As we near the end of the month, Watch With Us has our eye on all the movies leaving streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and others.
HBO Max has a lot of movies leaving at the end of June, which is a good reason to set aside some time and watch them before it’s too late.
Lady Bird, The Goonies and Mystic Pizza are wildly different from one another, but they all are ideal to watch during the lazy months of summer.
‘Lady Bird’ (2017)
One of the best coming-of-age movies of the last decade, Lady Bird introduced Greta Gerwig, the director, to the world and established lead star Saoirse Ronan as one of the best actresses of her generation. Christine McPherson (Ronan) is a working-class teenager in Sacramento who is desperate to leave her home to attend college across the country. But she has to survive her senior year of high school first and all the pleasures and pitfalls of teenage romance and heartbreak with prospective boyfriends Danny (Lucas Hedges) and Kyle (Timothée Chalamet).
What makes Lady Bird so special is that it doesn’t fall back on any of the clichés of the genre. Christine’s parents, especially her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), aren’t two-dimensional figures but complicated people who care for their daughter, even when she’s impossible to deal with. Christine herself isn’t all that great — her grades stink, she’s not a reliable friend and she treats Marion like crap. But beneath all of her performative angst and restlessness, she’s a good person who is eager to start her adult life before it’s ready to go.
Lady Bird is streaming on Max until June 30.
‘The Goonies’ (1985)
There are some quintessential, must-watch summer films and The Goonies is one of them. The adventures of Mikey (Sean Astin), Brand (Josh Brolin), Chunk (Jeff Cohen), Data (Ke Huy Quan), Mouth (Corey Feldman), Andy (Kerri Green) and Stef (Martha Plimpton) are ideal to watch if you’re on break from school or just need an escape from work.
These “Goonies” have to find One-Eyed Willy’s buried treasure or else they will be forced to move from the neighborhood they grew up in. Armed with an old map and a thirst for adventure, they explore hidden caves and lost pirate ships to find the booty needed to pay off a shady land developer and remain friends. But with the criminal Fratelli family also looking for Willy’s jewels, they’ll have to find it fast — or else they could lose more than their homes.
The Goonies is a timeless thrill ride that taps into the youthful urge to explore places you shouldn’t. The cast is uniformly charming, with Cohen’s perpetually hungry Chunk getting the most laughs, and Richard Donner’s direction gives the film a breathless pace that makes it seem quicker than its 114 minutes.
The Goonies is streaming on Max until June 30.
‘Mystic Pizza’ (1988)
Another perfect summertime movie is Mystic Pizza, a low-key indie comedy from the ‘80s that’s primarily known as one of Julia Roberts’ early breakout films. It’s more than just a star vehicle, though — it’s also a funny portrait of sisters experiencing the highs and lows of modern romance.
Roberts stars as Daisy Araujo, a young waitress working with her sister Kat (Annabeth Gish) at a pizza parlor in Mystic, Connecticut. The sisters are complete opposites — Kat is bookish and has aspirations of attending Yale, while Daisy just wants to have fun (and that usually involves sleeping around). When Kat begins having an affair with a married man, the two sisters’ relationship is tested. Will their strong sibling bond survive the twin challenges of adulthood and working in the service industry?
Mystic Pizza sounds serious, and while certain elements are played for drama, the film is mostly light and breezy. The cast is full of future stars like Lili Taylor and Vincent D’Onofrio, but the film belongs to Roberts. She’s terrific as the vibrant, fun-loving Daisy, and you can see why she became a superstar just two years later in Pretty Woman.
Mystic Pizza is streaming on Max until June 30.
