Dinosaurs are invading suburbia, the government is regulating date night, some of your favorite movies apparently deserve more love, and Bluey continues to emotionally destroy grown adults.
In other words, there’s a lot to entertain us this week.
‘The End of Oak Street’
Let me give you the elevator pitch for The End of Oak Street: Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway are a married couple whose relationship is falling apart in 1980s suburban Michigan. Then their entire neighborhood is somehow transported 250 million years into the past.
Suddenly couples therapy seems like the least of their problems.
Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, who gave us It Follows, the movie has a wonderfully old-school Amblin feeling. Think The Goonies, Gremlins and, obviously, Jurassic Park. It’s funny and scary, occasionally a little mean, and doesn’t feel like it was designed by an algorithm to launch six sequels and a theme park ride.
McGregor plays Greg Platt, a dad desperately trying to convince everyone — including himself — that his family is fine. He’s lost his job and is secretly delivering pizzas to keep up appearances. Hathaway plays his wife Denise, who is considerably less interested in pretending everything is OK.
Their kids have problems of their own. Maisy Stella plays their teenage daughter Audrey, while Christian Convery plays younger brother Brian.
And then come the dinosaurs.
Lots and lots of dinosaurs.
What makes The End of Oak Street work is that Mitchell doesn’t forget about the family once the prehistoric creatures show up. The dinosaurs aren’t the story as much as the thing that forces these people to finally stop avoiding each other.
It’s also only 99 minutes.
Thank you, Hollywood. See? You can do it.
And yes, at one point Anne Hathaway takes on an Allosaurus with a shotgun. I don’t know what more you could possibly want from a summer movie.
‘One Night Only’ has an absolutely ridiculous premise – and I’m in!
Then there’s One Night Only, director Will Gluck’s follow-up to Anyone But You.
Here’s the setup: In this dystopian version of America, unmarried people are allowed to have sex on exactly one night each year.
That’s it.
For 12 hours, all the single people in New York essentially lose their minds.
Callum Turner plays Owen, a pizza shop owner with a girlfriend who assumes he knows exactly how his special night will go. Then she informs him she’d like to use her one night to sleep with somebody else.
Ouch.
Monica Barbaro plays Allie, a singer whose plans also fall apart. She and Owen meet, dislike each other almost immediately, separate and then somehow keep running into each other throughout the night.
You know where this is going.
And that’s OK!
Sometimes I don’t need a romantic comedy to reinvent romance. I need two charming people who clearly belong together to spend 90-something minutes figuring out what the rest of us realized 20 minutes into the movie.
TIME critic Stephanie Zacharek singles out Barbaro in particular, calling her “off-the-charts enchanting.” After A Complete Unknown, Barbaro continues to prove she’s one of those actors you just want to watch.
The movie also apparently features a citywide shortage of condoms, with the last available one treated like a priceless archaeological artifact.
Romance!
TIME picks the most underrated movies of the past 25 years
Speaking of movies that deserve a second look, TIME recently tackled a fun question: What are the most underrated movies of the past 25 years?
And this is exactly the kind of list that can destroy friendships.
Because “underrated” doesn’t necessarily mean obscure. Sometimes it’s a movie critics dismissed that audiences loved. Sometimes it’s a great movie that disappeared almost immediately. And sometimes it’s something you’ve been screaming about for 20 years while everyone around you refuses to listen.
That’s what makes lists like this so much fun. You immediately start mentally adding movies that were left out and questioning the sanity of whoever included the ones you hated.
More importantly, it’s a reminder that movies don’t stop being good because opening weekend didn’t go well. Streaming has given a second life to films that might have disappeared completely a generation ago.
So if you’ve reached the point where Netflix asks, “Are you still watching?” and you’re offended by the judgment in its tone, maybe it’s time to revisit something you missed the first time around.
Why do adults love ‘Bluey’ so much?
Finally, we need to talk about Bluey.
Yes, the Australian cartoon about a family of dogs.
If you have kids, you’ve probably watched it. If you don’t have kids, there’s a surprisingly good chance you’ve watched it anyway.
And that’s because Bluey pulled off something incredibly difficult: It made a children’s show that doesn’t treat children — or their parents — like idiots.
The episodes are short, funny and deceptively simple. Bluey and her younger sister Bingo play games with their parents, Bandit and Chilli, and usually learn something along the way.
But then, every once in a while, the show sneaks up behind the adults and punches us directly in the feelings.
Parenting. Growing up. Marriage. Aging. Losing people. Watching your children become independent. Wondering whether you’re doing any of this correctly.
You turn on Bluey because your kid wants to watch cartoon dogs and seven minutes later you’re staring into the middle distance thinking about the passage of time.
That’s the magic of it.
And it’s also a pretty good description of the entertainment I love most: something that can make you laugh, surprise you and occasionally leave you wondering why you’re crying over an animated dog.
Listen to my full Entertain Me conversation with Gary and Shannon for more on The End of Oak Street, One Night Only, TIME’s underrated movie picks and our Bluey obsession.
Recent Comments