This 4th of July weekend, HBO Max is celebrating America’s birthday by streaming movies that feature sex, drugs and — fast food?
Watch With Us has combed through the streamer’s library and selected these three underrated HBO Max movies for you to stream this weekend.
One film is a naughty rom-com with Brokeback Mountain’s Jake Gyllenhaal and The Devil Wears Prada’s Anne Hathaway, while another is an entertaining documentary about an extinct cultural landmark.
The final selection is a notorious cult classic that works as a drama and a comedy.
‘Love and Other Drugs’ (2010)
Womanizer Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a pharmaceutical sales rep who strikes gold when Viagra is invented. He’s lucky in love, too, especially when he meets the brazen and horny Maggie (Anne Hathaway). They soon initiate a strictly casual sex affair with no emotional ties to one another. But when Jamie finds out a secret that Maggie doesn’t want him to know about, he can’t help but develop real feelings for her. Will Maggie reciprocate, or will she push him away to protect herself from getting hurt?
Love & Other Drugs is an odd mishmash of sex comedy, sweet rom-com and semi-serious look at how Viagra changed American culture. It doesn’t quite work as the latter, but Gyllenhaal and Hathaway’s chemistry make it entertaining as a naughty love story with ample amounts of nudity. They’re believable as two people in lust and later, in love, enough so you wonder why they haven’t starred in another movie together ever since.
Love & Other Drugs is streaming on HBO Max.
‘The Automat’ (2021)
If you’re over the age of 40, chances are you remember — or used — an automat, even if you don’t quite know its name or how it even worked. That’s OK, though, because if you want The Automat, you’ll know everything about what was once a part of everyday life for many people worldwide.
The documentary explores the origins of the automat in 19th-century Germany, where the waiterless fast food vending machine was first introduced. It then traces its quick adoption by early 20th-century America, especially big cities like New York City and Chicago, and its rapid decline after the ‘60s. The Automat features interviews from people you’d expect, like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, to people you don’t, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Colin Powell. It’s a deep dive into an invention that was overlooked during its time and almost forgotten about today.
The Automat is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Showgirls’ (1995)
Is it an unintentional comedy? A serious look at how Clinton-era American society uses and abuses women? Or is it simply a bad movie that exploits its female stars? The genius of Showgirls is that it’s all of those things and more — a camp classic that’s directed like a slick action-thriller, performed by lead star Elizabeth Berkley with her every move in ALL CAPS and a script with bad dialogue but smart ideas. It’s a one-of-a-kind classic, and the least erotic movie of all time.
Nomi Malone (Berkley) is a Las Vegas stripper who dreams of being a legit dancer in the Stardust showgirl revue. To get there, she’ll have to do some pretty shady things, like sleeping with the show’s entertainment director, Zack (Kyle MacLachlan), and undermining the show’s star, Cristal (Gina Gershon). But the closer Nomi gets to realizing her ambitions, the more she begins to lose her friends and morality. How far will she go to make it to the top?
Showgirls is streaming on HBO Max.
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