What's New To Streaming In February 2021

Plus, we send back a dispatch from the (virtual) Sundance Film Festival

Feb 05, 2021

We have a jam-packed newsletter for you today! In addition to recommending a couple movies new to streaming in February, we report back from our time at the (virtual) 2021 Sundance Film Festival, and review the new Denzel movie The Little Things. As always, read, subscribe, and share the newsletter! Let’s get into it.

Drew recommends…

The Prestige (streaming on Amazon Prime)

There are simply not many movies as completely absorbing from start to finish as The Prestige. It’s one of the best movies when you want to avoid “second screening,” which is when you watch a movie while you text or scroll through social media. This magician mystery-thriller forces you to lean forward and really pay attention, no matter if it’s your first time or tenth time seeing it.

The Prestige is Christopher Nolan refining the Nolan recipe: mass entertainment that is artfully crafted and hard to replicate. It started with Batman Begins the year before, when he first got his hands on a big-budget production, but in The Prestige you can see Nolan getting better and better at learning how to thrill the audience and keep them guessing, something he has continued to do all the way through Tenet. Almost 15 years later, the Nolan recipe has made him one of the few true name-brand blockbuster directors.

Tracing the fictional story of Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), two rival magicians in late 19th-century London, The Prestige cleverly reveals how obsessiveness and hubris leads two men into a dangerous competition. The tricks (or, illusions -- sorry, Gob) start small, bullet catches and disappearing birds, until the one-upmanship leads to the epic Transported Man illusion, where one magician inexplicably appears in a different part of the stage almost instantly.

As Borden, Bale submits one of his best performances, which is saying something considering this is one of our best living actors. Each time I see it I am amazed at what he accomplished with this character. (For spoiler reasons, I won’t go into any more detail.) Jackman is perfect for the role of Angier, the sophisticated (greatest) showman. It’s probably my favorite performance of his. The female characters, played by Scarlett Johannsson and Rebecca Hall, are underwritten (unfortunately a recurring theme in Nolan movies), but they do good work with what they have on the page. And, as if you needed another reason to love this movie, David Bowie appears magnificently as Nikola Tesla.

The Prestige also may be one of the ultimate rewatchable films. It’s very rewarding to see multiple times, as Nolan has dropped little lines of dialogue and visual bread crumbs you only notice if you’ve seen it before. Nolan knows something crucial about audiences and he even seeds it into the dialogue: We want to be fooled when we sit down for a movie. If a film is good enough, it can fool us so successfully that we want to stand up and applaud in astonishment, just like a good magic trick.

Billy recommends…

Hello, My Name is Doris (streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime)

If you think The Prestige is absorbing from start to finish then you should check out Hello, My Name is Doris! Ok… I actually can’t think of a movie as different from a Nolan movie, but this one is super light-hearted and satisfying.

We have unlikely chemistry between our two main stars Sally Field (Doris) and Max Greenfield (John Fremont). John is a young up-and-coming art director who has newly arrived in New York and Doris is a lifelong New Yorker hoarder who is tasting independence for the first time in her life. After a self-help seminar Doris is inspired to believe in herself and the young John brings metaphorical butterflies into her soul.

This is what this movie has, an abundant amount of soul. The presented story has no business hitting the emotional notes it goes for. The reason it is able to get there is the “Flu Game”-like performance from Sally Field. You feel the happiness, love, family drama, and heartbreak she brings to the screen. I’m sure there were plenty of amazing performances the year this came out, but nothing has fallen under the radar more than Field’s performance in this movie.

The plot device of an older woman falling for a younger man definitely brings some awkward moments, but the steady presence of Greenfield and the wonderful performance from Field make this watching experience easy to digest. During the frigid moments this winter turn that dating app range all the way up to 65 and swipe while you watch a delightful movie most people have missed.

