped them the first time around. He looks into McMillian’s case and finds all sorts of inconsistencies—so many, in fact, that he wonders whether anyone read the evidence at all. If anyone deserves a second chance at justice, it’s McMillian.

But Monroeville’s power brokers don’t want to hear it. They got their man, never mind the evidence. They knew McMillian was guilty just by looking at him. And if Ronda Morrison’s spirit doesn’t rest easy, her parents sure do.

Maybe if Stevenson had looked more like Atticus Finch—a white man born and bred in the south, a man who knew everyone from the mayor and sheriff to the lady serving coffee at the corner diner—Monroeville’s power brokers might’ve listened to him.

But Stevenson’s a Delaware-born, East-coast educated black man. And Sheriff Tate and D.A. Tommy Champan don’t take kindly to carpet-bagging northerners telling them how to run their town.

Positive Elements

Bryan Stevenson, in this movie at least, looks like a candidate for sainthood. We hear hints of his childhood, how he grew up poor, in a neighborhood not so different from McMillian’s own; and we see how his desire to help people on death row first germinated. When he leaves for Alabama, Bryan tells his nervous mother that she “always taught me to fight for the people need it the most.”

Outside these brief early snippets, though, we don’t see much of the guy’s personal life. And no wonder, given his single-minded dedication to his work and the clients he defends. He stays up all night working, pushes tirelessly against unfair barriers and even risks his life. And those who work with Bryan sometimes risk theirs, too.

Eva Ansley, who works closely with Bryan, notes that unlike most lawyers, Bryan gets close to his clients—so much so that they become nearly family to him. And when one of those clients is sent to the electric chair in spite of Bryan’s help, the condemned man thinks so highly of Bryan that he has the Army (from which he was honorably discharged) send the flag he earned to the lawyer.

While “Johnny D” McMillian is no saint (as we’ll see), he becomes a strong, faithful friend to many fellow death-row prisoners. When one suffers a panic attack after getting an execution date, Johnny D walks him through calming breathing and visualization exercises. “Whatever you did,” Johnny tells the man, “Your life is still meaningful.” And when that man is led to the execution chamber, Johnny D leads a noisy salute to the condemned. He’s deeply saddened by how he hurt his family, too, and wants to do whatever he can to make amends. And sometimes, when the case against him seems to hit a wall, Johnny D encourages Bryan, rather than the other way around.

Spiritual Elements

While Just Mercy isn’t technically a Christian movie, faith’s fingerprints are everywhere here.

Bryan, it’s suggested, is a Christian: He bonds with a death-row inmate over how both of them grew up in church. (Bryan played the piano there, while the convict sang in the church choir.) And when the guard roughs up the convict and forces him out of the room, the prisoner begins to sing an old hymn with a smile. Later, Bryan participates in a worship ceremony at a Monroeville church—watching and singing along as fellow congregants enthusiastically praise God.

A convict is led to the electric chair as the gospel song “Old Rugged Cross” plays in the background. The movie seems to suggest thin parallels between the man’s execution and Jesus’ own unjustified death: The condemned man looks compassionately at one of the jail guards fastening his leg to the chair, and when he asks whether he has any last words to give, he simply says that he harbors “no ill will” to anyone. The man’s gentleness, combined with the horrific way he dies, deeply impacts the guard—much as Jesus’ own forgiveness from the cross is sometimes shown to impact the Roman soldiers who took part in the execution.

As mentioned, Johnny D was actually attending a fish fry during the murder he was accused of committing—a fundraiser, we’re told, for the church he attended. The spiritual “Lay Down My Life for the Lord” plays as the credits roll. We see plenty of churches and crosses in the background of various scenes.

Sexual Content

Before being accused of murder, Johnny D was caught fooling around with a white woman—an act of infidelity that made him a target, he and his family believe. As soon as Johnny D’s dalliances became widely known, unfounded stories about him quickly began to circulate: Soon people were saying that he was a drug dealer, too, and then a leader of the Dixie mafia.

A guard forces Bryan to strip before entering a prison (which I’ll say more about in Other Negative Content).

A couple of women stare at Bryan as he works, with one telling the other that he’s a good-looking single guy. The other woman corrects her, telling her that Bryan’s “married—to his work.”

Violent Content

Bryan and his work partner, Eva, engender some ill will around town. One disgruntled Alabaman calls Eva at home, telling her he’s put a bomb in her house. After she, her family and Bryan evacuate, police don’t find anything, but Eva is understandably shaken. “Maybe people will stop trying to kill us when they realize how charming we are,” she jokes grimly.

Bryan, meanwhile, is harassed by police: He’s stopped on the road for no apparent reason; and, when he asks why he’s been pulled over, one of the arresting officers pulls his gun and screams for Bryan to get out of the car. The officer shoves the lawyer against the hood and pushes the barrel of the gun into his neck. Eventually, after several tense moments, the officers allow Bryan to leave without offering a word of explanation. It’s not the only time we see police manhandling or mistreating people in their custody.

A man is executed. Though we don’t see the man die, we watch witnesses to the execution as they watch, absorbing the horror they feel. Another convict says he was on death row during another execution, with his room being the closest to the “kill room.” He says he could smell and even taste the flesh of his old friend in the air.

After a disappointing court date, Johnny D resists being put back in his cell: Guards are forced to shove him in and restrain him. We hear about the alleged crimes of death row inmates—particularly that of a man who killed a woman by placing a bomb on her front porch. The man—a Vietnam vet who struggles mightily with post-traumatic stress disorder—struggles to understand why he’d even do such a thing. Another convict has disfiguring scars, apparently the result of a fiery accident he had when he was 7 years old.

Though the story centers around Ronda Morrison’s murder—a “terrible” and “horrific” crime, we’re told—the film steers clear of unpacking the details of her murder. We occasionally see a static photo of Ronda when she was still alive.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear about 15 s-words. We also hear at least one f-word, though perhaps the hints of a few others can be heard in the background. Characters also say “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—” and the n-word. God’s name is misused twice, once paired with “d–n.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Eva and her husband drink beer over dinner, as Bryan sips a glass of water. One or two characters smoke cigarettes.

Other Negative Elements

A prison guard forces Bryan to strip before entering a prison—even though the law explicitly states that lawyers don’t have to do so before talking with prospective clients. Bryan takes off his shirt, pants and finally (off-camera) his boxers. The guard then increases Bryan’s humiliation by telling the lawyer to “bend over and spread.” The horrified Bryan waits a beat before the guard smirks and tells Bryan he can get dressed again. The guard’s actions clearly communicate his desire to humiliate Bryan and to demonstrate his perceived power over the lawyer.

We see plenty of racism, both overt and covert, in Just Mercy —suggesting that prejudice is alive and well in this corner of Alabama in the early 1990s. In addition, police—especially Sheriff Tate—lie and coerce witnesses in order to push McMillian into the electric chair. Just Mercy suggests that Monroeville’s District Attorney, Tommy Champan, is a man who should know better—but for most of the movie blithely and bitterly defends McMillian’s conviction.

Just Mercy is based on a book of the same name written by the real Bryan Stevenson—a legal advocate who’s spent the better part of three decades crusading for the rights and better legal representation for those convicted of crimes in the South, especially those on death row.

Some might be inclined, I suppose, to see a political bent in Stevenson’s work. And some might be discomfited by the movie’s depiction of southern Alabama in the not-so-distant past. I have relatives who live in Alabama, and I’d like to think that some progress—difficult and halting progress, perhaps, but progress nevertheless—has been made since then.

But if history teaches us anything, evil—and no doubt, racism is one of the planet’s most pernicious evils—does not disappear naturally with time. It takes work and courage and risk and pain to address it. Oh, and faith, too.

Just Mercy is a beautiful example of the work, the courage and the faith it takes to push against the wrongs of this world: faith that a broken system can still be repaired enough to yield a semblance of justice. Faith that good people can stand up for a good reason. Faith in God, too, whose presence we subtly feel throughout the film.

Theaters are filled with secular movies that are either indifferent or outright hostile to faith, with only the occasional small, overtly Christian faith-based flick offering counterprogramming. Just Mercy finds the middle ground, showing how faith can inspire and motivate believers in the real world.

The movie is not without some issues, of course, as we’ve already detailed. But those are relatively minor in relation to its redemptive payoff. Anchored by the strong performances of Michael B. Jordan (Bryan) and Jamie Foxx (Johnny D), Just Mercy is an inspirational, educational and well-acted portrait of the pursuit of true justice.

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Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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‘Just Mercy’: A Real-Life Legal Drama About an American Hero

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Just Mercy isn’t what you would call groundbreaking — you’ve seen this kind of legal drama before, many times over. But the hard truths about racial injustice in its fact-based storytelling come through loud and clear, thanks to stellar performances from Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx .

Jordan plays Bryan Stevenson, a young man fresh out of Harvard law who, in 1989, decides to start an Equal Justice Initiative in Monroe County, Alabama, to take on the lost-cause cases of inmates on death row. Such a client is Walter McMillian (Foxx), a.k.a. Johnny D, a small-town lumber-company owner who is framed for the murder of a teenage white girl. As a result of deep-grained racism and two ineffective previous attorneys, McMillan is reluctant to accept Stevenson’s no-fee offer to have another crack at his case. In the compelling true-life legal drama that director Destin Daniel Cretton ( Short Term 12, The Glass Castle ) and co-writer Andrew Lanham have adapted from Stevenson’s 2014 memoir, it’s lost on no one that the crying need to fight for civil rights hasn’t diminished in the three decades that Stevenson’s organization has successfully challenged the death row convictions of more than 125 inmates. No wonder that Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called Stevenson “America’s Mandela.”

Jordan pours his heart and soul into the role of the crusading attorney. And Foxx, deservedly nominated as Best Supporting Actor by the Screen Actors Guild, exudes ferocity and buried feeling as a man who is close to giving up hope. Here in Alabama, he tells Stevenson, “you’re guilty from the moment you’re born.” It fits McMillan’s words that the film’s soundtrack includes the slave song “No More Auction Block” and that black men were sold near the courthouse where his case is being tried. It’s hard to miss the irony that the citizens of Monroe Country point with pride to resident Harper Lee, whose prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, indicts the very injustice being inflicted on McMillan.

Commendably, Just Mercy does very little to gild the lily. Cretton plays by the rules of a strict, legal procedural, which sometimes flattens the drama inherent in the corruption of the judicial process. It’s the actors who make this real-life legal procedural come alive. They include Oscar winner Brie Larson , a Cretton regular, as Eva Ansley, a local advocate who allows Stevenson to use her home as the official center for his Initiative when the community closes its doors and issues threats to the safety of Ansley and her family. And to avoid portraying Stevenson as a miracle worker, we see him take on clients he can’t save, such as Herb Richardson (a superb Rob Morgan), a war vet with PTSD who is guilty of setting off a bomb that killed a woman. Stevenson’s pleas for Richardson and against capital punishment can’t stop Richardson’s walk to the electric chair.

