FIELD OF STREAMS highlights some new offerings on Prime
Welcome to Field of Streams, Cinapse’s weekly guide of what’s playing on your favorite streaming services. What’s new on Netflix and Amazon Prime? What do we recommend on Kanopy, Fandor, and Shudder? We’ve got it all. From monthly roundups, to curated top 5 lists, to reviews of our favorites available now… it’s here. We built it for you, so come and join us in the Field of Streams.
TOTAL RECALL (Prime)
Based on the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” Total Recall is more than just an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. Its iconic imagery and whiplash twists made their way firmly into the American zeitgeist.
The fact that this was a Dick story was not all that important at the time. After providing the narrative for Blade Runner in 1982, 1990’s Total Recall was the next biggie. It wasn’t until the new millennium that we got some true Philip K. sci-fi like Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and all the way to the present with Man in the High Castle.
Total Recall is bonkers in a way that something like Terminator isn’t. Once the story gets going, it’s action packed and wacky, in a way that only Arnold could pull off. This is one worth dusting off from the vault.
LONE WOLF McQUADE (Prime)
Getting Chuck Norris and David Carradine into the same lineup is just…wow. It’s so beyond anything a teen in the 80’s would have dreamed, that its appearance on the rental shelf was cause for sweaty hands and heart palpitations.
Norris plays the good guy, McQuade, naturally, while Carradine is the baddie. Looking back from, say, Kill Bill, this makes a ton of sense, but this was the man from Kung Fu, brimming with a simmering righteousness.
Don’t worry, Chuck Norris gets to kick. A lot. And blow things up. This is very much a movie of the Lone Star State, filmed in El Paso and letting Norris portray a Texas Ranger years before Walker was ever brought to the small screen.
Lone Wolf McQuade will satisfy the itch for a nostalgic action flick with not one but two of the genre’s all-time greats. There’s a scene with a buried truck that won’t stay buried that’s the worth the price of admission alone.
CUJO (Prime)
Want to know why you don’t see that many St. Bernard dogs around despite the cuteness of the Beethoven series? The answer is Cujo.
Based on the novel by Stephen King, this 80’s classic features a friendly dog who turns evil with rabies, terrorizing a mother and her young son who find themselves trapped in a Ford Pinto. It’s just too perfect.
This was the era of peak Stephen King on film, even though that train has never really slowed down since. The name “Cujo” has become synonymous with a scary dog, and after seeing this movie, there will be no way to forget how man’s best friend can become our worst nightmare.
THELMA AND LOUISE (Prime)
If all was right with the world, Geena Davis would still be one of the biggest stars of the silver screen, as she was in 1991 when Thelma and Louise came out. Coupled with Susan Sarandon, the pair created the ultimate “girl power” duo in a story that saw them play by their own rules!
So much about this movie works. The chemistry between the straight-laced Davis and the wild Sarandon, the sublime landscape, and an ending that will live in movie history.
Thelma and Louise also features Brad Pitt in a role that would launch his meteoric career. Within a year he’d be in A River Runs Through It.
STREETWISE (Prime)
This one’s a pick of personal privilege. I literally own this on VHS and was floored when I saw it had been picked up by Amazon Prime. Streetwise is the documentary manifestation of an amazing photographic project by one of the all-time greats, Mary Ellen Mark.
Along with her husband, director Martin Bell, Mark helped tell the story of Tiny, a homeless, 14-year-old prostitute. The image on the cover shows what Mark was able to capture with her camera: a young girl, grown up too soon, so fragile and beautiful, but at the some time tough as leather from the situations she’s had to survive.
The movie tries to capture all of this as well. Tiny stays with her mom when she’s off the streets, and this relationship shows the causes and results of the hardships this family has faced. It’s ultimately a sad story, but not one without redemption.
There are countless services to explore and great things to watch on all of them. Which ones did we miss that you would suggest to us? And, as always, if you’ve got thoughts on titles we’re missing out on or new services to check out, leave a comment below or email us.
Till next week, stream on, stream away.