Release Calendar for July 3, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films

“Skyman” (directed by Daniel Myrick)
Distributor: Gravitas Ventures
Where to Find It: Available at various drive-ins, coming to VOD next week

Jittery camerawork and faux documentary footage depict the quixotic efforts to record otherworldly events in the middle of nowhere (in this case, the California desert). In its final moments, the drama builds to the usual blurry chaos and jump scares, as if the material caved to those expectations on default. Before then, however, Myrick develops intrigue around the nature of the quest, using the format to explore the alienated life of a man trapped by a desire to escape the fact-based reality surrounding him. It’s less invested in “The X-Files” ethos of “I want to believe” than the toll that can take on an innocent mind. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“The Truth” (directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu)
Distributor: IFC Films
Where to Find It: For rent or purchase on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

The first movie the Japanese writer-director has made since winning the film world’s most prestigious award is also the first that he’s ever shot in another tongue or country, and that fact alone is enough to make Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest feel like an outlier in any number of obvious ways; a foreign organ transplanted into an otherwise cohesive body of work. On the other hand, this wise and diaphanous little drama finds Kore-eda once again exploring his usual obsessions, as the man behind the likes of “Still Walking” and “After the Storm” offers yet another insightful look at the underlying fabric of a modern family. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Welcome to Chechnya” (directed by David France)
Distributor: HBO Documentary Films
Where to Find It: Broadcast on HBO, plus all HBO streaming platforms

Over the course of his filmmaking career, David France has made urgent political documentaries about LGBTQ rights, first with the AIDS pandemic and the founders of ACT UP (the Oscar-nominated “How to Survive a Plague”), then the first transgender rights activists (“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”). His third film, “Welcome to Chechnya,” completes what he dubs in a director’s statement his “outsider activism” trilogy. Using guerrilla filmmaking tactics to shoot inside the heavily policed region, “Welcome to Chechnya” uncovers the horrific state-sanctioned detainment, torture, and execution of LGBTQ Chechens, humanizing the victims while protecting their identities with groundbreaking VFX technology. It’s France’s bravest film yet, and a noble conclusion to his trilogy. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“Viena and the Fantomes” (directed by Gerardo Naranjo)
Distributor: Lola Pictures
Where to Find It: For rent or purchase on Google Play and Amazon Prime Video

Films Available via Virtual Cinema

Learn more about virtual cinemas offerings right here.

“Denise Ho: Becoming the Song” (directed by Sue Williams)
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

Denise Ho: Becoming the Song” shrewdly draws parallels between Ho’s own political awakening with Hong Kong’s evolving battle over democratic freedoms. The film charts the rise of her career, from a transformative adolescence in Canada that helped her find her creative voice to a meaningful (but at times restrictive) mentorship with original Cantopop diva Anita Mui. Williams weaves into the film recent footage from Hong Kong protests, which resonates deeply as an obvious companion to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations currently erupting around the country and the globe. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“Elliott Erwitt: Silence Sounds Good” (directed by Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu)
Distributor: Cargo Film and Releasing
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

Check out more information about the rest of June and July’s newest home releases below.

Week of June 22 – June 28

New Films on VOD and Streaming (And Select Drive-Ins)

“Athlete A” (directed by Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

“Athlete A” works as both a meticulous unpacking of the case against Larry Nassar, as kicked off by the reporting of the IndyStar journalists who investigated it, and an emotional unburdening for his many victims. By its end, however, its revelations demand nothing short of the full-scale dismantling of every facet of USA Gymnastics. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” (directed by David Dobkin)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

A Will Ferrell vehicle produced by a global entertainment powerhouse that has a vested interest in exposing Americans to “foreign” content, this overlong but fitfully amusing three-way between “Blades of Glory,” “Pitch Perfect,” and “D2: The Mighty Ducks” may not do much to teach the history of Eurovision or sell neophytes on its flamboyant allure, but at the very least the movie will put the competition on their radars. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“The Ghost of Peter Sellers” (directed by Peter Medak)
Distributor: 1091 Media
Where to Find It: For rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, GooglePlay, Microsoft, Vudu, and FandangoNow, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

