It’s always an event when Steven Spielberg releases a new movie, and his latest, the sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day with Emily Blunt and Colman Domingo, is now playing in theaters.
Hulu isn’t streaming that film, at least not yet, but it does have one of the Jaws director’s most underrated science fiction pictures – A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, starring Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law.
Watch With Us also recommends checking out National Treasure, a delightfully silly Nicolas Cage action flick that remains entertaining over two decades after its release.
If you’re in the mood for love, watch The Prince of Tides and swoon as Nick Nolte gets his head shrunk – and his heart opened – by glamorous psychiatrist Barbra Streisand.
‘A.I.: Artificial Intelligence’ (2001)
What does it mean to be human? That’s the question young David (Haley Joel Osment) wants to answer in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg’s wildly ambitious sci-fi movie that was way ahead of its time. David isn’t like the other children – he’s a sophisticated robot who looks, acts and sounds like a real boy. He thinks he can love like a human, too, but he’s told by almost everyone around him that that’s not possible. When he’s separated from his beloved mother, he begins an epic journey to reunite with the only person who really believed he was more than just an android.
Like Spielberg’s recent science fiction picture, Disclosure Day, A.I. takes a far-fetched premise and treats it relatively realistically. The future depicted in the movie could happen – hell, it’s already happening, with ChatGPT, Claude and countless other chatbots literally rewriting how we live and perceive reality. Even though it depicts a somewhat cold and sterile future, it has a warm heart underneath its sleek futurism. That’s largely provided by Osment, who infuses his android with a need to be loved and curiosity about the outside world that we can all relate to. David’s journey to reunite with his parents so he can become a real boy like Pinocchio (Spielberg has a not-so-subtle homage to that Disney classic at the end) makes him more human than most humans will ever be.
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is streaming on Hulu.
‘National Treasure’ (2004)
Nicolas Cage is web-slinging in everyone’s living rooms right now in Prime Video’s hit series Spider-Noir, so now is as good a time as any to stream one of his funnest – and silliest – movies. In National Treasure, Cage plays Benjamin Franklin Gates, a history buff and treasure hunter who is determined to find a mysterious treasure that was hidden by some of America’s founding fathers. He can’t do it alone, so Gates assembles a motley crew of hackers, archivists and criminals to find the clues necessary to locate the missing loot. With the stakes high and their mission virtually impossible, Gates and his band of outsiders have their work cut out for them, and they’ll need more than prayer to pull off their daring heist.
Largely ridiculed when it was first released in 2004, National Treasure has since become beloved by millennials who grew up watching it on cable. It’s still absurd, but it has a fun, what-the-hell spirit that harkens back to the Indiana Jones pictures in the ‘80s. Cage leads an impressive cast that includes Sean Bean as Gates’ shady friend, Diane Kruger as a historian with a knack for raiding tombs and Harvey Keitel as an FBI agent in hot pursuit of them all. A just-as-good sequel was released in 2007, followed by a terrible and Cage-less Disney+ series in 2022.
National Treasure is streaming on Hulu.
‘The Prince of Tides’ (1991)
When his sister Savannah (Melinda Dillon) tries to kill herself, lonely South Carolina teacher Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte) heads to New York City to look after her. To better understand her state of mind, he visits her psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lowenstein (Barbra Streisand), who believes her depression is a result of a long-buried trauma in her past. She thinks Tom holds the key to finding the source of Savannah’s misery, but the more she talks to Tom, the more she believes he is hiding something from his childhood that affected the entire family. What happened in the past that made Savannah and Tom so miserable in the present?
If I told you, you probably wouldn’t believe it. But credit director Streisand for creating a largely centered drama that doesn’t feel too schmaltzy or manipulative. There’s some cornball melodrama, especially when Tom starts sleeping with Susan and he plays dad to her nerdy son, but it’s largely eclipsed by the excellent casting from the cast, especially Nolte. He’s never been better as an emotionally stunted man who has to deal with the ghosts of his past if he’s going to have any future with Susan and his estranged family.
The Prince of Tides is streaming on Hulu.
