Unstreamable is a column that finds films and TV shows you can't watch on streaming services in the United States. Last week, we announced a few updates to the column, so check that out if you haven't. 📺 MADE FOR TV 📺 Murphy BrownUSA, 1988–1998, 30 minute episodes, Directed by Alan RafkinThe creators of Murphy Brown really screwed themselves over with what must’ve seemed at the time like a great idea: Incorporate classic Motown songs.
Relatively recently we criticized Man of God as a film that obscures reality and, by deifying religious feeling, could lead those who adopt its standpoint only to wrong, deceptive paths.1 Benedetta, Paul Verhoeven’s latest film, can in many ways be considered its opposite. It is a film that demythologizes, deconstructs and keenly dissects religion with […]
Within the first two minutes of Benedetta’s prologue in which its namesake’s younger incarnation compels a bird to shit in the eye of a potential assailant it’s clear that Verhoeven is in his comfort zone; if the movie doesn’t necessarily push beyond those confines, it confirms them as a uniquely spacious and fertile patch of cinematic terrain, where provocation and pleasure get intertwined on a molecular level and nearly every line cuts two ways, as a statement of principles and a sick joke.