In the grand tradition of “Jodoworsky’s Dune” and “Lost in La Mancha,” the lighthearted behind-the-scenes documentary “The Ghost of Peter Sellers” recounts a tortuous production and the fascinating ways in which it went awry from every possible direction. More than 40 years later, the Hungarian-born director Peter Medak, best known for “The Ruling Class” and “The Changeling,” is still reeling from the trauma of his showdown with Sellers, and that personal angle gives this scattershot overview a wistful, elegiac tone, as Medak revisits the sun-soaked Mediterranean scenery where everything went wrong. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Irresistible” (directed by Jon Stewart)
Distributor: Focus Features
Where to Find It: For rent on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, GooglePlay, Microsoft, Vudu, Alamo On Demand, and FandangoNow, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

A Capra-esque moral comedy that unfolds with all the subtlety of sky writing and none of the same panache, “Irresistible” is a perverse bid for clarity that feels like it was left behind like a relic from some long-distant past. Not the 1939 of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” but perhaps from that narrow sliver of time between Jon Stewart leaving “The Daily Show” in 2015 and the presidential election that was inflicted upon us the following year; that last pocket of history when the media was still as much of a threat as the monsters it empowered, and the American people weren’t quite as complicit in the animosity that keeps them at each other’s’ throats. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“My Spy” (directed by Peter Segal)
Distributor: Amazon Studios
Where to Find It: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Dave Bautista has already proven his straight-faced comedy chops in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the amusing but forgettable “Stuber,” which paired him alongside fellow funny guy Kumail Nanjiani. Something like Peter Segal’s “My Spy” feels inevitable as the performer expands his cinematic repertoire, but even Bautista and a genuinely cute kid co-star can’t enliven this predictable and humorless entry into a micro-genre long due for a refresher. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Nobody Knows I’m Here” (directed by Gaspar Antillo)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

Ten years have passed since Jorge Garcia wrapped his breakthrough role as the scene-stealing goofball on ABC’s “Lost,” and the world hasn’t seen much of him since then. The same can be said for Memo Garrido, the soft-spoken recluse portrayed by Garcia in what amounts to his first lead role with the Chilean drama “Nobody Knows I’m Here,” which makes up for missed time. Gaspar Antillo’s directorial debut is a curious and intriguing mixed bag that meshes “A Star Is Born” with “Searching for Sugarman” to craft the sullen backwoods story of a talented singer hiding from the world that rejected his talent long ago. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“Daddy Issues” (directed by Laura Holliday)
Distributor: Gravitas Ventures
Where to Find It: For rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Microsoft, YouTube, Vimeo, and more, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

“No Small Matter” (directed by Daniel Alpert, Greg Jacobs, and Jon Siskel)
Distributor: Abramorama
Where to Find It: For rent or purchase on iTunes or Amazon Prime Video

“Run with the Hunted” (directed by John Swab)
Distributor: Vertical Entertainment
Where to Find It: Satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

Films Available via Virtual Cinema

Learn more about virtual cinemas offerings right here.

“Beats” (directed by Brian Welsh)
Distributor: Music Box Films
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“Beats” alternately plays out like a thumping character study and a bittersweet mood piece. The drab, angry, morning-after aesthetic proves transportive as Brian Welsh adds such a visceral new dimension to the “I was there” power of the film’s source material that it’s hard to believe this all came out of a one-man play (by co-writer Kieran Hurley). But the story is only so transportive because of the ultra-believable friendship between Johnno and Spanner, a friendship which — like the music scene that defines it — is fighting an unwinnable war of attrition against “social responsibility.” Read IndieWire’s full review.

“House of Hummingbird” (directed by Kim Bora)
Distributor: Well Go USA
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

Kim Bora’s semi-autobiographical (or at least age-aligned) debut is set in Seoul circa 1994. A tightly coiled 14-year-old girl named Eun-hee (Park Ji-hoo) looks for solid ground while her anxious middle class family strives for a higher foothold, as their nation embraces a democratic future and the social mobility that it promises. Heady as that may sound, Bora’s long and delicate film is tapped into its heroine’s sense of becoming in such a way that it feels more diaristic than historical, even when the final act hinges on a real tragedy that affected Seoul in October 1994. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“The Audition” (directed by Ina Weisse)
Distributor: Strand Releasing
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“The Last Tree” (directed by Shola Amoo)
Distributor: BAM
Where to Find It: Available through BAM’s virtual cinema

Week of June 15 – June 21

New Films on VOD and Streaming (And Select Drive-Ins)

“7500” (directed by Patrick Vollrath)
Distributor: Amazon Studios
Where to Find It: Streaming on Prime Video

