Hey all. I’m seeing Justice League this weekend, and I may also try to get to Lady Bird.

Here are some streaming recs for this week.

I shy away from recommending things that I feel like everyone has seen, but in truth there is nothing everyone has seen. So today I’m going to rec some stuff I believe was widely viewed, and which is good enough to justify that popularity.

Netflix

Netflix has the incomparable Men In Black. I wind up loving a lot of movies based on comic books. This one’s antecedents are in a relatively obscure indie that started coming out in the early nineties. The movie was enough of a powerhouse at the box office to create a franchise. No doubt this was in part due to Will Smith’s starring role. Coming just after his role in Independence Day, Men In Black solidified Smith’s ability to carry off an action comedy role.

Smith wound up starring in a ton of scifi action movies over the following decades. And references to this movie still float around my cohort to this day.

The film also capitalized on the popularity of tv’s the X-Files, which was a strong performer throughout the mid nineties.

It’s really quite funny and full of some great action scenes and one-liners.

Rated PG-13, Men in Black is safe for a lot of kids, I should think.

Hulu

Based on the classic TV show from the 60’s and 70’s that many folks of my generation saw in reruns, the 90s Mission Impossible movie adaptation took a lot of well -known tropes from the show and gave them a high Hollywood shine.

Scenes and tropes from this movie (and from this franchise) wound up referenced in a lot of other places. So you might see something you recognize, even if you haven’t seen it before.

Mission Impossible is also rated PG-13, but the violence in it is more realistic, as is the peril. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids.

Amazon

Amazon has the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, and Kate Winslet. I had already been an Austen-head (Aust-fan? Austling?) for years when it came out and it’s since become one of my comfort movies.

I saw it on a very awkward date with a fellow in college, but I love it anyway. Thompson, in addition to starring, was the person who adapted the novel for the screen. I think it’s a fantastic job, in spite of the many differences from the book.

It’s rated PG and is fine for kids, I believe, though I don’t know how interested that they’d be.

Kid Friendly

Check out E.T. on Netflix (the first movie I remember seeing in the theater), or on Hulu, check out a bunch of classic Disney films, including one of my favorites as a kid, The Rescuers.

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Have a good weekend, folks!