Stream These 9 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in July
‘Fatal Attraction’ (July 31)
This erotic thriller by Adrian Lyne was one of the most successful pictures of 1987 – and one of the most controversial, sparking heated conversations about its depictions of adultery and mental illness, which moved from movie lists to op-ed pages and magazine covers. The story is simple: Michael Douglas stars as a family man whose seemingly unprepared extramarital affair with Glenn Close becomes a matter of literal life and death over the weekend. It’s a deeply flawed picture – Close’s nuanced characterization surpasses the paper-thin caricature she provided, and critics of the time were right to call out the cheap thrill that ended up as a cop-out – but it’s nevertheless a fascinating snapshot of the sexual mores of the era. and moral paranoia.
‘The Great Wall’ (July 31)
There was something of a pre-release, invisible reaction to this 2016 Chinese-American co-production, whose first trailers, centering on Matt Damon, smelled suspiciously like a “white savior” story in the making. The film itself turned out to be the exact opposite; Damon’s character, a mercenary, spends much of the film teaching and humiliating the Chinese characters around him. “The Great Wall” is actually a lot of fun, a historical adventure in which armies are raised and battles fought to protect the Great Wall from hordes of deadly monsters. Director Zhang Yimou (of ‘Hero’ and ‘House of the Flying Daggers’) sets up the B-movie action with style and verve, and the supporting cast (including Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Pedro Pascal and Jing Tian) approaches it material with the right mix of solemnity and humor.
‘Hulk’ (July 31)
Ang Lee’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning triumph of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was an ambitious attempt at a true comic book movie — aping not just the storytelling and character, but the look, feel and even layout of those slim volumes. It was seen as a failed experiment at the time (Marvel rebooted it five years later with “The Incredible Hulk”), and some of the contemporaneous complaints against it were justified. But in recent years, as the superhero movie has become narratively and stylistically codified, Lee’s visual experimentation and narrative bravado have made “Hulk” seem less like a clumsy attempt than an appealing outlier.
‘Knocked Up’ (July 31)
It’s a story as old as time: two incompatible people have a little too much to drink on a first date, make some bad choices, and then have to decide what to do about it a few weeks later. Judd Apatow told the story as his follow-up to “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” casting supporting player Seth Rogen in the lead role of a fun-loving stoner whose lucky night with a super-smart career woman (Katherine Heigl) turns both their lives upside down his head. It’s a rom-com with both a heart and a dirty mind, which turned out to be a lucrative (and much-imitated) combination, but Apatow did it best; the supporting cast is packed with comedy heavyweights, including Jay Baruchel, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, Harold Ramis, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Martin Starr and Kristen Wiig.
‘Shrek’ (July 31)
This 2001 animated adaptation of William Steig’s picture book became such a ubiquitous pop culture phenomenon that it’s easy to forget that it started out as something of a Hollywood joke: It hailed from Disney’s then-nascent rival studio DreamWorks, an organization co-founded by former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and was filled with commentary on Disney’s characters and style. It transcended the Hollywood nods and became a massive hit that spawned multiple franchises, thanks to a witty script memorably brought to life by the voice talents of Mike Myers in the lead role as a cantankerous ogre, Eddie Murphy as his annoyingly chatty donkey friend, and Cameron Diaz as Princess Shrek reluctantly sent to the rescue.
