Pay tribute to Rivers’ wit with streaming offerings
What’s new to watch this week on pay-per-view and streaming services:
Revisit the legacy of caustic comedienne Joan Rivers, who died last week at age 81, with the 2010 documentary portrait “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” (Netflix and Hulu Plus) and the stand-up special “Don’t Start With Me” (Netflix). She’s memorable in Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs” (Netflix and Amazon Instant), a rare Rivers performance for all ages, and Amazon Instant has her late-1960s talk show “That Show.”
Pay-per-view
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is being touted by many fans as the best Marvel Universe superhero movie to date. Picking up where “The Avengers” left off, it’s a superhero adventure by way of a political conspiracy thriller that teams up Cap (Chris Evans in all-American integrity mode) with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Mackie and Robert Redford co-star.
For the adults in the audience, “Words and Pictures” offers a grown-up romance with Clive Owen as a passionate but alcoholic English teacher and Juliette Binoche as an abstract painter who spar over art and fall in love.
Also for grown-ups is “The Rover,” a gritty Australian drama with Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson, and the British period piece “Belle” with Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a mixed-race woman in high society.
The horror film “Honeymoon” is available the same day it opens in theaters, and action fans can see “Brick Mansions” with Paul Walker (in one of his final roles) and RZA.
Netflix
In that TV dead zone between the end of summer shows and the launch of the new TV season, why not check out some of the movies new to Netflix this month? You can’t go wrong with the comedy “School of Rock” starring Jack Black and a cast of adolescent rockers, Sam Raimi’s low-key crime thriller “A Simple Plan” with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, or the dark comedy “Grosse Point Blank” with John Cusack as a hitman at his high school reunion.
More recent releases include the wry senior citizen romantic comedy “Le Week-End” and the Washington-sourced “Your Sister’s Sister,” an indie comedy with Emily Blunt and Mark Duplass from Seattle-based filmmaker Lynn Shelton.
Hulu
Hulu Plus now has every episode of the Starz original series “Party Down,” featuring Adam Scott and Lizzy Caplan before they landed on “Parks and Recreation” and “Masters of Sex,” respectively. The first five episodes are also on the free Hulu service.