It’s Oscar weekend, and Netflix has some worthy contenders like Train Dreams and Frankenstein that are worth checking out.
If you’ve already streamed those wonderful films, though, Watch With Us has some more high-quality pictures worth enjoying.
The topical action drama Hotel Mumbai, the strange Jack Black–led kids movie The House with a Clock in Its Walls and the Oscar-winning biopic Ray were just added to Netflix in March and all deserve a spot on your weekend binge-watch list.
‘Hotel Mumbai’ (2013)
On November 26, 2008, a terrorist organization known as the Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked 12 different locations in Mumbai, India. One of those locations was the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, where guests and workers were held hostage for several days. Hotel Mumbai is a dramatization of those events, placing fictional characters in a real-life event that resulted in the deaths of 175 people.
Among the hostages are rich foreign guests Zahara (Nazanin Boniadi) and her husband, David (Armie Hammer), as well as working-class waiter Arjun (Dev Patel), who all must band together to stay alive. That becomes increasingly difficult as the hours and days drag on, with the terrorists unwilling to let them go. Will Zahara, David and Arjun make it out alive?
Hotel Mumbai is an engrossing action thriller that has enough dramatic elements to keep you emotionally invested. Even though they are fictional, the characters feel real enough for you to care about what happens to them. Some have described Hotel Mumbai as exploitative for using a real-life tragedy as entertainment, but the film shows enough respect for the event, people and culture it depicts to avoid offending anyone.
Hotel Mumbai is streaming on Netflix.
‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’ (2018)
Eli Roth, family-friendly movie director? It happened in 2018 with The House With a Clock in Its Walls, an adaptation of the cult 1973 children’s novel of the same name. When young orphan Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) spends his first night in his new home, he hears what he believes is a clock ticking behind his walls. It turns out he’s right, and his new guardian, uncle Jonathan (Jack Black), along with kooky next-door neighbor Florence (Cate Blanchett), want to find it too.
But they may regret what they find since the clock is rumored to be of supernatural origin and connected to a witch more wicked than Elphaba. Will the trio open Pandora’s box and unleash unknown terrors on an unsuspecting world?
The House with a Clock in Its Walls is as zany as its title. Existing in a deliberately exaggerated universe where warlocks exist and the dead can be resurrected, the movie is vaguely ominous but never truly scary. Like all child orphan tales, it functions as a metaphor for growing up and finding one’s place in an adult world that looks sinister to a child. Black and Blanchett are clearly having fun playing characters who’d be right at home in Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket.
The House with a Clock in Its Walls is streaming on Netflix.
‘Ray’ (2004)
The Oscars are this weekend, so now is as good a time as any to watch one of the best Oscar-bait films of the last 25 years, Ray. As you can tell from the title, Ray is a biopic of Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx), chronicling the singer’s impoverished childhood in Florida to his rise in the music industry in the 1950s and 1960s. As he achieves global success with such hits as “Hit the Road Jack,” Ray struggles with drug addiction, relationship woes and run-ins with the law. Can Ray overcome his inner demons to become the icon he always longed to be?
Well, the answer is yes, because they made a movie based on his life. But it’s all about the journey with Ray, a largely by-the-numbers musical biopic that’s enlivened by a strong cast and some classic tunes. Foxx deservedly won best actor for his uncanny portrayal of one of the 20th century’s greatest performers, but equally mesmerizing is the film’s strong female cast, which includes future Oscar winner Regina King and a pre-Scandal Kerry Washington. A pleasant side effect to watching this movie is that you’ll be whistling “Georgia on My Mind’ days after you’ve watched it. I’m not complaining.
