The high school metal comedy from Game of Thrones’ DB Weiss lands on Netflix this weekend
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This weekend sees the premiere of Metal Lords, the new comedy drama from writer-producer DB Weiss (Game of Thrones) and director Peter Sollett (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist) about two high schoolers who start a metal band in defiance of their peers and families. If that doesn’t pique your curiosity, not to worry: there are plenty of more great new movies premiering this weekend on VOD available to stream and rent, including multiple Netflix originals.
Among the top choices to pick from this week are the supernatural horror film The Night House starring Rebecca Hall on HBO Max, the espionage thriller All The Old Knives on Amazon Prime Video, Polish crime action movie Furioza, the satirical Hindi comedy Dasvi, the Tamil-language action thriller Etharkkum Thunindhavan (aka ET), the Spanish ballet drama Dancing on Glass on Netflix, Korean spy action thriller Yaksha: Ruthless Operations on Netflix, and more!
To help you get a handle on what’s new and available, here are the new movies you can watch on streaming and VOD this weekend.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Writer-producer DB Weiss (Game of Thrones) and director Peter Sollett (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist) team up to deliver the Netflix teen comedy Metal Lords. Jaeden Martell (2017’s It) and Adrian Greensmith star as Kevin and Hunter, two high school students who form a bond through their shared love of heavy metal music. Starting a band together, the two quickly become best friends — that is, until Kevin finds himself romantically drawn to a fellow student and cellist named Emily (Isis Hansworth). Is there any hope for Kevin and Hunter to mend the rift between them and realize their dreams of metal stardom? From our review,
There’s a bit of “Who is this for?” baked into Metal Lords. Game of Thrones obsessives who check it out to see what Weiss is up to will have to squint hard to find similarities between the two projects, and cranky metalheads will surely find things to gripe about in its sometimes poseurish depiction of their beloved genre. (Counterpoints: Game of Thrones is metal as hell, and metal elitists should just get over themselves already.)
It’s also a teen movie, but the specifics of its subject matter aren’t exactly tuned to a Gen Z frequency. In 2022, classic heavy metal isn’t a 16-year-old’s parents’ music — it’s their grandparents’ music. The central thesis of Metal Lords is that, for those lucky few who respond to metal’s siren song, the experience of falling in love with the genre is an ageless, universal rite.
Where to watch: Available to stream on HBO Max
Rebecca Hall (Christine) stars in the supernatural horror thriller The Night House as Beth, a bereaved high school teacher scarred from her late husband’s inexplicable suicide. Haunted by ghostly apparitions and inexplicable visions late at night, Beth uncovers a strange journal and with it a host of bizarre and disturbing secrets, all of which revolve around a mysterious house across the lake whose layout and structure mirrors her own. From our review,
As the clues mount, Bruckner doles out scares in mounting intensity, a template for haunted-house movies dating at least back to 1944’s The Uninvited. It’s skillfully executed enough to make The Night House worth a look on technical merit alone, turning every corner of a luxurious lake house into a site of deep dread. But what’s memorable is the film’s interest in exploring ideas deeper than how scary it might be to be unexpectedly alone and seemingly surrounded by malevolent specters. The title has a literal meaning within the film, one better left unspoiled, but it also suggests the loneliness of Beth’s newly empty home and the shadows that threaten to envelop her, shadows that might be formidable threats even without the questions raised by Owen’s shocking death.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video
Chris Pine (Star Trek) and Thandiwe Newton (Westworld) star in the 2020 espionage thriller All the Old Knives. Set in the modern day, the film follows the story of Henry (Pine), a veteran CIA operative tasked with investigating his former lover Celia (Newton) under suspicion that she was in fact a double agent who cost the lives of more than 100 of their fellow operatives. Switching between the past and present, the trailer weaves a tangled web of romance, tragedy, and regret as the two parse their lingering emotions for one another while attempting to find the true culprit.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
The 2022 Korean spy action film Yaksha: Ruthless Operations stars Sol Kyung-gu as Kang-inn, also known as “Yaksha”: the leader of a covert team of security agents stationed in Shenyang, a metropolis with a reputation for having the highest concentration of spies in the world. When the National Intelligence Service learns that all the reports sent by Yaksha’s team are false, the agency’s director Yeom Jeong-won (Jin Kyung) sends Ji-Hoon (Park Hae-soo of Squid Game fame), a recently demoted prosecutor, to Shenyang to root out the cause of this deception. If labyrinthine international politics and triple-crossing subterfuge isn’t your cup of tea, not too worry; there are enough gunfights, blisteringly fast chase scenes, and bright explosions to satiate that part of your brain just wants to tune out and vibe to the action.
