Every week at Movie Mezzanine, we pick some of the best films currently on Netflix Instant. Whether they’re big releases or hidden gems, these movies make your subscription worth the price. Read on for this week’s picks.
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Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012)
Not only is Dredd one of the more viscerally accomplished action films of recent memory, it’s easily one of the best comic book adaptations as well. Karl Urban stars at the titular character, a cop who must deliver justice in a futuristic city-cum-barren wasteland littered with drug-dealing terrorists. With the help of rookie cop Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), the two display a stone-faced badass persona that puts the mid ’90s Stallone vehicle of the same name to shame. There’s s hyper-kinetic intensity that makes Dredd a stand-alone triumph and successful actioner in its own right.
The Paperboy (Lee Daniels, 2012)
The Paperboy is a pulpy sweat-box that places extra emphasis on character rather than narrative. Lee Daniels captures the relentless pursuit of pleasure by almost every notable character; it’s at once aimless and acutely aware of its overt campiness. An important subplot about a murder takes a back seat to coming-of-age sexual awakenings, aggressively cloaked homosexuality, and routine racial prejudice, all under the guise of Daniels’ busy camera. Kidman’s antics are both eyebrow-raising and frantically charged, though the film is often rooted in the eyes of its more subtle players — a notable turn by Macy Gray is the quiet core of the film.
Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, 2013)
Having premiered at Sundance earlier this year, Shane Carruth’s sophomore feature Upstream Color holds the title of my favorite film of 2013 thus far. Rarely registering as self-important or novel, Upstream Color functions as pure cinema, a gateway into a familiar but new kind of narrative that unfolds and functions primarily on its own terms. While Carruth’s debut Primer was mostly cold and impenetrable, Upstream Color is really about our constant struggle to reassemble our lives and our narrative after tragedy. In its purest form, Upstream Color can be viewed as a balancing act of textures and surfaces — the crucial discourse between image and sound to depict a state of pureness within our complex and achingly human world.
