QuaranSTREAM with Brooke Wylie
What does an editor have to do to get CSG’s Creative Director and resident cinephile, Brooke Wylie, to personally curate a list of supremely streamable content for our quarantine viewing pleasure? Not much. She was highly motivated to complete this assignment. Read on for the must-watch movies and shows on her QuaranSTREAM hit list.
If you thought this list was about to be about Tiger King, you thought wrong. But Carole Baskin totally did kill her husband. No, dear reader, this list right here is dedicated to deeper cuts. It has a strong dose of female creators and an even stronger vein of emotional complexity.
This is essential viewing according to one person and one person only, me. Why? Because Candace said so.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
If you haven’t watched Celine Sciamma’s achingly beautiful love story set against the backdrop of the French seaside with painterly themes and references to ancient Greek legends, what even are you doing with your life?!?!?!
Portrait was my absolute favorite film in 2019 — a year when Greta Gerwig made a completely remixed Little Women with Queens Saoirse, Emma, Florence, Meryl, Laura and Timothee. Yes, Timothee. You can imagine what won my heart for a close second place. But even Greta couldn’t unseat this tale of artist and subject caught in a no-win situation. Noemie Merlant and Adele Haenel cast a spell as they launch us into an examination of the female gaze, the nature of love and questions of fate.
After you watch, read Celine’s incredible interviews which feature details about her exquisitely lovely real-life romance with Adele and her hot take on why Titanic was such a smash. Spoiler alert: She calls it “totally queer” and I understand so much more about literally my entire life now. Also, can we just talk about what a way with words this woman has?
“...My director of photography Claire Mathon and I wanted to shoot digital for one reason. We wanted to give back to these women from the past their hearts, their desire, the rush of blood to the cheek. It was a love story, of course, but it was also a movie about the rise of desire. We wanted to look at desire, which is something we rarely see because of the strong convention in cinema of love at first sight. We always agree that of course you’re going to totally fall in love. Digital was about the rush of blood.”
I’m not swooning, you’re swooning. ANYWAY, if we’re back in the office in June, this will be the Pride month pick for Friday Films and I will sob. But fix your life before that happens and watch this movie, mkay?
The good folks over at Neon put it on Hulu because they want us to have nice things.
Crashing
Okay, you’ve watched Fleabag. You have watched Fleabag, right? If you haven’t, what are you even doing with your life?!?!? If you have, here’s a little treat for you. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s first series, Crashing, is six, short, wry episodes that you can fly through in one glorious burst. A chaotic look into the lives of a group of unlikely pals with only their home in an abandoned hospital ward in common, Crashing is the kind of airy fun that suits in the midst of a pandemic.
You can find it on Netflix.
Killing Eve
And speaking of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, did you know the lady has an even darker side? PWB masterfully adapted the Villanelle novels into a procedural-drama about an MI5 agent (Sandra Oh) and an eccentric assassin (Jodie Comer) who are plunged into an obsessive game of cat-and-mouse that is riotously funny as often as it is flatout suspenseful. Fun fact: PWB stepped away as showrunner for season two, but her successor, Emerald Fennell made my favorite film at Sundance, which will more than likely be my favorite film of the whole year. Promising Young Woman was to have bowed in April, but corona ruined that, stay tuned for a release later this year. And in the meantime, watch as much Killing Eve as possible to get your fix of murders and exotic locales.
The first two seasons of Killing Eve are on Hulu. Season three is airing now on BBC America.
We’re Here
To be fair, only one episode of We’re Here is in the wild, but that’s more than enough to earn this docuseries about a trio of drag queens on a mission to spread positivity, inclusivity and love a coveted spot on the QuaranStream list. Like Queer Eye, but somehow even more inclusive and purposeful, We’re Here is fire from the start. Here’s the deal: HBO gave Shangela, Bob the Drag Queen and Eureka a tricked out traveling caravan (one of the cars looks like a purse!) and sent them to small towns to serve LEWKS, but mostly hope, where it’s needed most. In the first episode, we travel to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where a young gay man who feels voiceless, a history professor who wants to deepen his empathy and a conservative Christian mother who wants to prove the change in herself to her estranged daughter agree to take part in a drag show to uplift the community. Dear reader, when I tell you I sobbed, know that I at least looked better than Claire Danes while I did so.
