This Week in Streaming (February 18th)

A Real Pain  (Hulu) Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore directorial effort garnered Oscar nominations for its screenplay and Kieran Culkin’s turn as a charismatic loafer millennial trying to mask his vulnerability. In playing the foil to Eisenberg’s trademark buttoned-up control freak on a Holocaust tour to visit their grandmother’s home in Poland, Culkin turns what could have been a throwaway smarmy buddy comedy into something far more profound. As we wrote last month,the duo propel the film into one of the great comedies of the post-pandemic era.  

SNL50: The Anniversary Special (Peacock) Like the show it celebrates, the weekend’s proceedings were a bit hit or miss, but this is the closest to common cultural ground we still have. See superstar talent like Sabrina Carpenter, Dave Chappelle, and Peyton Manning yuk it up with Not Ready for Primetime Players all-time greats from Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy to Will Ferrell and Tina Fey, 

The Pianist (Prime) If all goes according to plan, Adrien Brody is about to win his second Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a Jewish architect navigating post-WWII life in The Brutalist. Though shifting public opinion about Roman Polanksi has made the film that introduced Brody to the world fall by the wayside, it's a 21st century masterpiece that avoids the stodginess of the Holocaust drama and proves its director and actor as two of cinema’s great artists.