Instant Gratification: “Moonrise Kingdom” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime

moonrise-kingdom-lighthouse

Pick of the week: “Moonrise Kingdom (Netflix) — Wes Anderson’s ode to young love is him at his Wes-est, for sure. But it’s also poignant and funny, as two adolescents who meet while summering on a vacation island run away together, a cadre of disillusioned middle-aged adults (including Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and Edward Norton) in pursuit.

Kumiko the Treasure Hunter” (Amazon Prime) — My full review is here. The idea sounds like Coen Brothers fanfiction — a troubled Japanese woman (Rinko Kikuchi) travels to Minnesota to look for the money Steve Buscemi hid in the snow at the end of “Fargo.” But in the hands of filmmaker brothers David and Nathan Zellner, the story becomes something witty, poignant and even strangely inspiring.

About Elly” (Netflix) — My full review is here. Before “A Separation” and “The Past,” Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi made this 2009 drama about a group of friends on a weekend vacation to the sea shore. As in his later films, small arguments and misunderstandings build into a major conflict, in this case when one of the friends disappears without a trace.

Earth to Echo” (Netflix) — We have found-footage horror and found-footage comedy, so why not a found-footage “E.T.” That’s basically the premise behind this derivative but charming and inventive fantasy, in which three boys help an owl-shaped robot alien return to his mother s

The Bank Job” (Netflix) — Jason Statham puts away the flying snapkicks and leads this deeply satisfying heist picture set in swinging ’60s London.

 

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s