Here are some suggestions of what to add to your streaming list. Two very different musicals – “The Get Down: Part 1,” and “Silk Stockings” – are among the best bets.
The Get Down: Part 1: Leave it to Baz Luhrmann (“The Great Gatsby”) to make the South Bronx of the late 1970s feel both gritty and strangely glamorous. This highly-anticipated Netflix series follows a group of teenagers, including a young hip hop artist (Justice Smith) and an aspiring singer (Herizen F. Guardiola), as they attempt to break into the music biz. Rapper Nas served as exec producer and wrote some of the songs. On Netflix.
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: Season 3: The only weekly news-oriented comedy series to be presented on Sunday night, Oliver’s show is one of the most biting and hilarious on TV. Now, thanks to an agreement between HBO and GooglePlay, you can purchase all current and future episodes of Season 3, which began airing on Feb. 14 and concludes on Nov. 13. “Last Week” is an election year essential. On GooglePlay.
Barcelona: In 1994, “Metropolitan” stars Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman reteamed with director Whit Stillman for the tale of two Americans who find themselves in Spain at a time when anti-USA tensions are running high. As with all of Stillman’s movies, it’s primarily a talk-fest but there’s plenty of humor in Nichols and Eigeman’s encounters with the women of Barcelona, specifically a group of translators (Tushka Bergen, Mira Sorvino, Nuria Badia, Helena Schmied) who delight in shocking the Yanks with their liberated attitudes toward sex. On Blu-ray and DVD.
Gilmore Girls: The Complete Series: Can’t wait for November when Netflix will unveil “Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life?” The streaming giant is helping prepare you for the big event by loading every episode of the delicious series starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. So brew up a cup of joe and prepare for a show rich in pop culture references and small-town hilarity.
In The French Style: In one of her best performances, the lovely Jean Seberg (“Breathless”) plays a 19-year-old painter living in Paris who takes modeling jobs to make ends meet. After a dalliance with a shallow French teenager, Seberg begins hanging out with jet setters, eventually falling in love with a womanizing newspaperman (Stanley Baker.) Adapted by Irwin Shaw from his short stories, this tender gem from Twilight Time is about growing up, and leaving the life of “an emotional transient.” On Blu-ray.
Proxy: Get ready to be shocked, scared and creeped out by Zack Parker’s ingenious thriller, a movie so twisty and perverse it occasionally recalls a cross between Brian DePalma’s “Sisters” and “Dressed to Kill.” An impossible-to-describe film without giving away spoilers, “Proxy” takes off from a horrific act of violence perpetrated against a pregnant woman (Alexia Rasmussen). A number of murders, make-out sessions and support group meetings later, “Proxy” has morphed into a one-of-a-kind look at bad mothering and mental illness. On Hulu.
Road Games: This is how you do a twist ending! Andrew Simpson stars as a British hitchhiker in rural France who’s finding it difficult to catch a ride thanks to the news that a serial killer is afoot. Simpson’s luck improves after he hooks up with a fellow drifter (Josephine De La Baume) and is picked up by a composer (Frederic Pierrot) and his artist-wife (Barbara Crampton). Director Abner Pastoll brings a slow-burn intensity to this tale which offers both thrills and psychological intricacies. On Blu-ray, DVD, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Vudu.
Homeland: Seasons 1-4: The sixth season of the superior spy chiller doesn’t return to Showtime until 2017 but if you need a fix of espionage drama, click on Hulu, which is streaming all the episodes from the first four seasons. As you might imagine, a lot of crazy stuff happens over the course of four years but the first batch of episodes, involving a bipolar CIA agent’s (Claire Danes) suspicions that a returning war hero (Damian Lewis) is a terrorist, remains one of the best seasons of TV ever broadcast. On Hulu.
Silk Stockings: A musical triumph featuring an irresistible Cole Porter score, this song-and-dance remake of “Ninotchka” has never looked or sounded better than it does on Blu-ray. Cyd Charisse is the by-the-books Russian envoy sent to Paris to retrieve a Soviet composer. But it doesn’t take long for her to fall under the spell of an elegant producer (Fred Astaire) who’s charmed by her no-nonsense demeanor. Spiked with humor and featuring dazzling duets between Astaire and Charisse, “Silk Stockings” is a blast of pure MGM exuberance. On Blu-ray.