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And the film painstakingly recreates the obstacles Stevenson faces. They include corrupt district attorney Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall) and  key witness Ralph Myers (Tim Blake Nelson), the convicted felon whose testimony against McMillian was most likely coerced by police. The reliably fine Nelson brings traces of humanity to the role of a twisted bigot.

The heart of of the movie stays focused on McMillan and his family, with his wife (Karen Kendrick) presenting a picture of her husband as a flawed man who is nonetheless incapable of the crime for which he stands accused. Foxx’s nuanced, finely-calibrated acting allows us to see McMillan as a casualty of a system that tries to paint over the rot that’s festering inside. The court fight that ends the film — with Stevenson putting racism itself on trial — points to a small victory among many defeats. Society remains unexonerated. The real battle is still to be won. That’s the power of Just Mercy. It demands that you bear witness.

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JustWatch Review: 5 Things To Know About the Streaming App

  • Streaming TV

Have you noticed how complicated streaming TV has become in 2022? JustWatch is trying to simplify that.

As more and more free , live and on-demand video streaming services become available, it is increasingly difficult to remember which service carries which shows.

That’s where JustWatch comes in.

With the promotional pitch of “all your streaming services in one app,” JustWatch aggregates the latest information on availability for individual TV shows and movies and gives you quick access to the best option for streaming it.

But is it useful enough for you to add the app to your phone or streaming device? I set out to help answer that question for you.

For this review, I downloaded the app on my Apple iPad and Google Chromecast with Android TV and put it to work so that I could answer many of the questions you might have about it. Let’s look at the key things you may want to know before you decide if JustWatch is worth a shot.

1. What Is JustWatch and How Does It Work?

JustWatch is an app designed to help you find where to watch a movie or TV show online. You can search by title, and it will give you the options including the costs involved.

The concept is pretty straightforward: You have a television show or movie that you’d like to stream, but you have no idea which of the growing number of streaming options on the market has it available.

Think of it as a streaming search engine.

JustWatch connects with many of the top streaming services on the market, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, to examine their content libraries for the most current results.

With one search, you can have the answer to where a program is available and how much it would cost to view it.

JustWatch has other features built into the app designed to enhance your streaming experience. I’ll talk more about those later in the article.

2. How Much Does JustWatch Cost?

JustWatch follows a “freemium” model, which means that there is a free tier and an optional paid tier of service.

The free version of JustWatch is what I tested, and it seems as though it will be sufficient for most streamers. Most of the main functions that the app has to offer are available on the free version.

If you decide to pay up for the premium version, dubbed “JustWatch Pro,” some of the perks you’d receive include:

  • Ad-free experience
  • Enhanced watch list functionality
  • Access to additional search filters (such as IMDb vote count or production company)
  • Ability to “hide” seen and disliked titles

JustWatch Pro costs $2.49 per month and carries no commitment. You can cancel at any time.

3. Which Devices Support JustWatch?

You can use JustWatch on your web browser, phone or tablet and, in some cases, on your streaming device itself.

To create an account with JustWatch, you need nothing more than an internet browser and an email address. This will grant you free access to its search, which may be all you need to find the best deal for the content you desire.

But if you want to unlock the full functionality of the service, you’ll need to download either the Google Android or Apple iOS app for your phone or tablet.

This will allow you to personalize the information you receive from JustWatch and save it for future use. That can be a real timesaver!

Once you have an account set up and the app on your phone or tablet, you will be able to connect your JustWatch account to the service’s app on the following streaming devices:

  • Amazon Fire TV
  • LG televisions
  • Samsung televisions
  • Xbox gaming consoles

Connecting your JustWatch account to the devices on which you stream your content will allow you to sync your watchlist, preferences and other tools for access no matter which device you’re using.

In other words, you could have access to your up-to-date JustWatch information whether you’re on the TV in your living room or your iPad on an airplane.

4. Which Streaming Services Does JustWatch Track?

JustWatch monitors the content libraries of most of the popular streaming services and a bunch more that you may not have known even existed.

The comprehensive list of streaming services it tracks would be too long to rattle off, but I compiled a list of popular services that I confirmed are compatible with JustWatch:

Subscription Services

  • Amazon Prime Video

Free Services

  • The Roku Channel
  • Crunchyroll
  • Popcornflix

You may have noticed that live TV streaming services like YouTube TV or Sling TV are absent from this list. JustWatch does not offer search functionality for this type of service. It is not intended to replace a live TV guide.

Most of the live TV streaming services have search functionality within their apps that should let you do many of the things JustWatch tries to do for video-on-demand such as determining the availability of a show and tagging it as a favorite to record or watch later.

5. What Are the Most Useful JustWatch Features?

Now that you know you can get JustWatch on your streaming device for free, let’s talk about some of the key features that could make it a worthwhile addition to your life.

Identify Streaming Options for Specific Content

Let’s say you want to stream something specific, but you have no idea which of your streaming services offer it. Or you’re sure that none of your subscriptions offer a particular piece of content, and you want to know which service will give you what you need for the cheapest price possible.

As its core mission, JustWatch serves as a streaming search engine to help solve problems like this. So when it comes to useful features, it’d be hard to lead with anything but that.

The search bar is prominent on the website, mobile app and streaming service apps alike. And the results are designed to help you quickly gain the most cost-effective access to the program you’d like to see.

You can search by movie or TV title, but you can also search using keywords such as an actor’s name.

To show how this works, I performed a quick search for the popular Broadway musical Hamilton. The results gave me exactly what I needed: It’s available only with a subscription to Disney+, which I can get through a monthly subscription to that service ($7.99) or through The Disney Bundle subscription ($13.99 per month; includes Hulu and ESPN+).

I have the results sorted by “best price,” which leads JustWatch to correctly suggest Disney+ as the most cost-efficient way I could watch this content.

just movie review

The library of titles you can search is robust, so you may want to download this service and try it out for free. You may find that one of the movies you’ve been meaning to watch is available at no cost on a free streaming service .

Track Content Availability for All Your Streaming Services

just movie review

Aside from finding where a TV show may be streaming at the moment, I found that the next most useful part of the JustWatch app was simply aggregating the content I’m already paying for.

When you’re setting up your account, you’re able to scroll through a comprehensive list of free and subscription streaming services and select the ones that you use.

Doing so not only created a way for JustWatch to curate content available to me, but it also simplified the search process.

For example, if I search for a movie that’s available on both HBO Max and Netflix but I subscribe only to HBO Max, JustWatch would recommend watching it on HBO Max because it knows I have that subscription.

You can see below that it recommends “Watch Now” on HBO Max while acknowledging that a Netflix or HBO Max subscription would get the job done.

just movie review

Curate a Timesaving Watchlist

Once I added all of my streaming services to my JustWatch account, I found that using the “Watchlist” functionality was one of the more useful timesavers available.

It’s an easy way to aggregate all of the shows I’m currently watching (across all platforms) and also serves as a place to store all of the content I’m interested in viewing in the future.

If you’re like me, that could be a big timesaver when it comes to “searching” for what’s next when you finish a TV series.

In the past, I’d get a tip on a new show or movie from family or friends and then just try to make a mental note to check it out when I was ready to start a new show.

With JustWatch, a little diligence early on after receiving a recommendation removes a lot of headaches trying to remember things.

Just by flagging a recommended show or movie in my watchlist, I instantly have information on which streaming service I need to use and an evergreen reminder of the recommendation.

“Play on TV” Function

I found that one of the key advantages to taking the time to download the apps on both your phone and streaming TV device is the easy ability to marry them together with your JustWatch account.

That not only helps you track your progress on watching a series or movie when you move from one device to another, it also gives you “Play on TV” functionality.

JustWatch Play on TV instructions

This means you can access your content watchlist on your phone and then tell it to start a show on any connected TV. All you need to do is have the JustWatch app connected to your TV’s device and the app for the show installed on the device. (For example, if you tell it to play a Netflix show on your living room TV, you’ll need to have the Netflix app installed and logged in on that TV.)

Customized Recommendations

JustWatch recommendations

When you set up your account, you can help JustWatch curate content for you based on your interests.

The easiest way to get the algorithm trained quickly is to take a quick quiz that populates the screen with TV and movie titles and asks you to pick the ones you like.

Over time, you’ll find that your results get better based on the shows you add to your watchlist and whether you mark that you “like” or “dislike” a title after watching it.

The end result is an easy timesaving method that adds new shows to your watchlist that have a higher chance of being something you’ll actually enjoy.

Final Thoughts

The movement pushing TV watchers from traditional outlets (such as cable and satellite) to streaming services is not slowing down.

As more people try to adjust to the growing amount of monthly subscription services in their lives, JustWatch is an attempt to both solve a problem (finding where content exists) and also to create a more user-friendly ecosystem for consuming content (curating watch lists, etc.).

For the person who takes their streaming seriously, adding JustWatch to your list of apps may be a wise timesaving move. If you’re a novice streamer, you may still find JustWatch useful as a quick reference point when the mood strikes to find a specific TV show or movie.

Though I downloaded it as a temporary addition to my devices for this review, I’ve decided to keep it on my phone and Chromecast with Google TV to see if it’s a long-term solution for my streaming organizational needs.

Since it’s available at no cost, has access to many popular streaming services and is available on most popular devices, I have to say that I’d recommend giving JustWatch a test spin.

You really don’t have much to lose by trying it out, and getting rid of it is as simple as deleting the app from your devices.

Have you tried out JustWatch already? We’d love to hear about your experience with the app in the Clark.com Community !

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Movie Reviews

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by Roger Ebert

Julia Phillips' famous autobiography was titled, You' ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. Barry Levinson and Art Linson will. At this point, if you're going to make a film about Hollywood greed, hypocrisy and lust, you have to be willing to burn your bridges. There's not a whole lot in "What Just Happened?" that would be out of place in a good "SNL" skit.

Linson is an A-list producer (" Fight Club ," " Into the Wild ") who wrote this screenplay based on his memoir, subtitled Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line. He knows where the bodies are buried and who buried them, but he doesn't dig anybody up or turn anybody in. If you want to see a movie that Rips the Lid Off Tinseltown, just go ahead and watch Robert Altman's " The Player " (1992). Altman took no hostages. He didn't give a damn. And the book and screenplay he started with were by Michael Tolkin , who was closer to the front line and a lot more bitter. He didn't give a damn, either.

