Five free movies to stream now
By BRANDON CRUZ
There are the true stories, the stories we tell and the fog of everything in between. The films this month all circle around the power of stories: their ability to obscure the truth or shift the way we see ourselves. Maybe most of all, stories say that we were here.
‘True Stories’ (1986)
Out in the plains of Texas, there is a town called Virgil. There you’ll find a soothsayer, a cowboy looking for love and a woman so rich she never needs to leave her bed. There is a mall that has become the new town square, a corporate-sponsored talent show and change a-comin’.
The ordinary and strange lives of Virgil make up David Byrne’s idiosyncratic gem — the only film the Talking Heads frontman ever made, and the only one he ever had to. It’s a magnificently imagined slice of small-town surrealism, featuring John Goodman in a performance that feels like a primer for his later roles in the Coen brothers’ movies.
A mosaic of Virgil’s townspeople, the film presents the goofy and tender textures of life that are everywhere for those willing to look. But it’s also an elegy for what Byrne sees as a tipping point in American life, where the rhythms of society — the way we coexist with each other and our surroundings — are shifting under political and consumerist forces. (Stream it on YouTube.)
‘A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence’ (2014)
It’s hard to say what exactly Roy Andersson’s singular work is about — except, maybe, the existentialist absurdities of life. The film is made up of dozens of vignettes in which little happens, but which, taken together, present life as bleak, funny, pointless, bizarre and, to use one of the film’s own ideas, fine.
“I’m happy to hear you’re doing fine,” various characters say throughout. It’s positive news that lands, in Andersson’s world, with a dull thud. In one scene, an old man utters the line patiently through a telephone, while his other hand clutches a gun, seemingly destined for his own head.
These scenes are sardonic and elliptical, each delicately staged and resembling a washed-out diorama. They can also be stunningly harrowing, as in one involving slaves, a rotating apparatus and a decrepit audience.
That sequence then cuts to a sad salesperson, mutely sitting in his motel room. It’s a breathtaking stretch. Perhaps that’s what everything will be one day: Each moment of history, from a pigeon on a branch to humanity’s ugliest terrors, just a pale exhibition in the museum of the universe. (Stream it on YouTube.)
‘Stories We Tell’ (2012)
In any story, there is a series of concentric circles, like the rings of a tree trunk. There are the people to whom the event itself happened; there are those affected via their proximity; then those who have heard the peripheral accounts. This ripple effect of the truth is the focus of Sarah Polley’s documentary about her family.
Dotted with home footage, Polley’s film uncovers the secrets of her late mother, whose life-loving streak permeates stories from Polley’s father and siblings. The hidden side of Polley’s mother is considered with great grace by those who loved her.
But what actually happened is beside the point. There’s both a vital beauty and a heartbreak to what Polley’s really doing here: Her desperation to get to the bottom of someone, to hear all the stories, becomes an attempt to gather up the loss and, in a way, bring them back. (Stream it on Tubi.)
‘The Fog of War’ (2003)
The most revealing tell of Errol Morris’ documentary about the life of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is on the movie’s poster. It’s not in the candor McNamara provides in his assessment of the violence he oversaw, nor in the obfuscation he applies elsewhere. Instead, it’s that poster image of an almost dopey McNamara, standing like an aimless retiree left to periods of silence and confusion.
This film is, in other words, an indictment of him. But you might not catch it, for McNamara is engaging in his own sleight of hand. Talking of his consequential role in history, from the widespread bombing of civilian targets in Japan to the Vietnam War, he is the first to admit the murky morality of military operations — only then to sweep everything under the so-called fog of war. Just as you might sympathize with the enormous pressures he describes, he outs himself.
At one point, McNamara brings up the use of the chemical weapon Agent Orange in Vietnam. Were those who approved its use committing crimes against humanity? he asks, playing ethics professor. Then offhandedly, he notes, “I’m not really sure I authorized Agent Orange — I don’t remember it.” (Stream it on Tubi.)
‘Coffee and Cigarettes’ (2003)
There are few better ways to pass the time than with the combo of a coffee and a cigarette, except perhaps with Jim Jarmsuch’s vignettes of that simple act.
Shot over nearly two decades, this anthology film features an eclectic all-star cast in simple scenes of conversation. It is enlivened by the deadpan wink of its stars playfully deconstructing their personas: Tom Waits moonlighting as a doctor, Bill Murray playing server to rappers GZA and RZA. They are arrogant and shy, brainy and bored.
Some scenes are better than others. But the film is best appreciated for its small moments — an actor shrugging their shoulders over a cup and a smoke — and for that Jarmuschian sensibility of wry delight in silences. (Stream it on Tubi.)
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