Twitter

Where to Stream:

Language Lessons

The pandemic has been difficult for many in Hollywood, but for some people it’s been a creative breeding ground. Language Lessons, one of our picks for this week’s new movies on VOD, is actress Natalie Morales’s feature directorial debut, and the film is most definitely a product of quarantine. In the film, an unlikely friendship forms between an online Spanish teacher, played by Morales, and her student, Mark Duplass, as she teaches him over Zoom.

And while relationships can surely blossom online, sometimes you need to take a trip back to your hometown to really get close to someone. In Time Now, newcomer Eleanor Lambert plays a woman who returns to her hometown after her brother’s death, and realizes she never really knew him. As she digs into his life, she also discovers the mysterious circumstances of his death.

For an animated film, The Spine of Night has an incredible cast. The grisly animated horror flick (Not! For! Kids!) stars Richard E. Grant, Lucy Lawless, Patton Oswalt, Joe Manganiello and Get Out‘s Betty Gabriel, and spans the course of hundreds of years to tell the story of an all-powerful flower that, if picked by the wrong hands, can cause great suffering to the world. (Cut to the flower being in the wrong hands.) This is the story of the how this symbolic flower wreaks havoc across societies and across history, and of those who want to stop it.

These are just a few of the titles that are available to watch on Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, YouTube, and through your cable service this week. Check out what movies are available to buy or rent on demand now!

Language Lessons

There’s been a rise in platonic love stories lately. (Together Together comes to mind as a recent one.) Maybe it’s quarantine, maybe it’s just that people are just more willing to make films that are purely about a non-romantic personal connection lately, but there’s a warmth and an oddly comforting feeling knowing there doesn’t have to be a “will they or won’t they” component for a relationship movie to be satisfying. Language Lessons, a film that its actors shot remotely over Zoom, is the story of Adam (Mark Duplass), whose husband gifts him weekly online Spanish lessons with Cariño (Natalie Morales). Initially hesitant, Adam and Cariño get to know one another over the course of the classes and form a bond that sees them through a dark period of Adam’s life.

Where to stream Language Lessons

Time Now

Time Now is a thriller that marks the acting debut of Eleanor Lambert, who happens to be Diane Lane’s daughter. In the film, Lambert plays Jenny, a woman estranged from her family, but who returns to her home when she learns her twin brother has been killed. After she gets there and meets some of his friends, she realizes that maybe there was more to his death than anyone though, and she’s driven by her grief to find the truth.

Where to stream Time Now