Notes from Behind the Front Door: Cinema in time of Isolation #1

This will be a series that will go for as long as it needs. I will be listing recommendations from the available video services. This will not be comprehensive and it will be driven by my taste. This means that you are welcome to expand on that in comments, making your own recommendations for me and the community of this blog.

NETFLIX

The biggest game in town as far as paid subscription goes. It also supports watch parties with a Chrome browser addon.

THOROUGHBREDS: like Heavenly Creatures as an episode of Daria. Two daughters of the 1% in Connecticut find that they have more in common than they would ever have admitted. This soon leads to a film-noire style co-operative plan. But what is the real goal here? Dialogue that could have been written by Diablo Cody channelling Samuel Beckett delivered by a very solid cast and almost cruelly lean filmmaking. Try this as a watch party as it will get you talking. I saw this first at MIFF and more recently as my first Netflix Party.

LADY BIRD: Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut feature completely disarmed me after I was ready to condemn it. Gerwig wrote and starred in the excerable Frances Ha and, together with her creative and life partner Noah Baumbach, has committed some of the most repellent "indy cinema" of the past three decades. So, why does this story of a teenage girl with quirks who encounters narcissistic others, also with quirks, work? Because, unlike anything with Baumbach, it feels genuine. It has real heart and superb performances from the likes of Saoirse Ronan.

STAN

Local precursor to Netflix created by two media giants Fairfax and Nine (which are both the same thing now). More Australian content and a noticeably better selection of films from before the year 2000.

IN BRUGES: Colin Farrell and James Gleason, two Irish hitmen, are out of the country after a hit-gone-wrong (just how wrong I won't spoil) and have to deal with their new setting in the historic Belgian town and each other. Farrell's turn as a motor-mouthed bad boy can be screamingly funny but his motivations just screaming. Gleason, as the centre of gravity, seems overly gentle until you learn how important his patience is. Ralph Fiennes's cockney mob boss has walked out of a Harold Pinter version of The Krays. Clemence Poesy as the chief female role is given far more substance than her type of character usually gets in a story like this and runs with it. Long but constantly diverting.

TRIANGLE: A gang of bright young things sets out on a three hour tour except they don't end up on Gilligan's Island. Wrecked by bad weather they drift until catching sight of a ship. Boarding it, they find it deserted but for some terrifying presences. Things are not what they seem or even when they seem. A mind-warping tale of consequences taken into mathematical complexity only to reveal (after showing all that working) that it can take so little to change a world.

SBS on Demand

The online version of the tv station that always had the most interesting movies. Like Netflix and Stan the titles can fall off the shelf quite suddenly so, if you see something you like watch as soon as you can.

THE DRAUGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT: Intrigue among the landed gentry in Restoration Britain as a commoner artist is contracted to immortalise the lands and wealth of a family. The contract of the title provides the film with a plot about the artist's attempts to game the system while the dreary commission can be done. But who is gaming whom? Peter Greenaway's breakthrough art house hit with its strident Purcell-influenced score, lavish period tableaux and high humour formed a major thread of the cinema of its time, allowing a resurgence of wit both spoken and visual and a hard edged formalism as funny as it was cultured.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS: A tale from within the corridors of Stasi-infested East Germany as an agent gets increasingly involved in a particular case to the point where he seems to lose his old self-definition. Ulrich Muher carries this dark tale with the stoicism expected of his character which makes his transformation weigh a ton.