"What Just Happened?" stars Robert De Niro as a powerful Hollywood producer who has two troubled projects on his hands and a messy private life. De Niro warmed up for this film in "The Last Tycoon" (1976), in a role inspired by Irving Thalberg. That screenplay was by Harold Pinter , based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Levinson himself directed the brilliant " Wag the Dog " (1997), where De Niro played a political spin doctor assigned to fabricate reasons for a war.

David Mamet wrote that screenplay, which was astonishingly prescient. The movie, which premiered on Dec. 17, 1997, gave us a U.S. president accused of luring a "Firefly Girl" into a room near the Oval Office and presenting her with unique opportunities to salute her commander in chief. The first hints of the Monica Lewinsky scandal became public in January 1998. For the White House methods used to invent reasons for a phony war, Mamet was six years ahead of Iraq.

So what am I saying? Should Mamet have written "What Just Happened?" Why not? For Mamet's " Heist ," produced by Linson, he gave Danny DeVito one of the funniest lines ever written: "Everybody loves money! That's why they call it money!" For that matter, Variety's Todd MCarthy thinks some of the characters in this film are inspired by the making of Linson's " The Edge ," also written by Mamet. A pattern emerges. But everything I think of is luring me further away from "What Just Happened?"

Anyway, Ben, the De Niro character, has just has a disastrous preview of his new Sean Penn film, "Fiercely." The audience recoils at the end, when a dog is shot. The problem with the footage of "Fiercely" we see is that it doesn't remotely look like a real movie. Meantime, Ben is trying to get his next project off the ground. It will star Bruce Willis as an action hero, but inconveniently Willis has put on a lot of weight and grown a beard worthy of the Smith Brothers.

Ben is still in love with Kelly ( Robin Wright Penn), his ex-wife No. 2, but they just haven't been able to make it work and are now immersed in something I think it is called Break-Up Therapy. Their daughter, Zoe ( Kristen Stewart ), is having anguish of her own, which goes with the territory for a rich kid from a shattered home in 90210. And Lou Tarnow ( Catherine Keener ), Ben's studio chief, is scared to death that "Fiercely" will tank. And the film's mad-dog British director ( Michael Wincott ) defends the dog's death as artistically indispensable. And the writer of the Bruce Willis thriller ( Stanley Tucci ) is having an affair with Ben's ex-wife No. 2.

This isn't a Hollywood satire, it's a sitcom. The flywheels of the plot machine keep it churning around, but it chugs off onto the back lot and doesn't hit anybody in management. Only Penn and Willis are really funny, poking fun not at themselves but at stars they no doubt hate to work with. Wincott is great as the Brit director who wants to end with the dead dog; one wonders if Linson was inspired by Lee Tamahori , the fiery New Zealand-born director of "The Edge," who stepped on the astonishing implications of Mamet's brilliant last scene by fading to black and immediately popping up a big credit for Bart the Bear.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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What Just Happened movie poster

What Just Happened (2008)

Rated R for language, some violent images, sexual content and some drug material

104 minutes

John Turturro as Dick Bell

Robert De Niro as Ben

Robin Wright Penn as Kelly

Catherine Keener as Lou

Stanley Tucci as Scott

Kristen Stewart as Zoe

Directed by

  • Barry Levinson

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Movie Reviews

'spider-man across the spider-verse' may just win the series another oscar.

Bob Mondello 2010

Bob Mondello

The first film in an animated Spider-Verse trilogy won an Oscar in 2018. The latest installment, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse , will be a strong contender to repeat that accomplishment.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

When an animated movie about an Afro-Latino superhero was released in 2018, few observers expected it to be a hit. But that was "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,” and it was a huge success. It took in almost $400 million at the box office, and it even won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, setting the bar a whole lot higher for the sequel. Well, that sequel is also now nominated for Best Animated Feature. And with the Oscars ceremony coming up on Sunday, here’s critic Bob Mondello with a reprise of his review for "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse"

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Here we go again, again.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE")

SHAMEIK MOORE: (As Miles Morales) My name's Miles Morales. I'm Brooklyn's one and only Spider-Man.

MONDELLO: Not sure if Spidey's is the most started, restarted and possibly jumpstarted superhero saga ever, but with eight live-action features starring three different Peter Parkers and now two gorgeously animated "Spider-Verses" starring Shameik Moore's Miles, it has to be up there. And yet there's a new wrinkle - a faceless guy in white with black holes all over him robbing a convenience store.

JASON SCHWARTZMAN: (As The Spot) Excuse me. Do you have an ATM machine? Preferably not chained to the wall? Nothing. This should be simple enough. Just make a hole. Grab the money.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) Why do people say ATM machine?

SCHWARTZMAN: (As The Spot) Who said that?

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) The M stands for machine.

SCHWARTZMAN: (As The Spot) Spider-Man.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) So are you, like, a cow or a Dalmatian?

MONDELLO: He's more a walking wormhole.

SCHWARTZMAN: (As The Spot) I am The Spot.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales, laughing).

SCHWARTZMAN: (As The Spot) It's not funny.

MONDELLO: It kind of is, except the wormholes he creates are destabilizing whole universes, not to mention making Miles late for a meeting with his folks and a high school guidance counselor.

RACHEL DRATCH: (As Principal) And a B in Spanish.

LUNA LAUREN VELEZ: (As Rio Morales) What? Miles.

BRIAN TYREE HENRY: (As Jefferson Davis) Are you trying...

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) Calmate, Mami. Eso no es my fault.

MONDELLO: That gets him grounded until a pal shows up through one of The Spot's wormholes.

HAILEE STEINFELD: (As Gwen Stacy) Miles.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) Gwen?

STEINFELD: (As Gwen Stacy) Want to get out of here?

MONDELLO: Gwen Stacy, Ghost Spider in her universe, introducing him to an elite crew that includes all the best spider-people.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) I'm Spider-Man.

AMANDLA STENBERG: (As Margo Kess) No way. All of us are.

MONDELLO: And even a spider-cat.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) Can this day get weirder?

(SOUNDBITE OF CAT MEOWING)

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) I guess it can.

MONDELLO: Where "Into The Spider-Verse" was essentially a tricky exercise in worldbuilding, "Across The Spider-Verse" is about maturity and personal growth. Miles discovers that his new spider buds have a lot in common.

OSCAR ISAAC: (As Miguel O'Hara) There's moments in our stories that are the same for all of us.

MONDELLO: The death of Uncle Ben, say, and even as a South Asian spider dude establishes, personality quirks regarding phrasing.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) I love chai tea.

KARAN SONI: (As Pavitr Prabhakar) Chai tea? Chai means tea. You're saying tea tea.

MONDELLO: So the question confronting Miles is the one that confronts most 15-year-olds - indeed, most people. With a life trajectory basically laid out by family, tradition, circumstances...

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) Everyone keeps telling me how my story is supposed to go.

MONDELLO: ...Does he still have options?

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) I'm going to do my own thing.

MONDELLO: What makes his working out of the question artful is the literal art the filmmakers bring to it.

STEINFELD: (As Gwen Stacy) Thread the needle.

MONDELLO: Clever takes on comic book illustration mixed with uniquely cinematic animated styling for each Spider-Verse - in fact, for each spider person, from punkish graffiti to Lego blocks, urban grit, saturated Indian reds and golds and the shifting watercolor pastels that make Gwen's universe seem to be reflecting her moods.

STEINFELD: (As Gwen Stacy) In every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man. And in every other universe, it doesn't end well.

MOORE: (As Miles Morales) Well, there's a first time for everything, right?

MONDELLO: If the last film was a major reset for genre expectations, "Across The Spider-Verse" is an expansion for artistic ones, rich enough in feeling and character and innovative visuals to warrant - and I'm kind of astonished to be saying this - the second or even third visit that fans will want to give it. I may just join them.

I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CALLING")

SWAE LEE: (Singing) Just to save you, I'd give all of me.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Supporting cast shines in cheesy romcom; sex, language.

Just Swipe Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

It doesn't matter how much money you make or how s

Brandon seems like a decent person. He cares about

The two main characters are White, but the support

A man recounts a story involving a bloody nose whe

Multiple references to sex and intimate relationsh

Language includes "goddammit," "frickin'," "d--k,"

References to Coke and Diet Coke, Kit Kat and 3 Mu

Adults drink wine and celebratory drinks and get a

Parents need to know that Just Swipe is a romantic comedy indie film about a woman who always finds something wrong with her dates and romantic partners. Encouraged to not let something good pass her by, she opens up for the first time. To complicate matters further, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic begins…

Positive Messages

It doesn't matter how much money you make or how successful you are. What matters is who you are on the inside.

Positive Role Models

Brandon seems like a decent person. He cares about dogs and doesn't value wealth or superficial things. Vanessa learns to love who she loves, despite how much money the person makes.

Diverse Representations

The two main characters are White, but the supporting cast is diverse and features an Asian American gay man, a Latina woman in a wheelchair, and other people of color in minor roles.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

A man recounts a story involving a bloody nose when he was a child: "blood squirted out both nostrils."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Multiple references to sex and intimate relationships, but no nudity. A woman, the morning after a sexual encounter (not shown), picks up her clothes off the floor. Adults over videoconferencing pleasure themselves while talking to each other (scenes are waist up). Men are shown topless and in their underwear. Adults discuss dates, how attractive other people are, and sexual experiences, and make sexual jokes. A man says that he likes being tied up. Another man wants to know about a woman's sexual secret. Simple drawings of penises cover someone's COVID-19 mask. Some romantic kissing.

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Language includes "goddammit," "frickin'," "d--k," "hell," "crap," and "his junk."

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Products & Purchases

References to Coke and Diet Coke, Kit Kat and 3 Musketeers candy, Snuggies, Call of Duty video games, the Housewives reality shows, and Bono from the band U2.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults drink wine and celebratory drinks and get a little drunk. Some jokes are made about "drug muffins" (not real).

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Just Swipe is a romantic comedy indie film about a woman who always finds something wrong with her dates and romantic partners. Encouraged to not let something good pass her by, she opens up for the first time. To complicate matters further, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic begins right as things seem to be going her way. Expect a fair amount of sexual joking, as well as frank conversations about sex and relationships. There's no nudity, but men are shown topless and in their underwear. A woman picks up her clothes off the floor the morning after a sexual encounter (not shown). Adults over videoconferencing pleasure themselves while talking to each other (scenes are waist up). Adults discuss dates, how attractive other people are, and sexual experiences. A man says that he likes being tied up. Simple drawings of penises cover someone's COVID-19 mask. There's some romantic kissing, and adults drink wine and get slightly drunk. Both main characters are White, but the supporting cast features a gay Asian American man and a Latina woman. Some mild language includes "goddammit," "frickin'," "d--k," "hell," "crap," and "his junk." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Videos and photos.

