Christmas has come and gone. So, now’s the time to plan some activities for those late nights at the family home, when the kids and elderly relatives have gone to bed and the last thing you want to do is spend quality time with awful Cousin Myrtle. Last week, we rounded up the best new fall TV shows to catch up on over the break. But if you’d rather settle down with a great movie and happen not to have dropped Netflix after their year of terrible decisions, then allow us to alert you to some of 2011′s best films that also happen to be available for streaming on the site. A gay British romance for the ages, a dreamy Thai meditation on death, and a hilarious mockumentary that finds Steve Coogan (sort of) playing himself are just a few of the noteworthy new movies from around the world that await you after the jump.

Read More »

Last Friday, in our suggestions for end-of-the-week time killers, we directed your attention to Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott’s “In Defense of the Slow and Boring” piece in that day’s New York Times. A response, of sorts, to Dan Kois’ lament of ingesting your “cultural vegetables” (which also inspired one of our most divisive posts in recent memory), Dargis and Scott’s two-handed article sings the praises of films that risk alienation by taking their time to tell stories (and, occasionally, to forgo even that) in a more contemplative manor. “Long movies,” Dargis writes, “take time away even as they restore a sense of duration, of time and life passing, that most movies try to obscure through continuity editing. Faced with duration not distraction, your mind may wander, but there’s no need for panic: it will come back. In wandering there can be revelation as you meditate, trance out, bliss out, luxuriate in your thoughts, think.”

Few moments, as a film fan, are more heartbreaking than talking movies with a friend or acquaintance and hearing that one of your most beloved favorites is “boring,” or “dull,” or “slow,” or some combination of all, occasionally with the descriptor “soul-crushingly” attached. Different strokes for different folks, of course, and everyone’s sense of monotony varies (or, as a friend of mine said over the weekend, “I don”t find slow movies boring. I find action movies boring”). We’ve collected a few of our favorite movies that tend to be described in those terms; check them out after the jump, and add your own in the comments.

Read More »

We tend to associate our favorite auteurs with “serious cinema” — high-minded dramas that don’t delve too far into goofy genres like sci-fi, horror, or westerns. But recently, watching Kelly Reichardt’s fantastic new western Meek’s Cutoff, we got to thinking about how many important mainstream and independent filmmakers have tried their hand at the genre. Our list of must-watch westerns by great directors (excluding those who are known primarily for their westerns, like John Ford and Sam Peckinpah) is after the jump.

Read More »

Kathryn Bigelow may have been the first female filmmaker to win a Best Director Oscar for 2009′s The Hurt Locker. But did you happen to notice that for the most recent Academy Awards, the nominees in the same category were all men — in a year when two movies directed by women, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right, were up for Best Picture?

Gender inequalities exist throughout the arts, but they’re especially pronounced in the rarefied world of film directing. We all know a few big-name women filmmakers: Bigelow, Sofia Coppola, Susan Seidelman, Catherine Hardwicke, Nora Ephron, Julie Taymor. In honor of International Women’s Day, we present ten great, contemporary female directors who you may not know but should definitely check out.

Read More »

There’s something about Michelle Williams that makes us want to give her a great big hug. Maybe it’s the delicate Rosemary’s Baby-inspired look that she has been sporting lately. Part of it probably has to do with the tragic way things ended for her ex-husband, Heath Ledger. But then there’s also the fact that Williams seems drawn to some of the saddest roles available to a young actress in Hollywood. And we’re not just talking about her recent Oscar-nominated turn in Blue Valentine; just think about the characters she played in last year’s Shutter Island, Wendy and Lucy, or Brokeback Mountain.

The newly-debuted trailer for Meek’s Cutoff, a film that reunites Williams with her Wendy and Lucy director Kelly Reichardt, is no different. As Vulture notes, the action is set in the free-wheelin’ American frontier of the mid-19th century and “it looks like they’re losing a game of Oregon Trail.” Despite looking like a bit of a downer, the critical buzz from the multiple festivals where it has screened so far has all been positive; the film is set to hit theaters in limited release April 8, 2011. Click through to check it out, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Read More »

Gigantic’s symbolist take on 20-something angst refuses to “make all the dots connect,” as first-time director and Gigantic co-writer Matt Aselton told us this week. We sat down with him, and the film’s star, Paul Dano, to discuss their project about a mattress salesman who wants to adopt a Chinese baby and who is stalked by a mysterious homeless man (Zach Galifianakis). Read More »

UPDATE [5.7.09]: The contest is now closed. Thanks for playing!

UPDATE: We’ve got a few copies of the just-released DVD to give away! Just jump down to the comments and let know: who or what would ride shotgun on your own cross-country road trip? Make sure you enter a valid email address (it will not be posted) so we can notify the winners.

The head-West road movie is as American as apple pie and its continued relevance the result of astute tweaks for the here and now. Director Kelly Reichardt’s (Old Joy) latest low-budget award contender, Wendy and Lucy, morphs the typically man-made adventure into a day-in-the-life with Wendy (Michelle Williams), a young Indiana gal heading to the far-west reaches of pre-Palin Alaska for potential employment. Without much save a few hundred bucks and her dog Lucy (Reichardt’s real-life canine), she’s today’s Great Recession-worthy incarnation of Rosie the Riveter.

Read More »