No matter its narrative shortcomings, “7500” delivers the most exciting cinematic ride of the year so far, a Hitchcockian gamble so committed to maintaining suspense at every turn that each scene teeters on the edge of an anxiety attack. While that might not sound like the most inviting experience, “7500” takes a gradual approach that acclimates viewers to its setting before jolting them into the center of a conflict that doesn’t relent until the closing moments. By then, it’s too absorbing to look away. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“A Whisker Away” (directed by Junichi Sato and Tomotaka Shibayam)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

Lushly animated in an unfussy style that defaults to summery realism but still allows for pockets of magic, “A Whisker Away” keeps things light and (older) kid-friendly even as it touches on the kind of raw emotional wounds that can lead both Miyo and Kento to confuse vulnerability for weakness. Viewers shouldn’t expect the acute emotional punch that might be packed inside a Shinkai Makoto film like “Your Name” — this movie is more interested in splitting the difference between Miyazaki Hayao and classic Disney, with the latter influence becoming especially clear after Kaoru’s housecat dons Miyo’s human mask and begins masquerading as a paw-licking person — but even at its most playful and scattered, the story is still more emotionally crystalline than its plot might suggest. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Babyteeth” (directed by Shannon Murphy)
Distributor: IFC Films
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms, plus select theaters

“Babyteeth” is the kind of soft-hearted tearjerker that does everything in its power to rescue beauty from pain; the kind that feels like it would lose its balance and tip right off the screen if it stopped being able to walk the line between the two. And yet, despite a handful of shaky moments and a story that sounds like a supercut of all the worst tropes in contemporary independent cinema, Shannon Murphy’s primal and surefooted debut never falls into either mawkishness or sadism. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” (directed by Ivy Meeropol)
Distributor: HBO Documentary Films
Where to Find It: Debuts Thursday, June 18 on HBO, plus streaming on HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO Max

At once both heartfelt and exasperatingly broad, “Bully. Coward. Victim.” provides as fair and prismatic a character study as Cohn’s thin character might possibly allow. In addition to a scattershot biography that traces Cohn’s life from his formative days as a Columbia Law student to his infamous nights at Studio 54 and all points in between, the film complements its vast array of archival footage with a diverse smattering of talking heads that range from Cohn’s most basic flunkies (like his former driver, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his ex-employer) to his most savage critics (“Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner, who wrote Cohn into his Pulitzer Prize-winning epic). Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Disclosure” (directed by Sam Feder)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

There are countless troubling examples of trans characters being portrayed as evil and duplicitous or sad and pathetic, far more than the average cinephile realizes. Most of the time, trans characters die before the end of a movie or TV episode. They’re all discussed in “Disclosure: Trans Lives Onscreen,” a new documentary from executive producer Laverne Cox that surveys the history of trans representation onscreen. When viewed all at once, this history is as surprising as it is troubling. From D.W. Griffith to “Law and Order: SVU,” “Disclosure” offers an accessible, moving, and in-depth account of trans representation in media. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“(In)Visible Portraits” (directed by Oge Egbuonu)
Distributor: Change the Narrative, LLC
Where to Find It: Buy on Vimeo, with a wider digital release on iTunes, Amazon, and Roku to follow

It’s that open-heartedness that makes “(In)Visible Portraits” such a wonder, because as Oge Egbuonu and her participants are illuminating an often terrible history, they are also sharing themselves on increasingly personal terms. It’s difficult not to feel as if Egbuonu and her subjects aren’t talking directly to each viewer, teaching them through history and personal experience, and that level of trust and respect demands reciprocal action. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Miss Juneteenth” (directed by Channing Godfrey Peoples)
Distributor: Vertical Entertainment
Where to Find It: Rent on iTunes, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

Rife with vivid details, Channing Godfrey Peoples crafts an entire world for Turquoise, Kai, and their Ft. Worth community to inhabit, from the pair’s clean but lacking house to the scrappy BBQ joint where Turq works at just one of her jobs (the other is at a family-run mortuary, and that’s got drama to spare). Many of Peoples’ shots are gorgeously composed, from the pageant and the accompanying parade to one of many rowdy nights at the BBQ joint, bringing to loving life the kind of world not often brought to the big screen. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“You Should Have Left” (directed by David Koepp)
Distributor: Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Entertainment
Where to Find It: Rent on iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu, GooglePlay, FandangoNow, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

