What's New To Streaming In December
Also, we give the Actor Spotlight treatment to Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are everywhere this year. ScarJo played a pivotal role in Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing movie of the year (and, like, ever), and she has potential Oscar contender Jojo Rabbit out in theaters now. Driver is starring in three very different movies this fall, including The Report (which we reviewed below) and a little project called Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
You can watch both actors as the lead characters in Marriage Story, which went up on Netflix today (read our review here). This is another awards favorite from Netflix just a couple weeks after they unveiled The Irishman over Thanksgiving. Don’t be surprised to see Driver and ScarJo nominated on Oscar night for this one.
It’s impressive how both actors have found a way to bring their significant talents to blockbusters as well as smaller indie fare. In recognition of their work in Marriage Story, we wrote about some of their best performances available to stream now, as well as Driver’s other new movie The Report.
Also! It’s a new month so that means we write about the best of the best that’s new to streaming in December. Check out our picks below.
Scarlett Johansson
Under the Skin (streaming on Netflix)
Billy: Under the Skin is one of the surprises of the decade. A movie that from the trailer looks like it will be so far up its own ass that any viewing experience will be like nails going across a chalkboard. A couple months ago I compiled a bunch of different “best of the decade” lists, figured out what I have not seen and then sorted it by run time. This was one of the shorter options on the list I created so I gave it a shot and the hype is real.
Scarlett Johansson gives her best on screen performance (Heris arguably her best performance) in Under the Skin. An extremely quiet performance where she plays an alien who preys on humans for unknown reasons. Lurring men back to what seems like a normal apartment, but is some type of empty void for harvesting the humans she captures. The beginning of the film shows humans as not compassionate and evil. Allowing no remorse for any of the horrible things this creature does. The imminent danger of her character is shown through beautifully edited scenes of her observing abhorrent human behavior. The attitude towards humans changes quickly when they start to show compassion towards her, leading to guilt for the past atrocities she has committed.
Johansson’s character is beautiful and through her beauty there is a commentary on attractiveness that is so powerful. Beauty can elevate someone’s power and also be used to tear someone down. All of which is touched on during this movie, but the message does not hit you hard. It lingers in the background through some great imagery and a masterfully told story. Not many movies this decade have been this entertaining while also having something powerful to say. Under the Skin is definitely an arthouse film that will leave people divided so my recommendation comes with an asterisk. If the message comes through for you then the shocking imagery will be tolerable. Without it, the experience will be frustrating, but with it we have one of the best movies of the decade.
Adam Driver
While We’re Young (streaming on Netflix)
Drew: Something bugged me about Adam Driver at first. In his early performances in movies like Frances Ha and Inside Lleywn Davis, his persona just irritated me, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. I did have to hand him one thing though: He definitely stood out -- and it was more than just his unusual appearance. When Adam Driver is on screen, you know it.
Weirdly, the performance that began to change my opinion of him was in the just-okay comedy While We’re Young. He plays Jamie, a Brooklyn hipster that befriends the main characters, Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts), a middle-aged couple that gets drawn out of their comfort zone by Jamie and his girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried). The film itself is a perfectly fine dramedy that covers familiar territory, but it’s Driver that catches your attention.
While We’re Young was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who Driver has worked with four times now, including Marriage Story. The director and actor really seem to understand the tone they are trying to hit. In While We’re Young, Driver is constantly doing things that make him compulsively watchable. While his character may be written on the page as too stereotypically “hipster,” Driver pulls off little acting choices that make Jamie much more interesting. Take note of the whimsical manner in which he rises from his seat or how he nonchalantly saunters down a hallway. Even the way he says “Facebook” like his character is too cool to know how to pronounce it normally is interesting.
After seeing Driver as Jamie in this movie, his acting style clicked into place for me. Soon after this he created a truly fascinating villain in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens -- his Kylo Ren is anxious, vulnerable, and hot-tempered. He has also impressed in much different material like Silence, Logan Lucky, and Blackkklansman. As his career continues its upward trajectory, I will always look back on this little-seen movie as the beginning of my Adam Driver appreciation.
Paterson (streaming on Amazon Prime)
Billy: Sometimes movies just need to be simple and sweet. Director Jim Jarmusch loves to stay in that lane throughout his career by having a mentality that everyone deserves to have a story told about them. In Paterson we follow a bus driver going through everyday life. He goes to work, goes home to his charming wife, has a tumultuous relationship with his dog, and goes to the local bar. Can you please give me 5 million dollars to make this movie? Not an easy sell at all to get a movie made or to even get people to watch the movie, but I hope you do.
Adam Driver plays the titular Paterson and there is nothing flashy with his performance. Fitting for a character that is “meh” all the way through. “Meh” can lead to so much happiness, though. What Driver does so well is show happiness through the bland parts of life. Throughout his bus route that he drives almost every day he has a hobby that brings in some excitement throughout his seemingly dull day. It is poetry. Poetry seems to maintain and increase his joy. That is so important and something that seems unattainable at times.
I am lucky to be a joyous person, but there is a longing that is inside me. Maybe to go somewhere else for a while. To be something different, but my joy keeps me here. Literally here in St. Louis. Some of my favorite and most frustrating conversations come from wanderlusty people. Saying that I am comfortable where I’m at in my hometown and the shock on their face is one of the world’s greatest joys. Paterson portrays comfortability as sexy rather than a detriment.
