Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish movies available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
Disney continues its efforts to remake its iconic back catalog of animated treasures, bringing them to new audiences through live-action, big-budget adaptations. Thus far, the results have been mixed, but also highly profitable, so here we go again with Pinocchio. In their favor, a lead performance from Tom Hanks as Geppetto and the guiding hand of Robert Zemeckis as director and co-writer (with Chris Weitz). Zemeckis is, of course, a trailblazer when it comes to storytelling through a heavily CG-influenced lens, which is required here to bring the tale of a marionette turned real live boy to life. But the challenge is in doing that while maintaining the soul of a fable that is imprinted on so many of us from previous adaptations and, of course, Disney’s 1940-made gem which still looks fantastic despite being more than 80 years old. Basically, the degree of difficulty is high here and audiences are likely to be unforgiving if this impressive creative team either veers too far from the much-beloved classic or feels too much like a carbon copy. Watch it on Disney Plus.
Well, look at this. Rob Zombie made a reboot of The Munsters in hyper-saturated technicolor. In 2022. And you can just click on it and watch it. That’s a kind of wild thing to wrap your head around if you think about it a lot. Thinking is hard, though. Maybe just stick to the clicking. Watch it on Netflix.
Baz Lurhman’s Elvis biopic is trash. Beautiful, glorious trash. The kind you leave out on your front porch for your neighbors to marvel at in grotesque disbelief. It’s hip-gyrating, finger-thrusting, sweat-pouring theatrics packaged in lush cinematography, contained in a classic underdog story that reaffirms everything you thought you knew about the King of Rock and Roll, and then adds some weird personal fodder that makes you question everything you thought you knew about the King of Rock and Roll. Austin Butler is mesmerizing, and so is whatever the hell Tom Hanks is doing in this thing. Enjoy it for what it is – a beautifully-shot fever dream filled with some great tunes. Watch it on HBO Max.
B.J. Novak writes and directs and stars in this dark comedy about a big fancy New York podcaster who heads to a redder state to investigate a disappearance and death and a bunch of other things that may or may not be worth investigating at all, actually. The cast is stacked, too, with everyone from Issa Rae to Boyd Holbrook to Ashton Kutcher to freaking Gerri from Succession herself, J. Smith-Cameron. It’s all very intriguing. Watch it on Peacock.
Thor is back once again and he brought some new friends with him. Natalie Portman, to be specific. Which is fun. This follow-up to the also-fun Ragnarok has made the move from theaters to streaming and into your living rooms. That’s another fun thing. It is almost unreasonable how good Chris Hemsworth is in these movies. You should not be allowed to look like that and be that funny. Someone should make a rule about it. Until then… watch it on Disney Plus.
We feel the need. The need to watch Top Gun: Maverick over and over and over again now that it’s streaming on demand. This sequel has everything a summer blockbuster should – trash staches, Tom Cruise doing his wild little stunts, bar sing-a-longs, Jon Hamm being an absolute twat, fighter jets, aviators, fake tans, and a shirtless beach football scene that will live in meme-famy (meme infamy). The movies are back, baby! Watch it on your VOD outlet of choice.
What do we have here? Well, Kaley Cuoco, for one, in a Groundhog Day-style situation that sees her living the same date over and over again, in a good way, thanks to a magical tanning booth. We’ve also got Pete Davidson doing his whole thing and tiny rips in the space-time continuum and little changes in the past causing big ripples in the future, kind of like if you crossed Back to the Future with Palm Springs. That’s a good place to start from. Watch it on Peacock.
For years, the mythical list of failed reboot attempts stood out as the most interesting thing about the Fletch franchise, but here comes Jon Hamm to wash it all away in his highest-profile bet since Mad Men. Does it work? It all depends on your expectations. If you’re expecting a film in the same key as the Chevy Chase-starring original, you may be (slightly) disappointed, but for fans of the novels, Hamm will deliver as a breezily sarcastic former investigative journalist on the trail of some stolen art while trying to beat a murder rap. This is especially true when playing with other funny people such as Barb & Star‘s Annie Mumolo, former Mad Men co-star John Slattery, and Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr, who finally gets an opportunity worthy of his talents. Watch it on your VOD outlet of choice.
Oh look! Another glorious sequel. Fans have been clamoring for a followup to this spooky childhood classic for so long that, now that it’s finally here, there’s some understandable apprehension. Can it capture the magic (pun intended) of its predecessor? Will the surprise musical numbers go as hard? Will Disney allow more tongue-in-cheek one liners about Satanic worship and child cannibalism to flourish (because we really need to hear Sarah Jessica Parker confirm she smells children, just one more time)? We don’t have all the answers but it’s never a bad thing when Bette Midler, Parker, and Kathy Najimy get together on screen. And we wouldn’t be caught dead talking smack about the Sanderson sisters. Watch it on Disney Plus.
You have undoubtedly heard about Blonde. The fictionalized take on the life of Marilyn Monroe has flooded the news cycle for months now, partially because of its NC-17 rating, partially because of the truly wild swings it takes in its storytelling, and partially because the performance by Ana de Armas is drawing rave reviews. Is the movie good, though? Hmm. That’s just as divisive. It sure is a lot, in a bunch of ways, if that counts for anything. Watch it on Netflix.
A revenge fantasy set in an impossibly luxurious school where impossibly rich kids trade impossibly sharp and smart barbs, Do Revenge is not to be believed as a real slice of teenage life, but it is to be enjoyed. A lot. Led by Maya Hawke and Camila Mendes, Do Revenge is the perfect mean-teen movie, giving us all the fun and fierce cross of Mean Girls, Clueless, Heathers, 10 Things I Hate About You, Cruel Intentions, and Throw Momma From The Train (!?) that we didn’t know we needed, but we so, so did. Watch it on Netflix.
