5 Movies You Should Watch on HBO Go Right Now
From '80s cloak-and-dagger tales to throwback thrillers to identity-switching action flicks, these movies will blow your face...OFF!
EF898P NICOLAS CAGE FACE/OFF; FACE OFF (1997)Alamy Stock Photo
HBO Go (or HBO Now, if you're living the cord-free life) has one of the strangest movie selections imaginable. It's full of early-'00s rom-coms, mid-'80s Tom Hanks adventures, and late-night Oscar-bait with titles like Bikini Model Mayhem. But there are plenty of overlooked and/or under-appreciated new-classics to be found there as well, if you dig around long enough. Here are five to get you started.
- If *Stranger Things* has you nostalgic for the latchkey-livin', walkie-talkie-wielding kid-heroes of the '80s, then you'll go gooney for this Reagan-era spy thriller, in which *E.T.* star Henry Thomas plays an over-imaginative suburban kid who gets caught up in a conspiracy after witnessing a murder. Along the way, there's a mysterious videogame cartridge, a creepy old couple, and a very scary showdown with a rifle-toting bad guy. A weird mix of kiddie hijinks and grown-up menace, *Cloak & Dagger* is the kind of hard-PG movie that would never get made today—and not just because one of its major plot points revolves around an Atari 5200.
- SOME RANDO DODO: “Oh, yeah—*Face/Off.* That movie’s kind of terrible. John Travolta plays a shouty cop, and Nicolas Cage plays a wild-eyed terrorist who at one point dresses up as a head-banging priest. Then they switch faces and start imitating one another's over-acting. That all leads to a way-too-long boat chase, a prison riot, and a shoot-out set to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' Plus, John Woo directed it, so there are lots of doves and slow-motion and people saying 'face-off' in really melodramatic ways. It is violent and ridiculous and sometimes really crass." YOU: "Let me know when you get to the terrible parts."
- Bill Paxton's directorial debut is a slow-building, flashback-filled gothic thriller about a crazed widower (Paxton) who's gripped with the belief that he's been instructed by angels to kill "sinful" strangers—and who recruits his two young sons to help him with his murder spree. Matthew McConaughey plays one of the kids as a grown-up, and as he finally makes a confession, *Fraility* starts getting darker and twistier. It's a great little thriller that turns left just when you expect it to turn alright, alright, alright.
- Everything that made this Armie Hammer-Henry Cavill spy-romp seem like so skippable when it was in theaters last summer—the ridiculous accents, the balsa-dry banter, the excessive explosions—somehow help make it a *perfect* cable movie. There's not a single non-fun minute in this sleek, cheeky caper, which is full of playful one-liners and several crisp, deftly handled action sequences. Plus, everyone in the cast (which also includes Alicia Vikander) wears foxy clothes, gives foxy glances, and just luxuriates in the movie's general foxiness. It's way more F.U.N. than you might think.
- Desiree Akhavan wrote, directed, and starred in this sharply funny romantic comedy, playing a young Iranian-American whose break-up with her girlfriend sends her on a wanderlust around Brooklyn, seeking out romance, a job, or even just an idea of what the hell to do with her life. *Appropriate* has a lot of spot-on observations about young love and lust, but they're all wrapped up in the warm, relaxed vibe of a late-summer 718 roof-top party.
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