3 Best Releases Like Step Up 2006 on Netflix
Woman of the Hour
If you’ve ever encountered those “normal looking photos with a scary backstory” posts on social media or are interested in odd true crime stories, chances are good you’re familiar with the plot of Woman of the Hour. In broad strokes, Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick, also in the director’s chair) is a down-on-her-luck actor. To pay the rent, she takes a gig on one of those 70s “One Single, Three Suitors” dating shows. Among her three options, Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) distinguishes himself as neither a self-entitled horndog nor a too-anxious-to-function empty suit. Rodney is also, it turns out, a prolific serial killer. It sounds like the setup for a suitably sorted erotic thriller. Perhaps, in other hands, it would be just that. However, Kendrick’s direction and Ian McDonald’s script center Alcala’s targets, not the “isn’t this wild?” aspect. In their hands, Woman of the Hour becomes commentary on the dangers these women (and too many others) faced, fought, and sadly, sometimes succumbed to. While firmly centered in the late 70s, it doesn’t take much of a squint to find the antecedents of modern issues of sexism, control, and gendered violence. Tony Hale, Anna Kendrick, Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre, and Daniel Zovatto play get to know you games. All with a killer in their midst. (Leah Gallo/Netflix) The best section unfolds during the latter half of Bradshaw’s dating game appearance. Inspired by a makeup artist, she ditches the questions prepared for her by the show’s producers and ignores “benign” sexist host Ed Burke’s (Tony Hale, playing Jim Lange in all but name) passive-aggressive attempts to pull her back on message. Instead, she begins to pepper the guests with queries that quickly expose their misogyny and lack of intelligence. Only Alcala rises to the occasion, using his engrained sociopathy to present as the kind of “modern” man Bradshaw wants. Continue Reading →
Daddio
From Certified Copy to Mass to the Before trilogy, cinema is replete with examples of great movies that wring transfixing drama out of an intimate scope and a cast of characters you can count on one hand. Christy Hall’s feature-length directorial debut Daddio aims to follow in the footsteps of those features, but stumbles mightily in the process. Daddio begins at a New York airport, where Girlie (Dakota Johnson) plops into a taxi after a trip to her home state of Oklahoma. Driving this cab is Clark (Sean Penn), a grizzled man in his sixties who loves shooting his mouth off. Initially, the focus of his ramblings is typical old-man material. He gripes about the ubiquity of apps and credit cards in the modern world. Gradually, though, the duo gets trapped in traffic. Stuck on the road, Clark begins asking Girlie increasingly intimate questions. They started this car ride as strangers. But conversations ranging from the raw to the ribald will have Girlie discovering the listener she didn’t know she needed. Unsurprisingly, Daddio started as a concept for a stage play. What's surprising is how the final film's visual impulses seem determined to avoid comparisons to something you could watch on Broadway. Hall, cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, and editor Lisa Zeno Churgin act furiously to avoid lengthy single-take shots. Nobody will ever compare this to a Chantal Akerman or Chung Mong-Hong movie. Instead, images default to close-ups and medium shots. Hall and company continuously jostle viewers around the cab. Maybe this is out of concern that moviegoers will see a more staid visual style and immediately ask, “Why isn’t this a play?” Continue Reading →
Fair Play
Fair Play is all about the rules of engagement—in business, in bed, in relationships—and the chaos that ensues when someone who lives and dies by those rules suspects his partner is breaking them. However, it isn’t the fairness of the righteous or the just she’s violating. No, it is the unwritten rules he believes everyone should play the game by. Continue Reading →