8 New Movies and Shows That Define the Streaming Wars
#130: "Those Who Wish Me Dead," "The Woman in the Window," "The Mitchells vs. The Machines," "Underground Railroad," "Hacks," "Mythic Quest," "Girls 5ever"
Edition 130:
Hey movie lovers!
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In this week’s newsletter: The Streaming Wars are being fought in front of our very eyes, and this week began what’s about to be a year of high volume competition across the services. We’ll take a look at eight new movies and shows that will vie for our attention. This week’s “Trailer Watch” features the first ever reader-requested trailer, unveiling yet another major adaptation of a hit Broadway show this year.
The Streaming Wars Kick Into High Gear
In many ways, conversation about the the media industry has begun outpacing the discussion of the actual products we consume from these companies. And frankly, that’s because these things are just more interesting.
Massive news came out this week, regarding AT&T’s sale of WarnerMedia (the umbrella over HBO Max, Warner Brothers, CNN and the other Turner cable networks) to Discovery, the company behind the Food Network, Cooking Channel, Travel Channel and the like.
Billions of dollars change hands every day, sure, but AT&T’s decision to exit the Streaming Wars just a few years after their very splashy acquisition of Warner signals the first of what many believe to be many dominos to fall. The belief is that the landscape cannot support all the current entrants, and more consolidation awaits, causing an arms race frenzy as each company tries to secure a chair before the metaphorical music stops (There were rumors this week that Amazon might buy MGM Studios, for example, most notably the home of the James Bond franchise).
In some ways, this competition could be good for viewers. Each streaming service will be putting big bucks behind building the most undeniable library offering, though it remains to be seen whether that will bolster or iron out the more niche content that has flourished in recent years.
This week feels like a real turning point. As the media company musical chairs game spins into high gear, companies are also beginning to release all the projects they’ve been sitting on for the past year because of the pandemic. It feels like this week might be the start of a year packed with new releases on every streaming service, all competing for attention.
To celebrate, I’m breaking my usual format to review EIGHT new movies and TV shows across almost all of the major platforms. Here’s what you should, and shouldn’t, be paying attention to:
Those Who Wish Me Dead
(HBO Max)
I’d hoped that Taylor Sheridan had snuck one more Sheridan special through the system before he got locked into his mega holding deal with Paramount, especially because this Montana-set thriller takes place just miles from where he’s set his hit show “Yellowstone.” The promise of a Sheridan special has always been an entertaining-as-hell genre story that’s elevated by big ideas. Sicario is an action movie that’s really about the moral complexity of government agencies. Hell or High Water is a bank robbery movie that’s about the greedy banking system making men desperate. Wind River is a neo-noir that’s really about the preservation of Indian land.
Those Who Wish Me Dead is an on-the-run thriller that’s not really about anything. Angelina Jolie stars as a smoke jumper suffering from PTSD, kinda. It’s more just a case of episodic act-saddery interspersed between feats of superheroism. Jolie pulls off all the athleticism of the role without accessing any vulnerability, even as she protects a kid being hunted because his murdered father gave him government secrets. The kid’s trauma is at one point played for laughs.
Still, this movie does hit all the beats of a successful thriller, even if it does so predictably. Aiden Gillen (aka Littlefinger from “Game of Thrones”) and Nicholas Hoult play a Fargo-esque bumbling assassin duo, Jon Bernthal plays a doomed cop (seriously, Bernthal is the new Sean Bean, the dude dies in every single role I’ve seen him in), and a one scene drop-in from Tyler Perry gives the movie a little heft.
Totally separate from this movie’s quality, I must say that HBO’s new strategy of same-day theater and streaming releases has done a good job feeling more event-ized than the Netflix Friday drops, which do little to discriminate between a prestige movie and new episodes of “The Floor is Lava.” This movie felt like a big deal, and it felt like a Movie. For me, and readers of this newsletter, that matters.
The Woman in the Window
(Netflix)
This movie is a great reminder to cool your jets when you see the latest announcement for a project that seems too good to be true. This movie had it all: written by acclaimed playwright Tracy Letts, directed by Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Darkest Hour), starring Amy Adams in hot pursuit of her first Oscar alongside Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Wyatt Russell and newsletter favorite Brian Tyree Henry (who just continues to put in awesome performances in tiny parts in crappy movies…BTH, my guy, FIRE YOUR AGENT!). When the trailer dropped, I featured it on “Trailer Watch” predicting Adams was headed for the awards stage.
Alas, making movies is really difficult. This one just didn’t come together. The singular location feels extremely inert, even boring, and the big twists fall somewhere between predictable and extremely disappointing. At this point the unreliable female book adaptations are a well-worn genre (The Girl on the Train, Sharp Objects and then Gone Girl being the only highlight), and this movie does nothing to extend or subvert the tropes. The acting talents in every scene salvage it from being a total disaster, but I’d imagine this is a movie that a ton of people are going to click on and only a small percentage will finish.
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
(Netflix)
Watching this movie was one of those moments in life where you’re confronted by your own aging. Seriously. This movie is told in the language of the internet, and more specifically, the slice of the internet occupied by hyper-tech-literate, chaotic, ADD-riddled Gen Zs. It shares a lot of DNA with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, except the music and pop culture of millennials is replaced with social media and memes.
It’s one of those animated movies for kids that resonates with adults too, focusing on a father-daughter relationship as she’s about to head across the country for college. Except, of course, there’s also an apocalyptic situation taking place when a bunch of AI robots launched by an Apple-esque tech behemoth suddenly go rogue in full-on I, Robot style and attempt to imprison the entire human race.
