Image: Marvel Studios
New Doctor Strange, David Cronenberg, and plenty to more to stream from your couch
This week sees one of the most heavily anticipated streaming premieres of 2022 arrive at home, as the Doctor Strange sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness lands on Disney Plus.
That’s not all: There’s a new Kevin Hart movie on Netflix, a new Beavis and Butt-Head movie in the year 2022, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future on VOD, and much more.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Where to watch: Available to stream on Disney Plus
Image: Marvel Studios
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the 28th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, follows Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), the would-be Sorcerer Supreme, as he teams up with America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teenage girl with the ability to traverse universes, in order to stop a mysterious adversary who seeks to absorb America’s power and destroy the multiverse in the process. In their fight to save all of existence, Strange must seek the help of old friends, including the likes of Wanda, the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Wong (Benedict Wong).
From our review:
The scenes that go full Raimi are powerful reminders of how much fun the Marvel Cinematic Universe can be whenever its filmmakers’ idiosyncrasies are allowed to shine through. Multiverse of Madness isn’t a full-on Sam Raimi film — Michael Waldron’s script has a lot of MCU lore to tear through, and there are still more scenes of magic lasers firing at each other than horror fans might like. But the stylistic flair Raimi brings offers respite from all the flying CG magic blasts in a way that establishes the characters. Wanda Maximoff isn’t just capable of crimson energy blasts and mass illusion: She genuinely has mastery of the most disturbing powers in the multiverse. Doctor Strange doesn’t just conjure orange versions of physical weapons, he harnesses forbidden, arguably immoral forces to try and save the day.
Crimes of the Future
Where to watch: Available to rent for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Nikos Nikolopoulos/Neon
Viggo Mortensen stars in David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future as Saul Tenser, a celebrity performance artist in a world where humans have begun to experience bodily mutations in order to acclimate to the disastrous effects of pollution and climate change. With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul ritualistically removes his vestigial organs in defiance of this strange metamorphosis. When Saul is approached by a mysterious man who offers his son’s dead body to be a part of Saul’s performance, he finds himself at the heart of a frightening conspiracy to steer the course of human evolution.
From our review:
There are discomfiting moments, horrific moments, and even some flashes of gnarliness in his relatively recent movies, like Maps to the Stars and Cosmopolis (both with Stewart’s Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson; Taylor Lautner must be doing kick-flips as he waits by the phone.) But Crimes is Cronenberg’s first full-on sci-fi/horror movie since 1999’s playful gaming odyssey eXistenZ. His return to genre territory is both more extreme and less. eXistenZ is a more user-friendly trip for the squeamish, but in spite of Crimes’ explicitly surgical moments, it’s a more contemplative, sometimes recessive film. You could even call it a mood piece.
After Yang
Where to watch: Available to rent for $3.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: A24
Kogonada’s sci-fi drama After Yang follows the story of a family who grapples with an intimate loss when their beloved android companion Yang (Justin H. Min) inexplicably shuts down. Combing through Yang’s memories in a desperate search for a way to fix him, Jake (Colin Farrell) realizes how much of his own life has passed him by when seen through the android’s eyes.
From our review:
Like so many science fiction stories, After Yang doesn’t have answers to its rhetorical questions about the nature of humanity. It suggests, in the most delicate and glancing of ways, that understanding Yang’s connection to Mika helps Jake strengthen his own bond with her. It similarly suggests that Yang was more than his family realized, and that their loss is greater than they fathomed. It gets at an idea that’s often hard to communicate on film — that everyone contains a vast hidden world, and that every death is a vast loss. The film doesn’t make much distinction between Yang and his human family, apart from letting them into his hidden world after he’s gone. It focuses on their memories of him and his memories of them and others, swirling around the themes of perception and willful blindness without forcing any strong conclusions.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe
Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus
Image: Paramount Plus
Mike Judge’s adult animated comedy returns with a sequel to the 1996 movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. This time, our intrepid heroes are spent to space camp. The movie precedes an upcoming revival of the show on Paramount Plus.
The Man From Toronto
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Photo: Sabrina Lantos/Netflix
Kevin Hart’s latest Netflix movie sees him play a man who is mistaken for a world-famous hitman (Woody Harrelson) when they end up at the same Airbnb. Kaley Cuoco also features in the cast.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent stars Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage, a famous actor struggling to succeed after being passed over for multiple major film roles. With a depressing home life and dwindling prospects, Nick decides to call it quits — but not before accepting a million dollar offer to attend the birthday party of a wealthy, mysterious super fan named Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) on his private island. When Nick is unexpectedly recruited by a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish) to spy on Javi, he’ll have to call his unparalleled skills as an actor to avoid being found out and killed.
From our review:
The thing about Nicolas Cage is that he also completely understands what the public wants — he’s a reflexive, audience-aware performer who plays into and against expectations with every line, every expression. This is why the idea behind The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is such a slippery slope: It’s a movie where Nicolas Cage plays a fictional version of himself (named Nick Cage, with the K) in a movie all about the legend of Nic Cage. After Cage himself has spent the last decade, at least, playing right into the public’s idea of Nic Cage’s identity, is a meta-comedy about the man himself just redundant? The answer, like everything related to Nicolas Cage, is complicated. The film works like gangbusters, and it’s a terrific vehicle for Cage, but not for the reasons people might expect.
Sing 2
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Universal Pictures
The follow-up to the 2016 box-office hit Sing, this animated musical comedy brings back most of the voice talent from the first, including Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, and Scarlett Johansson, while bringing in new characters voiced by the likes of Halsey, Pharrell Williams, Eric André, and Bono. In this one, theater-owning koala Buster Moon (McConaughey) hopes to coax former rock star lion Clay Calloway (Bono) out of retirement for one last show. As in the first movie, expect a lot of well-known songs performed by a lot of anthropomorphic animals.
