The last days of spring are waning as we continue into the heart of summer, which means a whole host of new streaming deals will be available on Amazon Prime in June. Yes, the hit series The Boys returns and remains as vulgar and witty as ever, although there are other good movies to watch. From comedy classics to newer action movies, we’ve rounded up the best of the best to watch this month.
Call Me By Your Name
Screenwriters: James Ivory, André Aciman Read also : The Guardian’s view of diversity in art: continuity is essential.
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar
Call Me By Your Name, a reflective yet poetic look at first love, is one of those films that captures mixed feelings with moments of overwhelming and profound grace. Based on André Aciman’s novel of the same name, the film stars the ever better Timothée Chalametas as a young Elio who finds himself romantically attracted to a graduate student who is older and more experienced than him. As we see him fall into a romance that is sure to break his heart, the most striking scene remains the scene Chalamet shares with acclaimed actor Michael Stuhlbarg. Playing his father, Stuhlbarg shares wisdom and love for his son in a monologue full of gravitas that puts all other monologues to shame because it ties everything together. Coupled with Sufjan Stevens’ melancholic yet mesmerizing score, the film becomes much more than the sum of its parts.
Fences
Starring: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson Read also : The “Big Resignations” come to health jobs in Idaho.
With mega-talent Denzel Washington working both in front of and behind the camera, Fences brings August Wilson’s magnificent 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning play to the big screen. It’s a film that takes advantage of a single location where Washington plays patriarch Troy Maxson, a working-class man who reflects on the sacrifices he’s made in his life. Alongside him is Viola Davis, revelatory in more ways than one as his wife Rose. They have had to give up a lot to give their son a chance at the better life they never had, a choice they both consider and come to terms with. This is a film that aims to showcase the strength of its actors by giving them page after page of meaty dialogue to sink their teeth into. The entire cast not only rises to the occasion, but takes it in interesting new directions that ensure it remains its own adaptation. Every word uttered in its two-plus-hour runtime just carries so much weight, making it a film that can seem small in its scope and setting, while becoming emotionally epic in its own right.
mother!
Director/Writer: Darren Aronofsky To see also : This is the only Netflix movie you should be streaming this weekend.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris
A film that received wildly mixed reactions after its release, Mother! remains Darren Aronofsky’s clear vision, which turns out to be one of his boldest. It stars Jennifer Lawrence as a nameless woman who lives in a seemingly idyllic house with Javier Bardem, who is simply mistaken for Her. If it’s not already clear, this is a story that wears its aspirational biblical references on its sleeve before it begins its slow descent into hell. Controversial and chaotic, the film is as often bleak as it is brutally beautiful. The house is a malleable and malevolent environment that goes from claustrophobic one moment to terrifyingly expansive the next. As we see Lawrence moving around the hall, this is enhanced by near-perpetual close-ups of his face as more and more fear begins to sink in. It’s not for everyone, but maybe that makes it all the more exciting regardless. .
No Time To Die
Screenwriters: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Starring: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek
An imperfect yet intriguing end to Daniel Craig’s Bond era, No Time To Diesees the long history of the accomplished spy finally catches up with him. The result is a film that goes in directions the franchise has never gone before, reaching a conclusion that is as bittersweet as it is fitting. It also never skimps on the action, starting right out of the gate with an explosive sequence that sees Bond nearly killed in a surprise attack while mourning a past love. We then flash forward to five years into his retirement, content to leave his life of violence and death behind. Of course, this being a Bond film, he is drawn back into yet another mission that will one way or another be his last. Even with a slightly underdeveloped villain, the film gives Craig his all in a final farewell that wraps everything up nicely.
The Sandlot
Screenwriters: David Mickey Evans, Robert Gunter
Cast: Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Art LaFleur
One of the funniest and most heartfelt coming-of-age movies of all time, The Sandlot is a sports movie that’s as silly as it is sweet. It centers on Tom Guiry as Scotty Smalls, a lovably cute but lonely kid who has moved to a new place where he doesn’t know anyone. Just when it looks like he’s out of friends for the summer, he meets Mike Vitar’s charismatic Benny ‘The Jet’ Rodriguez, who introduces him to a group of kids who come to play baseball every day. It’s there that Smalls, as the other kids call him, finds both friendship and a lot of confusion when a priceless baseball accidentally hits a fence that contains a beast no one dares face. Tightly written and sharply funny, it captures a portrait of youth that is sentimental without being superficial. It’s a film that lives in the details, capturing what it means to grow up with both precision and love for all of adolescence.
The Wolf of Wall Street
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
A gloriously extravagant and endlessly extravagant portrait of wealth, The Wolf of Wall Street is Martin Scorsese’s most unrestrained work of art. With Leonardo DiCaprio playing the unfeeling real-life Jordan Belfort, watch him do whatever it takes to get to the top. Alongside him are equally outstanding Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie, who steal every scene in this insane film. Charting Belfort’s fall from filthy rich stockbroker to corrupt crook who made his fortune at the expense of others, the film puts him under the microscope to examine every angle of American greed. It’s also darkly fun, letting scenes of drug-related incompetence play out in all their glory. But by the time the shoe drops, the laughter has long since subsided into bewildered silence. Instead, we see man and the wider system exposed in all its brokenness. It finds entertainment in the eccentricity and terrifying collapse it all builds to.
Whip It
Starring: Elliot Page, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig
A film that will forever be remembered for its wit and charm, Whip It sees Drew Barrymore lead a confident comedy drama that hits all the right notes. It stars Elliot Pageas Bliss Cavendar, a rambunctious, insecure small-town Texas resident who secretly joins a roller derby team to escape her controlling mother’s crushing conformity and the world of beauty pageants. The world of roller derby brings freedom and new meaning to Bliss, though it can’t last forever as a choice must be made between these two vastly different worlds. It’s a film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but instead sends it hurtling forward, offering a sense of joy mixed with melancholy in the central character’s struggles as he tries to find a way forward. Page captures this vulnerability and vision with ease, creating an experience that finds tender passion in the lives of his underdogs who have created a world for themselves.