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What's the Story?

In JUST SWIPE, a woman, Vanessa ( Jodie Sweetin ), continues to be single. She seems to find something wrong with just about everyone. But with the encouragement of her friends (and a worldwide pandemic), she'll try, for once, to let something grow. Enter the seemingly perfect Brandon ( David Lipper ). Will he turn out to be everything he seems to be? Will Vanessa stick around long enough to find out?

Is It Any Good?

There's nothing new about this story, the lesson it teaches, or the place it ends up, but the performances are earnest and the messages are positive. Also, in Just Swipe there's even some real comedy hidden within the bare-bones story. While the main characters lack any kind of real distinction or nuance, the supporting cast are bright, funny, and worth watching.

Unfortunately, however, the movie also completely lacks any kind of real conflict. Sure, Vanessa has some doubts at some point, but nothing that isn't righted within five minutes. Most of the movie is simply a straight shot to a happy and expected ending. Further, for some viewers, while Brandon can seem a bit too perfect, it also won't be entirely clear what exactly Brandon sees in Vanessa. Lastly, unlike the film's title suggests, the online dating world on which this movie wants to comment isn't entirely represented here completely or accurately, as the movie's stylistic representations of "swiping" left or right, as is now customary in many online dating apps, are only used for brief montages or transitions into the next scene. The majority of the story focuses on the romance between two people, rather than on a woman's many (disastrous or laughable) dates in the online dating world.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the representation of sex and sexual relationships in romantic comedies. Did the frank conversations and joking about sex help make Just Swipe feel more realistic? Why, or why not?

What made Vanessa realize that she shouldn't let Brandon go?

If this film was made about a younger generation of people, what would be different?

Movie Details

  • On DVD or streaming : February 22, 2022
  • Cast : Jodie Sweetin , David Lipper , Danielle Perez , Alec Mapa
  • Director : Elizabeth Blake-Thomas
  • Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Latino actors, Gay actors, Asian actors
  • Studio : Legacy Distribution
  • Genre : Romance
  • Run time : 83 minutes
  • MPAA rating : NR
  • Last updated : December 9, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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How ‘I’m Just Ken’ Won the Oscars Without Winning an Actual Oscar

Working off ideas from Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig, the choreographer Mandy Moore created the crowd-pleasing number in days.

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A person in the pink suit sings at a microphone on stage surrounded by people dancing in black suits and cowboy hats.

By Nicole Sperling

Sixty-two dancers. One week of cast rehearsals. Ncuti Gatwa, didn’t arrive until Friday. Slash showed up on Saturday.

“I’m Just Ken” was the showstopping number of Sunday’s Oscar telecast, and it probably wouldn’t have come together in as seamless a fashion if not for choreographer Mandy Moore, who has designed dance sequences for a Taylor Swift world tour and a film musical.

“Um, it was definitely up there with ‘La La Land’ and the Eras Tour,” she said when asked about how “I’m Just Ken” ranked in terms of career challenges.

Expectations were high before the ceremony. There were reports that the backup Kens would be shirtless , and in an interview on the red carpet, Mark Ronson, who was up for an Oscar for the song along with Andrew Wyatt, promised an “ absolutely bananas spectacle.”

While the dancers were fully clothed (and a different “Barbie” song would win the Academy Award), Moore’s troupe did deliver on Ronson’s promise. It helped that her partner in crime through the whole endeavor was Ryan Gosling, Oscar-nominated for his role as Ken in “Barbie,” who not only eagerly donned the pink sequin suit but also sang live and had clear ideas about how the number should go.

In Moore’s telling, it was Gosling’s idea to start the song in the audience, sitting behind the “Barbie” star Margot Robbie as the physical representation of being No. 2, which is the focus of the song. He also wanted Ronson and Wyatt, the musicians and lyricists behind the hit, incorporated into the number along with a group of dejected Kens sitting on stairs. Gosling also suggested jumping off the stage to involve the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, Robbie, and his fellow “Barbie” Oscar nominee America Ferrera in the action, too.

The idea of riffing on “ Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend ,” from the Marilyn Monroe classic “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” was already being thrown around when Moore got involved. (Rather than have women carrying candelabras, as in that 1953 musical, men would be holding large candlesticks; they were referred to as the Kendleabras.) And adding a Busby Berkeley-style moment involving giant cutouts of Barbie’s face was both a homage to the “I’m Just Ken” number in the film, which was choreographed by Jennifer White and is a style that has come back into vogue in recent years, Moore said.

“It’s always a reference. Every job I do, somebody wants to do Busby Berkeley,” Moore said, referring to the director and choreographer known for elaborate 1930s and ’40s musical numbers that involved complex geometric patterns.

“It is incredibly difficult to do, even in a film situation because you have to have really clear marks and you’ve got to practice it over and over. It’s militarylike,” Moore added. “So you can imagine how hard it is to do on a live show.”

In the end, the troupe only worked with the cameras five times between Friday and Sunday and rehearsed it twice Sunday before the show began. Then there was the fact that the stage was circular, which added to the complexity. And the giant Barbie doll heads didn’t arrive until Thursday. “That was a really super challenging part,” Moore said.

It was Gerwig, though, who wanted the entire audience in the Dolby auditorium up and dancing. Before the big number, a recorded video appeared inside the ballroom, urging those seated to shine their phone lights and sing along. According to Moore, on the first call with all involved, Gerwig said, “Really my dream for this thing is just that everybody’s up and singing. That’s my only dream.”

Simu Liu, who played a Ken in the movie and joined Gosling onstage, said that from his vantage point, “this came together extremely quickly,” adding, “Mandy Moore is an excellent choreographer.”

When he first heard from Moore, he checked in with his fellow Kens from the movie, including Gatwa, Scott Evans and Kingsley Ben-Adir, who all decided to take part, though he admitted, “Nerves were running high,” and added, “There’s not many rooms that are more intimidating.”

After it was all over, he said, the Kens felt exhilarated: “Yes! I think we pulled it off.”

Kyle Buchanan contributed reporting.

Nicole Sperling covers Hollywood and the streaming industry. She has been a reporter for more than two decades. More about Nicole Sperling

Our Coverage of the 2024 Oscars

The 96th academy awards were presented on march 10 in los angeles..

Our Critics’ Take: The Oscars were torn between the golden past and the thorny present. But to our critics Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson, the show mostly worked .

A ‘Just Ken’ Spectacle: In one of the most anticipated and exuberant moments of Oscar night , Ryan Gosling took the stage to perform “ I’m Just Ken ” from “Barbie.”

Cillian Murphy’s Career: If you’re looking to expand your knowledge of the Irish actor’s work after his now Oscar-winning performance  as the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, here are some excellent options .

Universal’s Success: Under the leadership of the executive Donna Langley, the studio behind “Oppenheimer” has managed the rare feat of achieving creative dominance and commercial supremacy at the same time .

Inside the After Parties:  Here’s what we saw at the Governors Ball  and Vanity Fair’s party , where the famous (and the fame-adjacent) celebrated into the night.

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Ryan Gosling Electrifies Oscars With ‘I’m Just Ken’ Live as Margot Robbie, Emma Stone and More Passionately Sing Along; Slash Also Rocks Out on Stage

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Ryan Gosling performs 'I'm Just Ken' from "Barbie" at the 96th Annual Oscars held at Dolby Theatre on March 10, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

Ryan Gosling went full Ken at the 2024 Oscars with a rousing and ridiculous live performance of “I’m Just Ken” from the “ Barbie ” original soundtrack. “I’m Just Ken” was one of two songs from “Barbie” that earned a nomination for best original song. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” was the other.

Before the performance, Gosling’s “Barbie” co-star Simu Liu asked the Oscars audience to turn on their phone lights and sing along to Gosling’s performance.

Also joining Gosling on stage were his fellow Ken actors Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir. At one point, Gosling made his way back into the audience and held the microphone up to his “Barbie” collaborators Greta Gerwig, Robbie and America Ferrera, who were all singing along with him. He also tapped his “La La Land” co-star Emma Stone to sing along, too.

In the weeks leading up to the Oscars, there was mystery over whether or not Gosling would take the stage to perform “I’m Just Ken” live. He opted not to sing the “La La Land” song “City of Stars” at the 2017 Oscars, where his co-star John Legend performed the single instead. Gosling didn’t confirm his involvement in performing at the Oscars until just a few weeks before the Academy Award ceremony.

Variety ‘s Marc Malkin posed the question to “Barbie” soundtrack producer and “I’m Just Ken” co-writer Mark Ronson on the 2024 Grammys red carpet, when Gosling had still not yet committed to performing at the Oscars. Ronson said it would be his “dream” to perform the song live with Gosling leading the vocals.

When asked if he’d possibly sub in another singer should Gosling not want to perform “I’m Just Ken” live during the Oscars, Ronson immediately shut down the idea.

“No. I think if Ryan doesn’t do it then we’re not doing it,” the producer said.

Before “I’m Just Ken” became an official Oscar nominee, Gosling himself played coy about singing live during the awards show.

Gosling attended the 2024 Oscars as a nominee in the best supporting category thanks to his work in “Barbie.” Overall, Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster comedy earned eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture.

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Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart in a blood-splattering revenge tale that is already queer heart-throb canon

A film still of Katy O'Brian and Kristen Stewart sitting close together, in 80s-style outfits, on a gym floor.

Few modern stars radiate soft butch excellence quite like Kristen Stewart, and rarely has such a quality been put to greater use than in Love Lies Bleeding — a sweltering South-Western noir from British director Rose Glass.

Stewart plays Lou, a surly gym manager at the tail end of the 80s with an opaque past and a reputation as the town's "Grade-A dyke".

In one of the film's many lingering gazes, an out-of-town bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy M. O'Brian), catches her eye while training for an upcoming contest.

Following a blood-splattered meet-cute and a sensual introduction to steroids, Jackie moves in with Lou in U-Haul record time.

Having just drifted into town without a dime to her name, Jackie gets by as a waitress at the local gun range — a smuggling front run by the local underworld boss, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris).

Lou and her sister Beth (Jena Malone) steer clear of their dad's operation, but the fragile quiet of their New Mexico refuge is soon jeopardised by Beth's abusive sad-sack husband, JJ (Dave Franco).

A film still of Katy O'Brian using an arm workout machine at the gym. She is wearing a singlet and headphones.

