The weekend is here! If you’re looking for something to watch, we can help. We’ve dug through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Disney+ to find some of the best titles on each service. STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Zombieland’
In the aftermath of a raging zombie apocalypse, it’s kill or be killed. And the primary pleasure of this double-barreled action comedy is the extent to which the screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have worked through the logistics of this hellscape, as articulated by the hero, an introverted college student (Jesse Eisenberg). He joins forces with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gunslinging cowboy type, and the sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) on a journey through the chaos. The director Ruben Fleischer keeps the laughs and gore coming at a steady clip, so thoroughly adopting the hip approach of “Ghostbusters” that Bill Murray even shows up to play along. These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’
A bride-to-be’s anxieties become a waking nightmare in this horror series, produced by the “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer and created by Haley Z. Boston. Camila Morrone plays Rachel, a fiercely independent woman who reluctantly agrees to marry her mild-mannered boyfriend Nicky (Adam DiMarco) at a remote vacation home belonging to her future in-laws. The eccentricities of Nicky’s family, coupled with a creeping suspicion that this union might be literally cursed, leaves Rachel wondering if she has ordinary premarital jitters or if there is something sinister looming. An article about Boston in the The Times noted the show’s “omens of the emotional creepy crawlies and ‘Twin Peaks’-style surrealism.” (The Korean thriller “Squid Game” is similarly twisty and suffused with dread.) Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘The Devil Wears Prada’
Lauren Weisberger’s roman à clef was already a cultural sensation when it was adapted for the screen by the director David Frankel and the screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna; the resulting film helped complete Anne Hathaway’s transition from Disney princess to leading lady, and gave Meryl Streep one of her most memorable roles of the era. Hathaway is Andy, an idealistic journalist who feels she’s slumming it when she takes a job as a junior personal assistant to Miranda Priestly (Streep), the glamorous yet cruel editor in chief of Runway magazine. Hathaway is a charismatic protagonist, and Streep layers what could have been a caricature with her typical complexity, while Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt steal scenes by the yard as Andy’s chief protector and rival, respectively. Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’
David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, about real estate salesmen and the desperate measures they’ll take to keep their lousy jobs, was adapted into one of the most potent pictures of the ’90s, thanks to the brute force of Mamet’s dialogue and a remarkable ensemble cast: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce and Alan Arkin. It’s something of a profanity-laden counterpart to “Death of a Salesman,” its scorched-earth monologues and inventive insults providing the flashy surface to a melancholy indictment of empty capitalism and toxic masculinity. Our critic called it “a movie for which everybody deserves awards.” Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘Past Lives’
The allure of a decades-old “what if” scenario lingers over Celine Song’s thoughtful and deeply romantic debut feature, which confronts a happily married New Yorker who has unresolved emotions. Through deftly incorporated flashbacks from 24 years earlier, Song details a childhood friendship in Seoul that has lingered in the mind of Nora (played as an adult by Greta Lee) since she left for the United States at 12. Nora and her old companion Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) reunite for a week in New York that affirms their chemistry but naturally poses a threat to the strong partnership she shares with her American husband (John Magaro). Manohla Dargis called it “a time-travel movie, because even as the two characters keep moving forward, they remain inexorably tethered to the past.” See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe has stumbled in bringing the chaos of the multiverse into the well-ordered continuity of the franchise, the animated adventures of Miles Morales, one of many Spider-People in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and this terrific sequel, have turned hectic activity into a creative asset. More tears in reality, rendered more dangerous by a dimension-jumping villain named the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), introduce new Spideys like a pregnant Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) and an anarchic Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya). The film ultimately centers on Miles (Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), whose deepening friendship is tested by a threat so massive, it’s going to take a second part to resolve it. Maya Phillips praised “Across the Spider-Verse” for “building a sequel that not only replicates the charms of the first film but also expands the multiverse concept.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
|
