Stream on Demand: ‘Furious’ makes jump to streaming
What’s new for home viewing on video-on-demand and Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand
It is a big week for VOD debuts big and small, and few are bigger than “The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth film in the car caper franchise with Vin Diesel and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (PG-13). There’s also a longer, unrated “Director’s Cut” available. Also on DVD and Blu-ray.
More grown-up is “A Quiet Passion” starring Cynthia Nixon in a touching performance as Emily Dickinson (PG-13) and Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women” starring Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart in three stories of small-town lives (R).
For younger audiences is the animated “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” also on DVD and Blu-ray and at Redbox (PG).
Also new:
British World War II dramedy “Their Finest” with Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy (R)
Direct-to-VOD action reboot “The Saint” with Adam Rayner and Eliza Dushku (plus a cameo by Sir Roger Moore) (not rated)
Hirokazu Koreeda’s family drama “After the Storm” from Japan (not rated, with subtitles)
German comedy “Not My Day” with Moritz Bleibtreu.
Available same day as select theaters nationwide are the romantic drama “Blind” with Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore and family adventure “Swallows & Amazons” with Kelly Macdonald (both not rated).
Netflix
“Lion” (2016), based on a true story, stars Dev Patel as a lost boy in Calcutta adopted by Australian parents (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) who, years later, uses Google Maps to locate his lost family in India. It was nominated for six Academy Awards (PG-13).
Keegan-Michael Key, Cobie Smulders, Fred Savage and Kate McKinnon are the “Friends from College” who reconnect years after graduation in the new Netflix original half-hour comedy (8 episodes).
Lily Collins is a young woman struggling with anorexia in “To the Bone” (2017), co-starring Keanu Reeves as the unconventional doctor who helps her (not rated). The feature directing debut of longtime TV writer and producer Marti Noxon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “UnREAL”) debuted at Sundance and comes directly to Netflix.
More streaming movies:
High school comedy “Speech & Debate” (2017, PG-13)
Crime comedy “Take Me” (2017) with Taylor Schilling (not rated)
Foul-mouthed comedy sequel “Bad Santa 2” (2016) with Billy Bob Thornton (R)
Werner Herzog’s eco-thriller “Salt and Fire” (2016) with Michael Shannon (not rated)
True stories: “Chasing Coral” (2017) documents the vanishing coral reefs around the world (not rated).
Kid stuff: “Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile” is a special episode of the stop-motion animation series about a canine trucker.
Stand-up: “Gabriel Iglesias Presents The Gentleman Jerry Rocha”
Amazon Prime Video
Walter Hill’s unusual and controversial thriller “The Assignment” (2017) stars Michelle Rodriguez as a hitman who is subjected to involuntary sexual reassignment surgery by a vengeful doctor (Sigourney Weaver) (R).
“Mr. Robot: Season 2” ups the ante of the mind-bending cyber thriller by delving further into the schizophrenic mind of vigilante hacker Elliot (Rami Malek) as he struggles to sort the real from the imagined. It is still one of the best shows on TV and arrives on Amazon months before the third season debuts on USA.
Abigail Breslin is Baby in the TV musical remake of the summer camp romance “Dirty Dancing” (2017, not rated).
True stories: “Being Evel” (2015) profiles the life and legacy of legendary daredevil Robert “Evel” Knievel (not rated).
Amazon Prime / Hulu
Brad Pitt is born old and grows younger through the years in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008), David Fincher’s film of the F. Scott Fitzgerald story (PG-13) (Amazon Prime and Hulu).
Hulu
“Our Kind of Traitor” (2016), based on a John Le Carre novel, stars Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris as civilians tangled in a British intelligence operation to help a Russian mob account defect (R).
Also new:
Off-beat buddy comedies “Prince Avalanche” (2013) with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch (R) and “Humpday” (2009) with Mark Duplass (R)
Spike Lee’s indie vampire thriller “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” (2014, not rated)
Lars Von Trier’s dreamy end-of-the-world drama “Melancholia” (2011) with Kirsten Dunst (R)
Will Ferrell NASCAR comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” (2006, PG-13)
True stories: “Under the Gun” (2016), produced and narrated by Katie Couric, takes on the issues surrounding gun violence and gun control (not rated)
Streaming TV: from Canada comes the “Pure: Season 1,” a thriller set in a Mennonite community overrun with drugs and crime. Six episodes.
HBO Now
Andy Samberg stars in both the boy band comedy “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” (2016, R) and the pro cycling mockumentary “Tour De Pharmacy” (not rated).
All four episodes of the documentary “The Defiant Ones,” about the musical partnership between Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, are now available on HBO Now and On Demand.
It may be summer but winter is coming this weekend: Sunday night sees the return of “Game of Thrones” for its seventh season.
BritBox
A relatively new service in the streaming spectrum, BritBox specializes in classic and contemporary British television. This week it presents the stateside debut of the acclaimed BBC feature drama “NW” (2016), based on the novel by Zadie Smith about two friends in a NW London housing estate (not rated).
New on disc
“The Fate of the Furious,” “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” “The Lost City of Z,” “A Quiet Passion,” “Norman”
Now available at Redbox
“Smurfs: The Lost Village,” “The Lost City of Z,” “Their Finest,” “Table 19”
Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. His reviews of streaming movies and TV can be found at http://streamondemandathome.com.