Stream Guide: All The Real Girls & Anon (May 4th, 2018)

May 4, 2018 / Leave a Comment

ALL THE REAL GIRLS on HBO GO

The majority of this week’s collection are films that go back before actors, directors, and cinematographers were the huge successes they are today. None of that speaks more than my number one pick, “All The Real Girls.” Released in 2003, the film was director David Gordon Green’s first step into the spotlight. So before he was doing films like “Pineapple Express” and “Halloween,” he was doing small indie movies that really spoke to a generation. Not only that, but Green was discovering talents like Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride, Shea Whigham, and Paul Schneider long before their days on “New Girl” or “Parks and Recreation” or in huge blockbusters like “Kong: Skull Island” or “Alien: Covenant.” Throughout Green’s career, he’s jumped around from huge comedies, to smaller dramas, but his best work was from his indie days.

Before he was revolutionizing Batman and getting nominated for Academy Awards, director Christopher Nolan had a few films under his belt. “Insomnia” was one of them. Starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams, the film tells the story of two Los Angeles homicide detectives investigating a murder in an Alaskan town. Before they were winning Academy Awards, director Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki were working on the 2006 Science Fiction/Thriller “Children Of Men,” starring Clive Owen, a pre-Oscar winner Julianne Moore, and a pre-Oscar nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film itself would go on to garner three Academy Award nominations including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography, Lubezki’s fourth nomination without a win, which he would go on to win three back-to-back from 2014-2016. Before he was a “Star Wars” superstar, actor John Boyega’s first feature film was 2011’s “Attack The Block” in which he spends most of the film evading an alien invasion on the streets of London. And before he was being accused of sexual misconduct, director Brett Ratner was involved in the Hannibal saga, directing a pre-Marvel Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton as well as a pre-Harry Potter Ralph Fiennes in “Red Dragon,” the prequel to “The Silence Of The Lambs.”

With “Deadpool 2” coming to theaters soon, now would be a great time to catch Ryan Reynolds’ latest film, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” where he is tasked with protecting Samuel L. Jackson, a hitman who has previously attempted to kill Reynolds. [“AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR” SPOILER] Jackson can currently be seen in “Avengers: Infinity War.” Actress Amanda Seyfried can be seen in two films available this week. The first, she stars alongside Ed Helms and Tracy Morgan in “The Clapper” which focuses on a paid audience member who gains notoriety overnight and, the second, a brand new Netflix Original Movie titled “Anon,” where she stars alongside Clive Owen, in a future where people can hack the things that you see. As mentioned previously, Owen can also be seen in “Children Of Men.”

A documentary titled “78/52” dives into the Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho” and in particular, the iconic shower scene. With 78 camera set-ups and 52 edits over the course of 3 minutes, Hitchcock would change, not only the way people felt about showers, but changed cinema in general. Just to take a leap in connecting the dots, Anthony Hopkins, who can be seen in “Red Dragon,” once played Alfred Hitchcock in the film “Hitchcock,” which featured a behind-the-scenes look at Hitchcock around the prime of his career.

And in an unrelated film, actress Florence Pugh stars as Katherine Lester in “Lady Macbeth” about “a young woman who is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age” and the steps she takes to try and take control of her situation.