Whimsical, cute ‘Boxtrolls’ a playful family flick
What’s new to watch this week on pay-per-view and streaming services:
Netflix
“ The Boxtrolls,” which was one of the five nominees for best animated feature in this year’s Oscar race, is a delightfully oddball stop-motion fantasy about mischievous trolls who scavenge discarded objects from the streets of a storybook town. It’s a junkyard fantasy, whimsical and inventive and crammed full of playful details and visual gags, and it’s from the Oregon-based animation studio Laika, the same folks who created “Coraline” and “Paranorman.” These trolls are more cute than scary, and the PG is for “rude humor.”
James McAvoy gets nasty as a corrupt cop in gritty British crime thriller “ Welcome to the Punch,” and Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth star in the psychological thriller “Before I Go to Sleep.” Both rated R.
Liam Hemsworth is an American soldier on leave from Vietnam in the romantic drama “ Love and Honor” co-starring Theresa Palmer. This one is PG-13.
Netflix partners with Canadian TV for “ Between,” a young adult science fiction thriller where an outbreak in a small town kills everyone over age 22. This show rolls out one new episode a week every Thursday.
Dive into the new kids show “ H2O: Mermaid Adventures: Season One,” an animated version of the Australian schoolgirl mermaid fantasy. Netflix also has the original “ H2O: Just Add Water” and a new season of the spin-off “ Mako Mermaids: Season 3,” which play like Disney Channel originals from Down Under.
Also for kids is the second season of the Netflix original series “ Richie Rich.”
Pay-per-view / video on demand
“The Loft,” a thriller about a murder in a secret love nest, stars Karl Urban, James Marsden, and Wentworth Miller as friends who quickly suspect one another. The R-rated film is also on Blu-ray and DVD.
Available on cable pay-per-view and video on demand same day as theaters is the PG-13 comedy “Barely Lethal,” a mix of John Hughes teen romance and spy movie with Hailee Steinfeld, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sophie Turner. “Results” is a more grown-up romantic comedy, with Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce as personal trainers at a gym and Kevin Corrigan as their gentle schlub of a new client. Rated R.
Amazon Instant Prime
Sundance 2014 winner “ Low Down” stars John Hawkes as a drug-addicted jazz pianist and Elle Fanning as his teenage daughter watching his spiral of self-destruction. Based on a true story, and rated R for language and drug use.