Based on Daniel Kehlmann’s popular 2017 novella of the same name, David Koepp (who also adapted the script) has taken a few liberties with the original vision, some seemingly small (i.e., Kevin Bacon’s character is no longer a struggling screenwriter, but a wealthy banker) and others are far too large to mention without verging into spoiler territory. But the soul of Kehlmann’s creepy little work remains in place: Theo is already at loose ends, and the house is hellbent on exploiting that into horrifying new shapes. (Kehlmann’s novel also built in an ambitious backstory for the house itself, which is limply mentioned in the film and then dropped; rest assured, however, this house is bad news.) Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“Followed” (directed by Antoine Le)
Distributor: Global View Entertainment
Where to Find It: Select drive-ins

“Scare Package” (directed by Emily Hagins, Noah Segan, Aaron B. Koontz, Baron Vaughn, Chris Mclnroy, Courtney Andujar, Hillary Andujar, and Anthony Cousins)
Distributor: Shudder
Where to Find It: Streaming on Shudder

Films Available via Virtual Cinema

Learn more about virtual cinemas offerings right here.

“Creating a Character: The Moni Yakim Legacy” (directed by Rauzar Alexander)
Distributor: First Run Features
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“My Darling Vivian” (directed by Matt Riddlehover)
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“Picture of His Life” (directed by Yonatan Nir and Dani Menkin)
Distributor: Oded Horowitz and Panorama Film
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“Runner” (directed by Bill Gallagher)
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“Woman on the Beach” (directed by Hong Sangsoo)
Distributor: Grasshopper Film
Where to Find It: Available exclusively through Film at Lincoln Center’s virtual cinema

Week of June 8 – June 14

New Films on VOD and Streaming (And Select Drive-Ins)

“Artemis Fowl” (directed by Kenneth Branagh)
Distributor: Disney
Where to Find It: Streaming on Disney+

Taking serious liberties from the first two books in the series — all the better to slim down a packed plot, one of the few good creative choices that went into the film’s making — Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl’s screenplay eventually thins down a convoluted story to near-nothingness. There’s a special kid, a magical world, a priceless artifact with great powers, a motley crew of unexpected pals, and a faceless villain, all the broad strokes of many fantastical kids stories. But it’s as if the pair forgot to fill in the actual details. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Da 5 Bloods” (directed by Spike Lee)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

Spike Lee fans, get ready: “Da 5 Bloods” takes the filmmaker’s familiar obsessions to an extreme, douses them in wartime grief and bloody jungle showdowns, all without an iota of compromise. In Lee’s lively, discursive look at a quartet of black Vietnam vets searching for their old squad leader’s remains (and the gold that was lost with him), the filmmaker’s voice permeates each scene with such mighty force it’s a wonder he never pulls a Porky Pig and bursts into the center of the frame. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Infamous” (directed by Joshua Caldwell)
Distributor: Vertical Entertainment
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on Prime Video, Vudu, satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms, rent via virtual cinema, plus select drive-ins

Joshua Caldwell’s “Infamous,” at turns nihilistic and uncomfortably believable, may be built on a thin premise — what if its star-crossed pair of criminal lovers was, as the kids say, doing it for the ‘gram? — but an appropriately nutso performance from its star and some sharp writing keep it from feeling as disposable as its worldview. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“The King of Staten Island” (directed by Judd Apatow)
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Where to Find It: Rent on iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu, GooglePlay, FandangoNow, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

And yet “The King of Staten Island” isn’t quite as obvious as it sounds on paper (even if it’s occasionally also more so). Teetering between self-parody and something truly beautiful, Apatow’s latest offers yet another shaggy portrait of permanent adolescence, but this one — his best film since 2009’s “Funny People” — helps make sense of why he always keeps going back to the same archetype. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“The Short History of the Long Road” (directed by Ani Simon-Kennedy)
Distributor: FilmRise
Where to Find It: Select drive-in theaters, plus VOD and digital on Tuesday, June 16

A meandering coming of age tale that quite literally pushes off into unexpected diversions, “The Short History of the Long Road” doesn’t blaze new trails, but it does provide a platform for Carpenter’s evolving performance and Simon-Kennedy’s skilled eye. While Simon-Kennedy’s characters occasionally avoids the cliches of similar movies, nothing about the film’s plotting surprises, as Nola aimlessly drives in search of what eventually amounts to a found family. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“You Don’t Nomi” (directed by Jeffrey McHale)
Distributor: RLJE Films
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu, GooglePlay, rent on FandangoNow, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

