June 2024’s Best Streaming Titles: “Office Space,” “The Bear,” “The Lego Movie,” “Paddington,” “Rush Hour”
Office humor, restaurant drama, Emmet Brickowski, marmalade, Jackie Chan, and more.
As Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, et al. add more content, it can be difficult to know what to look for amidst all of the new titles. I’ve compiled a list of particularly noteworthy and interesting movies and TV shows to add to your streaming queues in the coming month.
Disney+
Star Wars: The Acolyte, Season One (Jun 4)
Set before the events of the Star Wars movies, during the “High Republic” republic era, The Acolyte follows a Jedi investigating a series of crimes, only to uncover a grander conspiracy. The Acolyte stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae (one of South Korea’s most acclaimed actors), Manny Jacinto, and The Matrix’s Carrie-Anne Moss.
Here’s everything arriving on Disney+ in June 2024.
Hulu
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Jun 1)
Featuring Will Ferrell in the part he was born to play, Anchorman takes us back to the halcyon days of the ’70s, when well-coiffed newscasters ruled the airwaves and told us what we needed to know. Chief among these men is Ron Burgundy, whose reign is threatened when a woman becomes his co-anchor.
Fight Club (Jun 1)
When it was released in 1999, Fight Club generated no small amount of controversy due to its dark, seemingly nihilistic plot about a couple of guys (Edward Norton, Brad Pitt) who start an underground fight club that eventually grows into an anarchist cell. But all of the hullabaloo over the film’s darkness and violence overlooked the fact that it also made some valid points about the hollowness of consumerism and materialism (read my review). Since then, Fight Club’s reputation has grown, with some critics calling it a defining movie of the late 20th century.
Independence Day (Jun 1)
When it comes to over-the-top, special effects-filled, big screen spectacle, it doesn’t get much better than Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day. Yes, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum taking on an alien invasion may require you to suspend your disbelief higher and longer than you’d like to, especially if you’re concerned about, say, the science of the movie’s events. But if you do, you’re in for a whole lot of explosion-filled, world-saving, alien-busting fun.
Office Space (Jun 1)
Peter Gibbons seems to have it made with his cushy job. But the office environment is stifling and his overbearing boss, Bill Lumbergh, drives him nuts. After a hypnosis session goes wrong, Peter finds himself seeing life in a new way — which includes openly rebelling against his office drone lifestyle. Though a box office failure, the film has achieved a cult status over the years. Anyone who has ever sat through a boring meeting, had to come in on the weekends, or dealt with malfunctioning office equipment can relate to Office Space’s humorous absurdities.