123movies2d.com the best movies online now? We’re seven months into 2020, and despite the pandemic circumstances still throwing life as we know it upside down, the movies persist. Well, some of them. The theaters might still be closed in many states, but a small crop of films headed straight for digital or streaming releases (sometimes earlier than expected) have made their way into our quarantines over the last month. From a Charlize Theron-starring action flick from Love & Basketball director Gina Prince-Bythewood to a retro sci-fi film on Amazon Prime (The Vast of Night) to a mesmerizing portrait of a teen queen bee (Selah and the Spades), here are the best movies Vulture has seen and (for the most part) reviewed so far, according to critics Angelica Jade Bastién, Bilge Ebiri, David Edelstein, and Alison Willmore.
In short stories like The Lottery and novels like The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson conjured unease, tension, and queasy strangeness that made them difficult to put down. Fittingly, Shirley, an adaptation of a novel by Susan Scarf Merrell, examines a highly pressurized moment in the author’s life that makes for occasionally nerve-rattling viewing. As played by Elisabeth Moss, Jackson can be temperamental, brilliant, and cruel, especially to Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman), the newlywed couple that move into the paper-strewn house she shares with her controlling professor husband (Michael Stuhlbarg). Where Decker’s previous exploration of the creative process, the dizzying Madeline’s Madeline, took an often nonlinear, combustible approach, Shirley retains some of the stuffy mechanics of the writerly biopic, particularly in the scenes of Jackson typing away at what will become her novel Hangsaman. (That book, which was partially inspired by the real-life disappearance of college student Paula Jean Welden, was written earlier in Jackson’s life than the movie portrays.) But Moss’s mischievous performance, the subtle interplay between the two women, and the feeling that the movie could tilt over the edge into chaos, chasing darker impulses and rolling around in the mud with Decker’s roaming camera, keeps it from falling into many of the traps set by the often worshipful “great artist” micro-genre.
The darkness is all-consuming, as is despair over a lost past and future, and a purgatorial present, in Vitalina Varela, Pedro Costa’s aesthetically ravishing true tale of its protagonist, a Cape Verde resident who returns to Portugal mere days after her estranged husband’s death. Vitalina wanders through this dilapidated and gloomy environment, which Costa shoots almost exclusively at night, the better to conjure a sense of ghosts navigating a dreamscape of sorrow, suffering and disconnection. Each of the director’s images is more ravishing than the next, and their beauty – along with an enveloping soundscape of squeaking beds, sheets blowing in the wind, and rain pattering on crumbling roofs – is enchanting. Presenting its story through fractured plotting and dreamy monologues, the Portuguese master’s latest is a series of tableaus of lovelorn grief concerning not only Vitalina but also an aged priest in spiritual crisis and another young man poised to endure his own tragedy. The film’s formal grandeur – its compositional precision, and painterly interplay of light and dark – is overwhelming, as is the majestic presence of Vitalina herself. Read additional info at 123movies websites.
Competing with other video players like VLC, PotPlayer has managed to earn a good reputation in recent times. This multimedia software for Windows platform has been developed by South Korean internet company named Kakao. PotPlayer has tons of features and specialties that can easily give VLC a run for its money. This recommended media player comes with a wide range of customization options that allow you to make this software fit for your needs. Using the techniques like CUDA, QuickSync, and DXVA, PotPlayer is able to deliver maximum performance and lightweight experience. That’s why PotPlayer is the second best media player on the list. Compared to VLC, PotPlayer might be less popular but it supports even more file types. It goes without saying that it’s a great player for MP4/FLV/AVI/MKV files, which are very common. You have the option to make a choice between sound cards, bookmark your favorite scenes and preview them, etc. You also get filters for brightness, contrast, hue, noise reduction, etc. It also comes with lots of built-in keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys. But, what makes VLC more popular than PotPlayer? Well, for most of the users, the long list of features and settings might be just too much. Also, PotPlayer is limited to Windows. Overall, PotPlayer is one of best media players around if you want to ditch VLC Media Player.
Deepfake technology gets a stunning workout in Welcome to Chechnya, as documentarian David France uses the face-transforming device to mask the identities of his subjects: a group of LGBTQ+ activists intent on smuggling gay men and women out of their native Chechnya before the government can kidnap, torture and murder them. That the Russian-controlled state is on a genocidal mission to “cleanse the blood” of the nation by exterminating its homosexual population is a terrifying reality brought to light by France, who details the efforts of these brave souls to use subterfuge to sneak at-risk individuals to safer European enclaves. At the center of his tale is Maxim Lapunov, whose release from a Chechnyan torture chamber—and resultant knowledge of the government’s monstrous activities—turns him into the state’s Enemy Number One. Lapunov’s courageous desire to legally strike back at the system is one of many threads exposing the fascistic new Final Solution being perpetrated by Putin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. A cry for help and a call to arms, it’s nothing short of straight-up horrifying. See extra information at this website.