Weekend Watchlist, 12/19: Holiday
What to watch this weekend
Happy Friday, PV Guide readers! I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you. A programming note: I will be travelling a bit this month and celebrating with family, so the Weekend Watchlist will be a bit shorter than usual in December, but the picks will continue.
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The new-to-streaming roundup this week: One Battle After Another lands on HBO Max, Him premieres on Peacock, Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead streams on Shudder, and the thriller Relay makes its debut on Netflix. Things are very busy on the VOD side of things. New to rent includes Now You See Me Now You Don’t, The Running Man, It Was Just An Accident, Sisu: Road to Revenge, and Thieves Highway.
Let’s get into this week’s picks!
Shop Around the Corner
Watch at: HBO Max (leaving at the end of the month)
Watch (the very old-school) trailer here
Watching Shop Around the Corner is an annual tradition in our house in December. We adore Ernst Lubitsch’s movies generally, but this one is perfect for the holiday season. It follows two workers (Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan) at a leather goods shop in Depression-era Budapest who hate each other, but are also secretly falling in love with each other through anonymous letters. It’s a warm, hilarious and, at times, heartbreaking romantic comedy with tons of heart and fantastic performances. There have been quite a few remakes – most famously You’ve Got Mail – but you truly can’t beat the original.
Tokyo Godfathers
Watch at: Criterion Channel, for free with a library card on Hoopla, free with ads on Tubi
Watch trailer here
Another annual tradition for us this time of year, Tokyo Godfathers, from anime master Satoshi Kon, is one of the all-time great Christmas movies, following three homeless people who find an abandoned newborn. It’s a wonderful, touching movie about what makes up a family, and the meaning we can make out of coincidence.
Relay
Watch at: Netflix
Watch trailer here
Swerving from the holiday-themed movies, I quite enjoyed the new David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) thriller Relay, which flew under the radar when it came out earlier this year. Relay stars Riz Ahmed as a fixer who helps whistleblowers through an anonymous relay service for the deaf. It’s a solid, exciting thriller with a great leading performance from Ahmed that uses the relay gimmick well.
