Tag: Pugh

After Universal tried and failed to usher in a new era of their classic monster movies, 2020’s The Invisible Man helped resurrect the concept with Leigh Whannell’s clever and thoroughly modern take on the story.

Not only was that movie a hit with both audiences and critics, but it also seemed to provide a much-needed template for Universal to update its beloved characters to reflect the times. It took five years, but the studio has finally made a proper follow-up in Wolf Man, and they brought back Whannell to try his hand again.

The response to Wolf Man was markedly different than that of The Invisible Man, regarding both box office and critical reception. But is it worth your time? It debuted on digital this week, 17 days after its theatrical release, so you can find out for yourself.

Wolf Man isn’t the only movie newly available on streaming this week — the critically acclaimed, ripped-from-the-headlines period journalism thriller September 5 is out now, and A24’s hit romance We Live in Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, hits Max.

The Pharrell Williams Lego biopic Piece by Piece is out on Peacock, which could be appealing to kids and parents alike. For after the kids go to bed, Kill, a hyper-violent action-thriller from India that earned rave reviews, is available on Hulu.

Here’s what to know about the theatrical movies newly available to stream as of this week and where you can find them.

Click on the links below to jump straight to a specific movie:

Wolf Man

Wolf Man sets up a loaded metaphor in its terrific, tense opening sequence: A boy and his overbearing survivalist father hunting in the woods encounter some sort of animalistic creature. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear there’s not enough meat on the bone for the analogy they’re going for regarding parenthood, trauma, abuse and how we’re doomed to become our parents, no matter how hard we try to stray from the path.

It’s heavy stuff for a movie that could stand to have some fun, but there are still elements worthy of praise, including the practical makeup effects on the wolf transformation and the impactful, but all-too-brief moments of body horror. Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner are two great performers, but it’s hard to get a read on their characters.

Wolf Man is ambitious enough to recommend to those who like their genre fare more offbeat, but it doesn’t come together in the same satisfying way that Whannell’s previous effort did.

How to watch: Wolf Man is now available to rent or purchase on Prime Video and other video on demand platforms.

Rent or buy

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We Live in Time

Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh star in A24’s romance We Live in Time, which you may want to watch with a box of tissues nearby. It’s all about the inventive structure here, as it’s a story you’ve otherwise likely seen before. The movie is told nonlinearly, turning it into a sort of puzzle you solve as it goes.

It’s a neat trick to keep you engaged in what could be overly familiar, weepy material, and both Pugh and Garfield are great in it as a couple that we see go through many ups and downs over a decade. It’s refreshing that the movie isn’t afraid to present the hardships as equally as it depicts the good times.

How to watch: We Live in Time is now streaming on Max.

Stream on Max

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September 5

September 5 has to be one of the most overlooked and underseen movies of 2024. It earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture — Drama, and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, but still, it feels like few people have seen or heard of this movie.

Maybe some of that has to do with the fact that it is about events that were already famously depicted in the capital-G Great Munich, which Steven Spielberg directed. Still, that shouldn’t affect your interest in September 5, which tells a separate story.

It’s a journalism process movie that takes place during the 1972 Munich Olympics, when an American sports broadcasting crew found itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes. It may be a journalism movie, and a great one at that, but it’s also a gripping thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat, as the sports journalists and the news junkies jockey to cover it effectively.

It’s about big ethical questions and moral quandaries that are as relevant today as they were in 1972, and you get the sense this moment in time was important in establishing broadcast journalism as we know it. A terrific nuts-and-bolts “how tough decisions get made in real time” movie!

How to watch: September 5 is now available to rent or purchase on Prime Video and other video on demand platforms.

Rent or buy

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Piece by Piece

Piece by Piece isn’t the first animated movie to use the Lego aesthetic, but it’s certainly the first biopic about a real person to be depicted in Lego.

It’s not as strange as it sounds, and the movie actually does a good job of setting up why exactly you’re watching a movie about legendary music producer and musician Pharrell Williams in Lego form. Pharrell has synesthesia, which allows him to essentially see music, which alone is a clever justification for the colorful world in the movie.

There’s an infectious and inspiring creative energy that’s hard to ignore, and if the story of Williams’s rise from rags to riches wasn’t compelling enough, the soundtrack of wall-to-wall bangers that he either produced or sang on himself is undeniable.

How to watch: Piece by Piece is now streaming on Peacock.

Stream on Peacock

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Kill

If you love a good revenge movie and you don’t mind a lot of blood and nonstop violence, the aptly titled Kill is for you. The plot is high-concept, yet simple: A guy is out for revenge, killing those who have wronged him, except it’s set entirely on a moving train.

Kill doesn’t pull a bait-and-switch exactly, but the degree to which the tenor of the violence changes after a certain death at the midpoint of the movie is unexpected and harrowing. A movie that revels in violent deaths suddenly starts showing you that every death means the world to someone — what was once just bombastic entertainment has been rendered upsetting and hard to shake.

Kill does a great job of building emotional stakes so the audience cares about what’s going on, and thankfully, the action is also shot well and choreographed so there’s rarely a dull moment.

How to watch: Kill is now streaming on Hulu.

Stream on Hulu