3 Must Watch Online Movies For The Weekend
Read Time:5 Minute, 48 Second
Raining this weekend? Nothing at the local theaters worth watching? Well you might want to consider one or all of these award winning movies. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to leave the house.
1. Blue Ruin (Directed by Jeremy Saulnier. Starring Macon Blair, Devin Ratray)
For fans of: Blood Simple, revenge thrillers
How to watch it: Now available on iTunes, Amazon Instant, VOD for $6.99
By offering a minimalist take on the revenge thriller genre and tossing in a strong Coen Brothers influence, Jeremy Saulnier’s terrifically grim Blue Ruin takes a familiar formula but breathes new life into it.
Most notable is its unexpected leading man. First, picture Liam Neeson in one of those movies in which someone he holds dear has been “taken”: gruff, intense, and highly skilled in taking out baddies. Now picture the opposite. That’s Blue Ruin‘s Dwight (Macon Blair), the film’s gangly protagonist, who will stop at nothing to get revenge on the family responsible for his parents’ death.
When we meet Dwight, he’s king derelict: scraggly-bearded, dirty, living out of a beat-up Pontiac near Rehoboth Beach, and sneaking in and out of unoccupied residences to clean himself up and find supplies. But his bohemian lifestyle is abruptly interrupted when a cop tracks him down to inform him that Will Cleland, the murderer of his parents, is about to be released. Fueled by rage and a primal sense of revenge, Dwight promptly takes to the road, quickly hunts down Will, and brutally murders him during his homecoming party while no one’s around.
But there are consequences for his actions; Dwight soon realizes that, instead of calling the cops, the Cleland family plans to take their own extralegal revenge, and everyone he knows is in danger.
Blue Ruin‘s simplicity benefits enormously from the daring juxtaposition between a classic macho man narrative played and such an unexpected protagonist. Dwight is utterly ill-equipped to go on a bloody revenge-fueled rampage, but is so blinded by his determination, he’s able to keep his wits about him, no matter how darkly silly his faults sometimes are. Much credit is owed to Blair, who plays the character with a determined, calculated earnestness.
Coupled with Saulnier’s stark cinematography and a sparse screenplay that tells you just what you need to know and nothing more, Blue Ruin is an excellent exercise in genre filmmaking, and one of the best films currently streaming on VOD.
2. Joe (Directed by David Gordon Green. Starring Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan)
For fans of: David Gordon Green, Jeff Nichols, Mud
How to watch it: Now available on iTunes, Amazon Instant, VOD for $6.99
There was a brief period in which it seemed like indie darling David Gordon Green — the man behind powerful film festival favorites George Washington and Snow Angels — had sold out for good, trading in lush cinematography and loaded imagery for fart jokes and one-liners in films likePineapple Express and The Sitter. But last summer Green had a pseudo-return to form with the peculiar and thoughtful comedy-drama Prince Avalanche. That step in the right direction seems to have put him back on track; his latest, Joe, is a total return to form, exploring rural America and the dark side of human nature through a dreamy, stylistic narrative about an unlikely friendship between a troubled boy and an ex-con.
The titular Joe (played graciously and expertly by Nicolas Cage) is a grizzled ex-con who has spent years trying to put his troubled past behind him, and he’s doing a pretty good job. He makes a living with his tree removal business, where he oversees a group of blue collar-types as they poison trees marked for removal. At night, he numbs the pain of his past through a steady diet of alcohol and prostitutes, all while trying to keep to himself and hold his enemies at bay.
Joe’s life is shaken up when he meets Gary (Tye Sheridan), a spunky 15-year-old who’s the product of an abusive alcoholic father and an indifferent mother. Gary hangs around until Joe gives him a job and the two quickly strike up an unusual but sincere friendship. But Joe’s turbulent past catches up with him, and he finds himself slowly slipping back into old habits while developing a fondness for Gary, who quickly sees Joe as a father figure.
Joe is David Gordon Green’s best film in years, and heartening evidence that the years he spent as Hollywood’s de facto stoner-comedy director haven’t soured his delicate and poetic sensibilities.
3. Hide Your Smiling Faces (Directed by Daniel Patrick Carbone. Starring Nathan Varnson and Ryan Jones)
For fans of: George Washington, Stand By Me, Terrence Malick
How to watch it: Now available on iTunes, Amazon Instant, VOD for $6.99
Daniel Patrick Carbone’s Hide Your Smiling Faces is less a film than it is a poetic meditation on nature, friendship, adolescence, and death. The dream-like, loose narrative of the film follows two young boys one summer in rural America as a tragic event forces them to confront their own mortality. But Hide Your Smiling Faces isn’t a rumination on the loss of innocence; it’s an exploration of the things that make up youthful innocence in the first place. With a thoughtful script and gorgeous, naturalistic cinematography, Hide Your Smiling Faces is a beautiful, inquisitive, philosophical film for the Terrence Malick fan in all of us.
It’s another sticky, aimless summer for 14-year-old Eric (Nathan Varnson) and his 9-year-old brother Tommy (Ryan Jones). They spend their days riding around on bikes throughout their nameless rural town in New Jersey, exploring the woods, and rough-housing with the other neighborhood boys. Things get dark, however, when Eric peers down from a steep bridge and notices the body of a kid lying motionless by the water. He and a friend go down to explore and discover the lifeless body of a neighborhood kid, who turns out to be one of Tommy’s friends.
The discovery shakes the town and forces both Eric and Tommy to confront the big questions of life in their own distinct ways. Hide Your Smiling Faces features minimal dialogue, but there’s a distinct coming-of-age vibe that evokes the curiosity and unhinged burst of emotions that comes with adolescence.
Some will find Hide Your Smiling Faces‘ minimalism to be a somber slog, and those turned off by movies that aren’t heavy on plot should certainly steer clear. But if you like a philosophical portrait of adolescence, wherein the heady themes are portrayed through lush visuals, you’ll find plenty to ponder and admire in Hide Your Smiling Faces. It’s one of the most striking independent films in recent memory.
Many thanks to our friends at The Week for story contributions.
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We watched a kind of funny one last night at a friends house. Zombie movie with robbery as a starter. Cockney’s vs Zombies and as you imagine, the Cockney people were not having zombies in their East London territory. The guy from Lock Stock and Snatch (he owned a pig farm) was in it, forget his name.
I do like the sound of these. Always a fan of Cage even in his not so good movies.
I will give em a go. Thank you!
Blue Ruin was freaking amazing, especially if you liked movies like “Taken” but with a twist.