Stream on Demand: Lin-Manuel Miranda returns in animated ‘Vivo’
What’s new for home viewing on Video on Demand and Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max and other streaming services.
Top streams for the week
The animated musical “Vivo” (2021, PG) follows the odyssey of a kinkajou, a cute, colorful monkey-like critter from Cuba, from Havana to Florida. Lin-Manuel Miranda writes the original songs and voices the cuddly star as he teams up with American girl Gabi (Ynairaly Simo), adding his Latin style to her pop sensibility. The family-friendly comedy is from the director of “The Croods” and features the voices of Zoe Saldana and Gloria Estefan (Netflix)
The supervillains are back in anti-hero mode in “The Suicide Squad” (2021, R), James Gunn’s violent, blackly comic sequel to the 2016 movie of almost the same name. Joel Kinnaman and Margot Robbie return as team leader Rick Flag and wild child Harley Quinn. Streams the same day it opens in theaters, for 31 days only beginning Friday. (HBO Max)
The three-part documentary “Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union” (2021, TV-MA) follows the life of Barack Obama from childhood to the presidency and grapples with his legacy as the first African American elected to the White House. (HBO Max)
“Val” (2021, R) is something of a self-portrait of actor Val Kilmer, who has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video for more than 50 years. (Amazon Prime, also debuting on VOD)
Classic pick: Alan Ladd in “Shane” (1953), the gunman who wants a simpler life as a farmhand but is pulled back into violence to protect a homesteading family, in George Stevens’ Oscar-winning western. (Hulu and Paramount+)
Pay-Per-View / Video on Demand
The Oregon-set “Pig” (2021, R) stars Nicolas Cage as a recluse on a mission of revenge when his beloved truffle-hunting pig is kidnapped.
Netflix
“The Vault” (2021, R) stars Freddie Highmore as the mastermind behind a heist of the Spanish Mint. Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Sam Riley and Famke Janssen also star.
The documentary “Pray Away” (2021, PG-13) explores the damage that so-called conversion therapy has left on members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Genetically modified locusts raised for food turn out to have a taste for human blood in “The Swarm” (France, 2021, TV-14, with subtitles).
An Israeli tour guide (Lior Raz) discovers his wife’s death is no accident in “Hit & Run” (Israel/US, TV-MA).
Amazon Prime Video
A Mexican drug lord (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) stumbles upon a U.S. military base conducting experiments in “S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies” (Mexico, not rated, with subtitles).
Hulu
Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” (2011, PG-13), starring Matt Damon and Kate Winslet, was remarkably prescient in its dramatization of a global pandemic.
HBO Max
“Betrayal at Attica” (2021, TV-MA) looks at the 1971 Attica prison riots and the cover-up of the response that left 39 prisoners dead and hundreds injured.
Other streams
Created and directed by star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “Mr. Corman” (not rated) is a dark comedy about a 30-something elementary schoolteacher.
Three episodes available, new episodes each Friday. (Apple TV+)
Kevin Hart hosts the hourlong interview program “Hart to Heart” (not rated). New episodes each Thursday. (Peacock)
New on disc and at Redbox
“Those Who Wish Me Dead,” “Luca,” “Here Today,” “She Ball”
Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. His reviews of streaming movies and television can be found at streamondemandathome.com.