This is a Sony Animation production, which means we’re getting the same animators that churned out the groundbreaking style of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, matched with a couple comedy-obsessed co-directors and a loaded voice cast. Netflix was smart to scoop it up, because it’s the type of movie that kids are going to want to rewatch 100+ times. I, on the other hand, needed some deep breaths and some water to recover from the experience. I really am getting old.
The Underground Railroad
(Amazon Prime)
Amazon has been throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks for almost a decade now, whether it be Indie movies, niche TV shows or the looming Billion dollar “Lord of the Rings” prequel. Luckily, their seemingly infinite amount of cash allows them to write off major strategy changes as “incidental cost” in the goal of growing and retaining a subscriber base that will buy toiler paper (not sure why the example given is always TP). The rumor mill is currently ablaze with their latest potential plan: purchasing MGM, which would make Amazon one of the preeminent content studios in the world and a true competitor to Netflix (if they want to be).
I’m all for it if it means giving budgets and opportunities to Barry Jenkins, a man whom the title “artist” better describes than filmmaker. Every frame of his projects is like a beautiful painting, highlighted by his signature portrait-style shots of characters staring into the lens and expressing far more than dialogue ever could.
His latest project is challenging by design, a 10-hour deep dive into slavery adapted from a novel that supposes the “underground railroad” was an actual locomotive. It’s patient, even abstract at parts, trusting viewers to engage deeply with the material in order to appreciate its power. It’s a heavy experience. Like any good piece of art, each episode sticks with you long after the credits roll.
Mare of Easttown
(HBO Max)
Warner Media’s most valuable asset to their new owners (in my opinion), more than the DC Universe or the streaming rights to Citizen Kane, is their sustained ability to monopolize Sunday night prestige television. It may not appeal to the largest possible audience but these are the type of shows that “everyone” is talking about that pressure you into signing up. The baton passes seamlessly from Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman in “The Undoing” to Kate Winslett in “Mare of Easttown,” which, for the record, is way way better than its predecessor.
Overlapping mysteries provide enough plot momentum to sustain what’s really an anthropologic investigation of a small rural Pennsylvania town, where everyone knows everyone and nobody ever leaves. There’s twists and turns (including an absolutely shocking moment in last Sunday’s installment), but the small human moments are just as thrilling.
Hacks
(HBO Max)
I’m a real sucker for HBO’s current comedy calibration, which focuses on high concept stories told with a cohesive cinematic construction (ok, enough c’s). The second season of “Barry” might be legitimately my favorite season of TV ever. And HBO has done something similar with “Hacks,” a half-hour show about an over-the-hill comedian’s relationship with a young comedian she brings on to write jokes.
If that premise reminds you of Funny People, it’s because it’s the exact same premise as Funny People, except here gender swapping Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan for Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, and moving the location to Las Vegas. That second change in particular provides an infinite well of comedic situations, which relieves a lot of the pressure to cram in a million jokes to every episode. That’s not to say the show isn’t funny, and even more impressive is the confidence, even swagger, that the show carries itself with. We’re only two episodes in, but I have complete trust that they’re going to put together a good season from what we’ve seen so far.
Mythic Quest
(Apple TV+)
My year of complimentary Apple TV+ from buying my laptop is about to run out, and really the only reasons I’d consider paying up to keep it would be this show or if I’d never seen Boys State (nobody tell this to my friend who works for an Apple show about to go into production). It’s the closest thing currently on the air to “The Office,” a workplace sitcom set in the office of a video game developer that’s funny but also clever and insightful about workplace dynamics in 2021.
The show totally caught me by surprise with its first season last year, led by “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Rob McElhenney I was expecting something more…juvenile. The recently released second season is even more ambitious, with even more to say about a post-pandemic world while reeling off a-joke-a-minute. If you’ve got the service, or have an Apple product purchase coming in your near future, I highly recommend this show.
Girls5eva
(Peacock)
One does not have to make much of a logical leap from this week’s WarnerMedia news to the prediction that Peacock could be the next victim on the Streaming Wars food chain. Already the rumblings have started about a Viacom (CBS) and NBC Universal merger, something that would’ve been unfathomable even five years ago.
If Peacock is going to survive, or at the very least return value in a potential sale, then it’s going to need to produce more shows like “Girls5eva.” It’s a dynamite concept, tracking a reunion tour for a washed up one-hit wonder 90s girl band with exactly the right amount of sincerity (which is to say, none). It has that classic rapid fire sitcom joke pacing, leaning more into the ridiculous than the relatable. But with a funny cast (including Busy Philipps and Renée Elise Goldsberry) and the watchful eye of producer Tina Fey, it’s extremely reliable for the kind of dumb fun show we all binge.
Trailer Watch: Dear Evan Hansen
When my good friend and this newsletter’s official Broadway correspondent Will Kennedy passed along the very first reader-requested “Trailer Watch,” I was ecstatic. I went to see a stage version of Dear Evan Hansen with Will in Chicago, and it was one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen (far better than the Chicago production we saw starring Eddie George, who just this week became the head football coach at Tennessee State and more importantly, to my knowledge, the only Division 1 head coach to have also starred in a stage musical…though I’d love to be proven wrong about that).
Will and I agreed that this movie is a net positive, because the vast majority of people do not have (or do not want) access to a stage version of the show and will be exposed to the incredible story and music for the first time. But this trailer is…troubling. Not only does it give away basically the whole plot of the show (my ultimate pet peeve), but apparently we’re going to try to pass off 27-year-old Ben Platt as a high school junior just because he’s donning an incredibly obvious curly-haired wig? This is the year of movie musicals (West Side Story, In the Heights), and despite arguably the best source material of these big three it looks to my eyes like this one will be the one that “could disappear…like it could fall, and no one would hear.”
(P.S. BAN 3-MINUTE TRAILERS across the board. All we need is 30 second teases. Please and thank you.)