From Infinity Pool to Velma, Should You Add These To Your Watchlist?
These ladies are packing heat! From a shocking body horror to a disastrous wedding, are you going to check out these new projects?
Infinity Pool
The White Lotus meets Barbarian in Brandon Cronenberg’s insane new sci-fi horror Infinity Pool. It’s a no brainer people will be checking this out for Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgard’s performances — especially after Goth’s killer performances in X and Pearl last year — and they definitely continue that star power in this film.
It’s violent, depraved, psychedelic, and there’s a lot of shock for shocks sake that was honestly a bit too much at times, but there’s also this core story they introduce of cloning and the rich turning everything into a performative sort of entertainment for themselves and having no real consequences that was so intriguing.
In the end, Infinity Pool tries to be deeper than it really is and ends up shallow and muddled with an ending that doesn’t quite land.
Infinity Pool is playing in theaters.
Shotgun Wedding (Prime Video)
Jennifer Lopez adds another wedding movie to her roster… this time with a body count in Shotgun Wedding. She and Josh Duhamel play soon to be newlyweds who face off against toxic family members, seemingly perfect exes, and, oh yeah, dangerous pirates!
While it feels like a ton of other movies you’ve seen before, there’s no doubt that Shotgun Wedding is silly with a lot of dumb luck, over the top action, and an all-star ensemble. It’s cute, although not particularly memorable — BUT Jennifer Coolidge absolutely shines like she always does.
Shotgun Wedding is streaming on Prime Video.
Velma (HBO Max)
The new Scooby Doo reboot Velma has been getting a lot of negative reviews, so should you check it out?
This story tells the origins of Velma as a detective before the Mystery Inc gang officially came together. You’ve got an awesome voice cast between Mindy Kaling, Sam Richardson, Constance Wu, and Glenn Howerton. I really love the animation style, the way they change up the characters to be more inclusive and diverse, and the mysteries they set up for this crew to explore.
There’s a few great moments when they poke fun at the tropes in the original cartoon, but they’re too few and far between. Unfortunately the meta humor and more mature storylines don’t always land — it’s sort of like if SNL tried to make a Daria meets Scooby mystery. The idea is there and has a lot of potential but it doesn’t quite hit like it should.
New episodes air Thursdays on HBO Max.
You People (Netflix)
A couple’s love story gets pretty complicated when it’s time to meet the family in Netflix’s You People. This film has an all-star cast between Jonah Hill, Eddie Murphy, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. There’s a lot of laugh out loud humor, great music, and I genuinely loved the chemistry between Jonah Hill and Lauren London. Despite the fact that their families were seeing each other on a more surface level and putting stereotypes on them, they really saw each other. It reminded me of the opposites attract vibe in Long Shot where you really root for them. Even though it might not make sense on paper, their chemistry just works.
Unfortunately You People was bumbling and insensitive in the way that they dealt with the culture clash and the generational differences between the two families. They wrapped things up too quickly and there wasn’t enough recognition on both parents’ parts to their mistakes.
When it comes down to it, the film is heavy handed and didn’t have enough accountability, but it had some sweet and funny moments especially when it focused on Jonah Hill and Lauren London.
You People is streaming on Netflix.
