Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Wilson story makes touching film

Paul Giamatti, left, John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks in “Love & Mercy.”
Sean Axmaker

What’s new for home viewing on video-on-demand and Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other streaming services.

Pay-per-view / video on demand

Love & Mercy explores the life of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys songwriter who turned surf music into psychedelic pop symphonies, from idealistic young visionary to his spiral into depression. Paul Dano and John Cusack play Wilson young and old, respectively, while a superb Elizabeth Banks plays the hero in this touching true story. PG-13 for language and drug use.

Suburbia meets the new sexual revolution in the racy comedy The Overnightwith Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling and Jason Schwartzman. R for nudity, drug use and language.

Netflix

Canceled last year despite solid ratings on A&E, Netflix comes to the rescue with Longmire: Season 4,” new episodes of the modern Western crime drama starring Australian actor Robert Taylor as laconic Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire. For those who like their TV crime dramas lean and leathery.

Mia Wasikowska is Madame Bovary (2014) in the new take on Gustave Flaubert’s romantic tragedy with Ezra Miller, Paul Giamatti and Rhys Ifans. R for sexuality and nudity.

Also new: Christopher Nolan’s moody thriller Insomnia (2002, R) with Al Pacino and Robin Williams, God Said Ha!(1999, PG-13), the one-woman show from Spokane’s own Julia Sweeney, and the intimate Iranian mystery About Elly(2009) from Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (Farsi with subtitles, unrated).

Streaming TV: The Blacklist: Season 2,” the gimmicky conspiracy thriller sustained by James Spader’s terribly entertaining performance, the Disney Channel musical Teen Beach Movie 2(2015).

Amazon Prime Video

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter,” inspired by an urban legend, is a sweetly offbeat indie picture about a young Japanese woman (Rinko Kikuchi) on a quest to find the buried loot from the movie “Fargo” in the Minnesota winter. Unrated, no violence, sex or foul language.

The family-friendly documentary I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story profiles the “Sesame Street” puppeteer at age 78.

Also newly arrived: Paul Newman found one of his greatest roles as an easy-going screw-up in the comic drama Nobody’s Fool (1994, R) and Mickey Rourke is underground poet Charles Bukowski in all but name in Barfly (1987, R).

Hulu

The Awesomes: Season 3offers new episodes of the animated superhero spoof, created for Hulu by Seth Meyers, arriving every Tuesday.

HBO Now

Wild,” featuring Oscar-nominated performances by Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, is HBO’s movie premiere of the week (R).

Now available at Redbox

“The Age of Adaline,” “Unfriended,” “American Heist,” “No Tears for the Dead.”

Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. His reviews of streaming movies and TV can be found at http://streamondemandathome.com.