recorded live from my apartment in los
angeles california
i'm your man nathanael and this is the
weekly watch list
welcome to another edition of the weekly
watch list the show where we count down
the best movies and tv to stream
right now in prime video now if you're a
movie buff or like me
then you've probably heard of this
little film festival called
sundance ring any bells as the largest
independent film festival in america
sundance has debuted some of the most
celebrated filmmakers today
and has carved out its place as one of
the most influential gatherings of film
nerds in the world
the festival may have gone virtual this
year but if you're a broke boy like me
and can't afford to shell out a bunch of
cash money for an online pass
you can at least try and recreate the
vibes with these past sundance favorites
and award winners
available to stream right now on amazon
prime video
now here's some quick pro tips for
holding a successful make-believe film
festival in your very own laptop or
phone
let's start off with some meditation and
some visualization exercises
my body might be here in la but my mind
is in beautiful utah
where i'm just watching movies all day
and hitting the slopes with jason momoa
and my boy ken burns
once safely in the park city in your
mind i really recommend watching all
five of these movies in one day
for max authenticity now you can't say
you've had the real sundance experience
without punishing your physical stamina
or completely draining your ability to
feel any empathy
with nine plus hours of cinema a day now
don't forget to take breaks by waiting
outside your house in the cold for an
hour in between films
talking loudly about your opinions on
the film you just saw anyways
there's a lot of variety in this week's
list ranging from classic sundance feel
good narratives
to experimental character studies to
mind-bending ultra-violent body horror
you might even say there's a little bit
for everybody so strap in
and check out the best sundance festival
favorites streaming right now on prime
video
coming in at number one let's check out
kamel nanjiani and emily gordon's
breakout film
the big sick the big sick is based on
the real-life relationship between
kumail
a pakistan-born comedian and grad
student emily
played by zoe kazan this
is your name
does this move work i've had some minor
success with that
the two quickly fall in love
but their relationship struggles when
their cultures clash mainly because
kumail's family demands he have an
arranged marriage
to a pakistani girl oh i wonder who that
could be
i'm guessing it's a young single
pakistani woman who just happened to be
driving by our house
which isn't a cul-de-sac and i'm also
guessing that the phrase
dropped in will be set in the next 10
seconds everyone
this is zubaida she just dropped him
when emily suddenly comes down with a
mysterious illness and is put into a
medically induced coma
kumal has to deal with emily's parents
played by holly hunter and ray romano
maybe the preeminent dad actor of our
time this is why i don't want to go
online because it's never good
you go online they hated forrest gump
frickin best movie ever not only that
kumal has to resolve his own family
issues with his true feelings for emily
if you don't want to be a lawyer fine if
you want to do the stand-up comedy and
embarrass us as a family
fine there is only one thing that we
have ever asked
for yukumi that you be a good muslim and
you marry a pakistani girl that is
it one thing now i think this is a great
example of a classic type of sundance
movie
it's a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy
it's based on true events
and it's got perfect story structure
that gently teaches the audience the
differences between american and
pakistani culture
we even get to see kumal's incredibly
boring one-man show about growing up in
pakistan
kind of a medicine making fun of the
movie itself i'm 12 years old and this
this is home feels like i never left
do you smell that that's my mom cooking
them
roland josh but of course the film is
more sophisticated in exploring themes
of assimilation versus cultural
inheritance
hey you're like a pakistani sammy sosa
and the family dinner scenes are some of
my favorite in the movie
tell me why don't you grow a beard not
like now it's just a small one yeah
maybe like mine small school and stuff
for me i've been thinking you know why
you don't
enroll for elsa now the way his parents
are always guilting him
feels really specific to camille's own
personal experience
but also really relatable to anyone
who's a disappointment to their parents
hello hey mom uh no i'm just recording
another youtube video
no i told you i'm not going back to
college do you think scott the waz went
to college
she doesn't get me coming in at number
two we have lulu wang's debut film
adapted from her this american life
story the farewell
this one follows aquafina as billy a
struggling chinese-american artist
living in new york after receiving a
rejection letter from the guggenheim
fellowship
billy learns that her grandmother or
ninai played by jiaoshu jen
has been diagnosed with terminal cancer
and only has a few months to live
in keeping with repressed chinese
tradition the entire family resolves to
keep the diagnosis a secret from ninai
in order to not upset her
going so far as to organize a wedding
for billy's cousin
as an excuse for the whole family to see
ninai one last time
fearing billy will be unable to keep the
secret her parents tell her to remain in
new york
i need to go if you go now i will find
out right away
only for billy to fly back to china on
her own to say goodbye
what follows is an alternatingly funny
and heartbreaking trip back to china
as billy spends more time with ninai
reconnects with the rest of her family
and wrestles internally over whether or
not to keep the secret
aquafina does a great job in a more
restrained dramatic turn
but it's really jiaozu jen who steals
the show as ninai she's a hilarious tour
de force who basically spends the entire
movie bossing people around
while also being really cute
this might be a movie about the
characters dealing with a loved one's
impending death
but it definitely still brings the
comedy check out this scene where the
family visits the grave of the deceased
grandfather
um
this is also a movie that does a great
job of showcasing some of the aspects of
the chinese experience to an american
audience
from day to day details like boiling
your drinking water to broader cultural
debates between family members
but more than the relatable stuff what
really stuck with me were the scenes
where billy comes across some really
deep cut chinese culture
like the strange mahjong game played by
shirtless pot belly dudes
give me a full movie about that guy's