A repressed loner turned infatuated lover, Lou is the perfect vessel for Stewart's manic libidinal energy and gamine charm.

An instant entry in the queer heart-throb canon.

O'Brian also astounds in her breakout role as Jackie, having paid her dues across bit parts in Disney blockbusters in the last decade.

As her protagonist's grind set becomes invigorated by new-found chemical enhancements, O'Brian impressively commits to her euphoric head spins and aggressive delusions without spiralling into schtick.

The less said about the plot, the better.

Love Lies Bleeding wears its inherited genre elements with pride, recalling anything from True Romance and Thelma & Louise to last month's Drive-Away Dolls . But the screenplay from Glass and co-writer Weronika Tofilska deftly rearranges its beats to slippery, sordid ends.

Like any great noir, the overlapping threads of murder, blackmail and betrayal satisfyingly coalesce around the bruising relationships at the film's core.

Love spills over into obsession, obsession calcifies into addiction, and addiction engenders abuse.

A film still of Ed Harris pointing a gun. He has a cigarette in his mouth, glasses, and is bald, but with long hair.

Ed Harris continues to demonstrate his aptitude for enigmatic, gravelly-voiced antagonists, this time sporting a mangy skullet. You've almost got to feel sorry for the crime kingpins of cinema and their dwindling dynasties, whose children can't help but trample over their best-laid plans.

Glass' debut film, Saint Maud , was a psychological thriller that was subsumed by the slow-burning horror trends of its day, but its tale of religious delusion still struck a nerve with its bursts of brutality.

Her follow-up act is no less agonising to watch, with jaw-shattering, flesh-mangling violence splattering across the jagged topography of this badlands revenge tale.

Similarly bracing (but uniquely enticing) are the film's sex scenes, which exude an unvarnished eroticism with inflections of kink. The camera candidly fixates on sweat, egg yolks, spit and other bodily runoff that cinema typically sweeps under the covers.

An earlier montage not-so-subtly splices together Lou and Jackie's shared rhythms of pumping, juicing, thrusting and flexing.

A film still of Katy O'Brian posing on stage at a bodybuilding competition. She is wearing a bikini and has one arm flexed.

Glass occasionally approaches the film's excess with a surreal touch; not since the Alien franchise has someone crafted a more visceral, metaphorically loaded scene of bodily expulsion.

Other horror-inspired flourishes feel immediately dated. Lou is haunted by red, neon-drenched visions of her past that resemble a second-generation homage to Nicolas Winding Refn's filmography (Drive; Pusher).

It's a needless diversion from the film's gorgeously grimy patina, in which cinematographer Ben Fordesman finds a compelling middle-ground between period-specific grit and digital modern sheen.

Love Lies Bleeding arrives after years of gnawing hunger for complex female antiheroes — as evidenced by the coining of the "Good for Her" Cinematic Universe .

Not coincidentally, this embrace of women's wrongs has become near synonymous with A24's savvily branded, endlessly meme-able slate, to which this film belongs.

A film still of Kristen Stewart, in 80s-style clothing, crouching with her back against a door. She is covered in blood.

The knotty dynamic between Jackie and Lou may not be as easy to swallow. Glass cleverly plays on the audience's own blood lust, dishing out satisfyingly gnarly punishments to deserving victims — but what happens when that rage and power no longer has a righteous outlet?

Amid all the film's pulpy pleasures, the pain they inflict on each other — and on each other's behalf — is genuinely unsettling. It's impossible to find a clean path through a story like this, where the threat of violence hangs on the end of every interaction and transaction.

Murder is a nasty, messy business, but it's nothing compared to love.

Love Lies Bleeding is in cinemas now.

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‘Love Lies Bleeding’: Kristen Stewart in a radically ripped romance

A gym manager falls for a female bodybuilder, and together they beat the conventions of their noirish 1980s desert town to a gloriously queer pulp.

It is 1989 New Mexico in Rose Glass’s “Love Lies Bleeding,” and it is also not. Despite the radio reporting the fall of the Berlin Wall and some very “Just Say No”-era drug busts, this is a mythic 1980s and a mythic USA, peopled by venal desperados pulled from the mildewed pages of a 1950s Jim Thompson novel.

Be glad of the distance that fantasy bestows. You’re in less danger from flying shrapnel, beads of sweat and bone shards when the movie explodes into a grisly delirium of female rage and romance in which queerness is neither a liability nor a simple fact of life that deserves respect: It’s a goddamn superpower.

Belonging perfectly amid all this Rottweiler Americana — gun clubs, chain-link fences and neon signs that fizz like lightning bugs — there’s Kristen Stewart in a skeevy mullet and a sleeveless tee playing gym manager Lou. Lou’s father is a shady local kingpin (Ed Harris) also called Lou, and that he named his now-estranged daughter after himself tells you all you need to know about him. Well, that, his beetle fixation and his own apocalyptic hairdo that makes him look, in some of inspired cinematographer Ben Fordesman’s more lurid lighting setups, like a demon gracing the cover of a heavy metal album.

Since she left her dubious past behind — dumping it, along with many of Lou Sr.’s secrets, in a deep, distinctly yonic canyon in the desert — Lou’s life is pretty anemic. She unclogs toilets and avoids the pestering of lovelorn Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), a former hookup who is femme and cute until her smile reveals her slyness and her meth-stained teeth. Lou’s excuse, and it’s only sometimes a lie, is that she’s looking after her sister Beth (Jena Malone), the bottle-blond beaten wife of JJ (Dave Franco), a piece of work so nasty it’s hard to imagine a fate dire enough for him. So Glass imagines one for us, and in terms of graphic gore, the head-stomping scene in “American History X” and the corpse-splitting moment in “Bone Tomahawk” need to scooch over on the podium.

But JJ is first indirectly responsible for the one moment of grace that Lou’s grimy existence has so far yielded, when, in return for a quick, mechanical tryst in his car, he gets drifter Jackie (Katy O’Brian) a job at the shooting range. Jackie is a competitive bodybuilder, and from the moment she brings her rippling, sweat-slicked torso into the gym, Lou is entranced. They fall in crazy, scuzzy love under the pulsating synths of Clint Mansell’s score.

It is gratifying to see lesbian attraction portrayed as intensely physical: not a delicate inclination made of sighs and pressed flowers, but a messy, carnal affliction that is covetous and ravenous and occasionally squelchy. But the film’s progressiveness runs deeper: Each time Lou looks at Jackie, the unbridled animal lust on a heavy-breathing Stewart’s face is its own radical essay on female desire as rarely depicted.

O’Brian’s fantastic — and eventually phantasmagoric — physique shatters accepted ideals of femininity and is willfully fetishized, especially when jacked up on steroids, veins popping and muscles swelling like post-spinach Popeye. And there are pyrotechnics and sucked toes and a jaw beaten clean off a skull. But the most subversive moment in this gorgeously pulpy mashup of mood and mullet and black, black humor might just be that close-up of a never-better Kristen Stewart, looking at something like it’s beautiful to her, and letting the sheer want of it write itself across her face, the way they say doomed-lover destinies are written in the stars.

R. At area theaters. Contains pervasive, highly imaginative, graphic violence; gore; crude language; and drug taking, as well as copious bodily fluids and joyously gay sex acts. 104 minutes.

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just movie review

Review: Full of biceps and bullets, 'Love Lies Bleeding' will be your sexy noir obsession

just movie review

Sultry, sweaty and sufficiently bizarre, “Love Lies Bleeding” is a neo-noir thriller packed with barbells and bullets that’s fearless in its depiction of lesbian love and over-the-top mayhem.

Director Rose Glass follows up the unholy terror of 2019’s “Saint Maud” by rubbing a grimy sheen across a zesty retro combo of a revenge flick, addiction narrative, body horror show and queer love story. Newcomer Katy O’Brian is sensational as a bisexual bodybuilder who gets mixed up in some bad business – with Kristen Stewart as her troubled romantic interest – in a muscular yet incomplete yarn (★★★ out of four; rated R; in select theaters now, nationwide Friday) exploring the seedier corners of Americana.

In small-town New Mexico circa 1989, Lou (Stewart) oversees a ramshackle gym where her days are spent unclogging nasty toilets and laminating membership cards. One night, Jackie (O’Brian) stops by on the way to a competition in Las Vegas: Working her ripped physique garners male attention, though she only has eyes for Lou, and vice versa.

They hit it off, and Lou taps into her steroid supply to help Jackie get extra jacked for the big day. But the more Jackie immerses herself into Lou’s tumultuous world, the more trouble she finds. Jackie starts working for her new love’s skeezy estranged dad (Ed Harris), the bug-chomping criminal owner of a local gun club and also meets the abusive husband (Dave Franco) of Lou’s sister (Jena Malone).

An act of familial violence goes too far, the vengeful aftermath tests Jackie and Lou’s fledgling relationship, Lou threatens to expose her father’s shady dealings, and the bodies pile up as our lovers get desperate.

'I want to do the gayest ... thing': Kristen Stewart on donning jockstrap for Rolling Stone cover

Lives go off the rails, but Glass keeps the plot from following suit, weaving in a dark sense of humor (there’s a whole bit with a jawless corpse) and a fantastical bent. “Bleeding” gets weird but not too weird, and the intense chemistry between Stewart and O’Brian powers an insightful exploration of how love can save just as easily as it can turn one’s entire existence into pure chaos.

Stewart is solid as the frazzled Lou, who struggles to find steadiness even when Ms. Right walks through her gym door. But none of it works without O'Brian, whose first lead big-screen role is a performance she nails physically and emotionally. A former bodybuilder herself, the actress superbly navigates the arc of a hulking character transformed by steroids and her increasingly volatile situation. O’Brian finds the unsettled soul underneath Jackie’s rippling muscles and lets her loose, flaws and all, but is also game for a healthy amount of strangeness too.

When Jackie and Lou aren’t together, the movie suffers because neither of their individual points of view are particularly strong. Bits of their backstories come out but not enough for two people whose cryptic pasts seemingly inform their unhinged present. You’re left wanting more – they’re both called “monsters” by different people, which does pay off in a sense – in a film that otherwise is pretty good at juggling style and substance. 

“Love Lies Bleeding” is a blood-soaked throwback to '80s erotic thrillers and action cinema but also Glass’ deconstruction of cinematic hypermasculinity through a female lens. Instead of dudes named Schwarzenegger and Stallone, it’s a woman named Jackie with the veiny biceps, who when offered a gun, says she doesn’t need one: “I prefer to know my own strength.” For this movie, that is the teaming of Stewart and O'Brian, who's about to be movie lovers' powerful new obsession.

Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate, screaming with her face covered in blood

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Sydney Sweeney is Hollywood’s most interesting young movie star and Immaculate proves it

The Euphoria star’s hot streak continues

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Share All sharing options for: Sydney Sweeney is Hollywood’s most interesting young movie star and Immaculate proves it

No one is doing it like Sydney Sweeney, our most idiosyncratic young movie star. Riding rising fame from The White Lotus and Euphoria , her true star turn technically started at the end of 2023 with the release of Anyone but You , a raunchy throwback rom-com that turned into a massive box-office hit. After that she starred in the awful and derided Madame Web , but managed to come out the other side not just unscathed but brushing it off with A-list energy, joking about the movie’s failure on Saturday Night Live mere weeks after it opened. Her next big win is Immaculate , a weird, fascinating, and extremely fun new horror movie that’s coming to theaters later in March.

Immaculate opens with an American nun, Cecilia (Sweeney), transferring to a strange little convent in Italy that specializes in end-of-life care for their fellow sisters in faith. But everything’s a little off; there are people wandering around in red masks, terse sisters questioning her actions, and priests who are a little too friendly. After a few short days doing difficult caretaking work, Cecilia mysteriously becomes pregnant. Everyone at the convent proclaims that she’s carrying the second coming of Jesus Christ. Cecilia’s life only gets weirder from there.

Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate dressed like Mary with nuns flanking her on either side

From the beginning, Immaculate director Michael Mohan is thoroughly committed to delivering a throwback exploitation movie of exorbitant sleaze. There may not be any outright sex in the movie, but there are long scenes of nuns taking baths in skimpy white dresses, and leering priests lurking around every corner that interrogate Cecilia over her virgin status — only to verify the purity and truth of their coming savior, of course. Immaculate also has more graphic blood, guts, and gore than most action movies these days. All of these little elements are hallmarks of prime 1970s nunsploitation , the horror offshoot specifically centered on the cloth.

The movie’s only real break from its genre roots comes in form: It’s simply a much better-made and more gorgeous movie than most of the films that inspired it. Mohan frames beautiful moments of haunting symmetry around the convent and uses the camera to make Cecilia look and feel completely isolated, particularly when her devout colleagues start worshiping her and dressing her like a haunted imitation of Mary. The movie is full of mood and carefully paced terror that is more sustained than bolstered, with a plotty ending that never pays off the movie’s conspiratorial promise. The good news is, in true exploitation fashion, the movie’s final moments are grisly, pitch-black, and perfect.

While nunsploitation movies have popped up every now and again, the lurid kind are still exceedingly rare, and certainly not what we think of as star vehicles for one of Hollywood’s biggest up-and-coming actresses. And yet, Sydney Sweeney goes all in, owning a prosthetic pregnancy stomach, ready to be covered head to toe in blood, and being an absolute star through every second of the film. And it’s all impressively unshowy. The part demands wide-eyed confusion and terror, and Sweeney plays it without a hint of vanity or desperation, assured enough in her star power not to reveal her character’s strength and competence until it’s absolutely necessary.

Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate holding a candle with nuns behind her

Looking back, interesting but easily overlooked choices are Sweeney’s MO. After her breakout role in HBO’s Euphoria , she starred in Mohan’s previous movie, a fun and dirty erotic thriller called The Voyeurs . She played Reality Winner in Max’s Reality , a grittier acting showcase that felt like a classic made-for-TV movie. Now she’s followed up a hit R-rated rom-com with a tremendously fun nunsploitation movie. It’s the most fascinating career of anyone her age, and she’s absolutely captivating to watch, regardless of genre.

While actors like Florence Pugh and Saoirse Ronan have a bigger hit rate for prestige, Sweeney’s success shouldn’t be undervalued. But we need far more from our movie stars than just “great acting.” Sometimes all a movie star needs to be is the best part of a dozen movies you had a great time watching. That’s the kind of movie stardom Sydney Sweeney seems to be chasing. Sweeney’s like a movie star transported from an entirely different era. Rather than the stardom of most actors her age, she seems more interested in following in the footsteps of New Hollywood greats like Susan Sarandon or, if her upcoming Barbarella remake is any indication, Jane Fonda, taking fascinatingly weird roles that often ask for more than just glamour and drama. And it’s working.

Immaculate is in theaters on March 22.

Scream brings back Neve Campbell as franchise returns to the drawing board, again

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IndieWire

The Best Movies New to Every Major Streaming Platform in March 2024

Posted: March 8, 2024 | Last updated: March 13, 2024

<p>Netflix may get most of the attention, but it’s hardly a one-stop shop for cinephiles looking to stream essential classic and contemporary films. Each of the prominent streaming platforms caters to its own niche of film obsessives.</p> <p>From the boundless wonders of the Criterion Channel to the new frontiers of streaming offered by the likes of Ovid and Peacock, IndieWire’s monthly guide highlights the best of what’s coming to every major streamer, with an eye toward exclusive titles that may help readers decide which of these services is right for them.</p> <p>Here is your guide for March 2024.</p>

Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour - Mexico City, Mexico

Netflix may get most of the attention, but it’s hardly a one-stop shop for cinephiles looking to stream essential classic and contemporary films. Each of the prominent streaming platforms caters to its own niche of film obsessives.

From the boundless wonders of the Criterion Channel to the new frontiers of streaming offered by the likes of Ovid and Peacock, IndieWire’s monthly guide highlights the best of what’s coming to every major streamer, with an eye toward exclusive titles that may help readers decide which of these services is right for them.

Here is your guide for March 2024.

<p>Apple TV+ subscribers think they’re so great because they have BOATS. Ridley Scott’s latest — and funniest — historical epic comes to streaming this month, so everyone who missed “Napoleon” in theaters will finally have a chance to watch Joaquin Phoenix get cucked on an imperial scale and think to themselves: “I bet the long-promised director’s cut of this is going to be so much better.” There’s no doubt that it will be, but for now, this ain’t bad. </p> <p><em>Available to stream March 1.</em></p>

“Napoleon” (dir. Ridley Scott, 2023)

Apple TV+ subscribers think they’re so great because they have BOATS. Ridley Scott’s latest — and funniest — historical epic comes to streaming this month, so everyone who missed “Napoleon” in theaters will finally have a chance to watch Joaquin Phoenix get cucked on an imperial scale and think to themselves: “I bet the long-promised director’s cut of this is going to be so much better.” There’s no doubt that it will be, but for now, this ain’t bad. 

Available to stream March 1.

<p>As usual, Disney+’s monthly slate is mighty light on original content, and — as usual — the streamer is banking on a single movie to make up for it. This March, however, that movie is probably more than enough to get the job done. Everything about “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” suggests that it should be the biggest thing on streaming for the foreseeable future. Exclusivity? Check. A long, appetite-whetting window between its blockbuster theatrical release and its home video debut? Check. A degree of rewatchability that’s typically reserved for kids fare like “Bluey?” Swifties are going to stream this thing on such a constant loop that it’s going to feel like part of the wallpaper. Compared to what it cost to see Taylor in concert last year, that ever-increasing Disney+ subscription fee suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. </p> <p><em>Available to stream March 15.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Madu” (3/29)</em></p>

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) (dir. Sam Wrench, 2023)

As usual, Disney+’s monthly slate is mighty light on original content, and — as usual — the streamer is banking on a single movie to make up for it. This March, however, that movie is probably more than enough to get the job done. Everything about “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” suggests that it should be the biggest thing on streaming for the foreseeable future. Exclusivity? Check. A long, appetite-whetting window between its blockbuster theatrical release and its home video debut? Check. A degree of rewatchability that’s typically reserved for kids fare like “Bluey?” Swifties are going to stream this thing on such a constant loop that it’s going to feel like part of the wallpaper. Compared to what it cost to see Taylor in concert last year, that ever-increasing Disney+ subscription fee suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. 

Available to stream March 15.

Other highlights:

– “Madu” (3/29)

<p>The Razzies have always been a dumb and misguided endeavor (one that blessedly seems less popular than ever these days), but the anti-Oscars have finally served a meaningful purpose for the first time since giving us that clip of Halle Berry showing up to claim her Worst Actress prize for “Catwoman.” That purpose: Providing a useful context for the Criterion Channel to package some of the most unfairly maligned films of the last 40 years into a single retrospective… a retrospective that allows Tom Green’s “Freddy Got Fingered” to take its rightful place on the hallowed streaming platform alongside the work of masters like Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa. Daddy, would you like some sausage? Well, it’s time to eat up (other must-watch standouts from the package include Friedkin’s “Cruising,” Fassbinder’s “Querelle,” and Brest’s “Gigli,” which is both a lot better and so much worse than you may have heard). </p> <p>Never one to let a single retro hog the spotlight, the Channel has also put together a tribute to method acting that spans from the 1927 Lon Chaney vehicle “The Unknown” to “The Master” and Robert Greene’s “Kate Plays Christine,” a Jane Russell series that includes the likes of “Macao” and “The Tall Men,” and an essential spotlight on the early films of Hou Hsiao-hsien (which inspired the great <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/news/obituary/david-bordwell-dead-film-scholar-1234959386/">David Bordwell’s final blog post</a> before his recent death). Also, be sure to put aside three hours for Claire Simon’s remarkable “Our Body,” an observational documentary that sees the entire world and the way women are forced to navigate through it from within the gynecology ward of a Paris hospital.</p> <p><em>All movies available to stream March 1.</em></p>

“Freddy Got Fingered” (dir. Tom Green, 2001)

The Razzies have always been a dumb and misguided endeavor (one that blessedly seems less popular than ever these days), but the anti-Oscars have finally served a meaningful purpose for the first time since giving us that clip of Halle Berry showing up to claim her Worst Actress prize for “Catwoman.” That purpose: Providing a useful context for the Criterion Channel to package some of the most unfairly maligned films of the last 40 years into a single retrospective… a retrospective that allows Tom Green’s “Freddy Got Fingered” to take its rightful place on the hallowed streaming platform alongside the work of masters like Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa. Daddy, would you like some sausage? Well, it’s time to eat up (other must-watch standouts from the package include Friedkin’s “Cruising,” Fassbinder’s “Querelle,” and Brest’s “Gigli,” which is both a lot better and so much worse than you may have heard). 

Never one to let a single retro hog the spotlight, the Channel has also put together a tribute to method acting that spans from the 1927 Lon Chaney vehicle “The Unknown” to “The Master” and Robert Greene’s “Kate Plays Christine,” a Jane Russell series that includes the likes of “Macao” and “The Tall Men,” and an essential spotlight on the early films of Hou Hsiao-hsien (which inspired the great David Bordwell’s final blog post before his recent death). Also, be sure to put aside three hours for Claire Simon’s remarkable “Our Body,” an observational documentary that sees the entire world and the way women are forced to navigate through it from within the gynecology ward of a Paris hospital.

