The long Labor Day weekend is here, and what better way to celebrate than to watch a good movie? Don’t go to the movie theaters this weekend though; all they have debuting is Afraid, a crummy techno thriller about an evil Amazon Echo and a cheap biopic about Ronald Reagan. I did warn you.
Staying at home is always a great option to watch good flicks, especially if you have a Netflix subscription. But aside from new movies like The Union or the modern classic heist movie Logan Lucky, there are hundreds of underrated movies just begging to be watched and discovered. Here are three of them that will keep you occupied during this Labor Day weekend.
If Alien: Romulus has got you in the mood for a sci-fi picture that’s slightly derivative, yet tons of fun, then Life may be for you. A relatively realistic sci-fi movie, Life is set on the International Space Station, with a small crew of scientists and astronauts discovering something startling: a new alien life form. Rory Adams (Deadpool & Wolverine‘s Ryan Reynolds) and the rest of his crew examine “Calvin,” a strange, slimy, tentacled creature that was discovered on Mars on a past expedition.
Guess what happens next? Calvin hates being a test subject, and soon escapes from his prison. What makes things worse is that Calvin is constantly evolving, so the longer he is out, the bigger and deadlier he gets. Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson co-star in this surprisingly effective horror thriller that owes more debt to Alien than the U.S. does to foreign nations. It’s fun, though, and the ending is a genuine jaw-dropper.
There are only a handful of movies that give you a truly good sense of what Generation Xers were like in their prime, and Reality Bites is one of them. Directed by Ben Stiller, who also co-stars as a yuppie cable TV executive, the film follows the complicated post-collegiate lives of four friends: Lelaina (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star Winona Ryder), an intelligent and perky woman flailing to find her place in life; Troy (Ethan Hawke), whose only place in life is in front of a TV set dissecting ’70s sitcoms; Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), a sarcastic Gap employee who can fold a sweater like no one else; and Sammy (Steve Zahn), whose defining character trait is that he’s gay.
Less of an ensemble and more of a strained love triangle between Stiller, Ryder, and Hawke’s characters, Reality Bites bites of more than it can chew in its attempt to be The Graduate for its generation. Yet, time has been kind to this movie simply because it serves as a fascinating capsule of a brief period when dirty flannel, soul patches, and cigarettes breath were all considered appealing. Hey, it still beats stupid TikTok dances and Hawk Tuah Girl.
Reality Bites is streaming on Netflix.
Never, ever trust a man wearing a fedora hat who isn’t Indiana Jones. And if you see an army of them coming at you, run. That’s the big takeaway from The Adjustment Bureau, a not-bad sci-fi movie adapted from a short story by Phillip K. Dick, who knew a thing or two about being paranoid about strange men in suits.
Matt Damon stars as David, a regular Joe who meets Elise (The Fall Guy‘s Emily Blunt). Elise has everything David wants in a woman: beauty, brains, and style. The only problem? David can only see her once. If he defies this rule, bad things will happen. He defies it, of course, and that leads to the aforementioned men, the Adjustment Bureau, chasing both of them. What purpose do they serve? And will David and Elise have a happily ever after? If you want answers, you have to watch the movie!
The Adjustment Bureau is streaming on Netflix.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.