Tag Archive: Now streaming


Pottersville–Shannon and Greer highlight quirky holiday tale

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December 1, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Three years ago at borg we previewed a quirky holiday film on its way to theaters called Pottersville.  It’s now on Netflix and one you might come across while looking for your next Christmas movie.  Universally panned by critics, it still has some charm and is a step up from the average Hallmark made-for-TV holiday flick.  It’s a quiet and evenly paced film highlighted by the performances of Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, Midnight Special and Man of Steel) and Judy Greer (Ant-Man, Halloween, Jurassic World).  And it’s about Bigfoot.  But it’s not quite a “family film.”

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Now streaming–Genre actors collide in Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea

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October 29, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Thirty years after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home forever put a stake in the ground that whaling is a bad thing, you wouldn’t think a true-life whaling story would fare well, especially in movie theaters.  And you’d be right–director Ron Howard′s In the Heart of the Sea unfortunately lost more money than it cost to make.  And yet Howard’s deft direction combines some of genredom’s top stars with a solid script in a worthy interpretation of Herman Melville’s inspiration for Moby Dick apt to provide any audience with something to cheer about.  Far and Away meets Apollo 13, sea disaster and cannibalism in this 2015 release, a prime survival story now streaming on multiple platforms.

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Wild Bill–If only someone would pick it up for a second season

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October 10, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

BritBox may not be the #1 streaming service around, but thanks to the pandemic its subscriptions have reportedly doubled this year.  And you’d think that would give a series like Wild Bill the possibility of a second chance.  Wild Bill was a 2019 British series in the great tradition of police procedurals featuring coppers with attitude starring the unlikely lead in a British series, Rob Lowe.  It’s probably Rob Lowe’s best personal performance to date, and certainly his most mature role, yet the series was canceled by production company ITV after the first season.  And that was a scrawny British season of six episodes, not 10 or 13 like we’d find on this side of the pond, which makes it doubly unfortunate to lose a series with so much promise.  Since American viewership has brought a new life to all things British TV, you’d think that might mean something, but apparently British television studios don’t like making money over here.

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Now streaming–Creepy twists don’t disappoint in House at the End of the Street

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October 9, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

If you’re asked to zip off a list of the best Jennifer Lawrence movies, it’s probable you’re not going to include the 2012 teen suspense-thriller, House at the End of the Street.  And yet, as modern efforts at PG-13 teen horror are concerned, director Mark Tonderai (Doctor Who, The Five, Locke & Key) will keep viewers guessing which trope the film will hang its genre hat on.  What’s exactly up with the guy in the house where his sister murdered the rest of the family years ago?  One constant for the Academy Award-winning Lawrence is she rarely disappoints, whether as a bow-wielding survivor (The Hunger Games series) or a shape-shifting X-Woman (X-Men: The Days of Future Past, etc.).  Even back to young Allison on Medium, Lawrence delivers, and this time she takes viewers for a ride into that terrible place called teen angst–near a creepy house in the woods.  And its streaming for your Halloween month pleasure on Netflix.

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DC Fandome trailers, and the Justice League we really want

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Retro Fix, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
August 24, 2020

Where Marvel Comics has seen its pantheon of characters celebrated both in 20 years of X-Men movies and 11 years of interconnected movies featuring the other major characters from the comics, DC Entertainment has limped along on the big screen, choosing to either go darker than the traditional comics in its adaptations or overlooking the core of its characters altogether.  It’s had a better run on television.  What we all probably want is something getting closer to the heart of why we loved the characters as kids.  And if you want reminded of what that was, you’ll be happy to see that all nine seasons of the animated classic series Super Friends aka SuperFriends are streaming right now on DC Universe.

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Longmire–Your best bet for shelter-at-home streaming

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August 14, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

If I updated my favorite characters list, I’m not sure yet whether two of the stars of the television series Longmire would make my top five, but I am sure they’d give my top 10 a run for their money.  Those two stars would be Robert Taylor′s cool, dry, and wise Sheriff Walt Longmire and his best friend, Lou Diamond Phillips′ loyal, clever, and heroic Cheyenne bar owner Henry Standing Bear.  I don’t know how I overlooked Longmire in its run between 2012 and 2017, but I’m grateful, because watching it an episode per day during sheltering at home helped get me through those 150 days.  This is great drama, exciting, often humorous, and as good a modern Western as you could hope for.  It’s airing right now on Netflix.

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Now streaming–Yesterday, a refreshing feel-good alternate reality

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August 8, 2020

Director Danny Boyle has championed some unique stories into films, including 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, and Trainspotting.  His 2019 film Yesterday fit into this grouping nicely, a very British story about a singer/songwriter named Jack, played by Himesh Patel (The Aeronauts), who encounters a miracle of sorts: a solar event that changes several aspects of the world.  The key change?  The world never knew a band called The Beatles.  But the twist is only Jack can remember The Beatles.  It’s a goodhearted drama with a dose of comedy and a bit of a love story.  It’s also science fiction.  Yesterday is now streaming on HBO Max, along with other digital streaming platforms.

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Now streaming–Get ready for Branagh’s Death on the Nile with the BBC’s The Lady Vanishes

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July 30, 2020

Review by Elizabeth C. Bunce

One of the news items from this weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con was a push of completed Disney and Fox movies out several months to insure full movie theater returns for the studio, while pushing out the door in advance of a full audience return films like The New Mutants and Kenneth Branagh’s follow-up to his adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, now arriving October 23.  Those of us excited for the next all-star Hercule Poirot adventure can be glad that at least means a home release sooner than later.  In the meantime Amazon Prime has a brilliant BBC production of a classic mystery novel, previously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, and adapted most recently in 2013, of The Lady Vanishes.  

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Scoob! The next “in-theaters” movie is coming directly to home release May 15

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May 14, 2020

It wasn’t enough they got to co-star on Supernatural.  We’ve seen them in a few live action movies, but now we get to see Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Fred, and Daphne on the big screen in animated form in their first full-length animated film.  The movie is titled Scoob! and it looks like the animation is cranked up a few notches, more like the style of The Incredibles, The Peanuts Movie, Toy Story, and Ferdinand.  And now with theaters closed for the COVID-19 pandemic, this means Scoob!, scheduled to debut in theaters this Friday, instead is coming directly to your home Friday via streaming platforms including Amazon Prime and Vudu.  As part of Vudu’s Theater at Home, you can also get a $3 credit via email by pre-ordering Scoob! today–May 14–only.

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Now streaming–Exciting, stunning, and gritty, Motherless Brooklyn is simply as good as it gets

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May 6, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

If you’d happened to watched last year’s crime noir film Motherless Brooklyn and not known the screenwriter or director, I wouldn’t fault you if you expected to see Francis Ford Coppola’s name in the credits, or you figured Martin Scorsese finally made the perfect New York picture.  But that’s not what you’ll find, because it not only stars Edward Norton, but he wrote and directed the film–his first director effort.  And it’s an exciting, stunning, gritty film.  The fact that Motherless Brooklyn is even worthy of comparison might be praise enough for the film and its creator, but it goes a step further and surpasses a film it’s frequently been compared to–Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.  The fact that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and The Irishman were nominated for best film at the Oscars this year, but this wasn’t?  That’s a real head-scratcher–or that Norton’s performance as a Tourette’s syndrome-affected private detective trying to find the guys that killed his boss wasn’t even nominated for best actor?  Movie lovers and fans of crime noir who missed it should catch its home release.  It’s as good as it gets.

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