HBO was, for at least two generations, the birthplace of cable video. No one else can compete. Thus, the rise of HBO Max seemed to have been the streaming destination par excellence for moviegoers, a designation on which the jury has yet to be chosen, especially given the resolution to ditch the “Home Box Office” component of the call in favor of HBO Max. Simpler, but more generic, Max nevertheless maintains a collaboration with TCM, providing it with a wide diversity of old American and foreign films, as well as much of its catalog from HBO itself. It is the main streaming space for Studio Ghibli and R24. So even though Max hasn’t directed many originals, he still has a fake collection of videos that you probably won’t find anywhere else.
With all that in mind, here are some of Max’s latest and most exclusive offerings.
It was a tall order, after the beloved 1985 edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but this adaptation of the later Broadway musical removes those hurdles and more. While it can’t update past iterations, it offers a unique, vivid, and colorful take on the hard-working, fast-paced story of Miss Celie (Fantasia Barrino), who survives and ultimately thrives despite her “poverty. “”Black. . . and ugly” in the rural South of the early 20th century. Danielle Brooks, as Sofia, has been nominated for an Oscar.
You have no idea what’s in store for you if you haven’t seen this genuinely loud musical about a pair of twins separated at birth (Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson), whether they’re misogynistic idiots, pretending to be others to reconcile their long years. -separated parents (Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally). It’s an undeniable and silly premise, yet things are getting crazier and crazier temporarily. Mom Evelyn’s vagina fell out years ago, her newly freed father, Harrison, helps her maintain some mutant “sewers. “boys” in a giant cage in his apartment. It’s all wonderfully strange, breathtaking.
The dark, comedic real-life story of Vernon, New Jersey’s once-popular action park, is breathtaking. In 1978, stockbroker Eugene Mulvihill set out to create a theme park with as few restrictions imaginable and at the lowest possible cost. with the greatest efficiency imaginable. The result was a local charm that appealed to teenagers with the promise of a smart, rule-free time; The suspicion of danger from the park’s poor quality probably gave it added charm, at least until shady deals with the local government made it clear that not only were the injured hidden, but also the deaths.
What’s left to say about the 2023 film? Oppenheimer won the Oscars, but Barbie took over the speech and the box office, with the candy-pink feminist professional grossing more money than any other film. Margot Robbie is the best as the fish-out-of-water doll caught in the real world. Ryan Gosling is more than Kenough, and this is director Greta Gerwig’s third consecutive win.
Willy Wonka’s horrific chocolate experience might have stolen the spotlight from Timothée Chalamet’s role as his vaguely menacing favorite chocolatier, but that doesn’t explain why he sleeps with Wonka. An old-school musical with modern production values, Wonka feels like a thoroughly refreshing movie. A throwback to a less cynical time, with memorable songs and emotional rhythms that move.
One of A24’s most recent releases didn’t make a splash among the distributor’s other recent offerings, but it still garnered very positive reviews and some awards and nominations for the lead role of Nicholas Cage. Here, he plays college professor Paul Matthews, who begins to appear in the dreams of dozens of unrelated people, but as a bored and passive observer. Until it isn’t anymore and appearances begin to take on a more menacing, nightmarish quality. It all ends up being an incredibly disjointed meditation on celebrities, A24-style. .
The wonderful Sofia Coppola wrote and directed this biopic based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir about her young life and her turbulent and unsettling romance with the elder Elvis Presley. Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi give wonderful performances and the result is a portrait of a tender relationship, in its own way, but also confusing and deeply unbalanced.
I’m not here to argue that Aquaman 2 is top-notch art, or even completely memorable, but it’s a lovely, silly piece of superhero fun, bringing Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson together as a pair of mismatched superbrothers on a quest. There’s a lot at stake to keep things interesting, but the movie doesn’t have the gravitas that plagues so many other super movies, especially those adjacent to DC.
The second and final Wonder Woman film, with the help of Patty Jenkins (following a break with the Zack Snyder-era DC Universe) pulls Diana out of the trenches of World War I and into the grocery malls of the 1980s. villains in those types of movies, it’s great to see antagonists Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal take on our heroine with mythological magic as a nod to WW history. A bit sad despite the post-credits cameo that we possibly won’t see again. .
