Celebrate the last weekend in July by doing only one thing — watching movies at home.
Hulu is the perfect streamer to do that, as the Disney-owned platform has hundreds of films at your disposal. But which ones should you stream this weekend?
Watch With Us has selected three underrated movies: Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game tells a real-life story about a popular game, Infinite Storm is a harrowing survival thriller starring Naomi Watts and Puncture is a little-seen Chris Evans drama.
‘Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game’ (2022)
Did you know that pinball, that innocuous game that all of us played when we were kids, was banned by New York City from 1942 to 1976? The man who helped destroy the ban, Roger Sharpe (Mike Faist), is the main character of Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, a low-key charmer that details the unexpectedly riveting account of how the arcade game was rescued.
Sharpe is a GQ journalist who is burnt out from writing and still depressed over his recent divorce. As a stress reliever, he plays pinball, but when he discovers it’s banned in NYC, he leads a legal effort to eradicate the decades-old law and allow the game to once again be enjoyed by all. Along the way, he forms a connection with single mom Ellen (Crystal Reed) and her 11-year-old son, Seth (Christopher Convery). Sharpe is an expert pinball player, but is he ready to risk it again for a second chance at love?
Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game is streaming on Hulu.
‘Infinite Storm’ (2022)
There have been plenty of “man vs. nature” films, with The Edge with Alec Baldwin and The Revenant being the most recent and popular examples, but few “women vs. nature” films. Infinite Storm is one of those movies, with Naomi Watts giving Leonardo DiCaprio a run for his money as a person trying to survive the wilderness.
She plays Pam Bales, a rescue volunteer who is hiking on a New Hampshire mountain when a winter storm sweeps in and blankets everything in snow. As she’s making her way down the mountain, she stumbles across an incapacitated man who needs her help. If Pam aids him, she risks her own life, but if she leaves him, he will surely die. It’s the ultimate moral and physical test, and Pam’s not sure she can pass it.
Infinite Storm is a straightforward movie that is more complex the longer you watch it. The film flashes back to Pam’s past to a traumatic event involving her two daughters that informs her present actions. Pam’s no stock heroine; she’s complex, tired and conflicted, which is still rare to see in a major movie even in the 2020s. As always, Watts is terrific, and the movie is so realistic, you believe she’s actually in the middle of a once-in-a-century snowstorm.
Infinite Storm is streaming on Hulu.
‘Puncture’ (2011)
Everyone knows Chris Evans as Captain America, but he’s also an actor who takes on risky roles from time to time. In the 2011 drama Puncture, he plays Mike Weiss, a real-life lawyer who waged a David vs. Goliath case against a needle manufacturer for not producing single-use needles that could save lives. The stakes are high, which drives Mike to take drugs until he develops an addiction that threatens not only the trial but his life, too. Can Mike get clean in time to win the case?
Puncture is an underrated drama that is part courtroom thriller and part recovery tale. Both parts are equally absorbing, with Evans very believable as a lawyer with good intentions who gives in to bad habits. With his work here and in genre films like Snowpiercer and this year’s Materialists, he’s a better actor than most give him credit for, and it’s a shame he doesn’t play more roles that spotlight his talents.
Puncture is streaming on Hulu.