Where to watch: Available to Stream on Shudder
Sophie (Skyler Davenport), a visually impaired former skier, is house-sitting at a secluded mansion. When a group of thieves break in to look for a hidden safe, she gets help from a gamer (Jessica Parker Kennedy) through an app called “See For Me,” intended to connect sighted guides with people who are visually impaired and in need of assistance.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Criterion Channel
Filmmaker Phil Collins’ 2022 documentary Bring Down The Walls tells the story of a political collective of BPOC artists and formerly incarcerated people who, in 2018, created a temporary space in downtown Manhattan used as a venue for prison-abolition organizing and anti-incarceration dance parties. Focusing on the power of communal celebration and collective action, Collins’ film evokes the spirit of Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning in its depiction of the liberating force of dancehall music.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Furioza, not to be confused with Charlize Theron’s character Imperator Furiosa from the 2015 post-apocalyptic smash-hit Mad Max: Fury Road, is a 2022 Polish action film starring Mateusz Banasiuk as David, a police informant working undercover to take down a criminal organization comprised of ultranationalist psychos. Coerced by his former lover-turned-policewoman Dzika (Weronika Ksiazkiewicz), David must stay one step ahead of the suspicions of the group’s inner circle if he is to have any hope of suriving, let alone completing his investigation.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
When a corrupt politician is sent to jail, he spends his time inside completing his neglected high school education. His wife fills in for his government post, but soon becomes enamored with the power it brings in this satirical Hindi comedy.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Also known as ET, this Tamil-language action thriller follows a lawyer (Suriya) who takes the law into his own bloody hands to thwart a criminal group that is creating illegal pornography from stolen intimate videos.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Jota Linares’ 2022 Spanish drama Dancing on Glass joins the likes of Black Swan, 2018’s Suspiria, and Birds of Paradise in small yet venerable subgenre of “psychological ballet horror-thrillers.” The movie stars María Pedraza as Irene, a ballerina who is selected to take the lead of her dance company’s upcoming production of Giselle following the former lead’s tragic suicide. Isolated by her new position and the jealousy of her fellow dancers, she befriends Aurora (Paula Losada), a sullen ballerina held under the tight command of her exacting mother. Irene and Aurora’s relationship grows more and more obsessive, forcing the two to make hard decisions as they aspire to greatness.
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Keke Palmer (Hustlers) stars in the 2022 crime thriller Alice as a woman enslaved on a 19th-century plantation in Georgia. Upon escaping from bondage, Alice discovers the horrible truth — the year is 1973, and she and her loved ones have been imprisoned by a wealthy and reclusive family who have attempted to maintain the institution of slavery nearly a century after its abolishment. With the help of Frank (Common), a sympathetic truck driver and disillusioned political activist, Alice plots to return to the plantation and exact revenge on her former master (Johnny Lee Miller) for his cruelty. Inspired by the true story of Mae Louise Walls Miller, the premise of Alice bears an uncanny resemblance to 2020’s Antebellum. Hopefully, this film fares better in executing on its premise than that one.
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Vudu
A serial killer thriller from South Korea, Midnight follows a deaf woman (Jin Ki-joo) who is relentlessly pursued by a murderer (Wi Ha-joon) after witnessing his latest fatal stabbing. The movie is the debut film of writer-director Kwon Oh-seung, and was screened at the Fantasia Film Festival and the New York Asian Film Festival in 2021.
Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon
Diana Agron (The Family) stars in the 2022 comedy-drama As They Made Us as Abigail, a recently divorced mother of two struggling to take care of her ailing father (Dustin Hoffman) while exploring a new love in the form of her gardener Jay (Justin Chu Cary). Candice Bergen (Miss Congeniality) co-stars as Abigal’s mother Barbara, while Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory) plays her estranged brother Nathan.
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