Other movies new to streaming in February

Netflix

Inception
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
The Patriot
Shutter Island
The Conjuring & The Conjuring 2 (February 21)

Amazon Prime

Coming to America
Dazed and Confused
Moulin Rouge
The Ides of March
There’s Something About Mary
The Village

Hulu

American Psycho
District 9
G.I. Jane
Me, Myself and Irene
Sideways
You’ve Got Mail
The Shape of Water (February 15)
Logan Lucky (February 17)

HBO and HBO Max

Aquaman
Austin Powers movies
Drumline
The Graduate
Life Of Pi
The Matrix trilogy
Safe House
Saw movies
Selena
The Goonies
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Training Day
Unforgiven
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Dunkirk (February 12)
Argo (February 20)
Blade Runner 2049 (February 26)
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (February 27)

A dispatch from the (virtual) 2021 Sundance Film Festival

This year the Sundance Film Festival went mostly virtual, which allowed for schmucks like us to get in on the action. With 74 feature films and documentaries premiering at the fest, there was plenty to check out. We saw three of them and dropped our reviews below. Look for these to get released at some point this year.

On the Count of Three

Drew: Talk about a big swing in your first trip to the plate. Debut director Jerrod Carmichael also co-stars in this very dark and very funny film about two best friends that make a suicide pact. With heavy subject matter so central to its narrative On the Count of Three is an impressive comedic high wire act for most of its runtime.

Much of that is due to Christopher Abbott, who plays Carmichael’s friend, in an empathetic and hilarious performance. He is up for whatever the tonally adventurous script throws at him.

Well-knock comic faces (Tiffany Haddish, Henry Winkler, JB Smoove) show up throughout, but they are not quite trying to make you laugh. This is a film that deals with mental health and depression, so while there are a few laugh-out-loud moments, On the Count of Three stays down to the earth for the most part. It’s a tricky balancing act that isn’t flawlessly executed but Carmichael clearly has filmmaking chops and something to say. - 3.5 / 5 Apples

Passing

Drew: Passing boasts a terrific cast, a promising first-time director in Rebecca Hall, and an intriguing period story about race, class, and identity. So why doesn’t it totally work? Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga co-star, brilliantly, as two light-skinned black women in 1920s New York, one passes for white and the other doesn’t, and the film examines the complexities of their situation.

With evocative visual stylistic touches, Hall reveals that she has a real future as a filmmaker, but Passing drags in its middle stretch and may try to bite off more than it can chew thematically. I could see a second watch solving some of my issues with Passing, but it lacked a certain dramatic force that would’ve made it a more impactful experience the first time around. - 3 / 5 Apples

Misha and the Wolves

Drew: Misha Defonseca was a Holocaust survivor that, at 7 years old, walked across Germany during WWII to find her parents, living with a pack of wolves in the woods for a period of time. This is a remarkable story that unsurprisingly landed a book deal and a movie. The documentary Misha and the Wolves explores how much of this unbelievable and inspirational story is based in reality.

I won’t give away any more of this doc’s twists and turns (there are many), but suffice to say Misha’s story is not what it at first appears to be. Misha and the Wolves trains a skeptical eye on the story and examines why we are so quick to believe it. The doc is solidly crafted, although it may have benefitted from a less traditional true crime approach. It makes all the sense in the world that Misha and the Wolves was bought by Netflix. This type of “stranger than fiction” documentary will fit right at home in their library. - 3 / 5 Apples

Billy: This is a captivating story that had a documentary structure that dulled the experience greatly (except for one clever style choice that was there and gone within 5 minutes). - 2 / 5 Apples

The Little Things (in theaters and streaming on HBO Max)

Drew: Even if this kind of serial killer drama is up your alley (as it is mine), the pieces (big and small) don’t come together very well in The Little Things. Don’t get me wrong — it’s very watchable, just like anything with Denzel. And Jared Leto actually keeps the movie from tailing off into boring formulaic territory in the second half.

But Rami Malek isn’t right at all for his part and the story doesn’t separate itself from other, much better creepy atmospheric crime dramas. I would’ve loved to have seen what a better filmmaker could’ve done with this material. - 3 / 5 Apples

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