Snowpiercer
Corona may have killed my plan to bring Parasite to the office, but the Oscar darling is now on Hulu, just waiting to rock your world. Once you’ve found out what’s up with “Jessica. Only child. Illinois, Chicago” you might find yourself wanting to see more of what Bong Joon-Ho has done. In truth, a whole lot of wild things: Train to Busan, Mother (not the Jennifer Lawrence joint I slept through in Vegas, but a monster flick) and The Host among them. But Snowpiercer stars none other than Captain America, serves the apocalyptic feeling of the present moment and was criminally slept on when it came out in 2013. An argument could even be made that it out Fury Road-ed Mad Max: Fury Road two years before any of us saw Fury Road.
And hear this, it’s on Netflix.
Extra credit double feature: Zodiac and Memories of Murder. David Fincher’s true crime procedural masterpiece (and my favorite movie) pairs incredibly with Bong Joon Ho’s first feature, Memories of Murder, also a true crume procedural masterpiece. The challenge here is that Memories of Murder is not available on any streaming platform, is currently out of print on DVD in the US and has never been released on Blu-ray. I had to borrow a pal’s South Korean DVD and reset the region on a Playstation to watch it. It was worth it.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Around the time Thor: Ragnarok came out, people started coming to me asking me where Taika Waititi had been all their lives. Being an insufferable know it all, I typically responded that he was right there for anyone who bothered to look, most famously as one half of the team behind What We Do in the Shadows. The vampire satire was, and is, a great watch, but for my money, Taika’s lesser-known romp, Hunt for the Wilderpeople gives a much stronger taste of the heart, charm and quirk he brought to the Marvel Universe and later, to Jojo Rabbit. I promise you’ll walk away with a boatload of new catchphrases and a desperate need for a Kiwi accent.
Watch it on Hulu.
Paddington 2
Real talk: Paddington 2 was one of the most perfect films made in the 2010s. Featuring Hugh Grant in the greatest turn in his entire career, and a whole host of British film royalty, Paddington 2 is as sweet and wholesome as the marmalade the titular teddy loves so dearly. You don’t need to see the first film to walk in and be instantly enchanted by Paddington and the Browns. Warm and fuzzy without hazarding into saccharine, this comic caper is the perfect balm in an uncertain world. We probably don’t deserve Paddington, but I’ll be damned if we don’t need to take a few lessons from him.
Rent or buy it on Apple TV or Amazon Prime.
Lady Bird
It took more willpower than you can possibly know to not make this entire list an A24 joint. If you haven’t heard the good word, I’m happy to fill you in on why this scrappy little studio has my entire heart. With a single A24 entrant as my self-imposed limitation, this spot had to go to Lady Bird. Greta Gerwig’s intimate and aching love letter to mother-daughter dynamics and unspectacular coming of age made everyone who ever danced to Justin Timberlake at a school event feel seen. With Saoirse Ronan, Beanie Feldstein and Lucas Hedges alongside Laurie Metcalf and Tracy Letts, it’s a testament to the fact that talent attracts talent. It’s also one of three entrants in the most perfect film genre to ever grace the screen: Saoirse Ronan navigates a love triangle and moves to New York. See also: Little Women (2019) and Brooklyn (2015)
Head over to Amazon Prime to watch Lady Bird.
Bonus Tip: Our friends at A24 are savvy as fuck, which means you can find a whole mess of other A24 titles across Amazon Prime and Netflix. It seems they’ve yielded the indie scene on Hulu to aspiring rival, Neon, which has made a large portion of its quirky indie fare available on the green giant.
Chewing Gum
For an absurd diversion that takes less time to complete than a single watch of one extended Lord of the Rings film, I submit Chewing Gum. It’s an off-the-wall British comedy series about a young woman raised in a deeply religious household who sets off to learn something of the world and finds how little she knows of everything, including herself. At turns painfully awkward and uproarious, Chewing Gum is a decidedly unexpected entrant in the category of personal growth comedy. It’s highly, highly not-safe-for-work and not for kids, but it has the capacity to transport you right back to a place of youthful uncertainty. The wonder of it is, from a safe distance, there is a distinct charm to the slings and arrows of stumbling into the person you’re meant to be.
You can watch it all unfold on Netflix.
Catastrophe
Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney made four exquisite seasons of Catastrophe, a comedy about a fling that becomes a family after an unplanned pregnancy. The whole affair is messy and chaotic and somehow celebrates the darkest bits of the human condition that makes it okay to laugh at the things we too often judge in ourselves. Occasionally devastating and always absorbing, Catastrophe is a hidden gem of a modern relationship narrative — and if that wasn’t enough to pique your interest, know this, it boasts a supporting turn from the late, great Carrie Fisher. Like the series itself, Carrie’s brief appearances are searing and leaving you wanting so much more.
Binge the entire series on Amazon Prime.