Skooby's picks: three movies to stream this weekend
By Jake Skubish
There are thousands of movies available to stream all the time. This is good, but it’s also overwhelming: when you have that many options, how can you choose just one? Every Friday, I’m presenting you with just three movies available to stream that you should watch to avoid that stress. I’ll hand out different movie recommendations every week.
A Fish Called Wanda
Available on: Amazon Prime
A Fish Called Wanda is often left out of the conversation about the great comedies, but it shouldn’t be: this 1988 farce is one of the funniest films of the ‘80s. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, John Cleese, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin as four robbers who try to double-cross each other for their loot, A Fish Called Wanda is silly and genuinely unpredictable. All of the performances are great but the standout is Kline, who delivers the sort of clueless skulduggery that could only be matched by the likes of Steve Martin.
Get Me Roger Stone
Available on: Netflix
Celebrate the indictment of one of President Trump’s most transparently devious associates with this excellent Netflix original documentary. The film explores the rise of the self-described “dirty trickster” from his involvement in Watergate to his present-day antics.
Stone is a compelling figure and highly entertaining, but the movie never skirts around just how despicable he truly is. The real success of the film comes from its ability to treat Stone’s rise as a case study for the endemic corruption of our political system overall. By the end of the documentary, it’s a damning case that things might never get better, except for scoundrels like Roger Stone.
She’s Gotta Have It
Available on: Netflix
Following his Best Director nomination for BlackKklansman, check out one of Spike Lee’s earliest joints. She’s Gotta Have It tells the story of Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) and the three men she is dating (along with the one woman pursuing her as well). Each suitor represents a different archetype of male fragility. Jamie (Tommy Redmond Hicks) is the smooth, polite, romantic hunk whose gentlemanly image conceals a pretty sinister form of misogyny. Greer (John Canada Terrell) wears his superiority complex on his bulging sleeve, caring more to his body than to Nola. Mars (Spike Lee) is the most endearing of the trio, but he’s emotionally immature. Opal (Raye Dowell), Nola’s lesbian friend, offers up an alternative to the foibles of these men, but nothing much more substantive than simply another option.
Lee is at the top of his game with She’s Gotta Have It, formally. It’s a gorgeous, Woody Allen-esque black-and-white picture, with the exception of one elegant dance sequence in color. The film is opposed to any formal plot structure, and scenes are often broken up by characters delivering monologues directly to the camera.
She’s Gotta Have It is ultimately a story about female autonomy and male fragility, making it one of Lee’s most relevant works despite being released more than 30 years ago. Netflix certainly seems to think so, having greenlit a TV adaptation last year. Many of Lee’s later works have strived to be socially relevant, but are also wildly over-the-top; check out She’s Gotta Have It for one of his more reserved, and rewarding, films.