They say that April showers bring May flowers, but this month is bringing a veritable downpour of excellent things to stream. The eagerly anticipated second seasons of Netflixs Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Amazons Catastrophe top the list of new arrivals; on the film front, weve got a high-school thriller for the ages and a gangster saga worthy of The Godfather. Here are our picks for the 10 best things to queue from your couch this month.
Breathe(Netflix, 4/1)
American viewers might know her best as the girl who burned down the Third Reich in Quentin Tarantinos Inglourious Basterds, but the multi-talented Mlanie Laurent is one of contemporary French cinemas most boundless young talents. Her second film as director, this 2014 Sapphic high school saga about a dangerous friendship that percolates between two dispossessed teenage girls unfolds like a Brian De Palma remake of Blue Is the Warmest Color (albeit one thats mercifully divorced from the male gaze).
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Bad Boys II (Hulu, 4/1)
Easily the most Michael-Bayiest Michael Bay film ever made, this sun-soaked opera of testosterone andpyrotechnics has everything: epic car crashes, exploding corpses, gay panic on steroids, animatronic rats humping each other in a dilapidated mansion the list goes on. Reprising the roles they originated in the directors comparatively sedate debut, Will Smith (at the peak of his fame) and Martin Lawrence (at the peak of Will Smiths fame) are back in action as a pair of Miami cops who destroy the citys infrastructure like it insulted their wives. Juvenile, brain-dead, and beautiful in its own way, this sequel is the deranged magnum opus of a reckless cinematic visionary. Youve been warned.
Carlos (Hulu, Amazon Prime 4/1)
Guaranteed to be the shortest five-and-a-half-hours you ever spend watching a movie, Olivier Assayas hyper-ambitious epic is the definitive portrait of the criminal mastermind known as Carlos the Jackal (played to perfection by dgar Ramrez). Following the Venezuelan terrorist from his glory days in Seventies London to his pathetic capture in Syria some 20 years later, Carlos combines the rib-cracking pace of The Bourne Ultimatum with the historical immensity of The Godfather. Its captivating stuff from start to finish, highlighted by the unforgettable middle chapter in which Assayas breathlessly devotes 100 minutes to the OPEC hostage crisis in 1975.
Catastrophe Season 2 (Amazon Prime, 4/8)
Twitter celebrity Rob Delaney made his first real break into acting with this hilarious British sitcom about an American businessman who impregnates a British lady (Sharon Horgan) during a work trip to the UK; he then moves across the Atlanticto help with the kid. The first season followed the circumstantial lovebirds as they fumbled their way towards marriage, but the show really finds its stride in thisnew batch of episodes as they settle into something resembling a proper and properly stressed-out, overburdened family.
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Amazon Prime, 4/1)
The darkest film that Woody Allen has ever made and, in some perverse ways, also the most optimistic this 1989 riff on Crime and Punishment follows parallel stories about a single documentarian (Allen) with a crush and a married ophthalmologist (Martin Landau) with a problem. Savage in its assessment of the world as an inherently unfair place (think of it as a funny precursor to Match Point),the movie uses Jewish guilt as a crystal clear lens into the human soul. A lot of Allens films end with him finding some light in all the darkness, but this is one of the few where it feels like he really saw it for himself.
Cube (Hulu, Amazon Prime 4/1)
The film that put Splice director Vincenzo Natali on the map, this gloriously gory Canadian horror story sticks a group of people in an infinite series of lethal escape room and watches with twisted glee as they get torn apart by insidious traps and eventually by each other. Why are they in this sadistic prison? Will it be possible to escape? Like Saw meets The Twilight Zone, Natalis breakthrough will have you hooked from its (very) cold open, and it only gets better as the players come to realize that all roads lead to death.
Deep Impact (Netflix, 4/1)
There were any number of disaster movies in the Nineties (such as Armageddon, with which this one will always be twinned), but none crashed down with the emotional force of Mimi Leders surprisingly sober spectacle.While the initial buzz was reserved for the giant tidal wave that levels New York in the trailer, this 1998 blockbuster still resonates because of how sensitively it draws its characters and how wantonly it murders them. Who could forget President Morgan Freemans resigned speech from the Oval Office? Or newscaster Ta Leonis last minute trip to the beach? Welcome to the human cost of global devastation.
Risky Business (4/1)
One of the greatest American teen sex comedy ever made, Paul Brickmans masterpiece tells the timeless story of horny high school kid Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise at his baby-fat best) who inadvertently starts a brothel in his living room when his parents go on vacation. Who among us didnt spend the last semester of senior year having sex with a young Rebecca De Mornay and being chased at gunpoint by a guy named Guido the Killer Pimp? Filled with quaotable lines and immortal moments (forget the iconic underwear electric slide; the Tangerine Dream-scored climax on the Chicago L is the money shot), Risky Business is one of those rare Eighties classics thats actually better than you remember. Time of your life, huh kid?
The Right Stuff (Netflix, 4/1)
Dont be deterred by the fact that Philip Kaufmans 1983 masterpiece feels way too big to watch on your computer screen even on IMAX, this movie would feel like it was spilling over the screen. A monumental portrait of the American test pilots who obsessively raced the Russians into outer space, this loose adaptation of Tom Wolfes 1979 book is an ode to the maniacs who had the courage to reach a hand into the unknown. It would probably be a miniseries if it were made today, but Kaufmans gripping time capsule turns brevity into a virtue, the (192-minute) film so densely layering human ambitions with historical advancements that it becomes impossible to separate the two.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 2 (Netflix, 4/15)
They (still) alive, dammit! Starring the irrepressible Ellie Kemper as a guileless cult survivor, the first season of Tina Fey and Robert Carlocks 30 Rock follow-up quickly established itself as one of Netflixs most beloved original comedies. And now, just when it felt like you could only watch Pinot Noir two or three hundred more times, Kimmy is finally coming back for a blast of new episodes. Its hard to predict what sort of shenanigans our favorite mole woman will get herself into this year, but you can safely expect series favorites Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) and the brilliantly named Jacqueline Voorhees (30 Rock alum Jane Krakowski) to be along for the ride.
