Armchair Vacation: Five Films To Watch At Home This Weekend (October 25-27)

Every day, more and more films are added to the various streaming services out there, ranging from Netflix to YouTube, and are hitting the airwaves via movie-centric networks like TCM. Therefore, sifting through all of these pictures can be a tedious and often times confounding or difficult ordeal. But, that’s why we’re here. Every week, Joshua brings you five films to put at the top of your queue, add to your playlist, or grab off of VOD to make your weekend a little more eventful. Here is this week’s top five, in this week’s Armchair Vacation.

5. The Waiting Room (VOD)

As pertinent now as it could ever hope to be, from director Peter Nicks comes this enthralling and vital look at a public hospital in Oakland, California. A meditation on a healthcare system that is, as we speak, on the brink of either coming into this new world of universal coverage, or hell bent on becoming an aspect of our society gobbled up by capitalism and those who believe big economy is better than bigger humanism. One of 2013’s most entrancing documentaries, the film spans one 24 hour long period in this emergency waiting room’s life span, and with its blend of pure human drama and some bizarrely uplifting humor, this film should hopefully become a touchstone in one of the biggest fights that we as a nation have yet to fight.

4. Stories We Tell (VOD)

Yet another one of 2013’s great non-fiction films, this is yet another example of the medium becoming something entirely new. A film from director Sarah Polley, this film is a blend of source, vintage home movies and a handful of interviews with family and friends, all with the hope of helping her find out who her biological father truly is. On its face a brazenly introspective mystery documentary, the film’s sense of humor is in full force throughout the film, but what’s even more striking is the film’s core theme. While the narrative itself is interesting enough, the film stands as a striking meditation on memory and truly the way humans tell stories, with all the truth and fallacy that comes with them.  While the final act begins to hit the nail a tad hard on the head, this is a stand up documentary that should be seen by anyone and everyone interested in storytelling and the documentary medium.

3. All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (VOD)

A seemingly golden goose for horror junkies, Jonathan Levine’s much anticipated thriller finally arrives, after sitting on the proverbial shelf for a monstrous seven years (that’s right, it was first seen back in 2006). Starring Amber Heard, the film follows a girl name Mandy who, after joining a boy on a weekend getaway with some friends, begins to find that bodies are falling all around her. A film that shockingly sat unseen for years, Mandy Lane is a genuinely superb thriller that takes a cliché-ridden premise, and turns it on its head. Proving Levine to be one of the more interesting filmmakers of his age bracket, this film deserves to find the massive cult audience that it will likely garner throughout the coming years.

2. Our Day Will Come (VOD)

With his father Costa Gavras hitting theaters this week with his new film Capital, Romain Gavras has finally seen his debut feature film, Our Day Will Come, hit VOD, and it’s about damn time. With stunning lead turns from the pair of Vincent Cassel and Olivier Barthelemy, this deeply troubling drama follows two outcasts as they hit the road leaving a path of destruction along the way. A bleak yet bizarrely beautiful film, as anyone familiar with Gavras’ music video work (his video for MIA’s Born Free is still as disturbing as they come) would come to expect, this is an uncompromising drama feature that launches Gavras into a realm of young filmmakers unlike any around. It’s really a visceral experience that will leave any that give it a chance unwilling to quite their blabbering about it.

1. Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir (VOD)

Rounding out this list is yet another entrancing documentary that this time shines a light on a filmmaker, thanks to his very own voice. While various pictures have attempted to tell the story of Roman Polanski, and everything that he brings with him, this time, it’s Polanski’s turn. In conversation with friend Andrew Braunsberg, Polanski discusses everything ranging from his childhood in the Krakow Ghetto all the way to his now legendary court case, all starting, as most conversations do about Polanski, with his apprehension while en route to the Zurich Film Festival in 2009. A deeply touching look into a man who has become misunderstood, hated and maligned, this film may be seen as a tad too “loving” a portrait of a man who did commit a truly heinous act (it never finds him asking forgiveness, however) but those willing to dig deeper than this disgustingly superficial critique will find a moving meditation on this man’s life, as told straight from his own mouth. A real wonder of a film.