Are you ready for some football? If not, Watch With Us recommends you head over to Netflix.
Why Netflix? The streamer just added a slew of new movies that are just as dramatic as any Super Bowl or ice skating competition.
Some of the best new Netflix movies I’m watching this weekend include the Western crime thriller Hell or High Water, starring Chris Pine, and the sweet Amanda Seyfried rom-com, Letters to Juliet.
If you’re feeling nostalgic, rediscover the comedic joys of Mrs. Doubtfire and marvel at just how funny Robin Williams was.
‘Hell or High Water’ (2016)
Toby (Pine) and Tanner Howard (Ben Foster) are two Texan brothers with one big problem. When their mother died, she left them a ranch that’s about to be foreclosed on by the local bank. Because the land the ranch is on has valuable oil underneath it, Toby and Tanner are desperate to save it, but they need to raise a lot of cash in a short amount of time to do so.
When they begin to rob banks in the surrounding area, they think they’ve found a solution to all their problems. But they can’t escape the law that easily, not with Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) hot on their trail. Come hell or high water, these brothers will stick together, even if that means stopping Marcus from apprehending them by any means necessary.
Nominated for Best Picture in 2017, Hell or High Water is one of the best modern Westerns ever made. Written by Taylor Sheridan years before Yellowstone, the movie looks, sounds and feels authentic — you really buy Pine and Foster as brothers who will do anything to keep their family and land intact. As Marcus, Bridges earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, and it’s well-deserved. His good-humored lawman sympathizes with the brothers’ plight, but he can’t let these criminals go because they have a good reason to break the law.
Hell or High Water is streaming on Netflix.
‘Letters to Juliet’ (2010)
Amanda Seyfried has always been that girl — from Mean Girls to last year’s criminally overlooked musical The Testament of Ann Lee, she elevates anything she’s in just by showing up. In Letters to Juliet, a relatively routine rom-com in the vein of Under the Tuscan Sun, she stars as Sophie, a fact checker who tours Verona on her pre-honeymoon. When she discovers an old, unanswered love letter from a young woman named Claire, she decides to answer it.
Days later, she’s surprised to meet Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), now in her 70s, and her disapproving grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan). Claire wants to find the Italian lover she left behind all those years ago, and she needs Sophie’s help. But can Sophie overcome her love-hate attraction to Charlie long enough to help Claire find her long-awaited romance?
With the wrong actress, the movie’s paper-thin plot would collapse under the crushing weight of its own whimsy. But Seyfried, with the aid of old pro Redgrave, makes it all work. She imbues Claire with just the right amount of sarcasm and optimism for you to root for, even when she ditches her work-obsessed fiancé, played by Gael Garcia Bernal. (Seriously, who would ever leave Gael Garcia Bernal?!?). The movie’s gorgeous Italian locations are so lushly filmed that you might be tempted to buy a villa in Verona right now.
Letters to Juliet is streaming on Netflix.
‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ (1993)
Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) loves his three children — even his estranged wife, Miranda (Sally Field), can’t deny that. But he’s messy, irresponsible and perpetually out of work, which doesn’t bode well for his ongoing custody case. Daniel wants to be with his kids more than anything, but he also needs a part-time job that will pay the bills. Naturally, he concocts a scheme where he’ll disguise himself as a sassy English nanny, Euphegenia Doubtfire, and kill two birds with one dragged-out stone. To Daniel’s surprise, he pulls it off, but how long can he keep up this double life without anyone, especially Miranda, finding out?
Mrs. Doubtfire is just one of those comedy classics you can’t deny. With a joke-a-minute screenplay and a solid supporting cast that includes Harvey Fierstein as Daniel’s makeup artist brother and Pierce Brosnan as Daniel’s romantic rival, it’s a pitch-perfect family comedy that hits all the right notes without getting mired in sickly-sweet sentimentality. But this is Williams’ show, and Mrs. Doubtfire is perhaps the best live-action showcase for the late actor’s one-of-a-kind improv skills.
Mrs. Doubtfire is streaming on Netflix.
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