Are you ready to get a little wild this weekend?
Netflix just added some new movies to its already impressive library that gives cinephiles permission to walk on the wild side … and attend an elaborate wedding sans any form of payment.
The wedding in question happens in Father of the Bride, the 1991 remake starring Steve Martin as the titular exasperated daddy who faces the harrowing task of giving away his daughter to another man.
Watch With Us also recommends watching two other new films that deal with love and war. Poor Things is concerned with the former, as it documents Emma Stone’s pseudo-Bride of Frankenstein as she discovers the power of her own free will – and her orgasm.
Anthropoid is an underrated World War II film starring Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy as a resistance fighter behind enemy lines.
‘Poor Things’ (2023)
With the mind of a small child and the body of a grown woman, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is unlike anyone living in Victorian London. That’s not a surprise, since she was created by a Frankenstein-like scientist, Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), and raised among mutated animals. Godwin loves Bella like she was his own flesh-and-blood daughter, but he wants to keep her away from the dangers of a society she doesn’t understand. Belle, however, feels differently and soon runs away with a sex-crazed lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), to explore the world – and her own budding sexuality.
Winner of four Oscars, including a second Best Actress statuette for Stone, Poor Things is a wildly inventive steampunk parable about one woman’s desire to have an orgasm. OK, it’s not just about Bella getting off, but the thrust of the movie – if you pardon the pun – is centered around Bella’s awakening as a fully liberated woman. If that sounds a little dry, relax – Poor Things is also funny in weird and surprising ways, creating a retro-futuristic world so detailed and sumptuous you wish you were hanging out in the same Parisian brothels as Bella.
Poor Things is streaming on Netflix.
‘Anthropoid’ (2016)
It’s December 1941, World War II is in full swing and the Nazis have conquered almost all of Europe. That includes Czechoslovakia, the home country of Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan), who is part of a resistance movement dedicated to bringing down German invaders from within. Along with Jozef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy), Jan sneaks into his occupied country to find and kill Reinhard Heydrich, the man behind Hitler’s deadly Final Solution initiative. But with Czechoslovakia teeming with Nazis, the two men soon realize their near-impossible mission is likely to end with their deaths.
Based on an amazing true story, Anthropoid is a gripping war thriller that makes you feel uneasy the entire time you’re watching it. Jan and Jozef are almost always in danger, and they can’t even trust their fellow resistance fighters, some of whom are too tempted by offers from their enemy to rat each other out. The movie is tense and often brutal, but then again, so was World War II. Murphy and Dornan make surprisingly effective war heroes – their characters’ heroism is based mostly on the outrage they feel seeing their countrymen being slaughtered and the urge to do something, anything, to stop it.
Anthropoid is streaming on Netflix.
‘Father of the Bride’ (1991)
George Banks (Steve Martin) loves his 22-year-old daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams) so much that he never wants her to grow up and move out of the family home. But the inevitable happens when Annie announces her sudden engagement to Bryan (George Newburn), a likable guy whom George immediately detests. As the father of the bride, George has to oversee putting the planning and preparation of his daughter’s nuptials, which includes hiring an obnoxious wedding planner, Franck (Martin Short), culling the bloated guest list to save a few bucks and renting swans to swim in a nearby pond on the big day. No one said being a parent would be easy, but for George, the toughest part about being a dad might be saying goodbye.
A modern update of the 1950 Elizabeth Taylor movie of the same name, Father of the Bride is the rare remake that’s undeniably better than the original. Martin brings his trademark physical comedy to a role that could’ve been bland, while Diane Keaton shines as George’s eternally patient wife, Nina. Best of all is Short, who gives Franck an almost unintelligible accent and odd demeanor that makes him seem like he’s from Mars. The movie’s laughs are as big as its heart, and while the ending is sappy, you’ll find yourself unable to stop from shedding a tear or two.
Father of the Bride is streaming on Netflix.
