What to Watch: Four Cool Streams for a Hot Weekend

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It's a quiet weekend in movie theaters as the industry pauses for breath before the onslaught of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," which I'll be seeing on Monday night. (Since I'm still recovering from my dance with Anna Plasmosis, I missed the screening of Olivia Wilde's Sundance hit "The Invite" last week but will catch it this weekend and report back.)

That said, a number of very good films are making their way from theaters to streaming, and among them, I can highly recommend:

"Silent Friend" (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, renting for $5.99 – cheap! – on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Fandango at Home) – Yes, the one about the tree. I reviewed it at length in May and kvelled about "the kind of experience that wraps its roots around your brainstem and continues to bud long after the lights come up." It's set in the German university town of Marburg, where an immense and very old Ginkgo tree dominates a quad outside one of the medieval academic buildings. Said tree is the connective tissue between three separate but intertwined storylines set decades apart – 1908, 1972, 2020 – each of which explores the mycorrhizal links between science and art, sex and solitude, plants and humans. A film that takes its time, but, for God's sake, slow down and let this one breathe through your stomata.

"I Love Boosters" (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, renting for $19.99 on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Fandango at Home) is as silly as "Silent Friend" is sublime: A roistering Boots Riley satire about a Bay Area crew of lady shoplifters (led by Keke Palmer) who give back to the community and the steely fashionista (Demi Moore) who becomes their nemesis. (I reviewed the movie at length in May if you want more details.) It gets as far out there as Reilly's "Sorry to Bother You," but I don't see anyone else here with his imagination and nerve, and the simmering class rage that keeps "Boosters" on the boil makes it far more than just a summer throwaway. The revolution will be accessorized.

"Blue Heron" (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, available for $14.99 purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV). Sophy Romvari's aching memory play about growing up with a mysteriously mercurial older sibling is to date only available for purchase, but at $14.99 it's still a bargain, and I personally could watch it more than once, so deceptively tricky is its structure and so deep run its feelings. It's one of my favorites of the year (so far), the rare film whose emotional impact came rushing back in full force when it came time for me to write about it.

"Power Ballad" (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, renting for $14.99 on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Fandango at Home) – Cute and painless comedy about an aging American rocker (Paul Rudd) in Dublin whose song goes to #1 when it's stolen by a fading boy band star (Nick Jonas). From writer-director John Carney, who's been plowing the same winsome-indie-music furrow since hitting it big with "Once" in 2007. This one coasts amiably and almost wholly on the fondness many of us have for Rudd, whose lightness of touch has acquired shades of regretful gray in recent years. Verily, the actor might have been his generation's Cary Grant or Paul Newman if only he had tried a little harder, but somehow it's that not-trying – Rudd's Zen comfort in his own skin – that's the source of his immense charm. I wrote about "Power Ballad" at length when it was in theaters; if you're looking a pleasant, tuneful anesthetic after a hard week, here's your movie.

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