Club Benefits
Spring is in the air, and the best streaming services are delivering a bouquet of new movies for you to add to your watchlist this weekend. Leading the pack this week is the sci-fi blockbuster "Project Hail Mary," which finally debuted on paid video-on-demand platforms. If you missed it in theaters, it's definitely worth a watch, if only to watch a little rock alien steal the show from one of the biggest names in Hollywood.
Meanwhile, Netflix is serving up Sony Pictures Animation's latest animated adventure, "Goat," which promises more eye-catching visuals and family-friendly humor. If you're burnt out from true crime documentaries, AMC+ has a new cerebral take on the genre with "Zodiac Killer Project" that critics are raving about. Peacock's latest documentary, "The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist," is also garnering plenty of attention for its intimately personal breakdown of the rise of artificial intelligence through the lens of one soon-to-be-father. Finally, Shudder just got a tense romantic thriller "Something Is About to Happen" that's haunted my thoughts ever since I watched it.
'Project Hail Mary' (PVOD)
Amaze! Amaze! Amaze! The sci-fi sensation "Project Hail Mary" is now available to stream from home. Ryan Gosling is in top form as the charming yet woefully out of his league Ryland Grace, a disgraced scientist now teaching middle school. He wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of his identity or how he got there.
As the pieces slowly come together, he realizes he's been roped into a suicide mission to save Earth from annihilation. Thankfully, he's got a buddy to help: Rocky, the instantly lovable alien brought to life through voice and puppetry by James Ortiz. Their unexpected friendship becomes the emotional core of the movie, powering a story packed with heartfelt humor, high-stakes disaster drama, and tense spacewalk sequences that had me watching through my fingers.
Buy or rent "Project Hail Mary" on Amazon now
‘Zodiac Killer Project’ (AMC+)
The true crime genre has always given me the ick, though I'll watch the occasional documentary for work. Nine times out of 10 I end up disappointed at the spectacle that streamers — who am I kidding, it's almost always Netflix — have made out of some heinous crime or another. But then there's "Zodiac Killer Project," a sharp dismantling of the true-crime documentary machine presented through the lens of a true-crime documentary that technically never saw the light of day. At least not in the form that filmmaker Charlie Shackleton initially had in mind.
Shackleton narrates the movie he would have made had the rights not fallen apart at the eleventh hour, turning the whole thing into sort of feature-length commentary track for a nonexistent film. It's both an insightful critique of the true-crime genre and an interrogation of the ethics behind it, borrowing from the very same conventions that audiences have grown numb to after years of satisfying their cultural bloodlust. Critics are hailing this bizarre experiment, which earned a rare 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, as "a revelatory rumination on filmmaking and the overindulgence of the true crime genre."
Watch "Zodiac Killer Project" on AMC+ now
'Goat' (Netflix)
Sony Pictures Animation, the team behind "K-Pop Demon Hunters" and the Spider-Verse films, is back with another animated adventure that's as stylish and star-studded as ever. “Stranger Things’” Caleb McLaughlin and David Harbour, Aaron Pierre, Nicola Coughlan, Patton Oswalt, Jelly Roll, and basketball player Stephen Curry voice humanoid animals that compete in a sport called Roarball, a cross between basketball and rugby that's dominated by the fiercest predators in the animal kingdom.
That's not enough to stop our underdog Will Harris (McLaughlin), a tiny goat with oversized ambition, from pursuing his dream of becoming one of the greatest Roarball players of all time. When he's given a shot at the big leagues, his unlikely rise challenges long-held beliefs that smalls can't ball. Sony's signature crunchy style that's revolutionized the animation industry punctuates the action of each game with an anime-like flair, and their eye for detail will make this one kids' movie that you won't mind rewatching.
Watch "Goat" on Netflix now
'Something Is About to Happen' (Shudder)
As straightforward a title as "Something Is About to Happen" is, the trailer suggests anything but a familiar thriller. Directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza, it stars Malena Alterio as Lucía, a programmer who, after losing her job, starts working as a taxi driver to make ends meet. After a neighbor she'd begun a relationship with goes missing, she becomes obsessed with finding him, charting a course through a new, exciting (and increasingly dangerous) world as she navigates love and loss in the driver's seat of her taxi.
Alterio really drives (pun intended) this story, which feels equal parts psychological drama, mystery, and slow-burn thriller while refusing to give away where it’s headed. Her haunting performance makes you want to keep watching as every scene seems to raise new questions. The film’s grounded style makes its darker turns all the more unsettling when ominous undercurrents seep into every corner of Lucía’s world.
Watch "Something Is About to Happen" on Shudder now
‘The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist’ (Peacock)
![THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters March 27 - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xkPbV3IRe4Y/maxresdefault.jpg)
Directed by Daniel Roher alongside co-director Charlie Tyrell, the film channels Roher’s anxieties as he prepares to become a father amid the rise of AI, plagued by the same question that has haunted parents throughout history: Given the state of the world, should we really be bringing kids into it? He interviews more than 40 experts and innovators in the AI space to nail down the digital road map of the future, where AI will go, and whether we should be afraid.
Through these conversations, he wrestles with your standard new-dad concerns along with the utopian promises surrounding artificial intelligence in an attempt to make sense of the world his child will inherit. The documentary frames that push-and-pull through “apocaloptimism” — a blend of nihilism and optimism that captures both the dread and excitement surrounding AI’s future.
Watch "The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist" on Peacock now
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