Armchair Vacation: Five Films To Watch At Home This Weekend [March 21-23]

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. Panic Room (Netflix)

With director David Fincher back in the zeitgeist with the second season of his beloved Netflix Original Series House Of Cards hitting the streaming service, one of the director’s most underrated pictures is also currently available to stream on the service. Starring Jodie Foster and a very young Kristen Stewart, the film tells the tale of a mother and daughter in New York who flee to their new “Panic Room” in order to escape the onslaught of an evil trio of home invaders. A definitive example of Fincher’s singular aesthetic, this performance-heavy picture is a bit more intimate and smaller scale than the director has become known for, but very much a Fincher take on the thriller genre (a genre he’s become a definitive voice in), this is a must see motion picture. Gorgeous photography fills each of Fincher’s lavishly designed frames, and with good-to-great turns from actors like Foster, Stewart, Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker and even Dwight Yoakam, you have a film that is a truly enthralling watch and a hard one to shake.

1. Nostalghia (Fandor)

As a new Blu-ray arrives in stores, one of the legendary director Andrei Tarkovsky’s final masterpieces, Nostalghia, is now available to stream on Fandor. A deeply haunting and lyrically personal meditation on exile and the longing to return to one’s home, this breathtaking masterpiece is one of the greatest films ever made from one of the greatest directors to ever live. A team up with Michelangelo Antonioni’s oft-writer Tonino Guerra, the film very much holds within it the same sense of mystery the pair of Tarkovsky and Antonioni shared, and Tarkovsky’s frame finds the director at the absolute height of his powers. A haunting and unshakeable stunner of a drama, this post-apocalyptic look at exile is a film that needs to be seen by anyone and everyone. Discussing the sense of longing for home that anyone can immensely relate to, this is very likely one of Tarkovsky’s most personal, beautiful and universal motion pictures. It’s also arguably his best.

1. Play It Again Sam (Netflix)

One of the rare pictures written by and starring, but not directed by, one Woody Allen, this adaptation of Allen’s Broadway play is now currently available to stream on Netflix. Following the story of a newly-divorced film critic with an affinity for Casablanca only to be haunted by the ghost of Bogart as he begins trying to win his way back into the hearts of various women, the film is an entrancing piece of work for Allen, and one of his more underrated works. Normally left out of any discussion of Allen’s canon given its bizarre lack of his direction, the film still very much holds within its DNA Allen’s clear, singular and original voice, ranging from frank discussions of then modern romantic relationships to the percussive nature of the screenplay. Allen is fantastic here in the lead performance, and director Herbert Ross really brings this script and the source play to life. With supporting turns from names like Tony Roberts and even Diane Keaton, the film is a supremely underrated work that needs to be discussed more often when talking about the greatest of Woody Allen’s canon.

1. Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales (Hulu)

With Spring looming, and rain clouds making a seemingly permanent home over the heads of people for the next handful of weeks, what better way to spend a rain-soaked March weekend than getting lost in six intimate and uber-naturalistic motion pictures from one of the French New Wave’s founders. Hulu currently has all six of Eric Rohmer’s Moral Tales available to stream, and they must be seen immediately. While streaming the films loses some of what makes this Criterion box set one of the company’s best to date (such as the printing of Rohmer’s source short stories) each film is a deeply personal, intimate and in many ways profound look at everything from youthful naivete to the fleeting nature of love and romance. Introducing the world to what would become Rohmer’s auteur aesthetic, each film brings with it Rohmer’s patented sense of naturalism, some touches of small scale humor and supreme performances all while trying to touch on various aspects of the human condition that may seem too slight for most people, but are given such universal vitality thanks to one of the most underrated filmmakers of all time.

1. Girl Shy (TCM; Sunday, Midnight)

While we all anxiously await to see what’s next in the ever growing relationship between The Criterion Collection and the canon of one Harold Lloyd, one of the legendary silent comedian’s best films is heading to TCM this weekend. Following the story of a small town boy who must deal with the repercussions of writing a book about how to bag women with ease despite himself being horribly shy, Girl Shy is one of Lloyd’s best, but most underrated motion pictures. With hilarious fantasy sequences and some superb sight gags, the film itself is a prime example of what makes Lloyd an entirely singular silent comedy voice. Simplistic gags done with a confidence and style all his own, the film is directed by oft-collaborators Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, proving these three to be one of the greatest collaborative teams of all time, despite never getting mentioned in those types of conversations. A charming little picture, this will make entering a new work week a tad bit more enjoyable.