Playing catch-up: Bong Joon-ho movies to 1970s sci-fi classics – The Boston Globe

Bong Joon-ho movies – You’ve seen “Parasite” and discovered the slyly merciless filmmaking wonder that is South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho. Why stop there? His recent dystopian satires “Snowpiercer” and “Okja” can be found on Netflix, the 2006 tongue-in-cheek Godzilla goof “The Host” is available for rental on YouTube, Apple TV, and Google Play, and “Mother” (2009), a very dark comic tale of a mom who will go to any lengths to clear her son of a murder charge, just popped up on Amazon for $2.99. Now all you have to do is wait for Bong’s fantastic sophomore feature, the 2003 serial-killer drama “Memories of Murder,” to resurface on demand.

Hustlers I continue to be surprised by the number of readers and other moviegoers who’ve dismissed this from their watch-list as a bad Jennifer Lopez B-movie about strippers. You’re so wrong: This is a good Jennifer Lopez B-movie about strippers. B+, really, as the stakes raised by this true story about pole-dancers bilking their fat-cat customers ripple out to the real world. You know all those women directors I keep talking about whose work was unfairly overlooked this year? Lorene Scafaria is one. Constance Wu is the lead, but Lopez, smart and tough and unrepentant, is the star.

Available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube

I Lost My Body The one best animated feature nominee you haven’t heard of turns out to be a strange and quite affecting story from French director Jeremy Clapin, about a severed human hand making an arduous trek across Paris to be reunited with its owner, a lovelorn young man. The movie balances the poetic and grotesque in wholly original ways, and while the diffuse final scenes emphasize the poetry at the expense of the story line, this is still a fine trip for everyone but little kids to be taking. And in a 24-7 digital world, the (appropriately) hand-drawn visuals are a breath of cool air.

Available on Netflix

Jawline A documentary of exceptional empathy and concern that follows 16-year-old Austyn Tester in his quest to become a social media star. Director Liza Mandelup takes a fly-on-the-wall approach, capturing the kid’s impoverished Tennessee home and family, the under-decorated LA house he shares with other wannabe teenage influencers overseen by a shady manager, the adolescent girls fleeing from their own problems into the safety of a cute, unthreatening web-boy. The American dream of fame has never seemed so empty, yet it’s the only rope ladder a kid like Austyn can see. A subtle, provocative, and very telling movie, and it’s a shame it’s available only on Hulu.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco One of the very best films of 2019, but a hard one to sell. What’s it about? Gentrification? Friendship? The need to hold on to your roots? In the playing, Joe Talbot’s feature debut is a honey: elegiac and assured, with deeply-felt performances, and a score to make you swoon. Talbot’s childhood pal Jimmie Fails basically plays himself as a long-time San Franciscan who squats in the Fillmore District mansion his grandfather built after the current (white) owners have had to move. Jonathan Majors is his levelheaded friend and you feel the film’s pain down to your bones as a city, a neighborhood, and a culture are becoming lost to change.

Available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube

Logan Lucky Were you enraptured by Daniel Craig’s devilish Foghorn Leghorn act in “Knives Out”? You might want to visit this underseen Steven Soderbergh caper movie (2017), in which Channing Tatum and Adam Driver are unlikely brothers pulling off a heist in the middle of a NASCAR race. In a supporting role, Craig road-tests his fraudulent Southern accent as a bottle-blond jailbird who has to get out of prison — and then back in — to be part of the team. He’s a hoot, and the movie’s a gas.

Available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube

The Peanut Butter Falcon Another tough sell that turns out to be a delight, a road trip built around Zack Gottsagen, an actor with Down syndrome, and backed up with savvy performances by Dakota Johnson, Thomas Haden Church, Bruce Dern, and especially co-lead Shia LaBeouf. I missed this in theaters and was intrigued by the number of readers who let me know about it. They’re right: What might sound like a squishy family film is in fact a much edgier piece of work, with a regional feel that’s rough but right and a great bluegrass score from Noam Pikelny and others. More Gottsagen, please.

Available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube

Ready or Not A little bit of “Knives Out,” a little bit of “Get Out” — not as good as either but plenty good enough for a slow night at home. A new bride (the elegantly scrappy Samara Weaving) learns the hard way that her husband’s ultra-rich family likes to welcome new members with a most dangerous game of hide-and-seek. A lively cast, an unexpectedly witty script, and a flair for creative demise hoist this horror-suspense entry well above the genre norm.

Available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube

Roadhouse Maybe the guiltiest of my personal guilty pleasures, this 1989 B-movie bone-crusher stars Patrick Swayze as Dalton, a softspoken zen nightclub bouncer (and former Rhodes Scholar!), plus a supremely greasy Sam Elliott as his mentor. The perfectly named Rowdy Herrington directs this knucklefest. “You’re too stupid to have a good time,” the hero tells one fight-hungry good ol’ boy. Don’t you make the same mistake.

Available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube

1970s sci-fi classics on the Criterion Channel Another reason to subscribe to the best-curated streaming service on the planet: This month they’ve rounded up 18 head-trips from my moviegoing youth, from classics (“A Clockwork Orange,” “Soylent Green,” “Mad Max”) to fondly remembered cheese (“Logan’s Run,” “Roller Ball,” “The Omega Man”) to edgy cult wonders (“A Boy and His Dog,” “Dark Star,” “God Told Me To”). If you’re a Bostonian of the right age, the title sequences alone are enough to put you right back in the third row of the Sack Cheri off Boylston Street, circa 1974.

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Ty Burr can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @tyburr.

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