The best films to watch on ThreeNow’s free FAST channel
Launched in New Zealand at the start of April, MovieSphere by Lionsgate is another way Kiwis can watch movies online for free.
One of the newest additions to ThreeNow’s ever-growing collection of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) Channels – which also includes Warner Bros.TV House Hunters, Warner Bros TV True Crime and Warner Bros TV Reality – it works like a Sky Movie channel, broadcasting a rotating selection of Lionsgate movies 24 hours a day.
May’s lineup of about 100 titles includes Tim Burton’s Bafta-nominated Big Eyes, Twilight, the Oscar-winning The Artist and Oliver Stone’s political drama W.
After looking through the lineup for the last 10 days of the month, Stuff To Watch has come up with a list of 10 flicks we believe are worth a watch.
1408 (2007, next screening May 23)
Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom deserves plenty of plaudits for creating this effective little chiller. But his greatest feat is actually making this tale – about one man trapped in a single Kafka-esque location – watchable, let alone hugely enjoyable. Intelligent pacing increases tension, while John Cusack delivers a powerhouse performance.
American Psycho (2000, May 23)
Before he was Batman or John Connor, Christian Bale was best known for bringing to life Bret Easton Ellis’ yuppie-killer Patrick Bateman. At turns scary and hilarious, particularly due to Bateman’s love of Phil Collins. Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Sevigny and Willem Dafoe provide engaging support.
Warrior (2011, May 24)
Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy teamed up for this sports drama about a former marine and his cash-strapped brother who prepare to go head-to-head in a mixed martial arts battle in order to win – what was then – the biggest prize ever handed out in the sport.
Director and co-writer Gavin O’Connor went on to helm Ben Affleck movies The Accountant and The Way Back, while he was also an executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning drama Mare of Easttown.
Crank (2006, May 24)
Right from its bravura opening, the craziest, most Jason Statham movie of his career so far hits the ground running and never lets up during its taut 87 minutes of barely contained mayhem.
Its inventiveness, breathlessness and addictive quality are reminiscent of the 1998 German favourite Run Lola Run and, even though its premise is simply “Speed – with-a-ventricle”, it was nevertheless a welcome shot in the arm for the seemingly moribund action genre that still greatly entertains almost two decades years on.
Ali (2001, May 25)
Will Smith’s first Academy Award nomination also packed plenty of punch.
He is the eponymous boxer in Michael Mann’s biopic, which focuses on the heavyweight champion’s trials and tribulations – and successes – between 1964 and 1974 (a period which included the pugilist’s conversion to Islam, criticism of the Vietnam War and the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight against George Foreman).
Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Mario Van Peebles, Jeffrey Wright and Jada Pinkett Smith also feature.
Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011, May 26)
Like its predecessors, Robert Rodriguez’s fourth adventure with the Cortez clan is a riot of candy-coloured adventure, goo-filled danger and silly knockabout fun, presenting a world that’s filled with Looney Tunes-esque violence and 1960s-era Batman villains.
Initially, the film feels like the kind of movie Disney made in the 1970s (it would have called it Help! My Step Mom is a Spy), but with its obsession with bodily functions and cat-suited women this could only be the work of the man who gave the world Grindhouse and From Dusk Till Dawn.
Jessica Alba, Joel McHale, Danny Trejo and Jeremy Piven are some of the adults among the fun.
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021, May 26)
Best-known as a writing duo for 2011’s much-loved Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo delightfully bring their culotte-wearing, Shania Twain-loving Nebraska duo to feature-length life, walking the fine line of them being figures of fun and fun figures with engaging ease.
However, it’s the segues into odder territory that stay with you. From the opening scene involving a young Korean paperboy lip-syncing to Barbra Streisand’s Guilty to Wiig’s Dr. Evil-esque criminal mastermind, her henchman Jamie Dornan’s power ballad, a mouse orchestra and a talking crab called Morgan Freeman, there are sweet, surreal and seriously weird, sudden shifts at every turn.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012, May 26)
Steve Carell teams up with Keira Knightley for this impending apocalypse road movie (think a darkly comedic version of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia) about an abandoned husband who decides to try to reunite with his high school sweetheart, only to have his accompanying neighbour put a wrench in his plan.
A bittersweet black comedy that also features Patton Oswalt, Connie Britton and our own Melanie Lynskey.
Miss Potter (2006, May 27)
Renee Zellweger plays the creator of Peter Rabbit in this 2006 biopic which focuses on her struggle for love, happiness and success.
Ewan McGregor portrays her publisher and fiance Norman Warne, while Emily Watson chimed in as Warne’s sister Millie. The film was also notable for the use of cel animation to bring to life some of Beatrix Potter’s most famous creations, blending them in with the live-action drama a la Bedknobs and Broomsticks or the original Pete’s Dragon.
August: Osage County (2014, May 27)
A 2007 hit Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Tracy Letts’ Oklahoman matriarchal tale of truth-telling and chickens-cominghome-to-roost was perfectly set up to be last decade’s answer to Terms of Endearment, Postcards from the Edge and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
While a starry cast of names and character actors fills every nook and cranny of the Weston family homestead (a beardy Ewan McGregor here, a kooky Juliette Lewis there), it eventually boils down to a smackdown between Meryl Streep’s pill-popping, bitter Violet and her cuckolded, resentful eldest of three daughters Barbara (a brilliant Julia Roberts).
For exact viewing times, check outthreenow.co.nz/tv-guide the day before these movies are scheduled to air.