3 films to stream this week
The Tender Bar (Cert 15, 106 mins, streaming from January 7 exclusively on Prime Video)
JR Moehringer (Daniel Ranieri and Tye Sheridan) is abandoned by his disc jockey father, aka The Voice (Max Martini), at an early age.
The curious youngster grows up in Manhasset, Long Island, surrounded by his determined mother Dorothy (Lily Rabe), grandparents (Christopher Lloyd, Sondra James) and warm-hearted uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck), who manages
The Dickens.
The pub is a focal point for community life and Charlie proffers words of wisdom from behind the bar, such as when JR is deliberating which subjects to take at Yale to realise his mother’s dream of him becoming a lawyer.
“Always take philosophy. You always do well in that because there are no right answers,” pontificates Charlie.
When JR reaches the halls of residence as a Yale scholarship student, he faces snobbery because of his background and heeds Charlie’s words to proudly fight for his place in the world.
Brazen (Cert 15, 96 mins, streaming from January 13 exclusively on Netflix)
Adapted from Nora Roberts’ novel Brazen Virtue by screenwriters Suzette Couture and Donald Martin, Brazen is a twisted crime thriller directed by Monika Mitchell, which proves freshly spilt blood is thicker than water. Bestselling crime novelist Grace Miller (Alyssa Milano) is in the middle of a book tour for her latest page turner, Brazen Virtue, when she visits her divorced schoolteacher sister Kathleen in Washington DC.
Grace is horrified to discover Kathleen dead in her home.
It transpires that the deceased was moonlighting as a webcam vixen called Desiree for Fantasy, Inc to raise money to pay for a top lawyer for an impending custody battle with her ex-husband.
Grace offers to help coolheaded detective Ed Jennings (Sam Page) solve the case. Drawing inspiration from her books, Grace tries to get inside the mind of a deadly and diabolical predator.
Mother/Android (Cert 15, 111 mins, streaming from January 7 exclusively on Netflix)
The future is bleak for a pregnant woman and her boyfriend in a dystopian thriller written and directed by Mattson Tomlin.
Georgia (Chloe Grace Moretz) discovers she is expecting the child of her boyfriend Sam (Algee Smith) shortly before they attend a Christmas party where android servants cater to boozed-up guests. A glitch causes the automata to attack humans and Georgia and
Sam flee the devastation.
Humans are almost wiped off the face of the planet by malfunctioning mechanised monstrosities.
Georgia and Sam seek sanctuary in a forest to avoid extermination.
Months pass and Georgia approaches her delivery date when it will become impossible to hide from the androids with a crying newborn.
The couple decide to make a dash for safety to fortified Boston but they must travel through a wilderness teeming with relentless killing machines.