Happy New Year, Polygon readers! After the spate of new films arriving home for the holiday season, we find ourselves back home in a slightly slower season of new film releases.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any to see! Noah Baumbach (history of marriage) has released a new movie – his adaptation of Don DeLillo White noise makes his way to Netflix. There are new documentaries on Prime Video and HBO Max, as well as the Scott Derrickson horror film The black phonewith Ethan Hawke, is also making its way to Prime Video.
Let’s get into that!
Netflix
White noise
Where to see: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: comedy
Duration: 2h 15m
Director: Noah Baumbach
Occupation: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle
Noah Baumbach is adapting Don DeLillo’s famous postmodern novel for Netflix, with a star-studded cast including his partner Greta Gerwig (with whom he will be starring in the upcoming Barbie), Adam Driver and André Benjamin. It’s the first time Baumbach has directed a feature-length adaptation of someone else’s screenplay.
From our review:
Perhaps what irks DeLillo purists most about Baumbach’s film is what makes it most enjoyable for everyone else to watch: It’s fun. It’s a chaotic film that doesn’t quite find the thread to make sense of DeLillo’s vision or the reality of its characters — especially during its bewildering final third, after the Airborne Toxic Event unravels and Jack becomes obsessed with Babette’s place in some sort of pharmaceutical conspiracy . But it was done with wit and an infectious taste. Baumbach lunges for laughs and scares, often successfully, spattering the screen with bright colors and movement. Under the credits, he stages a dance number in the aisles of the supermarket, which DeLillo and his pretentious characters imagine as a modern American church. Does Baumbach still make a point or is he just cutting? The latter, I suspect, and more power for him. He took the money from Netflix and ran away.
stay with you
Where to see: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Romantic comedy
Duration: 59m
Director: Frank Bellocq
Occupation: Kev Adams, Camille Lellouche
Two characters get stuck in an elevator en route to a New Year’s Eve party and form a connection in this short French rom-com.
Prime video
Wild cat
Where to see: Available for streaming on Prime Video
Genre: documentary
Duration: 1 hr 45 mins
Director: Melissa Lesh, Trevor Beck Frost
Occupation: N / A
Wild cat follows a young soldier from the war who travels to the Amazon rainforest and bonds with a scientist and an orphaned ocelot.
The black phone
Where to see: Available for streaming on Prime Video
Genre: horror
Duration: 1h 33m
Director: Scott Derrickson
Occupation: Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke
This is not The black phones Streaming Debut – The Ethan Hawke-led horror first landed on Peacock a few months ago. But with a move to Prime Video, there are a lot more people to watch The black phone now. Whether that’s good is up to you!
From our review:
Outside the feeling of morbid inevitability The black phone is a mess. The main issue is the performances, which range from puzzling to downright pathetic. Jeremy Davies is particularly bad as Finney and Gwen’s drunk father, whose babble and shouting doesn’t come across as pathetic or threatening. Hawke is also too everywhere to be read as credibly scary: when we first see The Grabber, his face is made up white and he speaks in a high-pitched, affected voice that reminds us Atlantais Teddy Perkins. Crazy, right? What is he trying to mean, and how does that fit with his psychosis? Regardless – this is the first and last time that character detail will appear in the film.
HBO Max
This place rules
Where to see: Available to stream on HBO Max
Genre: documentary
Duration: unknown
Director: Andrew Callaghan
Occupation: Andrew Callaghan
Produced by Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim and Jonah Hill, among others, in association with A24, this documentary follows ‘gonzo journalist’ Andrew Callaghan as he documents the events leading up to the Capitol Riot on January 6th.
Shudder
burial
Where to see: Available to stream on Shudder
Genre: thriller
Duration: 1h 35m
Director: ben parker
Occupation: Tom Felton, Harriet Walter, Charlotte Vega
Tom Felton stars in this thriller about a group of soldiers who bring Hitler’s body from Germany to Russia and are ambushed by Nazi soldiers.
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