One streaming service that gets overlooked when it comes to recommendations posts—of the Best New Movies on Netflix sort—is actually the biggest streamer there is: YouTube. I guess we mostly tend to think of YouTube as a repository of vlogs about Coachella, how-to videos that convince regular people that they can do plumbing and electrical work, and of course content to radicalize the world’s sons. But there are a lot of movies on there, free ones even. I’ve been sifting through the YouTube movie bin for a few months now, and I thought it time that I highlighted some of the many titles they have on offer. Only once has a movie I watched on YouTube been a TV edit, in which the swears were dubbed over. Supposedly that is something they do with some frequency, though, so proceed with caution.
Notting Hill
I must admit that I prefer my Richard Curtis a little sappier—About Time is the gem of gems in that regard—but obviously Notting Hill is a favorite of many. This movie marks the beginning (ish) of what I think of as Julia Roberts’s icy era, when she stopped doing so much big-mouthed laughing and straightened her hair and got more serious and aloof. Notting Hill is one of the last romantic comedies she did before a very long break from the genre, and her performance is decidedly saturnine, even melancholy. I of course love the scene when her movie star character goes to a regular-folks dinner full of quirky, Curtisian British people, including Hugh Bonneville (two Hughs in one movie; only in England!) before he fell into that enchanted wishing well and woke up the earl of a massive country estate. The Rhys Ifans stuff is a little much, and the fantasy that one could live in a gorgeous London row home on a travel bookstore owner’s income stings, but otherwise Notting Hill is a perennial rewatch in my household.
Dazed and Confused
Maybe the movie I have watched more than any other in my life. My sister and I rented it probably about once a month for many years. We’d come home from the video store and my mom would say, “Again?! Why don’t you just buy the tape at this point?” That suggestion made sense, and yet we never pulled the trigger. I think because we liked the ritual of picking up and putting back down Guarding Tess for the 90th time and retreating to Dazed and Confused instead. It’s a dream of a hang movie, full of stars of the future (Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Renée Zellweger, Parker Posey, Milla Jovovich , Anthony Rapp before Rent!!) and vaguely poignant in its celebration of what life once felt like for its filmmaker, Richard Linklater. It is, I think, a perfect movie, and I might just put it on after I finish writing this.
Airborne
Speaking of stars of the future, Jack Black plays an antagonist in this thoroughly stupid 1990s throwaway about the coolness of rollerblading. Back in the day, man oh man did the film’s star, Shane McDermott, do something to me that I didn’t yet understand. I was first aware of him because of a mostly forgotten TV show called Swans Crossing (which also featured Sarah Michelle Gellar and Mira Sorvino) and then Airborne came along and he had that particular ’90s boy haircut and, well, I was never the same. I’m not actually suggesting you watch this movie, I just wanted to reminisce about a crush from the time before I really knew what a crush was.
White Oleander
It’s a shame that Alison Lohman turned into a nut, because she is really good in this dreamy, sad adaptation of the hit Oprah’s Book Club novel. But the real main attraction is Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays Lohman’s character’s murderous mother in a ferocious performance. White Oleander was a major Oscar play that didn’t wind up with any nominations, even though Lohman, Pfeiffer, Renée Zellweger, and Robin Wright were deserving. The problem is, The Hours kind of cornered the actress-heavy literary adaptation market that year, and Zellweger was busy with Chicago. Oh well. It’s a movie definitely worth a watch, a relic from a would-be movie star’s nascent career before she went off the political deep end.
The Core
I was at a Passover seder earlier this month and one of the guests was telling us that all the biblical plagues are actually rooted in science. They said they’d seen some kind of TV special about it, but part of me wondered if maybe they had just seen part of the Hilary Swank thriller The Reaping. Anyway, The Core is not The Reaping, but Hilary Swank is in both. The Core is by no means a good movie—it’s a journey to the center of the earth film with some of the worst CGI of its era—but it has a great supporting cast: Stanley Tucci, Alfre Woodard, Delroy Lindo, Richard Jenkins. Sometimes it is satisfying to watch character actors tap dance for a fat studio paycheck, y’know? Maybe watch this and The Reaping if you can find that somewhere and remind yourself that Hilary Swank has two (2) Oscars and Amy Adams, Angela Bassett, Glenn Close, and Annette Bening have zero (0).
The Good Shepherd
This movie is pretty maligned as a deadly slow, awards-baity slog. But I kind of like the sleek, old-fashioned handsomeness of this Robert De Niro-directed movie about the beginnings of the CIA. It has an appropriately bleak outlook on that agency’s whole deal, and there are strong, moody performances from De Niro, Matt Damon, Joe Pesci, Angelina Jolie, Eddie Redmayne, and more. Like White Oleander, this was a big Oscar hopeful that fizzled—it only snared one nomination, for art direction. Maybe The Departed coming out in the same year kind of screwed it, though the movies are tonally very different. So, actually, let’s blame Babel, because when in doubt, it’s Iñárritu’s fault. (In truth, The Good Shepherd didn’t get more nominations because people didn’t like it very much, but whatever.)
