Wondering what to watch tonight?
There are a bunch of underrated films you may have missed so far this year and they're
really worth checking out.
Here are a few hidden gems that may have flown under your radar in 2019.
The whip-smart comedy Egg stars Alysia Reiner as an artist named Tina, and Gbenga Akinnagbe
as her husband, Wayne.
Mad Men's Christina Hendricks plays Karen, Tina's so-called "best friend" from art school
a compulsively cruel mother-to-be who says things like this:
"It can be weird when you're with people who don't have children."
Tina thinks she's gained the upper hand when she invites Karen and her husband Doug played
by David Alan Basche over to her New York loft to make a major announcement:
"We're having a baby too, yay."
"Oh my...God!"
That's thanks to the bubbly blonde surrogate Kiki, portrayed by Anna Camp.
She may seem ditzy, but she's certainly not innocent.
"Here, let me..."
"Oh my god, yeah!"
"I can see why you guys chose her."
"Oh, shut up."
"I'll… get you something to put on."
"Hiiii…
I'm Kiki."
Full of biting wit and sharp social commentary, Egg is a fiercely funny comedy of manners
that brilliantly explores the weirdness of motherhood.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, High Flying Bird slyly subverts the sports movie genre
in a way that's both stylish and admirably risky.
The film centers around sports agent Ray Burke, portrayed by André Holland.
After he discovers a loophole during a professional basketball league lockout, Ray hatches a plan
that could help him advance his career and fulfill his obligations to Erick, his young
basketball client.
The prospect of forever changing the world of pro basketball proves hard to resist...
"Man, I could see a whole infrastructure that put the control back in the hands of those
behind the ball, instead of those up in the sky box."
Shot entirely on an iPhone, High Flying Bird has the kind of sleek aesthetic and structure
that grabs you by the wrist and pushes you straight down the rabbit hole.
The film hit Netflix in early February, right after Velvet Buzzsaw and Russian Doll premiered.
A lot of viewers probably missed out on High Flying Bird because they simply had too many
options to choose from.
The good news is: you can watch it on Netflix right now.
Score!
In A Vigilante, actress Olivia Wilde plays Sadie, a domestic abuse survivor who sets
out to save other victims from their violent partners.
Meanwhile, she continues to hunt down her vile husband, portrayed by Morgan Spector.
He's such a despicable man, no one dares speak his name out loud.
"My husband, he would set my bones after…"
"After he broke them."
"And I broke the rules."
A Vigilante is explosive, gritty, and a fantastic showcase of Wilde's talents.
Reviews have been hugely positive, with RogerEbert.com claiming that:
"Wilde's performance is so committed that there are times when you may fear for her
physical safety and emotional health."
Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn portray two embattled police detectives in Dragged Across Concrete
a film that's certainly bleak, but also quite good.
"A single red ant could have eaten it faster."
That's about all the humor you get in this one.
The gritty drama unfolds after the two men get unnecessarily rough with a suspect and
his girlfriend during a drug bust.
When video footage of the incident gets leaked to the press, both detectives are suspended
from the force without pay.
With no means of legally making money, they begin mapping out a dangerous plan and things
get very real very fast.
While some viewers might find Dragged Across Concrete too brutal and mean-spirited, audiences
who caught the film during its limited release were genuinely impressed and so were many
critics.
Entertainment Weekly hailed the film, assuring readers that
"[If you're] wondering where this is all headed, you won’t be disappointed when it finally
gets there."
To Dust strikes just the right balance of strangeness.
The directorial debut of Shawn Snyder, it's an oddball dramedy that's truly refreshing
and original.
The story revolves around Hasidic cantor Shmuel, portrayed by Géza Röhrig.
Since losing his wife, Shmuel has been experiencing unsettling nightmares about her dead body.
Desperate to find some peace of mind, he recruits a community college biology instructor named
Albert portrayed by Matthew Broderick hoping he'll teach him what happens to the body after
death.
"I fear her soul is suffering…
She returns to the earth."
This unlikely pair engage in some bizarre experiments and morbid misadventures in an
effort to soothe Shmuel's boundless anxiety.
To Dust is a film everyone should see.
It's marvelously strange, truly original, and unmistakably human.
Written and directed by Christian Petzold, Transit utterly captivated audiences during
its limited release in March 2019.
This moving drama tells the story of Georg, a refugee fleeing Germany and heading to France
as fascism rises in his home country.
Georg is supposed to meet a writer named Weidel in Paris, but he soon discovers that the man
has committed suicide.
Georg then assumes the writer's identity and scoops up his belongings, boarding a train
to Marseille, a port city teeming with other refugees.
Once there, Georg ends up meeting Marie, a woman desperately searching for her lost husband
— who just so happens to be Weidel.
Transit is a genuinely moving film that garnered loads of praise from critics, with Film Inquiry
calling it
"A film of surreal, sad beauty [that] should not be missed."
If there was any justice in the world, The Kid Who Would Be King would have reigned supreme
at the box office.
But alas, the film went largely unnoticed upon its release.
Written and directed by Joe Cornish, The Kid Who Would Be King puts a modern spin on a
very familiar tale.
Louis Ashbourne Serkis plays 12-year-old student Alex Elliot, who discovers he's the only person
on the planet who can pull the mighty sword Excalibur out from its stone.
It's the only weapon that can vanquish the powerful sorceress Morgana, portrayed by Rebecca
Ferguson.
Alex gathers up his friends to serve as his knights, and the whole crew enlists the help
of a backwards-aging wizard named Merlin played here by both Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart.
Together, they conspire to take down Morgana before an impending solar eclipse lets her
enslave the people of England.
"The sword chose you…"
"... Why would we help you?"
"Because you're the strongest people I know.
You're my knights."