All movies available to stream March 1.

<p>It’s a big month for Hulu subscribers, as two of the year’s strongest Best Picture nominees are coming to the service in addition to one of the greatest movies from the director of this year’s inevitable Best Picture winner, Christopher Nolan (I can see the future, and it’s pretty much just Ludwig Göransson’s score blaring through the Dolby Theater on a constant loop as several reserved European men and Robert Downey Jr. walk up to the stage). “Poor Things” would be enough to backstop a fantastic new release slate on its own, but “Anatomy of a Fall” is perhaps the most exciting Hulu exclusive this month.</p> <p>When was the last time a French legal drama was able to break through to a mainstream audience, get nominated for just about every American movie award, and inspire more fancams than a CW show during the glory days of Tumblr? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please take a moment to google Swann Arlaud). Now that America is starting to get over its aversion to subtitles, this — largely English-language — is poised to become an even bigger sensation.</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 22.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Dunkirk” (3/1)<br> – “Goodfellas” (3/1)<br> – “Poor Things” (3/7)<br> </em></p>

“Anatomy of a Fall” (dir. Justine Triet, 2023)

It’s a big month for Hulu subscribers, as two of the year’s strongest Best Picture nominees are coming to the service in addition to one of the greatest movies from the director of this year’s inevitable Best Picture winner, Christopher Nolan (I can see the future, and it’s pretty much just Ludwig Göransson’s score blaring through the Dolby Theater on a constant loop as several reserved European men and Robert Downey Jr. walk up to the stage). “Poor Things” would be enough to backstop a fantastic new release slate on its own, but “Anatomy of a Fall” is perhaps the most exciting Hulu exclusive this month.

When was the last time a French legal drama was able to break through to a mainstream audience, get nominated for just about every American movie award, and inspire more fancams than a CW show during the glory days of Tumblr? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please take a moment to google Swann Arlaud). Now that America is starting to get over its aversion to subtitles, this — largely English-language — is poised to become an even bigger sensation.

Available to stream March 22.

– “Dunkirk” (3/1) – “Goodfellas” (3/1) – “Poor Things” (3/7)

<p>Well there’s chocolate, and there’s choc-o-late, and Paul King’s mega-successful follow-up to “Paddington 2” certainly proved to be the latter, despite months of understandable pre-release negativity around the idea of a musical origin story starring Timothée Chalamet as cinema’s most demented candyman. Hot on the heels of its blockbuster theatrical run, “Wonka” is making its way to streaming, where it stands a decent chance of cementing its status as the first new holiday classic since “Elf” (one look at Hugh Grant’s oompa-loompa is enough to know that there’s no trace of God in this film, but yes, “Wonka” <em>is</em> a Christmas movie, and no, I will not be taking any questions on the matter at this time).</p> <p>For those less enamored by the idea of watching Paul Atreides milk a computer-generated giraffe, Max is also premiering the wickedly clever “Dream Scenario” along with other A24 hits like “Good Time” (RIP Buddy Duress) and “The Green Knight.”</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 8.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Good Time” (3/1)<br> – “The Green Knight” (3/1)<br> – “Dream Scenario” (3/15)</em></p>

“Wonka” (dir. Paul King, 2023)

Well there’s chocolate, and there’s choc-o-late, and Paul King’s mega-successful follow-up to “Paddington 2” certainly proved to be the latter, despite months of understandable pre-release negativity around the idea of a musical origin story starring Timothée Chalamet as cinema’s most demented candyman. Hot on the heels of its blockbuster theatrical run, “Wonka” is making its way to streaming, where it stands a decent chance of cementing its status as the first new holiday classic since “Elf” (one look at Hugh Grant’s oompa-loompa is enough to know that there’s no trace of God in this film, but yes, “Wonka” is a Christmas movie, and no, I will not be taking any questions on the matter at this time).

For those less enamored by the idea of watching Paul Atreides milk a computer-generated giraffe, Max is also premiering the wickedly clever “Dream Scenario” along with other A24 hits like “Good Time” (RIP Buddy Duress) and “The Green Knight.”

Available to stream March 8.

– “Good Time” (3/1) – “The Green Knight” (3/1) – “Dream Scenario” (3/15)

<p>IndieWire Managing Editor Christian Blauvelt was the first person on staff to see Felipe Gálvez’s “The Settlers” before it premiered at Cannes last year, and <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-settlers-review-chilean-western-1234865010/">he couldn’t stop raving</a> to the rest of the team about how the Un Certain Regard premiere would be one of the best movies at a festival that also went on to produce the likes of “May December” and “The Zone of Interest.”</p> <p>When MUBI released the Chilean Western last fall, Christian leapt at the chance to review this story about a wealthy landowner who recruits a Scotsman to exterminate the Indigenous Selk’nam people on his land in Tierra del Fuego. </p> <p>Calling it “one of the most chilling art-Westerns to come along in some time,” <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-settlers-review-chilean-western-1234865010/">Christian wrote that</a> “‘The Settlers’ may remind some viewers of a Budd Boetticher film when they’re watching it: following three men on horseback on a cross-country journey, it dramatizes questions of identity and belonging, and how these things can be written in violence. Most Boetticher-like, in a tight 98 minutes ‘The Settlers’ says more than a lot of films double its length. It’s also a deeply felt work of activism with a message that needs to be heard in Chile. Just as nothing about the Pinochet coup in 1973 or the resulting dictatorship is taught in Chilean schools today, so is nothing about the genocide of the Selk’nam, a culture that is considered extinct, with only one living person today able to speak their language. This is a film that shows that, as easy as it is to forget about the past, it’s easier still when it was never taught in the first place.”</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 29.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights: </em></p> <p><em>– “Goodbye, First Love” (3/1)<br> – “Ishtar” (3/1)<br> – “Mami Wata” (3/22)</em></p>

“The Settlers” (dir. Felipe Gálvez, 2023)

IndieWire Managing Editor Christian Blauvelt was the first person on staff to see Felipe Gálvez’s “The Settlers” before it premiered at Cannes last year, and he couldn’t stop raving to the rest of the team about how the Un Certain Regard premiere would be one of the best movies at a festival that also went on to produce the likes of “May December” and “The Zone of Interest.”

When MUBI released the Chilean Western last fall, Christian leapt at the chance to review this story about a wealthy landowner who recruits a Scotsman to exterminate the Indigenous Selk’nam people on his land in Tierra del Fuego. 

Calling it “one of the most chilling art-Westerns to come along in some time,” Christian wrote that “‘The Settlers’ may remind some viewers of a Budd Boetticher film when they’re watching it: following three men on horseback on a cross-country journey, it dramatizes questions of identity and belonging, and how these things can be written in violence. Most Boetticher-like, in a tight 98 minutes ‘The Settlers’ says more than a lot of films double its length. It’s also a deeply felt work of activism with a message that needs to be heard in Chile. Just as nothing about the Pinochet coup in 1973 or the resulting dictatorship is taught in Chilean schools today, so is nothing about the genocide of the Selk’nam, a culture that is considered extinct, with only one living person today able to speak their language. This is a film that shows that, as easy as it is to forget about the past, it’s easier still when it was never taught in the first place.”

Available to stream March 29.

Other highlights: 

– “Goodbye, First Love” (3/1) – “Ishtar” (3/1) – “Mami Wata” (3/22)

<p>As amusing as it is that Netflix is streaming “Bodies Bodies Bodies” the day before the release of the platform’s mega-budget new sci-fi show “3 Body Problem,” and as oddly compelling as it is to <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/spaceman-review-adam-sandler-netflix-1234955918/">watch a sad Czech astronaut played by Adam Sandler</a> open his heart to a fourth-dimensional alien spider who sounds a lot like Paul Dano, none of the original — or at least temporarily exclusive — movies on Netflix’s March release slate are as exciting as the millennial classics that will be streaming alongside them.</p> <p>Carl Franklin’s “Devil in a Blue Dress” just missed the cut for <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-90s-movies/">IndieWire’s list of the 100 Best Movies of the ’90s</a>, while “Beverly Hills Ninja,” well… that one wasn’t really in contention, but even Chris Farley’s least iconic films only seem to get funnier with every passing year.</p> <p>And if we ever get around to celebrating the aughts, I can guarantee that Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “Love & Basketball” will be a major topic of conversation, as that long under-appreciated sports romance has finally been canonized as the modern classic that it is. If you haven’t picked up the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray, Netflix would be happy to remind you why you should.</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 1.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Beverly Hills Ninja” (3/1)<br> – “Devil in a Blue Dress” (3/1)<br> – “Spaceman” (3/1)<br> </em></p>

“Love & Basketball” (dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2000)

As amusing as it is that Netflix is streaming “Bodies Bodies Bodies” the day before the release of the platform’s mega-budget new sci-fi show “3 Body Problem,” and as oddly compelling as it is to watch a sad Czech astronaut played by Adam Sandler open his heart to a fourth-dimensional alien spider who sounds a lot like Paul Dano, none of the original — or at least temporarily exclusive — movies on Netflix’s March release slate are as exciting as the millennial classics that will be streaming alongside them.

Carl Franklin’s “Devil in a Blue Dress” just missed the cut for IndieWire’s list of the 100 Best Movies of the ’90s , while “Beverly Hills Ninja,” well… that one wasn’t really in contention, but even Chris Farley’s least iconic films only seem to get funnier with every passing year.

And if we ever get around to celebrating the aughts, I can guarantee that Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “Love & Basketball” will be a major topic of conversation, as that long under-appreciated sports romance has finally been canonized as the modern classic that it is. If you haven’t picked up the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray, Netflix would be happy to remind you why you should.

– “Beverly Hills Ninja” (3/1) – “Devil in a Blue Dress” (3/1) – “Spaceman” (3/1)

<p>“If you unearthed a glittery demon with one hairy arm who awakened your deepest desires from the third eye between her legs, what lengths would you travel to find her again?” So begins former IndieWire writer <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/after-blue-review-lesbian-scifi-1234669878/">Jude Dry’s review</a> of Bertrand Mandico’s seductive and ethereal “After Blue,” which only becomes more intriguing from there. </p> <p>Jude continues: “Set on a fantasy planet where only women can survive the harsh climate, the adventure follows a mother and daughter on a grueling journey to find and kill the evil ‘Kate Bush,’ rumored to be death herself. One part ‘Annihilation,’ one part ‘The Love Witch,’ and cast under the veneer of a sadistic ‘The NeverEnding Story, the film creates a lush — sometimes grotesque — alternate universe ruled by unique rules, creatures, and longings. Love it or hate it, you’ve never seen anything quite like ‘After Blue.’”</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 21</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege” (3/7)<br> – “Violet” (3/8)</em></p>

“After Blue” (dir. Bertrand Mandico, 2021)

“If you unearthed a glittery demon with one hairy arm who awakened your deepest desires from the third eye between her legs, what lengths would you travel to find her again?” So begins former IndieWire writer Jude Dry’s review of Bertrand Mandico’s seductive and ethereal “After Blue,” which only becomes more intriguing from there. 

