There is fresh movement around 3 stand-out Paramount+ movies to watch this week (June 22-28), and the story is worth a closer look.
We pulled together what is known so far and what it could mean for the people following it.
If you’re not at least a few episodes into the new season of The Agency, or haven’t started watching all the Scream movies in order on Paramount+ yet, then you’re either too busy enjoying the weather (good on you) or those selections just might not be your jam.
I’m really hoping, then, that this week’s suggestions (or at least one of them) are a good fit for movie night, and they couldn’t be more different. There’s a double dose of Channing Tatum—one of him in uniform, one of him very much on the wrong side of the law—plus a razor-sharp ensemble that turns the 2008 financial meltdown into something you’ll actually enjoy watching.
I wrote about the original movie in this hilarious buddy cop franchise when it appeared on Paramount+ this month. But I found myself returning to its second round, 22 Jump Street, when Sony recently announced that 24 Jump Street is officially in the works—with the tag line “It took so long to make, we had to skip one.” In the meantime, 2014’s 22 Jump Street catches up with mismatched cops Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum), for another romp at undercover work, this time posing as students at a local college to trace the supply of a new, dangerous party drug.
Of course, the way-too-old-for-school partners are awful at fitting in at college, too, which makes for all kinds of awkward comedic moments that the franchise is known for as they get swept up in college life—Jenko bonds with a meathead football player, Schmidt drifts toward the art crowd, and their partnership nearly falls apart. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) return to the helm, taking the opportunity to make supreme meta fun of lazy, money-grubbing sequels—the movie’s end credits take this to another level with its movie poster gag.
Of course, some familiar faces return from the first film, including Ice Cube as the always-furious Captain Dickson, as well as Dave Franco and Rob Riggle, to round out the cast. Come for Hill and Tatum’s amazing chemistry, stay for Tatum’s endlessly-memed “My name’s Jeff” scene.
Adam McKay’s 2015 financial drama The Big Short has an ensemble cast that reads like a leading-men laundry list—Bale, Gosling, Carell, Pitt, Strong—who adeptly take the most tangled and convoluted financial disaster of the last two decades and somehow makes it sing.
Adapted from Michael Lewis’s bestseller The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, it tracks the scandalous 2008 mortgage collapse and the handful of financial outsiders who saw it coming and bet against the entire U.S. housing market. Twitchy, barefoot hedge-fund genius Michael Burry (Christian Bale) discovers the bubble first; furious, moralistic trader Mark Baum (Steve Carell) jumps in out of spite; smug banker Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) narrates with a permanent smirk (and occasional fourth-wall break); and retired guru Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) reluctantly guides two hungry up-and-comers to make their money while they can.
Speaking of fourth wall breaks, McKay uses it brilliantly throughout the film, roping in celebrities like Anthony Bourdain, Selena Gomez, and Margot Robbie to explain key financial concepts, like credit default swaps, CDOs, and mortgage bonds. With five Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actor for Bale and Director for McKay, the film only won one for Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s a movie that’ll leave you fascinated and furious, earning its 89% critics’ score.
And now for the second Channing Tatum movie on this week’s list, and it’s a good one. Just ask Rotten Tomatoes, where it has an 87% critics score. If you’re after a quirky, feel-good watch that refuses to sit in any one genre, Roofman is a charming comedy that’s part crime drama, part romance, part stranger-than-fiction biopic—and is an easy yes.
Writer-director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) builds Roofman around the genuinely unbelievable story of Jeffrey “Roofman” Manchester, an Army veteran who spent the late ’90s robbing McDonald’s restaurants by cutting through their roofs and very politely relieving employees of the cash. And that’s the tame part: after escaping prison in 2004, Manchester managed to live undetected for months (largely on M&Ms) inside a Charlotte, North Carolina Toys “R” Us.
Tatum has rarely been better, playing Manchester as a sweet, fundamentally decent guy who’s simply made a mountain of terrible choices and just wants something resembling a normal life. While camped out in the store—keeping tabs on the staff through a network of secretly placed baby monitors—he falls for employee Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), and the two start seeing each other beyond the toy aisles. His double life inevitably gets messy, but Manchester is so likable underneath it all that you can’t help pulling for him. Dunst lends real warmth and earnestness to single-mom Leigh, and Peter Dinklage is a scene-stealer as Mitch, the gloriously joyless Toys “R” Us manager.
It might be a bit of a 90-degree turn going from one of these movies to the next, but that’s exactly why the week won’t get boring. But if none of my picks are up your alley, How-To Geek’s streaming section has loads more recommendation lists to help.
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