February 13, 2025

What to stream: 'The Host,' 'Sly Lives!' and 'The Nice Guys'

The classic film noir 'Mildred Pierce' also landed on Max this month.

By Kristin Hunt
PhillyVoice Staff

Provided image/Stephen Paley/Sony

Questlove's third documentary 'Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)' looks at the life and enduring influence of funk musician Sly Stone. It debuted Thursday on Hulu.

Philadelphia's busiest drummer/writer/filmmaker/"Hot Ones" meme has debuted a new movie, mere weeks after his last one.

Questlove's documentary "Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)" officially hit Hulu on Thursday. With it, he's already dropped two films in 2025 – "Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music" premiered on NBC in late January – but this is no slap-dash production. His Sly Stone documentary has all the heft we've come to expect from a Questlove jawn, as the Roots bandleader has dubbed his directorial features.

Other titles new to streaming platforms this month include a Korean monster movie, a throwback detective comedy and a classic film noir. Here's where to watch them, and what to expect:

MORE: Miles Teller to star as Gino Bartali, the cycling champ who helped save Jews during WWII

'Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)'

What is Black genius? It's a question that Questlove poses to Chaka Khan, André 3000, D'Angelo and other lauded musicians at the start of his Sly Stone documentary, and one that lingers throughout the 110-minute exploration of the funk legend's life.

"Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)," now streaming on Hulu, is Questlove's third spin in the director's chair. But there's a confidence and perspective here you'd expect from a grizzled film veteran. The documentary follows Stone's career as a songwriter and frontman of Sly & the Family Stone, pausing to make direct connections between his work and the later musical landscape. Questlove wrestles considerably, however, with thornier topics, like the way traditional white media turned on Stone when he transitioned out of his hippie era and into a more radical one. Stone's substance abuse is also explored in detail, through the context of the punishing standards of fame, particularly Black fame. Questlove has an inquisitive ease with his subjects that buoys the movie through its weightier questions and punctures it with levity. Just wait and see what George Clinton has to say about crack cocaine.

'The Host'

Pregame the upcoming release of "Mickey 17" with one of the director's past hits. Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, best known for "Parasite," took on the monster movie with this 2006 comic thriller. The movie finds the residents of Seoul on the run from a grotesque sea creature, the mutant consequence of a careless American who ordered his subordinate to dump formaldehyde into the Han River. (This was inspired by a real scandal.) When the monster snatches a girl (Go Ah-sung) from a nearby park, her slacker dad (Song Kang-ho) rallies his siblings (Park Hae-il, Bae Doona) and father (Byun Hee-bong) to rescue her.

"The Host" is, in many ways, pulling from the same monster movie playbook as "Godzilla," a direct response to the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But Joon-ho's trademark humor and the film's eerily prescient take on pandemic mismanagement – it's hard to watch the government's clumsy containment of the creature's supposed virus without thinking of COVID-19 – make it modern and timeless. Catch it on Max.

'The Nice Guys'

See the seeds of Ryan Gosling's hilarious, demented "Barbie" performance in this 2016 buddy cop – technically, private eye – comedy on Netflix. "The Nice Guys" pairs Gosling's walking disaster Holland March with the tough, put-together Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to solve a complicated case. It involves pollution, political corruption, the auto industry and porn, but don't worry about the details. Just enjoy the romp through '70s Los Angeles, and endlessly quotable one-liners. He had to question the mermaids.

'Mildred Pierce'

If you're new to film noir, you probably still know the tropes: shadowy lighting, dangerous dames and schmucks who take the fall. "Mildred Pierce," like all the best noirs, hews to some of them while interrogating the concept of the femme fatale.

Mildred (Joan Crawford), despite what the throwback trailer would have you believe, isn't all that bad. She's simply an ambitious woman determined to give her kids the best – and if her husband can't provide it, she will. As Mildred strikes out on her own and builds a restaurant empire, she makes new friends, including a few unsavory characters. She also struggles to please her increasingly bratty daughter Veda (Ann Blyth). The movie's opening shots promise a murder, but viewers won't know the whole story of who pulled the trigger and why until the very end. Stream it on Max.