Copyright Us Weekly
It’s now Halloween, and if you want to watch a good scary movie, Netflix has plenty of them. Watch With Us is all spooked out right now, so we’ve curated a brief list of three non-horror movies that will keep you entertained throughout the weekend. Pull up a chair and play Molly’s Game, a poker movie that’s also a thriller, a sports story and a courtroom thriller. Take a chance with Sliding Doors, a Gwyneth Paltrow-led rom-com that explores two alternate realities with strikingly different outcomes. Finally, take a ride with Matthew McConaughey in The Lincoln Lawyer, a crime drama that signaled the actor’s much-heralded comeback in the early 2010s. ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ (2011) Remember the days when Matthew McConaughey couldn’t get a job after a string of bad rom-coms? The first step in the McConaissance was The Lincoln Lawyer, a modestly successful adaptation of Michael Connelly’s wildly popular crime novels. McConaughey stars as Mickey Haller, a low-level criminal defense attorney who operates out of his shiny black Lincoln Town Car. (Hence his nickname and the title of the movie). He’s hired to defend Frank Roulet (Ryan Phillippe), a spoiled rich kid who has been accused of assaulting a prostitute. Roulet claims he’s innocent, but the attack looks similar to a previous one Haller was involved with. Is Roulet guilty? And if he is, is there anything Mickey can do about it since he’s bound by Roulet’s attorney-client privilege? The Lincoln Lawyer is streaming on Netflix. ‘Sliding Doors’ (1998) Imagine you’re running to catch your subway train and just miss it. What would’ve happened with your life if you hadn’t? Would it change dramatically? Or would it largely remain the same? That’s the central conceit behind Sliding Doors, a chic rom-com that explores the possibilities of alternate realities. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as Helen, a recently fired London PR exec whose life goes two very different ways when she tries to go home on that fateful train. In one reality, she meets James (John Hannah), dumps her cheating boyfriend and starts her own business. In another reality, she doesn’t meet James, is oblivious to her philandering boyfriend and takes two part-time jobs to pay the bills. Which timeline is better? The answer isn’t as obvious as you might think. Sliding Doors works because it doesn’t rely too much on its alternate reality gimmick. Instead, it’s just a launching point for a sweet movie about someone learning to move on from all sorts of tragedy — professional, personal and everything in between. Paltrow is magnetic as a woman who doesn’t know what she has until she loses it, and her posh British accent would make Victoria Beckham proud. Sliding Doors is streaming on Netflix. ‘Molly’s Game’ (2017) Aaron Sorkin recently announced his next project, The Social Reckoning, but the writer/director’s best work remains Molly’s Game, a terrific real-life thriller about high-stakes poker. Jessica Chastain stars as Molly Bloom, a former professional skier who turns to illegal gambling to make ends meet. At first, she partners with Dean (Jeremy Strong) and helps him run his illegal side hustle, but soon, she’s operating her own poker games that attract all sorts of people, including Player X (Michael Cera), a spoiled Hollywood movie star, and various members of the Russian and Italian mafia. Molly makes a lot of cash in a short amount of time, but her games soon attract the unwanted attention of the FBI, who don’t like her breaking the law. Molly eventually finds herself in a world of trouble, and even her connections and intelligence can’t bail her out of it. Molly’s Game works on multiple levels — as a sports movie, a crime drama and a heartfelt drama about a daughter still seeking the approval of her demanding father. Kevin Costner stars as Molly’s dad, and his scenes with Chastain are the best ones in the movie. Chastain is now an Oscar winner thanks to The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she deserved recognition for her terrific performance in Sorkin’s still-underrated movie. Molly’s Game is streaming on Netflix.
