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

‘Pitch 2’ a harmonious sequel

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

Pitch Perfect 2,” the sequel to the musical smash, sends Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and the whole female a cappella group to an international competition for a new round of romance, goofy antics, and friendship through harmonizing. PG-13 for innuendo and language. Also on Blu-ray and DVD.

Saint Laurentdramatizes the heyday of the influential French fashion designer in a film that suggests his personal life and his creative life were inseparable. Gaspard Ulliel and Léa Seydoux star in the French-language drama. R for nudity, sexual situations, language and drug use.

Available same day as select theaters nationwide is the inspirational documentary A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Storyabout the anti-bullying activist. PG-13.

Netflix

Dame Judi Dench goes blue collar to play Philomena (2013), and Steve Coogan (who co-wrote the film) is the journalist who helps her find the son she was forced to give up for adoption when she was an unwed Irish teenager. The Oscar-nominated drama is rated PG-13 for language and adult themes.

Jason Statham stages The Bank Job (2008), a lively and entertaining heist film inspired by a real-life British robbery in the 1970s. R.

Viola Davis took home the Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama for How to Get Away with Murder: Season 1.” You can catch up on what you missed at Netflix.

Gotham: Season 1,” the biggest and splashiest superhero TV show to date, arrives as the second season launches on Fox.

More streaming TV: Person of Interest: Season 4,” Blue Bloods: Season 5,” “ Hawaii Five-0: Season 5,” and Parenthood: Season 6.”

Amazon Prime Video

In Serendipity (2001), John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale meet cute in a New York department store and spend the rest of the film searching for one another again. The romantic comedy is also on Netflix. PG-13.

Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s landmark horror classic Halloween (2007) explores the backstory of the boogeyman. R.

Fans of cult movies will find a cornucopia of cool and crazy films this month, from Roger Corman’s drive-in gothic horrors Premature Burial (1962) and X-The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963) to Mario Bava’s mad Italian horrors Black Sunday(1961) and Lisa and the Devil(1973) to the counterculture artifacts Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) and Gas-s-s-s.”

HBO Now

HBO won big at the Emmys. You can watch its winning shows Game of Thrones: Seasons 1-5 and Olive Kitteridge,” and the documentaries Citizenfour,” “ Going Clear,” and The Jinxat HBO Now and HBO Go.

Now available at Redbox

“Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Boulevard,” “Saint Laurent,” “The Face of an Angel.”

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