In entertainment circles, 2018 may always be remembered as the year Netflix won over the critics. After all, some mere eight months ago, the company was getting booed at the Cannes film festival, French critical bodies were locking movies that premiered on streaming services out of awards, and Netflix originals were treated like little more than straight to video, bargain bin time-wasters.
Now, Mudbound, a so-so American epic about racial disharmony and PTSD picked up by Netflix during the 2017 Sundance film festival, is a best picture nominee, and its Director of Photography, the inimitable Rachel Morrison, is the first female cinematographer to ever get nominated for an Oscar. Netflix proved it had populist appeal a long, long time ago – now, finally, the critical establishment is falling into line.
Not that Netflix doesn’t still drop a stinker or two – case in point being the bizarre and misguided The Polka King, available to stream now. A Jack Black vehicle about a glorified retirement home cabaret act who manages to swindle himself a small fortune via his gullible audience of octogenarians, the film never quite decides what it wants to be.
There are splashes of Coen Brothers-esque dark humour; Charlie Kaufman brand meta jokes; and a kind of arch, dry slapstick that owes a lot to both Richard Linklater’s excellent Bernie (also available to stream on Netflix) and Steven Soderbergh’s Behind The Candelabra. It’s odd, it’s not very funny, and it never comes together. And considering it has been helmed by Maya Forbes, the writer-director behind the underrated Infinitely Polar Bear, chalk this one up as a genuine disappointment.
Indeed, this fortnight, Netflix wins more credit for its post-release acquisitions than its original content. First up in that particular pile is By The Sea, an unfairly critically mauled drama directed by Angelina Jolie. It’s a hammy, deliciously overcooked throwback about a middle-aged couple (Jolie and then real-life husband Brad Pitt, both of whom spend the 122 minute running time playing the proceedings like a strange mix between pantomime and Federico Fellini melodrama) who find an unusual – and potentially dangerous – method to keep their struggling marriage afloat. Like Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven stripped of all semblance of irony, it’s high camp weepy nonsense, and I love it.
Also a little uneven, but also very much worth your time, is Before I Wake, Mike Flanagan’s long-delayed horror freak-out. Shot in 2013 but pushed back some five years, the film centres around a young orphan, Cody Morgan (Jacob Tremblay, best known for his star-making turn in Room) whose nightmares manifest themselves in reality, much to the consternation – and later nerve-shredding despair – of his adopted parents, Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (the criminally underrated Thomas Jane).
It’s interesting to come across a horror film about a supernaturally-plagued child where the little troublemaker isn’t the antagonist – Cody is largely unaware of the fall-out of his dreams, and is written by Flanagan as a true moral innocent. And sure, some of the effects are a little cheap, and the drama does get a little bit messy in the latter half, but there’s so much to love here – even the super saccharine finale somehow manages to land.
Now over to our ole mates at Stan. The local streaming service never really gets the love that it deserves, either from critics or from the majority of punters, so I’ll say it unashamedly here and now – I fucking love Stan. If a deranged murderer with hard-to-follow motivations broke into my house, held a gun to my head, and asked me to pick between Netflix and Stan, well, I’d cancel my subscription to the former before I could blink.
Part of that is thanks to the sheer niche appeal of some of the titles Stan picks up. To whit: over the last few weeks, the service has been slowly stocking up on hard-to-find, gloriously remastered prints of Akira Kurosawa classics. If you’ve never gotten into the Japanese master, now’s your chance – Stan streams Stray Dog, an excellent crime classic; Throne Of Blood, a psychedelic take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth; The Hidden Fortress, famously the inspiration behind George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy; Ran, King Lear run through a blender; and The Bad Sleep Well, a noiry mini-masterpiece. You should watch every one of ‘em.
On the considerably less highbrow front, Stan are also offering horror nuts like myself the chance to catch up with a classic from the back catalogue of vampire/nudie master Jesus Franco. She Killed In Ecstasy is a lean, mean little exploitation picture, full of sex, and blood, and psychedelia. I’d never seen it till last week, and I feel remiss for letting it go under my radar for so long – it’ll have your brains running out your ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvGxGf4D-Kw
Following in Franco’s legacy, also available for streaming, is Turbo Kid. I caught this bizarre slice of Montreal-made pot brownie at the Sydney Film Festival a couple of years ago, and was worried that maybe it wouldn’t stand up on rewatch – its humour is very niche; its rough edges made deliberately visible. But I needn’t have worried – it’s still a whole load of ugly, goopy fun, a post-apocalyptic mix of horror, sci-fi and knowing humour. All you really need to know about it is this: Michael Ironside tortures a man by feeding his guts through a bicycle’s gears. Get on it!
For more streaming reviews, check out our thoughts on The End Of The F***ing World here.
