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Prime Video is celebrating the first weekend of May by adding new movies depicting car races, fancy parties and murders. What’s not to like?
At the top of Watch With Us’ binge list is Rush, a thrilling sports biopic starring Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Wilde and a bunch of vintage cars.
If you don’t feed the need for speed, check out Gosford Park, an Oscar-winning murder mystery starring every English actor alive and Ryan Phillippe for some reason.
Finally, if you crave some vintage scares, stream Psycho II, a surprisingly good sequel featuring the return of cinema’s scariest boogeyman, Norman Bates.
‘Rush’ (2013)
In the 1970s, no rivalry was fiercer in car racing than the one between James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl). Opposites in looks, temperament and pretty much everything else, the two sportsmen waged war with each other on the race track and in the press. But when a horrific accident sidelines one of them, their rivalry turns into something surprising — a friendship built on mutual respect. As the all-important German Grand Prix begins, can these two legends compete with the same intensity and ambition that made them famous?
Directed by Ron Howard and based on a true story, Rush is a fascinating sports drama about two men who had one thing in common — the desire to be the best race car driver in the world. What’s fascinating about Rush is how it depicts each man’s different journey to reaching the top. Hemsworth’s Hunt is glamorous and hedonistic — to him, winning is the key that will unlock untold pleasures — while Brühl’s Lauda is more methodical and logical. The film’s racing scenes are a highlight, but it’s the quieter moments off the track that linger in the memory the longest.
Rush is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Gosford Park’ (2001)
Maggie Smith in Gosford Park. USA Films/Everett
Sir William McCordle (Harry Potter’s Michael Gambon) has been murdered, and just about everyone at his lavish countryside estate is a suspect — even his pet dog, Pip (Widget). What’s strange about William’s murder is that he appears to have been murdered twice — first by poisoning and then with a knife in the back. Who hates William enough to have attempted to kill him twice? Or are there two murderers who decided on their own to strike at roughly the same time?
It would be wrong to categorize Gosford Park as only a murder mystery, although a murder does happen, and the revelation of who did it is indeed a surprise. But like almost all of Robert Altman’s best movies, Gosford Park is more than what it appears to be on the surface. The legendary director is really interested in the differences between the upstairs class — the rich sirs and grand ladies who always seem bored with their wealth — and the downstairs class, who have their own kind of snobbery they use to bludgeon each other with. Gosford Park is so rich with character detail and so dense with its many, many subplots that you have to watch it multiple times to fully appreciate it.
But what fun it is to watch it for the first time! The movie is often very funny, with Maggie Smith, as the pampered Dowager Countess Trentham, Constance, tossing off insults as casually as she breathes the cool British air, and the interplay between the upper class and the servants is rich with comic possibilities. There’s also an air of tragedy lingering on the sidelines, which is only brought to the foreground in a climactic scene that proves Helen Mirren, as the tightly wound housekeeper Mrs. Wilson, is one of the finest British actors living. Mystery, comedy, tragedy, satire and romance — Gosford Park has it all, and few films before or since have matched its dramatic power and sheer entertainment value.
Gosford Park is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Psycho II’ (1983)
After over 20 years in the loony bin, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is back — and he swears he’s over the whole psycho killer thing. He even takes a job as a short-order cook at the local diner and romances a young waitress, Mary (Meg Tilly), who believes he’s reformed. But when people start disappearing, everyone suspects Norman — including Norman himself, who isn’t so sure Mother is completely gone from his damaged psyche.
If you accept the fact that Psycho II is nowhere near as good as the original (what film is?), then you’ll enjoy this surprisingly effective follow-up to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece. Made at the height of the slasher era in the early 1980s, there are a few grisly kills, but that doesn’t detract from Perkins’ surprisingly nuanced performance as an older, more paranoid Norman. The final scene is such a surprise you might burst out laughing — it’s that unexpected, horrific and, yes, funny. But you could say that about Psycho II as a whole, a film that defies convention and expectations with every plot twist and knife slash.
Psycho II is streaming on Prime Video.