It’s a shame that “You Don’t Nomi,” a new documentary about the failure and reevaluation of Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 pulp film “Showgirls,” doesn’t live up to its truly inspired title. A play on the movie’s enigmatic, beguiling, and totally unhinged protagonist Nomi Malone, played by Elizabeth Berkeley in a career-defining (and -ending) role, the title calls to mind Lesley Gore’s 1963 classic “You Don’t Own Me” — a connection that amuses at first glance, but becomes quite tenuous once you think about it. The same could be said for “You Don’t Nomi.” Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“Exit Plan” (directed by Jonas Alexander Arnby)
Distributor: Screen Media
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on iTunes, Prime Video, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

“Here Awhile” (directed by Tim True)
Distributor: 1091 Media
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

Films Available via Virtual Cinema

Learn more about virtual cinemas offerings right here.

“Aviva” (directed by Boaz Yakin)
Distributor: Outsider Pictures and Strand Releasing
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

The script falters under the weight of its grand vision, however, when the two characters talk to the other parts of themselves. As Eden yells angrily at his inner woman, it’s the first time a man’s internalized misogyny has been so starkly shown onscreen here. Unfortunately, that glimmer of freshness can’t overcome an overall doleful tone. It’s an ambitious piece, but in the dance between experimental ideas and grounded storytelling, “Aviva” should have listened to her body. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“For They Know Not What They Do” (directed by Daniel Karslake)
Distributor: First Run Features
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“For They Know Not What They Do” revisits Christianity’s evolution on the subject of homosexuality, focusing on the parents whose queer children helped them embrace a more loving interpretation of scripture. It is a stirring call to action, and an urgent warning to those who place religion above their child’s survival. Most importantly, however, the film does not judge or speak down to those who most need to hear its message. The carefully chosen subjects in the film came to their newfound acceptance through often painful reconciliations between their so-called faith and a love for their children. By the film’s end, it’s incredibly moving to see they ways they’ve each experienced a deeper and far more profound love — both for God and for their fellow humans. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“The Surrogate” (directed by Jeremy Hersh)
Distributor: Monument Releasing
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

In Jeremy Hersh’s smart moral drama “The Surrogate,” Jess’s bent towards accommodating others is pushed into extreme perimeters, but the microbudget feature never wavers from lived-in believability. As Jess, Jasmine Batchelor (the film marks her first starring role in a film, the actress also produced it) turns in one of the year’s best performances, profound work that twists an already propulsive concept into a riveting character study. While Hersh’s film, only his first feature, doesn’t quite stick the landing, its path through thorny questions and seemingly unanswerable dilemmas makes for a thought-provoking, well-crafted watch. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Sometimes Always Never” (directed by Carl Hunter)
Distributor: Blue Fox Entertainment
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

Not to be confused with Eliza Hittman’s extraordinary abortion drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” Carl Hunter’s bittersweet quirkfest “Sometimes Always Never” boasts three quarters of that other film’s title and a much smaller fraction of its value. Of course, this strange overlap is really only worth mentioning because Hunter’s cock-eyed comedy — the fable-esque tale of a sarky, widowed Scrabble obsessive who’s determined to find the teenage son who stormed out of the house and disappeared forever during a heated game several decades earlier — is so preoccupied with the power of words. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“Hill of Freedom” (directed by Jayuui Eondeok)
Distributor: Grasshopper Film
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“Marona’s Fantastic Tale” (directed by Anca Damian)
Distributor: GKIDS
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

Week of June 1 – June 7

New Films on VOD and Streaming

“Becky” (directed by Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion)
Distributor: Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on iTunes and Prime Video, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

What if Kevin James was cast as a neo-Nazi? That’s one of the many uninspired questions that Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion’s gruesome “Becky” answers in a movie driven by an increasingly boring set of narrative dares. Others include: What if the protagonist was a teenage girl so angry she could actually kill? What if there was a MacGuffin that was literally a key that didn’t open anything? Even as the movie stumbles into a few compelling moments, it’s far too concerned with shoveling on empty shocks. The pair’s earlier film, “Cooties,” suffered from similar issues, attempting to build a thin idea (what if a zombie pandemic only turned little kids into monsters?) but at least it yielded more entertaining results. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Judy and Punch” (directed by Mirrah Foulkes)
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Where to Find It: Rent or buy on iTunes, GooglePlay, Vudu, and Prime Video, rent on FandangoNow, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms

The fun of Mirrah Foulkes’ Python-esque “Judy and Punch” is that her film doesn’t “cancel” the history behind it, or righteously try to rewrite the misogynistic story that its characters have been used to pass along for so many generations. On the contrary — and as its title suggests — this dark and bawdy divertissement just changes the emphasis of its telling. For all of its low-key revisionism and post-modern flourish (most explicit during a kung-fu style training montage set to Leonard Cohen and a funny “Gladiator” reference that lands at a pivotal moment), Foulkes’ confident and kooky feature debut is less interested in subverting its source material than in continuing the puppet show’s long tradition of keeping with the times. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“The Last Days of American Crime” (directed by Olivier Megaton)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

Here’s the thing about “The Last Days of American Crime” — you don’t have time for this shit. None of us do. And that’s not just because Olivier Megaton’s agonizingly dull Netflix feature is 149 minutes long (a crime unto itself). While there’s never really a good moment to introduce a bad movie into the world, this hollow and artless dystopian heist dreck is also a victim of its own relevance. We’re all for escapism where you can get it — this critic has streamed an ungodly amount of post-curfew “Terrace House” — but watching such a deeply stupid fantasy about the future of American fascism almost feels like a dereliction of duty when the country is on the verge of becoming a police state in real life. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Shirley” (directed by Josephine Decker)
Distributor: Neon
Where to Find It: Streaming on Hulu, rent or buy on iTunes and Prime Video, plus satellite and cable On-Demand and other streaming platforms, available at participating drive-in theaters

The best elements of “Shirley” — its poisoned eros, its secrets in shallow focus, its steadfast determination to distill the “thrillingly horrible” process of a young woman’s self-awakening — conspire to embarrass the idea that Josephine Decker wouldn’t be able to explore her truth in someone else’s fiction. This is a film about the beating heart of friendship; about the seductive nature of exploitation; about the aesthetics of female visibility and the way that lost girls are liable to “lose their minds” in a man’s world where normalcy is its own kind of madness. By the time “Shirley” arrives at its tortured smile of an ending, it seems less a departure from “Madeline’s Madeline” than it does a spiritual prequel, or maybe a buttoned-up aunt. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Spelling the Dream” (directed by Sam Rega)
Distributor: Netflix
Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix

While “Spelling the Dream” attempts to address the question of why Indian American kids are such spelling stars, it also gracefully moves away from that sort of monolithic thinking by introducing its four central subjects, plus various talking heads, on their own terms. Yes, Indian American kids are spelling champs, and yes, this documentary is focused on that supposed phenomenon, but “Spelling the Dream” is perhaps most successful at showing how each speller is very different. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Films Available via Virtual Cinema

Learn more about virtual cinemas offerings right here.

“Tommaso” (directed by Abel Fererra)
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Where to Find It: Exclusive engagement at FLC, followed by other local cinemas next week (choose through the film’s virtual cinema page)

Fatherhood and midlife doldrums are not the usual terrain for director Abel Ferrara, whose dark tales of angry urbanites have coalesced into a striking vision of despair across several decades, but everyone grows up sometime. In the scrappy and often endearing drama “Tommaso,” Ferrara casts regular muse Willem Dafoe as a fictionalized version of the filmmaker himself, a broken man still picking up the pieces from his prior misdeeds to find some measure of stability. Having found a new life in Italy with a much younger wife and child — both played by the real ones in Ferrara’s life — the eponymous Tommaso struggles to reconcile a new beginning with the stumbles of the past. Read IndieWire’s full review.

“Yourself and Yours” (directed by Hong Sang-Soo)
Distributor: Cinema Guild
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

“Yourself and Yours” isn’t a mystery so much as it is a bottomless rabbit hole — Hong borrowing the central gimmick of Buñuel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire” in order to make his own riff on Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy.” As always, he uses a lo-fi narrative device to complicate romantic entanglements so that they unfold on screen in the same jumble as they do in our own twisted minds, the filmmaker taking a kaleidoscopic approach in order to refract Minjung through a singularly male prism of neurosis and desire. Read IndieWire’s full review.

Also available this week:

“2040” (directed by Damon Gameau)
Distributor: Together Films
Where to Find It: Choose your local cinema through the film’s virtual cinema page

Check out information about the rest of 2020’s newest home releases on the next page.

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