Have a good trip, let’s go back to the year 2020, when a young pregnant woman may have to cross several states to get an abortion. Of course, something like this may never happen in elegant America, in our most enlightened era, where the right to bodily autonomy is boldly and irrevocably entrenched among our inalienable rights. In Unpregnant, Haley Lu Richardson plays Veronica, a young woman who will have to leave her home state of Missouri to save her parents from having an abortion, united through a friend from her formative years Bailey (Barbie Ferreira). It sounds heavy, but the movie is, at its core, a lighthearted road trip movie involving a couple of mismatched friends. It’s quite delicious.
For some Muslims in New Delhi, it has long been traditional to feed black kites (a type of bird of prey), confident that such clever action will help keep them out of trouble. Except it’s gotten harder and harder for birds to get in. The trendy city, where birds are victims of all kinds of dangers, the main culprits being pollution and overpopulation. The documentary All That Breathes follows brothers Saud and Nadeem, who run a bird sanctuary that has rescued tens of thousands of birds of prey in the afterlife. two decades, in a story about the interconnectedness of our ecosystems, and also about the distinctive feature of avoiding what is inevitable: decline.
Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning film examines the banality of evil in the story of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (the ever-brilliant Sandra Hüller), who live seemingly ordinary lives while also being complicit in the common evil that happens just outside the frame. It is very explicit in its treatment of the Holocaust and the real-life characters depicted, but it also suggests, more universally, that we are all capable of being blinded to the horrors in which we participate.
This intense, modern crime drama follows Robert Pattinson’s Connie as she tries to get her disabled brother out of police custody following a bank robbery while seeking to avoid her own arrest for the same crime. It’s one of those wonderful neo-noirs where all that can happen through our protapassnists; Pattinson put in an impressive performance.
The film’s co-writer, Jimmie Fails, plays the title role here under his own name, a black San Franciscan with long roots whose former family home (built by his grandfather) is now in a gentrified community and worth millions. To reclaim the space even though it’s still empty, Jimmie makes the Victorian vacancy a sort of base of operations to explore his position in the fashionable and evolving city. The superbly photographed and acted film caused a stir at the Oscars for a while, but ended up being ignored. It’s definitely worth a first look.
One of the most well-deserved Best Picture Oscar winners of recent years (if not decades), Bong Joon-Ho’s dark satire is a harsh critique of fashionable capitalism, but also a very funny comedy of manners. And also a horror movie. Get yourself a movie that can do it all.
Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar for his role as Fred Hampton in this poignant biographical drama about the FBI’s infiltration of the Black Panther Party’s bankruptcy in 1960s Illinois in Chicago. LaKeith Stanfield plays FBI informant William O’Neal in the film, which is also nominated for Best Picture.
Prior to Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the book, music, and lyrics for this three-day musical concert in a predominantly Dominican American community in Upper Manhattan. Film editing captures all the joy of level editing, while adding location footage that underpins the entire singing and dancing process. It is a beautiful and moving celebration of life, renewal, and community.
David Lowery’s medieval pastiche, based more or less (but authentically) on the 14th-century chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is a visual dinner as well as a dark and sensual adventure into an imaginary past. Dev Patel plays the knight name in a film that adheres more to the conventions of medieval storytelling than almost any movie I’ve ever seen. The result is something that feels a bit like a fever dream, but is a delight for anyone willing to dive into it.
Rob Reiner directs this charming documentary about actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter Albert Brooks, covering his beginnings and a decades-long career that includes SNL, the Scorsese films, the voices of The Simpsons, and an Oscar nomination. it’s most commonly a verbal exchange between Brooks and Reiner, but it’s all pretty fascinating, whether you’re a long-time fan or not.
An engaging portrait of photographer, artist, and activist Nan Goldin, whose paintings document the HIV/AIDS crisis and the more recent opioid epidemic following her own impending death from a fentanyl overdose. In the middle of the film is an ethical conflict: Goldin’s tireless paintings. Opposing the Sackler family’s business, for their role in the relentless marketing of OxyContin, puts them in an awkward position when it comes to exhibiting their paintings. After encouraging artistic netpaintings to disassociate themselves from these pharmaceutical giants, he also goes so far as to question the price. to show his paintings in museums, many of which are funded largely through the Sacklers. To what extent does an uncompromising artist have to give in for a non-unusual good?
Former child star turned dog owner.