Being in one spot for most of your life can be seen as a way to stunt growth. I don’t see it that way, though. Staying here in an area that is familiar brings opportunity to tend to the community around you and help it blossom into what you want. Adam Driver helped bring some of that clarity through his understated performance. Allowing himself to be simple made simple look beautiful. Paterson could go by and no beauty stood out while watching. That is fine and you will find joy in the humor that is sprinkled throughout, but a much more rewarding experience could be in store. Hopefully you will appreciate the little things a bit more after.
New to streaming in December
Drew recommends…
Bridesmaids (streaming on HBO)
As this decade draws to a close we can now safely say one thing for certain: Bridesmaids is on the short list of the best comedies of the 2010s. Here’s a movie that can legitimately say it was one of the most influential movies of the decade, with a stacked cast of funny people that went on to huge careers.
It’s been eight years since it came out, so don’t forget how much of a sensation this movie was when it first appeared. Bridesmaids ended up making $288 million worldwide on just a $32 million budget, leading to Hollywood’s belated realization that there was an audience for R-rated female-led comedies. It was nominated for two Oscars (extremely rare for a studio comedy), one for the screenplay and the other for Melissa McCarthy’s breakout performance.
Speaking of McCarthy, every single thing she does in this movie as the groom’s outrageous sister Megan is hysterical. She’s used sparingly, but she nails every single line reading (“I want to apologize. I'm not even confident on which end that came out of.” or, “I fell off a cruise ship, but I'm back”). McCarthy essentially built a career as a lead actress out of this role. The rest of the cast (Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper, Jon Hamm) are beyond perfect for their characters, but it’s Kristen Wiig that wins the movie. Not only did she co-write the script, but Bridesmaids also relies on her performance to mesh the improv-style comedy with the resonant story.
The thing that stands out the most now is that it’s still gut-bustingly funny. Maybe you’ve seen Bridesmaids a dozen times, but just think about how hard you laughed the first time you saw Annie (Wiig) drugged on the plane or that “explosive” food poisoning scene. Part raunchy hilarity, part totem to female friendship, Bridesmaids can slay you with a big loud comedic moment or with a small awkward one, but it’s still able to anchor the humor with an emotional central story about messy women who care deeply for one another.
Billy recommends…
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (streaming on HBO)
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Such a simple word that I say way too much turned into the greatest “oh shit!” moment in recent memory. Rise of the Planet of the Apes should not work at all. Going back to a franchise that had lost its muster and telling the story of how this world came to be ruled by apes. That’s the boring part, right? Maybe this is why I will never make movies. My intuition is way off clearly.
In this story we follow the ape Caesar from when he was a baby grow up to be different than any other ape. While trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, James Franco’s character discovers that his cure became a part of Caesar’s DNA when he was born, leading to growth that is even faster than human growth. A stronger and smarter human-like creature? Not a great outlook for humanity.
Technology is at a time where we can move our focus from human actors and create new characters to create an emotional connection too. Director Rupert Wyatt and screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver smartly use the humans as secondary characters. The focus is on Caesar and that leads to a brilliant conflict. Who do I root for, the apes or humans? This injects new life into a once-dead franchise. Now I have not seen any of the other Planet of the Apes movies besides the original, but in that one the apes were clearly the villain. Villains that we like, but are not rooting for. By the end of this one I was 100% rooting for Caesar and the apes. What should have been a huge box office bomb started a new trilogy that has turned into one of the best trilogies we have ever seen. Give this one a watch; you will be entertained the whole time.
Recent Release Mini-Reviews
The Report (in theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime)
Drew: Look, it’s difficult to make an entertaining movie based on a 6,700-page report from the Senate Intelligence Committee detailing the abuses of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.” (My eyes glazed over just by typing that.) But it’s not impossible. As films like All the President’s Men and Spotlight have shown, you can make subject matter like this informative and riveting at the same time. The Report really, really wants to be those films, but ultimately comes up short.
To its credit, this is a complex and eye-opening look at the immorality (not to mention the ineffectiveness) of the CIA’s torture program post-9/11. And there is surprising nuance in its criticism of both Republicans and Democrats. However, it’s all a little too dry and a little too buried in paperwork to make for a very captivating or engaging watch. There’s a good cast here, but nobody really stands out in a notable way (not even Adam Driver!). I had a weird feeling throughout like I should be taking notes for a test. That’s the sign of, at best, a decent, well-intentioned movie. - 3 / 5 Apples
See more reviews on our Letterboxd page
Links to get you hyped
We are approaching BOND SZN, folks. The 25th James Bond film (and probably Daniel Craig’s last), No Time To Die, got a trailer this week. It will be here April 2020.
It’s only fitting we end this week’s newsletter with Scarlett Johansson. Her Marvel TV show Black Widow has a teaser trailer up now, with Rachel Weisz, Florence Pugh, and David Harbour (Hopper!) rounding out the cast.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it along to a friend, share it on social, or shout it from the nearest mountaintop. We’d appreciate it.
If you’d like to read past newsletters, hit up our archive.