The dog days of summer are here, but that doesn’t mean you have to put up with watching bad movies.
HBO Max has hundreds of high-quality movies from the distant past to the present, and Watch With Us is here to recommend three of them.
Everyone knows Elizabeth Olsen as the MCU’s Scarlet Witch, but she’s a fine dramatic actress who gave an Oscar-worthy performance in the drama Martha Marcy May Marlene. Another MCU actress, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, was similarly terrific in the marital comedy You Hurt My Feelings.
If those movies sound too serious, then queue up Gremlins 2: The New Batch and let your inner child run wild.
‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ (2011)
Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) has just fled a cult she belonged to for two years, and she’s finding it hard to adjust to her old, normal life. Her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), and Lucy’s husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy), do their best to help her by letting her live with them in their remote cabin, but Martha’s fragile mental state begins to deteriorate as she remembers all the reasons why she left.
The cult’s charismatic leader, Patrick (John Hawkes), is never far from her thoughts, and she is still in contact with some of its members. Does Martha have the strength to fully break away from her traumatic past? And even if she does, will Patrick and the rest of the cult members let her?
An indie hit when it was released in 2011, Martha Marcy May Marlene hasn’t lost any of its unnerving power — or intriguing ambiguity. Olsen established herself as a serious actress with this movie, and she’s absolutely terrific as a young woman with enough sense to know her former cult “family” is wrong but vulnerable enough to still long for the security and sense of belonging they gave her. The movie’s last shot is genuinely creepy, and it will make you wonder — and worry— about what’s going to happen to Martha.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch’ (1990)
Horror sequels typically stink — one only needs to look at the genre’s graveyard of unwatchable follow-ups like The Exorcist II: The Heretic, Jaws 2 or The Rage: Carrie 2 to understand why. But the original Gremlins was never a straightforward horror movie, so why should its sequel be anything other than appealingly weird?
Bigger, better and funnier, Gremlins 2 follows the original’s bright young couple, Billy and Kate (Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates), as they try to make it in the Big Apple working at Clamp Center, a not-so-subtle parody of Trump Tower. Gizmo’s there too, and sure enough, he soon accidentally spawns some nasty gremlins, who multiply quickly and take over the entire building. Along with faded TV star Grandpa Fred (Robert Prosky) and Zach’s neurotic boss Marla (Havilland Morris), Billy, Kate and Gizmo must stop the gremlins from taking over Manhattan.
Gremlins 2 is immature, childish and often jumps from one set piece after another without much logic. It all works, though, because the tone is straight out of Looney Tunes — quick and nonsensical, with a laugh every 90 seconds or so.
This is the kind of movie that accurately parodies the Rambo movies and then seamlessly segues into an elaborate musical number set to “New York, New York” (with a bizarre subplot involving interspecies sex with a horny lady gremlin and a human male). Gremlins 2 is one of the most insane sequels ever made, but it’s also an incredibly entertaining one that will make your inner child happy.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch is streaming on HBO Max.
‘You Hurt My Feelings’ (2023)
Beth (Thunderbolts star Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a successful creative writing teacher who is in a loving marriage with therapist Don (The Crown’s Tobias Menzies). Things change for the worse when she asks Don to read a draft of her first novel, which he secretly doesn’t much care for. When Beth finds out about how Don feels, she begins to reassess their marriage and wonders what else he is lying about — or hiding.
You Hurt My Feelings is an intelligent comedy about how even the best marriages can stall out. Don isn’t a villain, but by being honest, he hurts someone he really cares for. Beth isn’t at fault, either — it’s genuinely upsetting when something you have created isn’t appreciated by the ones you love. Louis-Dreyfus and Menzies are not only believable as a long-married couple dealing with a mid-marital crisis, they’re also funny in ways that ring true without overdoing it.
You Hurt My Feelings is streaming on HBO Max.
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