A lot of people don’t care that Blockbuster stores are shutting down, but it depresses me, as I’d much rather pay a rental fee for a physical disc with special features than to pay the same price to watch only the movie online. Still, I do often wait until a film hits streaming services before I finally lay my eyes on it, but the haphazard way in which streaming services promote movies is discouraging. Amazon Prime Instant has now added a bit of stability to their catalog, however, by signing an exclusive content agreement with indie distributors A24, making Prime the only subscription service where you’ll be able to watch the studio’s films.
This isn’t as big a blow to Netflix and Hulu as Amazon signing with a company like Disney, as A24 only came into existence a few years ago, but their content is pretty strong on a film by film basis, starting with last year’s Sally Potter drama Ginger & Rosa and continuing more recently with Harmony Korine’s teens gone wild drama Spring Breakers. So that means you’d better lock down that Prime account if you want to catch James Franco’s blinding grill and gangsta swag. In fact, it’s already available to watch here.
Other recent A24 releases that got pretty positive reviews include James Ponsoldt’s romantic dram-com
[[ ahref http reviews the-spectacular-now-6507.html www.cinemablend.com ]] The Spectacular Now and Sofia Coppola’s true story caper drama The Bling Ring, in which Emma Watson steals other people’s shit with a real attitude. Sofia’s brother Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is also from A24, but didn’t really win over audiences.
It’s the studio’s upcoming slate that I’m more interested in. That list includes the "Jake Gyllenhaal has a doppelganger" thriller Enemy and the surreal sci-fi Under the Skin from Jonathan Glazer, in which Scarlett Johansson plays a loveless sex-mad alien, or something. Both films got a lot of talk coming off of their Telluride Film Festival premieres earlier this year. I’m also looking forward to the Steven Knight thriller Locke with Tom Hardy, and the tense David Michôd-directed Australian drama The Rover with Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce. Unfortunately, none of these movies have a release date yet, though the currently-filming family adventure The Silver Donkey will be released in May 2014.
It isn’t the biggest assortment of flicks, but the quality is noticeable, at least. They will all hit Amazon Prime soon after getting DVD and Blu-ray releases, and considering most will only see limited theatrical runs anyway, the wait should be bearable. But bearable does not equal enjoyable, as my wait for Enemy can attest.
