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

FILM STILL - PAWN SACRIFICE - Liev Schreiber (left) stars as Boris Spassky and Tobey Maguire (right) stars as Bobby Fischer in Edward Zwick's PAWN SACRIFICE, a Bleecker Street release. Date Added 8/4/2015 3:25:00 PM Addtl. Info Credit: Takashi Seida

FILM STILL – PAWN SACRIFICE – Liev Schreiber (left) stars as Boris Spassky and Tobey Maguire (right) stars as Bobby Fischer in Edward Zwick’s PAWN SACRIFICE, a Bleecker Street release. Date Added 8/4/2015 3:25:00 PM Addtl. Info Credit: Takashi Seida

“Pawn Sacrifice” (Amazon Prime) — My full review is here. Tobey Maguire gives a bravura and boldly unlikable performance as Bobby Fischer, the unstable chess wizard who played a series of high-profile matches against Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) in 1971. The film has the contours of a sports movie but the depth of a character study, mixing archival footage and reenactments to tell a fascinating story.

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“That’s Not Us”: Three couples, six problems, one vacation house

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Why do people in movies even go on vacation anyway? Aside from the occasional Stella getting her groove back, cinematic vacations never seem to go very well. At best, you’re plagued with one comic mishap after another like in “National Lampoon’s Vacation”; at worst, the mishaps are more sinister, “Turistas”-style.

Or you can find a getaway is a great time to deal with a crisis point in your relationship, which happens to all three couples in “That’s Not Us,” a straightforward and empathetic comedy-drama now out on DVD from Strand Releasing and available on Netflix. Director William Sullivan is clearly inspired by the French New Wave in his naturalistic tale of longterm twentysomething lovers who decamp for Fire Island for the weekend, but forget to leave their baggage on the dock.

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“The Adderall Diaries”: A million little pieces of plot that never add up

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“The Adderall Diaries” opens Friday at AMC Fitchburg. R, 1:45, one and a half stars out of four.

Stephen Elliott’s “The Adderall Diaries” would be a beast of a book for any filmmaker to try to adapt. The hazy brew of addiction memoir and true-crime nonfiction may have worked well on the page, but writer-director Pamela Romanowsky’s confused and easily distracted film feels like several first acts jammed together with nowhere to go.

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Instant Gratification: “God’s Pocket” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix

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“God’s Pocket” — My full review is here. One of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last and most overlooked performances is in this black comedy, based on an early Pete Dexter novel, in which Hoffman plays an outsider in a godforsaken neighborhood of Philadelphia who must set things right when his good-for-nothing stepson is killed. Great character actors, including John Turturro, Eddie Marsan and Richard Jenkins, abound in the film.

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Instant Gratification: “Best in Show” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix and Hulu

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Pick of the week: “Best in Show” (Netflix) — No offense to “A Mighty Wind,” but “Best in Show” is the last great Christopher Guest mockumentary. In following an eccentric but devoted menagerie of dog owners on their way to a prestigious show, Guest and his troupe of improvising regulars capture the obsessive natures of the competitors hilariously, but with sweetness and even tenderness too.

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Around the world in 16 movies with the UW Marquee International Film Festival

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Well, this is a great idea. As foreign films seem to have a harder time breaking through into theatrical distribution (some supposedly indie distributors such as Fox Searchlight just flat-out won’t touch foreign-language movies), the Wisconsin Union Directorate is christening its first annual Marquee International Film Festival this weekend.

It features 16 films running Thursday through Sunday in the Union South Marquee Theatre, 1208 W. Dayton St. All are free. Some are films that recently played Sundance Cinemas for a week or two, others are festival hits that wouldn’t have gotten a theatrical screening in Madison, and a couple are early peeks at films that we wouldn’t otherwise see until later in the year.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s coming. Visit wudfilm.com for more details on this and the rest of the semester’s offerings.

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“Victoria”: A German heist thriller that doesn’t take any short cuts

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At first glance, the Blu-ray edition of the German heist thriller “Victoria,” now out from Kino Lorber, seems distressingly bare-bones. No audio commentary. No behind-the-scenes featurette. There isn’t even a “Scene Selection” option.

Wait. I get it. That’s because there’s only one scene. One 138-minute scene.

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Gone in An Instant: “Let the Right One In” and four other good movies leaving Netflix in April

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At the end of every month, Netflix jettisons a few movies to “make room” for new ones, even though it’s all digital, right? It’s not like deciding that my DVD copy of “Random Hearts” has to go because I need to make room for “Spectre.” (Yes, this is a true anecdote. Pretty sad all around.)

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Of teenage cavemen and deathstalkers: “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Vol. XXXV” on DVD

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Roger Corman’s “Teenage Caveman” is one of the best movies ever made about teenage cavemen, and it is definitely the best movie ever made called “Teenage Caveman.” (In one of the strangest remakes ever, Larry Clark of “Kids” was commissioned to make a version for Cinemax in 2002. Surprisingly for a Larry Clark film, it featured a lot of teenagers getting high and having sex.)

The original “Teenage Caveman” is one of those movies where the title was more memorable than the film, which is why it made perfect fodder for “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Shout! Factory included it on the 35th (!) installment of its four-movie DVD sets, out this month.

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Instant Gratification: “Promised Land” and four other good movies new to streaming

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“Promised Land” (Netflix) — I expected a drama centered around a small town deciding whether to allow fracking to be pretty didactic and one-sided. But Gus Van Sant has something slyer and more nuanced under his sleeve, casting Matt Damon as a likable fracking rep who really thinks he has the town’s best interests at heart, and John Krasinski as a rather jerkface environmental activist fighting for the hearts and minds of the townspeople.

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