Welcome to What to Watch This Weekend™, a weekly post in which I tell you what to watch this weekend! I will continue doing this post until you have watched everything you should watch.
“More than anything,” writes Morgan Troper, “Pokémon Detective Pikachu feels like Turner & Hooch on a combination of mescaline and speed.”
“Once you get through the table-setting of Shadow’s first hour,” says Ned Lannamann, “the action kicks in, and the movie becomes every bit the equal of Zhang Yimou’s past triumphs Hero and House of Flying Daggers.”
“Ever sat down with a bag of Chex Mix and start eating, and realize that Chex Mix isn’t very good, and it just makes you thirsty and hungry for something else, but it’s better than nothing, so you eat the whole bag, and you don’t feel exactly bad after, but you don’t feel great either?” asks Elinor Jones. “That’s The Hustle.”
“Yes, Casablanca is a bonafide classic,” says Bobby Roberts. “The name conjures up notions of prestige and film nobility. It’s the worst possible thing that could have happened to Casablanca. The movie is a classic because it’s not a stuffy, high-minded piece of cinema with a capital ‘C.’ It’s low-budget, tossed-off studio leftovers, and that’s why its genius is so remarkable.”
Dogman, the latest from Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone, is “unpredictable and intensely suspenseful,” writes Lannamann.
The Hollywood has Vagabond, by Agnès Varda, who died on March 29. Marjorie Skinner calls the 1985 film “terminally cool.”
And the Hollywood also has Summertime. “To be clear: This is the 1955 romance starring Katharine Hepburn as an Ohio woman who gets caught up in Venice,” writes Roberts, “and is not, in any way, related to the DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince classic “’Summertime.’”