For whatever reason, The Kid Who Would Be King was a critical success, but a commercial
failure.
Although the movie lost millions of dollars at the box office, you shouldn't let that
discourage you.
Critics praised the film's inventiveness and good-naturedness, with The Guardian writing
that
"This movie is sentimental in all the right places, and impossible to dislike."
This coming-of-age story is like nothing you've seen before.
In Don't Come Back from the Moon, we meet 16-year-old Mickey, played by Jeffrey Wahlberg.
The young man is grappling with a profound sense of abandonment.
His father played by James Franco is only the latest man in their California town to
pack up his bags and leave, vanishing without a trace.
"It was as if he vaporized out of the driver's seat and just… floated away."
It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi series, but Don't Come Back from the Moon is rooted
in a harsh reality: the fathers and husbands in this rundown desert community walk away
from their lives because they have nothing better to do.
And they evidently don't care that they're leaving their families behind.
Everyone in this family reacts to the departure in a different way.
Mickey's mother portrayed by Rashida Jones tries to resist self-medicating with alcohol.
Meanwhile, Mickey does his best to look after his younger brother, played by Zackary Arthur.
Throughout the film, Mickey develops a considerable rebellious steak, explores his sexuality,
and tries coming to grips with his strange new life.
Released in a limited run in mid-January, Don't Come Back from the Moon was praised
by critics, with Variety writing that
"[The film is] an artful and affecting mix of harshly defined specifics and impressionistic
storytelling."
An unlikely charmer about an unlikely friendship, Paddleton debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film
Festival on February 1st before making its way to Netflix later that month.
The film stars Mark Duplass and Ray Romano in roles that are unlike anything they've
done before.
When Duplass's Michael Thompson is diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, it seriously
intensifies his friendship with neighbor Andy Freeman, played by Romano.
Best known as comedic actors, Duplass and Romano prove to be equally adept at dramatic
roles, giving themselves over to their characters in a way that feels completely organic.
What's most impressive about Paddleton is its relative lack of dialogue, which immediately
distinguishes it from other dramas that involve "The Big C."
"Okay."
As you can see, Michael and Andy both have a serious aversion to small talk, which guarantees
that every spoken word is a meaningful one.
Genuinely funny and heartbreaking, Paddleton is a moving film from beginning to end.
And guess what?
It's available on Netflix, so you can check it out right now.
Just make sure you have a box of tissues handy.
You probably haven't heard of The Standoff at Sparrow Creek until now.
The film didn't generate a whole lot of buzz upon its release, even though it certainly
earned a whole lot of favorable reviews.
Henry Dunham's feature directorial debut centers around an ex-cop named Gannon, who subsequently
joined a militia in Michigan.
The gruff gentleman, portrayed by James Badge Dale, soon learns that somebody has just shot
up a police funeral.
What's worse, the shooter evidently belongs to Gannon's militia.
But which of these dangerous men did it?
Using his skills as an interrogator, Gannon grills each member until one of them reveals
himself to be the cop killer.
The film opened in a limited capacity in January, a month that finds lots of films getting completely
buried.
That's a real shame, too, because The Standoff at Sparrow Creek deserves to be widely seen.
Reviews were glowing, with The A.V.
Club writing that
"[There's a] lean, punchy, beautifully shot ’70s-style thriller underneath the controversial
premise."
In the Icelandic survival film Arctic, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen plays a man who's lost,
alone, and running out of resources in the Arctic Circle.
He misses out on a chance to get rescued when a helicopter meant to retrieve him crashes,
killing the pilot and injuring a passenger.
Now he must choose between staying cooped up in a crashed plane to survive, or traveling
through an arctic wasteland in the hopes of saving himself and the passenger.
Guess what he ultimately decides to do.
"It's ok…"
Mikkelsen has described Arctic as one of the most challenging projects he's ever been involved
with, and critics have assured that the grueling days on location in Iceland were well worth
the effort.
In its rapturous review, Seven Days wrote that
"Mikkelsen gives an astonishingly expressive performance in what is essentially a silent
film.
[...] It'll be a cold day in hell before a better chronicle of cold days in hell comes
along."
Starring Emile Hirsch and John Cusack, Never Grow Old centers around Hirsch's undertaker
Patrick Tate and Cusack's ruthless outlaw Dutch Albert, who soon stakes his claim on
the formerly quiet town of Garlow in 1849.
Danny Webb plays Preacher Pike, who banned alcohol, harlots, and gambling throughout
the town creating a kind of peace begging to be broken.
"Murderers need to be punished, Sheriff, 'fore they drag this town into hell."
Dutch soon takes an interest in filling bottles with liquor and saloons with working girls.
And it isn't long before the death toll rises and Dutch's viciousness drives Patrick to
violence.
If you're a fan of Westerns, you'll want to see Never Grow Old before you grow old yourself.
The comedic chops of Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek are on full display in The Breaker
Uppererers, a romantic comedy executive produced by Taika Waititi.
Jen and Mel are two friends who have turned their cynical views on romance into a lucrative
business venture: If you have the cash, they can help you destroy your relationship in
next to no time.
"It's simple, really.
What we do is we take unhappy couples such as yourself and consciously, forcibly and
irreversibly uncouple you."
The film opened in New Zealand theaters in May 2018 and made its way to Netflix in February.
Though the buddy comedy didn't make a huge splash, critics couldn't get enough of its
wacky sense of humor.
Stuff magazine raved:
"The Breaker Upperers is the funniest and most likable film I've seen this year.
Go see it."
We wholeheartedly agree.
This is the perfect choice for your next Netflix-and-chill date… particularly if you're looking to
break someone's heart.
"Sheree don't wanna be with you no more / Sharee don't wanna be with you no more…"
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