Girl, Interrupted
Yes, Angelina Jolie won an Oscar for this. But where was Winona Ryder’s nomination? Or Whoopi Goldberg’s? Or Brittany Murphy’s? This movie is full of terrific acting. And it has a gorgeous score by Mychael Danna and a lovely, wintry New England feel to it. I realize that this film’s depiction of mental illness is perhaps a tad hyperbolic, but I think there’s still a lot of artfulness here. And the timing is right for a rewatch or first-time viewing: there’s about to be a musical version at the Public Theater here in New York, with music by Aimee Mann. So pull some chicken out from under your bed and get to streaming.
Dante’s Peak
My mother instilled in me a love of disaster films, and this is perhaps toward the top of her list of favorites. Her favorite line is when Pierce Brosnan says he travels around the world, going to “wherever there’s a volcano with an attitude.” This is the superior of 1997’s twin volcano movies (the other being the less creatively titled Volcano), because of lines like that and because where else can you see Elizabeth Hoffman from Sisters get her legs burned off with sulphuric acid? A very silly movie that is nonetheless (or thusly) pretty entertaining. But yes, my soft spot is mostly due to the fact that it makes me think of my mom (who is a scientist) and her affinity for movies in which a scientist is the hero.
Ghost Town
I know, I know, you are all devout Christians and Ricky Gervais is a shocking, rebellious outcast who dares to question the conventions of organized religion. But if you can get past that, this is a terrific romantic comedy, about a misanthropic dentist who does a sort of Cyrano thing with a ghost played by Greg Kinnear and a living lady played by the great Téa Leoni. Sharply written and performed, Ghost Town is one of the last genuinely good romantic comedies to be made by a studio. Leoni is terrific, Gervais is surprisingly likable, and Kristen Wiig (who was then an emerging performer on SNL) does a few funny bits. But the best part of this movie may be its pair of excellent final lines, putting a clever, wistful button on what is, well, a clever and wistful movie. I wish this had gotten way more attention when it came out. But, I wish a lot of things about Téa Leoni’s career, I suppose.
Wolf
The luminary Mike Nichols directed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Silkwood, Working Girl, Postcards from the Edge, The Birdcage, Angels in America, and . . . this psychosexual werewolf thriller starring Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and James Spader. My parents took me and my sister to see this in theaters, which was pretty cool of them, I think. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s glossy and engrossing and involves Jack Nicholson turning into a werewolf and peeing on someone’s shoes. Which my sister and I used to laugh about because she had read the book You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again, in which three sex workers dish about famous male clients and let’s just say the Jack Nicholson chapter involves two kinds of showers. But that’s not why you should watch Wolf! You should watch it because it’s fun to see Nichols try on a new genre and his three leads (plus Kate Nelligan and Christopher Plummer et al) so willing to follow him into the supernatural. And if watching this gets you on a little Jack Nicholson kick, About Schmidt is also free on YouTube right now. As is the Benicio del Toro/Anthony Hopkins/Emily Blunt film The Wolfman, but I can’t in good conscience recommend that.
Freeway
I should hope that most of you have seen this tawdry artifact from an early era of Reese Witherspoon’s career, but in case you haven’t, this nasty and at times eye-poppingly offensive 1996 movie (which is a then-modern-day riff on Little Red Riding Hood) is well worth a gander. Disclaimer: I do not endorse everything said and done in this movie, but it was a particular fascination of my youth and thus I have a certain affection for it. And Witherspoon is really something in it, serving as a reminder that she can go dark and edgy pretty successfully when she wants to. I wish she wanted to more often. Plus you’ve got Brooke Shields and Amanda Plummer and Dan Hedaya and Brittany Murphy all scuzzing it up well. And, of course, Kieffer Sutherland as the big bad wolf. So, look, another wolf movie! Again, not everything in this movie has aged well (and probably wasn’t politically correct 30 years ago, either) but it’s an interesting curio. And it may lead you down the path of reading about director Matthew Bright’s final film (to date), a movie so bizarre it’s become the stuff of legend.
If none of those are to your liking, you could also watch: Morning Glory, Capote, Empire of the Sun, Pride & Prejudice (Keira Knightley edition), Serpico, Rain Man, Forrest Gump, Moonstruck, Zodiac, City of God, No Country for Old Men, and many others. I’m telling you, YouTube has a lot! And this is not a paid advertisement, I promise.