story please now if you're getting a
little tired of uplifting character
pieces and gentle life lessons let's
shake things up a little with a movie
that'll kick your
ass it's brandon cronenberg's
hallucinatory
sci-fi body horror possessor available
to rent or buy on prime video
set in 2008 in an alternate timeline
with different chunkier technology
possessor follows andrea riseborough as
tasia vaz
an assassin that uses a crazy sci-fi
procedure involving brain implants and
matrix style head plugs to
telepathically mind control other people
in order to carry out her hits voz is
the best in the business
so she spent so much time inhabiting
other people's bodies that she's
disconnected from her own life
struggling to remember aspects of who
she is
my darling hi darling
what what have you got there things take
a turn when vaz receives an assignment
to murder a corporate executive
but starts losing control in the process
rounding out the cast are
jennifer jason lee as vaz's handler
girder who issues new targets and runs
vos's decompression after her missions
sean bean is the villainous big data ceo
that vaz is assigned to kill
and christopher abbott as colin the
would-be patsy who finds himself doing
inexplicable things and fighting for
control over his own body
now full disclosure this movie is being
advertised as possessor uncut
and the amount of christmas
will probably give it an nc 17 rating so
if you're not into a freaking
sexual round definitely don't watch
possessor but beyond all the graphic
stuff this movie is full of really
intriguing
ideas about body horror corporate
espionage
and identity it's the best depiction of
two minds trying to occupy one body
since goku and vegeta did the fusion
dance and the movie uses practical
in-camera effects to depict the
unreality of displaced human
consciousness
this movie is really chilling but
luckily the technology is just science
fiction
and corporations can actually
oh my god it's over it's over my name is
not nathaniel my name is james
corstockis i don't know anything about
movies
amazon's been controlling me for the
past
check out possessor today on amazon
prime video available to rent
or buy coming in at number four let's go
back to sundance 2005
with ryan johnson's fresh out of film
school debut
brick this movie is basically a classic
detective noir
set in the modern day california high
school where all the teen characters
talk like they're in a daschle hammock
novel
why spread the pen brad sapp i downed
him on his field and his crew didn't
bite now i know he's a sap and anyone
who acts like he isn't his profiting by
a young joseph gordon levitt plays
brendan our high school 1930s gumshoe
who gets a call from his ex-girlfriend
emily
begging for help you gotta help me
brandon please
i think
emily vanishes soon after brendan is
desperate to get to the bottom of it
and enlist the help of another student
brain along the way
we get to meet every classic noir
character type reimagined as high
schoolers
the x flame the lug the femme fatale
the muscle and the kingpin i say this
with zero disrespect intended
but brick is kind of like the ultimate
student film where the whole project is
justified by its style
and the cleverness of the conceit the
detective novel language in the movie
works shockingly well
without ever feeling too on the nose in
the hands of a lesser director
this could have easily been a 90 minute
movie of dumb teens going
yeah you see this is how it's gonna go
down you see you're gonna load up the
hooch buddy old pal
and then you're gonna give me the drugs
you see brick also uses a lot of the
classic filmmaking techniques from those
noir movies
like canted camera angles and classic
close-ups
it all works so well and you become so
invested that it becomes really funny
when you remember that all the
characters are still in high school
i thought we had orange juice brendan
i'm sorry
how about some tang no that's more like
soda isn't it water's fun man thanks
oh wait a minute we have apple juice
here if you'd like that
or we've got milk capping things off at
number five
it's joanna hogg's autobiographical
toxic relationship movie
the souvenir the souvenir tells the
story of julie
played by honor swinton byrne a film
student who has vague ideas to make a
movie about a boy
and a mother and their life in
sunderland she soon meets anthony played
by tom burke
a well-dressed man that speaks in a
monotone voice and claims to work for
the foreign office
i'm very much in love very much in love
the two fall in love and move in
together but things are not as they seem
as julie becomes more and more concerned
by anthony's apparent lying and constant
money borrowing
can you lend me a couple of quid yeah
sure thank you
how much uh
six have you got ten give me ten
i need ten but uh
just in case the relationship takes up
more and more of julie's time and energy
as she spends less time at film school
and begins borrowing money from her
parents
played by her real-life mother tilda
swinton eventually
julie finds out the truth that anthony
is a heroin user
and struggles over whether or not to end
the relationship
now this is one of the most fleshed out
depictions of a toxic relationship i've
ever seen
we see anthony have his appealing
charming moments but also his constant
belittling and gaslighting you're a
freak
thank you
you're lost and you'll always be lost
damn that's gotta be a no from me dog it
almost makes you wonder how julie could
fall in love with someone like that
until you remember the insidiousness of
toxic masculinity
free yourself girl while this movie is
inspired by joanna hogg's lived
experience
it's also kind of a love letter to
aspiring filmmakers and the trite
conversations about art that surround
julie should be highly relatable to
anyone that went to film school
it has this very formal kind of
structure and it's very very
contemporary
somehow it's more sensual so here's my
pro tip to all aspiring filmmakers out
there trying to make european art cinema
frame all your characters and doors
seriously critics
love this when you put characters in
door frames
it means they're on the threshold of
something and it instantly becomes more
meaningful
and more beautiful remember more doors
equals more awards and there you have it
five of the best sundance festival
favorites to stream right now on prime
video
and if you're still craving more from
sundance check out whiplash
8th grade and leave no trace which i
covered in previous episodes
let me know what you thought about the
films from this week's list in the
comments
or just let me know how much of an idiot
i am for not including your favorite
sundance pick
i can take it until next time don't
blink
always be streaming
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