If you’re going to the movie theaters this weekend, watch out! Nerds across the world will be invading multiplexes to watch the latest MCU movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, which promises more gratuitous cameos, more raunchy jokes about sex acts you’ve never heard of, and more lame Ryan Reynolds one-liners than a sane person can handle.
If you want to avoid all of that, well, I really can’t blame you. Fortunately, Netflix has a library full of great, underrated movies to watch this weekend. The following three films are as different as can be, yet they all promise to deliver two hours of quality entertainment that is worth your time.
Uncle Buck (1989)
I miss John Candy. The beloved actor has been gone for 30 years now, yet he is still missed by millennials like me who grew up watching him in such comedies as Armed & Dangerous, Spaceballs, Who’s Harry Crumb? and of course, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. His best-known role is arguably in Uncle Buck, where he plays the titular role with such good humor and warmth, you feel as if he’s part of your family.
The plot is pretty simple: the black sheep of the family, Uncle Buck Russell, needs to babysit his three young nieces and nephews while his brother and his smarmy wife are out of town. Since this is a John Hughes film, you’ll see plenty of Chicago suburban locations, talented young child actors like Macaulay Culkin, and a sugary ending that ties things up a little too neatly. (You hate your mother? Just hug it out and everything will be OK!)
But Candy makes Uncle Buck something special. Whether he’s making outrageously oversized pancakes or partaking in dirty dancing with Roseanne star Laurie Metcalf that ends with an uproarious physical comedy gag, the actor elevates the shopworn material like an old pro. After you finish it, you might wonder what could have been had Candy lived longer. Can you imagine him as a fellow panicked plane passenger in Bridesmaids when Kristen Wiig’s character freaks out? Or as an uncle in Step Brothers?
Uncle Buck is streaming on Netflix.
The Inspection (2023)
November and December are typically stuffed with prestige releases and Oscar-bait movies that all vie for the same people’s attention. It’s inevitable, then, that some of those movies don’t get the spotlight they deserve. The Inspection is one such a film. It’s a searing look at how race, sexuality, and a hard childhood weigh on a young Black man who is going through a rigorous training program deep in the South.
Ellis French is looking for a a new identity … and to hide his old one. Desperate to escape his abusive, homophobic mother, he enlists in the Marines. Briefly, he thinks he has found a way out of his past life. But it’s near impossible for Ellis to deny who he is.
The Inspection is a standout film for many reasons: the sensitive direction by Elegance Britton, the atmospheric score by electric pop band Animal Collective, and the performances by lead star Jeremy Pope as Ellis and an unrecognizable Gabrielle Union as his bitter mother, Inez. This a hard film to watch at times, but it also earns its uplifting moments in ways that many other films don’t.
The Inspection is streaming on Netflix.
Resident Evil (2002)
When a movie adaptation of a beloved property changes too much of the source material, the results are usually pretty dire. Yet the 2002 adaptation of Capcom’s never-ending Resident Evil video game franchise oddly works because it doesn’t stick too close to the games. Unbound by slavish devotion, filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson lets his freak flag fly a bit and, in the process, pumps out a solidly entertaining B movie that’s still trashy fun two decades later.
It helps that he has a lead star like Milla Jovovich. As the amnesiac Alice, the Ukrainian model-turned actress is at home wielding a giant gun and wearing a blood-red gown while fending off zombie dogs, overly aggressive men, and the undead alike. She’s on a quest to find out what happened to her memory, which is somehow tied to an experiment gone wrong that threatens to turn a small town, and maybe the whole word, into killer zombies. It’s up to Alice, and a ragtag team of military folk straight out of Aliens, to save the day.
Resident Evil is streaming on Netflix.
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