Field of Streams is here with our very first KANOPY KORNER to have a smattering of great films now featured on the incredible free service
Welcome to Field of Streams, Cinapse’s guide of what’s playing on your favorite streaming services. What are the best unknown gems on Hi-YAH? What does MUBI have going on this month? What are the most exciting things streaming on HBOMax and Kanopy? We’re here to help guide you towards the best and brightest streaming today. We built it for you, so come and join us in the Field of Streams.
One of our favorite streaming services at Field of Streams is Kanopy. One of the things that sets it apart from other services is that it’s 100% free. You simply need a library card from a participating library. And if your library isn’t on the list, you can easily have them reach out to Kanopy to join. It includes tons of great titles from the Criterion collection and more.
SORRY WE MISSED YOU
Get ready to get mad. That is, if seeing poor people struggle against a system seemingly set to see them suffer makes you mad. Sorry We Missed You is the story of one family desperately trying to make it through the meat grinder that is Late Capitalism. The father takes a job as a driver for an Amazon-like company, and you’ll never read the phrase “independent contractor” the same ever again. Imagine every burden being taken from the company and put onto the worker. It’s bad. The mom struggles in her home-care job, which the son struggles to grow up while seeing his father crapped upon daily. The young daughter is a ray of light, but that just makes the whole affair that much more heart breaking. Don’t let this dour introduction sour you; this is a tremendous film with fantastic performances and even better Northern English accents. Just watching this film is an act of solidarity.
THE SOUVENIR
You want arthouse fare. This is arthouse fare. What The Souvenir lacks in excitement, it makes up for the with absolute best kind of elite earnestness. It’s so, so British. It’s bloody posh, I tell you. Honor Swinton Byrne carries the film. Daughter of Tilda (who plays her mother, to boot) plays a young woman struggling to get past her upper crust upbringing to become a filmmaker with something to say. Director Joanna Hogg mined her own history for this one, including the romance at the center of the story that creates both mirth and tragedy. Somewhat strangely, there’s a sequel planned, so get started now.
LEAVE NO TRACE
Every heard of Finnegan’s Wake? It’s the novel that follows Ulysses by James Joyce. It’s most famous feature (other than being purportedly unreadable) is that it’s written with no beginning or end. Indeed, the book starts mid sentence, the beginning of which, is the end of the book! Joyce wanted to publish it as a spiral, so readers could just start reading wherever.
The seeming non sequitur describes how I first experienced Leave No Trace. After arriving a few minutes late, I went to the wrong screening room and picked up the story midway through. Thing is, it was still enjoyable. Watching the father-daughter duo portrayed by Ben Foster and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie is instantly compelling. His character is traumatized by experiences in combat, and she’s the rock keeping it together. I finished the movie and later watched the first half and never had a moment where the film lost me.
BELLFLOWER
Sometimes a small indie film launches the careers of its creators. And sometimes it doesn’t. I had high hopes for Bellflower being the first of many great films from director Evan Glodell and his buddy and co-star Tyler Dawson. That hasn’t happened. Not yet, anyway. Still, this film stands on its own as a bit of a mish-mash but with some solid moments throughout. It starts off predictably as a buddy pic, two guys who like to build cool stuff like cars with flames and even an actual flamethrower. Soon enough, the story veers into the neighborhood of love, and this chapter with Jessie Wiseman is one of the coolest love stories ever caught on film. It just hits right. Now, by film’s end, things haven’t gone so smoothly, and there’s a bit of a fever dream aspect to the finale, but this does nothing to dampen that which came before.
BACURAU
From a preview piece last year:
Following in the footsteps of his previous work Neighboring Sounds and Aquarius (both available on Kanopy), director Kleber Mendonça Filho takes us out of Brazil’s cities and out to its countryside, where class warfare gets real. Mixing genres and sociopolitical commentary, Bacurau is societal exploration one minute, and gorey action the next. It’s quite a ride.
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? Tell us what we’re missing out on or what new services we should check out by leaving a comment below or emailing us.