David Farnor | On 27, Aug 2016

Not getting your arthouse fix from Netflix? Wish there were more indie films on Amazon Prime Video? Every week, we round up the new releases on MUBI, the subscription VOD service that hand-picks new and old classics from around the world.

Here’s what’s new and coming soon to MUBI:

This week on MUBI

How to Make Money Selling Drugs – 22nd August

Matthew Cooke’s documentary How to Make Money Selling Drugs outlines in simple steps exactly how it’s possible, buying into the Scarface myth while deconstructing it completely. If a chemistry high school teacher can do it, anyone can, Breaking Bad fans might think. This documentary actually proves it – and that makes its satirical message even more shocking.

The Boys from Brazil – 23rd August

Gregory Peck. Laurence Olivier. Steve Guttenberg. Together at last. Franklin J. Schaffner’s sci-fi thriller, based on Ira Levin’s novel, may sound like it has a cast from a bizarre parallel universe, but that’s a perfect fit for its alternate history plot, which sees Dr. Josef Mengele clone Hitler 95 times, hoping to raise the resulting boys in Brazil. His ultimate plan? Create the Fourth Reich. Ezra Lieberman, a Nazi hunter, learns of the plan and is determined to thwart it. The result is a 80s thriller steeped in paranoia as much as acting prowess.

Seance on a Wet Afternoon – 24th August

What do you do when your business as a psychic is going down the toilet? Simple: Get your husband to kidnap a wealthy family’s child so you can use your supposed powers to find it. What could possibly go wrong? Kim Stanley’s housewife and Richard Attenborough’s spouse soon find out.

The Summer of La Boyita – 25th August

Argentina has emerged as one of the most interesting filmmaking countries around in recent years. If you’re just discovering Argentine cinema, head back to 2009 with Julia Solomonoff’s film about Jorgelina, who escapes to the countryside with her father to get away from her boy-crazy sister.

Guys & Dolls – 26th August

Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons crackle with charisma in this film version of the classic Broadway musical, which sees gambler Nathan Detroit bet Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) that he can woo Sarah, a women who works at the Save a Soul Mission. With songs that sound as good as the characters’ names, anyone who doesn’t find themselves tapping their toes along should sit down and stop rocking the boat.

 

Coming Soon

Bugsy Malone – 27th August

We coulda been anything that we wanted to be… Three gangsters walk into a room, but all of them are played by children. 40 years on from Bugsy Malone’s original release and that twist still lends a playful edge to an already impressive musical.

Chicago – 28th August

Bill Condon’s adaptation of the classic musical is a toe-tapping affair that even Richard Gere singing can’t derail.

Elephant Boy – 29th August

Elephant Boy served as the breakthrough showcase for the thirteen-year-old Sabu, whose beaming performance as a young mahout leading the British on an expedition made him a major international star

My Left Foot – 30th August

Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a career-best performance in a career full of career-best performances in Jim Sheridan’s powerful drama about Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy in a working-class Irish family.

Grand Piano – 31st August

Speed but with a piano instead of a bus. When you put it like that, you wonder why no one’s made Grand Piano before. Sort of. But director Eugenio Mira has picked up the barmy baton before anyone else could, creating a thriller that takes its idea and runs with it all the way up the scale. Its sheer commitment to the silly concept is to be applauded.

49th Parallel – 1st September

MUBI begins a Powell and Pressburger retrospective with the third film made by the British writer-director team. The 1941 war thriller follows a Nazi U-boat crew stranded in Canada during the thick of World War II.

Scoop – 2nd September

Hugh Jackman teams up with Woody Allen for this overtly wacky crime comedy about a young journalism student (Scarlett Johansson) who, after communicating with a dead report from beyond the grave, suspects Jackman’s aristocrat of being a murderer. Allen’s turn as a magician is lacklustre, but this uneven film finds strength in Johansson’s central performance, which reveals her to be an unexpectedly good comic actor.

 

A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £5.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

My Life, Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Available until end of: 27th August

Das Boot
Available until end of: 28th August

Tootsie
Available until end of: 29th August

Roman Holiday
Available until end of: 30th August

Agora
Available until end of: 1st September

Wendy and Lucy
Available until end of: 2nd September

Old Joy
Available until end of: 3rd September

River of Grass
Available until end of: 4th September

Meek’s Cutoff
Available until end of: 5th September

 

 

Add to Watchlist