Five Ultra-Cool Films You Can Watch RIGHT NOW!*

I get it; you’re hankering for a really prime movie, but there’s nothing playing at the cineplex you want to see. Or The Video Station is closed. Or you’re procrastinating, and really shouldn’t leave home. (Insert excuse here.)

As it happens, there are some pretty spiffy movies on Hulu.com that their programmers, for whatever reason, have overlooked putting behind their pay wall.

In no particular order:

Army of Shadows

France, 1969

This is just a jaw-dropping film. Jean-Pierre Melville gives the full, unspeakably bleak picture of what working in the WWII French Resistance was like: the constant fear of being caught, the horrible assignments of killing your own countrymen (even if they are traitors), the coming to terms with how you’ll face your own death. There’s no sentimentality here.

Because Charles de Gaulle was unpopular at the time of the film’s release, it was panned in France and wasn’t released in America until its restoration in 2006.

Plus! It stars Jean-Pierre Cassel, Vincent Cassel’s dad.

The Birth of a Nation

US, 1915

You’re not going to watch this, are you? I could say that John Ford has a cameo as one of the Klansmen, that it was the first film to be shown at the White House—see? Your eyes are already glazing over. Fine. If you won’t eat the perfectly wholesome Cheerios, here’s something a little more Count Chocula-ish:

Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero (AKA Invasion of Astro-Monster)

Japan, 1965

This was one of my two favorite monster movies growing up (the other, of course, being King Kong Escapes, where Kong battles a mecha-Kong). The alien costumes are just super-cool 60s, and the sexy alien played by Kumi Mizuno lingered long in my memory.

For some reason, the beam effects are really well done—they’re a radioactive blue, and the force fields the flying saucers project around Godzilla and Rodan are 3-dimensional, shaded bubbles. Good job, Toho Studios!

 

Last Exile

Japan, 2003

I know. Calm down. This is really a TV anime series. But it beats the crap out of most movies with first-rate storytelling, character development, and pacing. I was ready to drop out after the first three episodes (“Jesus, is this story going anywhere?”), but my patience was well-rewarded.

Last Exile is set in a retro Steampunk future, on a colony world named Prester. Nations fight each other with flying battleship fleets...eh, I'm not doing a good job explaining this. Just go watch a few episodes. It’s Japanese, it’s a bit weird, but it’s also amazing storytelling, and unlike anything you’d ever see on American TV.

Santo Versus the Vampire Women (Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiro)

Mexico, 1962

Christ, do you know how rare this movie is? After reading about it and seeing snippets on YouTube, I tried to snag a copy at the Video Station (no go). Even Netflix claimed it didn’t have a copy. (Really, Netflix?) To find it for free, on Hulu, is truly proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.

Brick

US, 2005

Brick is a smart, well-written film that breathes new life into the hard-boiled detective genre. Upon its release in 2005, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting career was losing steam, and Rian Johnson was an aging USC graduate who had been laboring to get his script made for seven years. Thanks to Brick, they're both A-listers, now. 

*If you have fast internet. But c'mon, this the second decade of the 21st century! Even the cool new Pope has fast internet.