Gatlopp
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: XYZ Films
The 2022 horror comedy Gatlopp stars Jim Mahoney (The Orville), Emmy Raver-Lampman (The Umbrella Academy), Jon Bass (Molly’s Game), and Sarunas J. Jackson (Insecure) as a group of old friends who reunite for a night of fun, drinking, and board games after nearly a decade apart. It’s not long, however, before the friends realize that the game they’re playing comes with some serious, terrifying consequences.
From our review:
Running at an efficient, high-energy 80 minutes, Gatlopp doesn’t have a lot of time to waste on the characters’ disbelief when their drinking game starts demanding personal information from them, moving pieces around on the board by itself, and imposing supernatural penalties when they dodge questions. By the time they find out that if they don’t complete the game, they’ll have to play it for eternity in hell, they’ve already been given plenty of other reasons to play fair and follow through, even if it means revealing the secrets they’ve been withholding from themselves and each other.
Watcher
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: IFC Midnight
This serial killer thriller is out in theaters this weekend and comes to VOD at the same time. It stars modern scream queen Maika Monroe (It Follows, The Guest) as an actress who notices a stranger (Burn Gorman) spying on her. Watcher is the feature debut of director Chloe Okuno, who directed the “Storm Drain” segment in V/H/S/94.
From our review:
The setup and execution are ideal for both minimalist indie horror and a pandemic-era production. (The film was shot on location in Romania in spring 2021.) In spite of its small scale, Watcher doesn’t rely only on the power of suggestion, or limit itself to emphasizing the symbolic importance of Julia’s fears. Director Chloe Okuno, making her feature debut after directing a segment of V/H/S/94, knows how to maintain a slow burn without letting the flame blow out. Using some simple images — a shadowy figure staring out a window, the eerie familiarity of a man on the street, the blurs and shallow focus created by rain on glass — she provokes genuine, instinctive shivers
Press Play
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon and Vudu
Image: The Avenue Entertainment
The romantic sci-fi drama Press Play is sort of like if you took The Time Traveler’s Wife and mashed it together with The Butterfly Effect. Clara Rugaard (Love Gets a Room) stars as Laura, a young woman who falls in love with Harrison (Lewis Pullman), the man of her dreams. When Harrison dies in a tragic car accident, Laura listens to the mixtape he made for her in order to reminisce and heal — only to realize that each song on the tape transports her back in time to the moment they first listened to it together. Repeatedly traveling back in time to alter the present, Laura is faced with the question of whether or not her choices are in the best interests of the one she loves.
Civil: Ben Crump
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
The Netflix documentary Civil: Ben Crump follows a year in the life of Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney best known for taking on the civil cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Andre Hill. Offering a behind-the-scenes look at Crump’s upbringing, his journey to practicing law, and his family life, director Nadia Hallgren’s film sheds light on an extraordinary figure in an extraordinary time for civil rights in America.
Love & Gelato
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Photo: Fabio Zayed/Netflix
Based on Jenna Evans Welch’s bestselling romance novel, Love & Gelato follows Lina (Susanna Skaggs), an American teenager who spends a summer in Rome on a personal journey to find herself and travel in the footsteps of her late mother. Inspired by her mother’s home country, lina finds love, adventure, and of course — gelato.
Doom of Love
Image: Netflix
This Turkish romantic drama follows a young man recovering from a business failure who falls in love at a yoga retreat.
The Burning Sea
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: Magnet
The disaster epic The Burning Sea follows a team of Norwegian researchers, among them submarine operator Sofia (Kristine Kujath Thorp), who rush to save the lives of the operators of an oil rig that has collapsed due to a crack in the ocean floor. In lieu of survivors, they discover the makings of a nigh-apocalyptic event of mass destruction. The massive amounts of oil leaking from the collapsed rig erupt into a firestorm that threatens to engulf anyone left in its path.
Trevor: The Musical
Where to watch: Available to stream on Disney Plus
Photo: Joan Marcus/Disney
This off-Broadway stage play is the latest filmed theatrical production to make its way to Disney Plus. This one is based on the Oscar-winning short film Trevor, which inspired the organization The Trevor Project.
Rise
Where to watch: Available to stream on Disney Plus
Photo: Patrick Redmond/Disney
This sports story is a fictional adaptation of the story of the Antetokounmpo brothers, who moved from Nigeria to Greece and found their way to the U.S. as NBA players. While one of the brothers, Giannis, is now one of the best basketball players in the world, two of his brothers have also won NBA titles.
Revealer
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Image: Shudder
The year is 1987. The place is Chicago. And it’s the end of the word. A sex worker and a religious protestor are trapped in a peep show booth and must survive together in this horror movie.
Murder at Yellowstone City
Where to watch: Available to rent for $3.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: RLJE Films
This new Western has a star-studded cast, including Richard Dreyfuss, Anna Camp, Thomas Jane, and Gabriel Byrne. It follows a murder of a local prospector in Yellowstone City, Montana, and the fallout for residents and visitors alike.
Flux Gourmet
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: IFC Midnight
Acclaimed director Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy, In Fabric) returns with this fascinating drama set at a culinary institute. The trailer promises “sensory overload,” Strickland’s typical impeccable costuming and attention to detail, and the unsettling air you often find in his movies.
Bitterbrush
Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Alejandro Mejia/Magnolia Pictures
This documentary follows two women who herd and drive cattle in Idaho and the challenges they face as modern day ranchers.
