Everyone knows Netflix has a lot of movies to watch, but which ones are worth your time?
It’s a dilemma worthy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet – to stream or not to stream? That’s the question Watch With Us is answering this weekend with a list of three high-quality films that won’t send you into an existential crisis like Will’s broody Prince of Denmark.
At the top of our watchlist is Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola’s lively interpretation of the famous queen who, for the record, never actually said, “Let them eat cake!”
We also recommend two ‘90s classics: the fantastic action-thriller Speed, with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and the campy horror-comedy Bride of Chucky, with a dolled-up and dialed-in Jennifer Tilly.
‘Marie Antoinette’ (2006)
14-year-old archduchess Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) is intelligent, charming and already engaged to the most powerful man in France, Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman). She tries to be a good wife, but Louis doesn’t seem interested in her. That doesn’t stop Marie from having fun with others, but her luxurious existence is looked down on by a public that grows angrier by the minute. Soon, Marie unwittingly becomes a symbol of all that’s wrong with the country, and her lifestyle – and soon her life – are in jeopardy.
“Off with her head!” Who knows if those words were actually uttered at Marie Antoinette’s execution, but it sounds pretty accurate to most people – except Sofia Coppola. The Lost in Translation director humanizes the famous French queen and symbol of the indifferent and extravagant 1 percent, emphasizing her extreme youth when she marries Louis XVI and naiveté as a reigning monarch of a nation that’s plagued by riots and social unrest.
Coppola doesn’t let her completely off the hook, though. The film is most enjoyable when it lets Marie enjoy the spoils of her marriage and wealth: the elaborate balls at Versailles; the candy-colored pastries that are prepared especially for her; and her affair with the dashing Axel von Fersen (Jamie Dornan). Still, is that enough for her to be despised by a French public that is increasingly poor and hungry? Marie Antoinette is a lavish costume drama that’s pretty to look at, but has enough anachronistic touches (Coppola’s Marie owns a pair of beat-up Chuck Taylors) and subtle commentary to make you draw comparisons to the current climate, which isn’t as different from 18th-century France.
Marie Antoinette is streaming on Netflix.
‘Speed’ (1994)
Los Angeles cop Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) is the best there is at what he does – stop bad guys from blowing up innocent bystanders. His current case, however, threatens to tarnish his perfect track record. A mad bomber he thought he took care of, Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper), is back with a vengeance, and he’s planted a bomb aboard a crowded L.A. public bus that will explode if it dips below 50 miles per hour. Jack manages to get on the bus as it races down the city’s congested highways, but time is running out, and Howard isn’t willing to give up unless he receives his $3.7 million ransom.
Speed works because it’s so simple – there’s a bomb on a bus, and it needs to keep moving, or else everyone on it will die. That gives the film an urgency few action films possess – Jack needs to find a way to stop the bomber from a distance while making sure the bus stays above 50 mph, and all the passengers don’t freak out. Reeves and costar Sandra Bullock, as the plucky Annie, are entertaining as a cop under extreme pressure and an emergency bus driver who can’t help but fall in love with him. (Can you blame her?) Speed works brilliantly as an action film, but it also succeeds as the world’s most unusual rom-com.
Speed is streaming on Netflix.
‘Bride of Chucky’ (1998)
When he debuted in the first Child’s Play film in 1988, Chucky (Brad Dourif) was the horror genre’s most unusual villain – an innocent-looking talking doll with a gutter mouth and an urge to kill. Two inferior sequels later, Chucky was all washed up, a has-been horror icon from an era that had long passed. In the post-Scream period of the late ‘90s, the only way to bring him back was to lean into the character’s humorous side, and that’s exactly what the enormously enjoyable sequel/reboot, Bride of Chucky, did.
After Chucky is revived by his human ex-girlfriend, Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), he gets mad at her, kills her and then revives her as a companion doll. Since neither one of them wants to remain a doll forever, they decide to locate a magic amulet that was buried with Chucky’s human body so they can transfer their souls into two human hosts, Jade (Katherine Heigl) and Jesse (Nick Stabile). But Jade and Jesse don’t like the idea of having their bodies taken over by two psycho serial killers, and they evade Chucky and Tiffany long enough to find a way to permanently get rid of them.
Bride of Chucky is deliberately silly and not at all scary. But it works as a comedy – the film is often very funny, with numerous jokes that will make you laugh while rolling your eyes. The key to the film’s success is Tilly – she uses her baby doll voice to great effect and knows how to camp and vamp it up when required. Bride of Chucky was successful enough to breathe new life into the Chucky franchise, which continues to this day with three sequels and a three-season series, Chucky, on Syfy and the USA Network.
Bride of Chucky is streaming on Netflix.
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