Ten Decent Movies on Amazon Prime
Including "Blue Ruin," "Submarine," "This Must Be the Place" and others.
Every week Amazon dumps another 200 or so movies onto its Prime Video service, meaning they’re there for the free streaming if you have a Prime account. Many of said movies – no, most of them – are junk, escapees from the land of the Z production with names like “Zombie 3,” “The Babysitter Seduction” and “Puppy Swap: Love Unleashed.” (These are all real titles on Prime; help yourself.)
If you parse through the offerings, though, you could find some goodies – maybe not four-star bonanzas but solid, interesting films that fell through the cracks. You could do that – or I could do it for you. In fact, I just did. Here’s ten.
“Blue Ruin” (2013, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2) – An arthouse revenge drama, not for the faint of heart but brilliantly shot and paced, and possessing a midnight heartland vibe that’s quite special. The second film and the breakout for writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, whose next movie, “Green Room” (2015), is one of the great suspense thrillers of the new century and whose latest movie, “Rebel Ridge,” is on Netflix. (I haven’t seen it yet but hear good things – must get on that.)
