As a service to our dedicated readers, DCist surveys this week’s openings and box office winners, and suggests alternatives that you can stream at home.
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Courtesy Lionsgate/Criterion Collection)
Opening today: Dirty Grandpa. Zac Efron stars as an uptight kid who has to take his grandfather (Robert DeNiro), a “perverted former Army general,” to spring break. The film was not available for previews, which is never a good sign; neither is the January release date.
Streaming Alternative: Tokyo Story, director Yasujirô Ozu’s 1953 masterpiece about an elderly couple who visit their children in the city, only to learn that they have little time for their parents. Ozu regular Chishû Ryû famously notes in this film that “life is disappointing.” But watch this movie in front of a warm fire instead of strapping on snowshoes to see DeNiro’s likely nadir and nobody will be disappointed for long. Streaming on Hulu.
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(STX/Ruthless Reviews)
Opening today: The Boy. In another film not previewed for critics, a run-down motel circa 1989 is home to a sociopathic nine-year old. The film is effectively a prepubescent Psycho, but the buzz is bad. Variety describes director Craig William Macneill’s film as an “inert, ersatz thriller. Soporific as a genre exercise, and lacking the kind of psychological depth or anything else that might lend it substance as a drama.”
Streaming alternative: Get five times the evil child with Devil Times Five (1974), a horror movie about mentally ill children (including a cross-dresing Leif Garrett) who are unwittingly taken in by adults on winter vacation. Streaming in full on YouTube.
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(STX/Kinostar)
Opening today: The 5th Wave. Chloe Grace Moretz needs a new agent; for every respectable Clouds of Sils Maria she appears in, she seems to make three clunkers. This young adult adventure finds her on the run from alien attacks, and the buzz has not been good; note that the PG-13 rating is in part based on “brief teen partying.”
Streaming Alternative: Then again, she also did Space Dogs. Moretz is the voice of canine astronaut Belka in this animated film originally produced in Russia, where you don’t voice space dogs, space dogs voice you. Don’t think I wouldn’t watch this. Streaming on Netflix.
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(Universal Pictures)Already in theaters: Ice Cube and Kevin Hart are back in Ride Along 2, this week’s #1 box office draw. In one of the film’s few positive reviews, the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl writes, “Like your smartphone, it’s a testament to the theory of interchangeable parts, a perfectly engineered product that, if you’re charitable, you might also think of in terms of art.”
Streaming alternative: Watch the original Ride Along streaming in full on Dailymotion. The catch? It’s dubbed in Hindi.
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(Twentieth Century Fox/Inverse)Already in theaters: The Revenant In second place at the box office this week is director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s epic adventure, starring Leonard DiCaprio as trapper Hugh Glass.
Streaming alternative: : Man in the Wilderness. This 1972 adventure is a lesser-known portrayal of the real-life events fictionalized in The Revenant. Richard Harris stars as trapper Zachary Bass and John Huston as the captain who leaves him for dead. You can rent this one for a couple bucks on Amazon. Or you could go outside and cosplay it with your neighbors.