Jude continues: “Set on a fantasy planet where only women can survive the harsh climate, the adventure follows a mother and daughter on a grueling journey to find and kill the evil ‘Kate Bush,’ rumored to be death herself. One part ‘Annihilation,’ one part ‘The Love Witch,’ and cast under the veneer of a sadistic ‘The NeverEnding Story, the film creates a lush — sometimes grotesque — alternate universe ruled by unique rules, creatures, and longings. Love it or hate it, you’ve never seen anything quite like ‘After Blue.’”

Available to stream March 21

– “Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege” (3/7) – “Violet” (3/8)

<p>I may not be the world’s biggest Denis Villeneuve fan (I’m told that <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/dune-part-two-movie-review-1234955419/">my negative review of “Dune: Part Two”</a> didn’t sit well with the kind of people who plan their holy wars around Rotten Tomatoes scores), but I’m happy to join the love parade whenever he directs something with enough humanity to offset his signature bombast. Ironically, it took a movie about aliens for Villeneuve to really wrap his arms around what makes people tick.</p> <p>A very good Ted Chiang adaptation that stops just short of greatness thanks to a bunch of third act mishegoss (endless love for Michael Stuhlbarg, but the story gets snagged on his character like a plastic bag on a tree branch), “Arrival” epitomizes Villeneuve’s enduring fascination with cycles of violence and the cold recognition of fate. In this case, that cycle is on a cosmic scale, but — with major assists from Amy Adams and Max Richter — it registers on crushingly intimate terms as well.</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 1.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “The Last Temptation of Christ” (3/1)<br> – “Tár” (3/27)<br> – “Jackie Brown” (3/31)</em></p>

“Arrival” (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2016)

I may not be the world’s biggest Denis Villeneuve fan (I’m told that my negative review of “Dune: Part Two” didn’t sit well with the kind of people who plan their holy wars around Rotten Tomatoes scores), but I’m happy to join the love parade whenever he directs something with enough humanity to offset his signature bombast. Ironically, it took a movie about aliens for Villeneuve to really wrap his arms around what makes people tick.

A very good Ted Chiang adaptation that stops just short of greatness thanks to a bunch of third act mishegoss (endless love for Michael Stuhlbarg, but the story gets snagged on his character like a plastic bag on a tree branch), “Arrival” epitomizes Villeneuve’s enduring fascination with cycles of violence and the cold recognition of fate. In this case, that cycle is on a cosmic scale, but — with major assists from Amy Adams and Max Richter — it registers on crushingly intimate terms as well.

– “The Last Temptation of Christ” (3/1) – “Tár” (3/27) – “Jackie Brown” (3/31)

<p>Arriving a few years ahead of the Early Aughts Spoof Boom (you all remember that, right?), the unfettered meta genius of “Not Another Teen Movie” has been largely subsumed into the wretched likes of “Epic Movie,” “Disaster Movie,” and the rest of the witless parodies that followed in its wake. In truth, it should be a felony to mention those ghastly imitations in the same breath as Joel Gallen’s masterpiece, and I will gladly spend the rest of my life in jail if that’s what it takes to make this point.</p> <p>A self-reflexive send-up of “She’s All That,” “Bring it On,” “10 Things I Hate About You,” and every other high school comedy since “The Breakfast Club,” “Not Another Teen Movie” so thoroughly skewered its subject that Hollywood had to rethink the entire genre (for better or worse).</p> <p>Get past the gross-out gags and a handful of offensive punchlines, and you’ll be treated to the densest and most detailed satire of its kind since the likes of “The Naked Gun,” in addition to (what’s still) the funniest performance of Chris Evans’ career. But fair warning for the faint of heart: Watching “Not Another Teen Movie” means having to look at Janey Briggs for the better part of 90 minutes, and she can be a lot to stomach. As the great Jake Wyler once described the most abominable reject in his senior class: “She’s got paint on her overalls. What is that?!?” It’s disgusting, is what that is. But that’s the magic of this movie. By the time it’s over, you somehow believe that a swamp thing like her could actually become prom queen.</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 1.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Inside Llewyn Davis” (3/1)<br> – “Sleeping with Other People” (3/11)<br> – “Carol” (3/19)</em></p>

“Not Another Teen Movie” (dir. Joel Gallen, 2001)

Arriving a few years ahead of the Early Aughts Spoof Boom (you all remember that, right?), the unfettered meta genius of “Not Another Teen Movie” has been largely subsumed into the wretched likes of “Epic Movie,” “Disaster Movie,” and the rest of the witless parodies that followed in its wake. In truth, it should be a felony to mention those ghastly imitations in the same breath as Joel Gallen’s masterpiece, and I will gladly spend the rest of my life in jail if that’s what it takes to make this point.

A self-reflexive send-up of “She’s All That,” “Bring it On,” “10 Things I Hate About You,” and every other high school comedy since “The Breakfast Club,” “Not Another Teen Movie” so thoroughly skewered its subject that Hollywood had to rethink the entire genre (for better or worse).

Get past the gross-out gags and a handful of offensive punchlines, and you’ll be treated to the densest and most detailed satire of its kind since the likes of “The Naked Gun,” in addition to (what’s still) the funniest performance of Chris Evans’ career. But fair warning for the faint of heart: Watching “Not Another Teen Movie” means having to look at Janey Briggs for the better part of 90 minutes, and she can be a lot to stomach. As the great Jake Wyler once described the most abominable reject in his senior class: “She’s got paint on her overalls. What is that?!?” It’s disgusting, is what that is. But that’s the magic of this movie. By the time it’s over, you somehow believe that a swamp thing like her could actually become prom queen.

– “Inside Llewyn Davis” (3/1) – “Sleeping with Other People” (3/11) – “Carol” (3/19)

<p>Doug Liman’s “Road House” remake is obviously Prime Video’s biggest get this month (see this SXSW-opening, throat-ripping crowd-pleaser as it was meant to be seen: While watching Mormon tradwife cooking TikToks on the “For You” tab of your Twitter page), and yet Kinji Fukasaku’s ultra-provocative “Battle Royale” demands special attention, as this proto-“Hunger Games” satire about a class of Japanese high school students stranded on a remote island and forced to fight to the death had been so hard to see in the United States until it started bouncing between the various streamers.</p> <p>America can stomach the idea of school kids shooting each other in real life, but add Beat Takashi and some exploding neck collars into the mix, well… that’s just obscene. The real shame is that Fukasaku’s twisted shootout has only become more relevant to our country in this age of zero-sum politics, and against the backdrop of the resulting culture war that’s twisted young bodies into a battlefield unto themselves.</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 31</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Desperately Seeking Susan” (3/1)<br> – “The LEGO Batman Movie” (3/19)<br> – “Road House” (3/21)</em></p>

“Battle Royale” (dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)

Doug Liman’s “Road House” remake is obviously Prime Video’s biggest get this month (see this SXSW-opening, throat-ripping crowd-pleaser as it was meant to be seen: While watching Mormon tradwife cooking TikToks on the “For You” tab of your Twitter page), and yet Kinji Fukasaku’s ultra-provocative “Battle Royale” demands special attention, as this proto-“Hunger Games” satire about a class of Japanese high school students stranded on a remote island and forced to fight to the death had been so hard to see in the United States until it started bouncing between the various streamers.

America can stomach the idea of school kids shooting each other in real life, but add Beat Takashi and some exploding neck collars into the mix, well… that’s just obscene. The real shame is that Fukasaku’s twisted shootout has only become more relevant to our country in this age of zero-sum politics, and against the backdrop of the resulting culture war that’s twisted young bodies into a battlefield unto themselves.

Available to stream March 31

– “Desperately Seeking Susan” (3/1) – “The LEGO Batman Movie” (3/19) – “Road House” (3/21)

<p>Ahead of the <em>three </em>Renny Harlin(!?)-directed prequels that will be released this year, Shudder is inviting subscribers to remember why the original continues to endure in our minds. Bryan Bertino’s directorial debut is small as can be, but its simplicity is also its greatest virtue. The premise is so unnerving because — unlike a zombie apocalypse or a Texas chainsaw massacre — it could happen to anyone, anywhere. And in “The Strangers” it does. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a very ordinary couple whose very ordinary relationship drama is interrupted by a knock at the door; three masked villains, empowered by nothing but some knives and their sadistic desires, have dropped by to ruin their night. The wicked games they play are carried out with vivid rage and raw brutality, but this is the rare horror movie that only gets scarier with its final reveal. Why did these maniacs target this particular couple, and what neighborhood will they be in tomorrow? The answers to those questions continue to keep us awake at night.</p> <p><em>Available to stream March 1.</em></p> <p><em>Other highlights:</em></p> <p><em>– “Alice, Sweet Alice” (3/1)</em><br> <em>– “Grabbers” (3/1)</em><br> <em>– “Southern Comfort” (3/18)</em></p>

“The Strangers” (dir. Bryan Bertino, 2008)

Ahead of the three  Renny Harlin(!?)-directed prequels that will be released this year, Shudder is inviting subscribers to remember why the original continues to endure in our minds. Bryan Bertino’s directorial debut is small as can be, but its simplicity is also its greatest virtue. The premise is so unnerving because — unlike a zombie apocalypse or a Texas chainsaw massacre — it could happen to anyone, anywhere. And in “The Strangers” it does. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a very ordinary couple whose very ordinary relationship drama is interrupted by a knock at the door; three masked villains, empowered by nothing but some knives and their sadistic desires, have dropped by to ruin their night. The wicked games they play are carried out with vivid rage and raw brutality, but this is the rare horror movie that only gets scarier with its final reveal. Why did these maniacs target this particular couple, and what neighborhood will they be in tomorrow? The answers to those questions continue to keep us awake at night.

– “Alice, Sweet Alice” (3/1) – “Grabbers” (3/1) – “Southern Comfort” (3/18)

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COMMENTS

  1. Just Mercy movie review & film summary (2019)

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  13. Just Mercy

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