Your Weekend Review: What To Watch That’s NOT in Theatres
By Original-Cin Staff
There’s nothing new about seeking some entertaining distraction during periods of enforced confinement. In Giovanni’s Boccacio’s fourteenth-century book, The Decameron, a group of seven women and three men hide out in a villa outside of Florence for two weeks against the plague. Because they didn’t have binge-watching, they binge talked: Ten stories a day for 10 days, making up 100 tales, with four days for prayer, perhaps in penance for the naughty stories they told.
Brad Pitt in Se7en. Se7en is on Hollywood Suite this month.
It’s a small consolation, but as we’re forced inside our homes once again, there’s more entertainment available than ever. As the Hollywood Reporter put it this week, “COVID-19 represents a watershed moment in the business, one that is accelerating current trends in media consumption and forcing Hollywood to embrace its digital future.”
Digital embraces, so far, are still safe. The list of available subscription services includes Netflix, Crave/HBO, YouTube Premium, Amazon Prime, Criterion, Acorn, BritBox, Disney+, Apple TV+, MUBI and Sundance TV, plus kanopy and hoopla (free with a library card, more on these latter two next week). Add to that various on-demand options for single-movie rent-or-buy service.
One of the TV services that’s offering a select free preview month is the Canadian streaming service Hollywood Suite, which can be accessed either through your television provider or as an add-on to Amazon Prime video. Our Linda Barnard walks you through some of her favourite choices, one from each decade from the 70s to the ‘00s. Hint: One of them involves a steel-town girl on a Saturday night who dances like a maniac.
Crave TV, along with the Toronto International Film Festival, has just announced a Stay at Home Cinema Program. Throughout the quarantine period, TIFF chief Cameron Bailey offers Q and As alongside screenings, starting this week with The Princess Bride, and offering new movies each week.
Don’t worry if you don’t’ subscribe. Crave is offering a free first month for new subscribers. Jim Slotek looks at the first few episodes of Apple TV+ reboot of Steven Spielberg’s 1985 television series Amazing Stories while Thom Ernst ponders the future of David Fincher’s chillingly good Netflix series, Mindhunter.
There are new releases. On Netflix, Liam Lacey reviews the new wine movie Uncorked, written and directed by Preston Penny, showrunner of the acclaimed HBO series, Insecure, and finds it unassuming but pleasantly fizzy.
As well, Jim Slotek reviews the thriller Vivarium (Rating: A-) which was supposed to be in the theatres this week, and is somewhat too close to home: Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple confined in their new suburban home, with necessities of life delivered by a mysterious outside force.
Look for Jesse Eisenberg again in Resistance (March 31, iTunes Canada) in which he stars as the famous mime Marcel Marceau in an earlier identity as a French resistance fighter. We’ll have the review up on release day.
The Original-Cin team will keep you posted on new releases and other viewing options in the days ahead. Email subscriptions are free or follow us on social media.