This weekend, America celebrates its independence—and Americans celebrate the fact that they have three days off of work to entertain themselves however they see fit. For some, that means baseball games, barbecues, or swimming. For others, it means massive amounts of media consumption. Luckily, the Netflix lineup for July does not disappoint. From '90s Nicktoons and one of the best workplace comedies of all time to classic action franchises and the return of a critically-acclaimed animated dark comedy, it's going to be a great month. Sit back, America. You have a holiday weekend ahead and a lot of movies and TV to watch.
Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a frequently truant high school kid who bemoans his parents’ moribund marriage. But when he helps local eccentric scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) with an experiment—a time machine crafted out of a DeLorean—he ends up accidentally traveling back in time to 1955, where he encounters his mother (Lea Thompson) and father (Crispin Glover), and must help unite the two while also making it back to his own present. And that's just the first film. Both sequels—one that takes place in then-futuristic 2015, the other in the Old West— are also available to continue the marathon.
He may be most famous to younger generations as the voice of Marlin in Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, but Albert Brooks has directed seven films over the past 40 years. And thanks to a surprise announcement, all of them will be available on Netflix starting this month. His first three features in particular—Real Life, Modern Romance, and Lost In America—are gems waiting to be discovered again. This collection is the perfect introduction to a talented comedian and actor who did some of his best work while directing himself.
48 Hrs. put Eddie Murphy on the map as a film actor in 1982, but two years later Beverly Hills Cop launched him into superstardom. And it's still an almost unfairly mesmerizing comedic performance from Murphy as Detective Axel Foley, who arrives in LA from Detroit to investigate the murder of his best friend. Murphy was already a wunderkind on Saturday Night Live, but after Axel Foley, he was the world's biggest movie star at age 23.
One of the characters unfortunately forgotten in the rampant success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Blade, a dhampir (human with vampire genes) who protects humans from vampires. The character (played by Wesley Snipes) got a film trilogy, and though each entry was moderately successful, the series is rarely included in superhero film discussions. (Probably because moderately successful movies barely make a dent in superhero film discussions.) That's too bad. This Guillermo del Toro-directed sequel (his first American film) is great fun—and deserves a place in the Marvel movie discussion.
Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) is a supremely talented Roman general beloved by Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). But the Emperor’s son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), jealous over his father’s plans to transfer leadership to Maximus, usurps the throne, kills the general’s family. Broken and captured by slavers, Maximus works his way up through gladiator pits to the Coliseum, where he confronts the false and evil Emperor once again. It’s a gloriously inaccurate Oscar-winning tale of revenge, underdog victory, and striking down a corrupt leader. Put it on to wrap up your weekend, everyone will be entertained.
In the late '90s, Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett got the opportunity to develop two feature-length projects featuring his TV characters. The first, originally titled Arnold Saves the Neighborhood, got upgraded for theatrical release following the success of two Rugrats feature films. It didn’t succeed in theaters, which caused the end of the series and cancellation of The Jungle Movie, which would’ve wrapped up the show’s plot lines. But now, thanks to Nicktoons nostalgia, the second film has been revived for a 2017 premiere, so catching up on the unfairly-maligned feature debut for the world’s most generous football head is a must.
An American remake of the 1969 British crime thriller, The Italian Job is an anomaly in the current action film canon: a box office success with an insanely talented cast that never got a sequel. Directed by F. Gary Gray and starring Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Ed Norton, Mos Def, Seth Green, and Donald Sutherland—this should be the next non-franchise to get the Independence Day: Resurgence treatment of a belated revival. For now, take in the brilliant shell-game final car chase and comedic chemistry that make this Italian Job so effortlessly enjoyable.
Not many action series that last over a decade carry the same director over the course of many films. But that’s exactly what Richard Donner did with the Lethal Weapon franchise, which matches near-retiring homicide detective Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) with unhinged narcotics officer Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) in a buddy-cop action-comedy for the ages. The first film, written by Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3) is by far the best, but with the upcoming television series reboot of the story coming to Fox this fall, perhaps now is the time to watch the whole Lethal quadrilogy.
Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) and her zoologist parents (Ana Gasteyer and Neil Flynn) move from Africa to Evanston, Illinois, where Cady must adjust to American high school. She meets Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese) who introduce her to her new animal kingdom, and the social food chain. After Cady makes inroads with Regina George (Rachel McAdams), the leader of popular clique The Plastics, Janis hatches a revenge plot with Cady as an undercover spy. Based on Rosalind Wiseman’s book Queen Bees & Wannabes but repurposed as a wryly prescient script by then-SNL head writer Tina Fey, it’s the Heathers of a new generation. So fetch.
Why don’t we talk about how amazing Working Girl is anymore? Somehow, like Tootsie, this has fallen out of the romantic comedy canon—but it doesn’t have to be this way, because now it’s on Netflix for everyone to rediscover. Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) works as a secretary for a bank executive (Sigourney Weaver) in mergers and acquisitions. But when her boss suffers a skiing accident, Tess ends up impersonating her boss and working with Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford). They just don’t write workplace stories like Working Girl anymore, so it’s about damn time people gave this excellently paced Mike Nichols film more credit.
It’s no longer a stretch to say that BoJack Horseman is Will Arnett’s second greatest role, after GOB Bluth on Arrested Development. His voice work is just astonishingly great. The third season of this animal-heavy Hollywood satire picks up after the success of BoJack’s Secretariat biopic, for which he’s actually in contention for an Oscar nomination. But of course, on the cusp of all the adulation and success he so greatly desires, BoJack is still emotionally unstable and conflicted about the future. Dive into this one later in the month, when you're starting to feel the summertime blues.
