What to stream this June
Pollen and sunburn outside, fun and films inside — you know it makes sense
The sun is shining, the flowers are in bloom, very red men are starting to take their tops off in public places — that’s right, the great British summer is upon us! What better time to lock yourself indoors, cane the antihistamines, and try to find something to fill the Succession-shaped hole in your life. Lucky for you, What’s Worth Watching is the name of the newsletter you’re reading, and recommending lesser-known streaming gems across a plethora of platforms is the game of the newsletter you’re reading. Let’s go!1
Recommendation round-up
Life is Sweet (1990, Mike Leigh) 103 minutes
Undoubtedly the Mike Leigh film with the highest percentage of characters I fancy,2 this is one of the lighter productions by the British social realist. Which still means the crushing reality of post-Thatcher life threatens all parties at all times, but there’s some sunshine creeping in round the edges regardless. A true ensemble piece, it follows the trials and tribulations of a North London family over the course of one summer: dad Jim Broadbent jacks in his chef job to open a burger van, wife Alison Steadman takes a job at nutball family friend Timothy Spall’s unorthodox French restaurant, and twin daughters Claire Skinner and Jane Horrocks are split across ideological, romantic and personal lines.
The General (1926, Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton) 75 minutes
Did you know that silent films are good, actually? I know, I was sceptical myself. Sure, you can head to your local multiplex/multiplex disguised as an arthouse cinema chain and see Tom Cruise do a load of mad shit,3 but between the sequences of spectacle, you have to contend with a Hollywood screenwriter and a weirdo cultist’s idea of what human dialogue sounds like. Not an issue with the great works of Buster Keaton, who performs any number of death-defying feats without needing4 to speak. All his work’s in the public domain (as is plenty of Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd et al), but I’m recommending this upload because it has a soundtrack provided by regular Hayao Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi!
In The Earth (2021, Ben Wheatley) 107 minutes
Some people made sourdough in lockdown; others got into exercising with that cookbook fella with the hair; yet more just revelled in doing bugger all for the better part of a year. Ben Wheatley, former director of Kill List and future director of The Meg 2, put together this crackerjack modern folk horror.5 Joel Fry, Reece Shearsmith and Hayley Squires are all searching for something in the woods of Somerset — but will they like what they find, and even if they find it, what will they say?
Review of the month sponsored by the biscuits I can’t remember the name of so call “Chocolate Lesbians”
The Age of Innocence (1993, Martin Scorsese) 139 minutes
Did you know that Marty does films other than overlong hyperviolent gangster epics? Well, yeah, you probably did, but that’s the brush he’s often tarred with, often by oversensitive Marvel fans upset that Ol’ Eyebrows dismissed their beloved metafranchise as trash and rollercoasters. Even the Scor-zay-zee faithful may find themselves taken aback by this, however: a visually lush, controlled, and emotionally wrenching Edith Wharton adaptation.
As with most of the late lady Wharton’s work, The Age of Innocence concerns itself with matters of the heart, and their fundamental incompatibility with the strict social mores of 19th century New York. In this case, it’s the hypebeast himself Daniel Day-Lewis as a refined lawyer betrothed to young Winona Ryder, from an equally respectable family. The fly in the ointment is Michelle Pfeiffer as Winona’s recently (and scandalously) divorced countess cousin, whomst he falls helplessly in love with.
And it all works out fine! No, obviously not, c’mon. This being a repressed costume drama-type-deal, nobody can fully admit to their feelings, between the expectations of upper crust society and their own terminally stiff upper lips. DDL gives a typically transcendent performance, as do Pfeiffer and Winona, and there’s some tasty walk-on parts for Miriam Margolyes and Richard E Grant., but the real star is the gorgeous recreation of the era and Scorsese’s Powell and Pressburger-indebted direction.
Best of the rest
The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island (2007, James Griffiths) Brilliantly surreal comedy poet Tim Key and comedy partner Tom Basden write and star in this folky comedy short (Watch on Moxie Pictures)
Victim (1961, Basil Dearden) This Dirk Bogarde blackmail drama broke new ground with its frank depiction of homosexuality pre-legalisation. Plus it’s actually very good! Bonus! (Watch on ITVx)
Supernova (2021, Harry Macqueen) Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth play to their respective strengths — loquacious and charming, reserved and charming — as a middle-aged couple dealing with the looming threat of dementia (Watch on iPlayer)
Thelma (2017, Joachim Trier) Want to know what the makers of The Worst Person in the World did before their titanic millennial drama? They made this psychological thriller about a girl who comes into her sexuality and her telekinetic powers when she starts university (Watch on Channel 4)
And by “go” I of course mean “remain indoors and only move your digits across the telly remote/laptop keyboard”
Like jumping out of microlights while measuring his thetan levels or w/e
Not to mention technologically being incapable of