July’s streaming picks are a well-rounded selection for those feeling patriotic, looking to celebrate marriage equality, or wanting to celebrate the birthday of the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Happy streaming!

What to Watch Next On Netflix July 2015

Independence Day Movies on Netflix

Every July, Americans come together, eat some grilled meats and set off controlled explosions all for the love of this great country. Independence Day is truly one of the great American holidays, and one of the few that hasn’t really lost its true meaning. With the ever-complicated geopolitical landscape and its own citizens divided on many issues, it is even more important to take some time to reflect on all the great things America stands for. There probably isn’t a better medium than film for capturing patriotism in all of its forms—from cathartic war films to thrilling sports films.

Rocky IV (1985)

Director: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, Dolph Lundgren
Synopsis: The scrappy American boxer is faced with his biggest test in Soviet ultra-athlete Drago. One of the most brashly patriotic sports films, with no metaphoric blur between character and country. Can a man end the decade-long tensions between super-power countries with a jab and a montage? Emphatically, yes.

Rocky IV will be available to stream on Netflix July 1, 2015.

Team America: World Police (2004)

Director: Trey Parker
Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kristen Miller
Synopsis: A group of elite counter-terrorism agents recruit a popular Broadway actor – the only man who can infiltrate Kim Jong Il’s South Korea and take him down. Yes, this animated puppet movie is highly satirical of American global politicking, but it’s hard to not get wrapped up in its over-the-top rhetoric and music, f*ck yeah.

Stream Team America: World Police on Netflix Here

Top Gun (1986)

Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards
Synopsis: Students in the U.S. Navy’s elite weapon school compete to be the best. It’s 1980s style and themes may not completely hold up today, but it is a glorious advertisement of the American military way.

Stream Top Gun on Netflix Here

Forrest Gump (1994)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Robin Wright, Mykelti Williamson, Gary Sinise
Synopsis: See Forrest fight in the Vietnam War, play college football, start a small business, shake hands with Presidents, become a cause, and other wholly American pursuits. The sprawling epic spans decades and runs like a summary of American cultural history.

Stream Forrest Gump on Netflix Here

Marriage Equality Movies on Netflix

Appropriately timed, you probably heard about the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold gay marriage, giving marriage equality to all American citizens. It was a hard-fought win for the community, but not their first. The LGBTQ social movement has been active and visible since the 1980s, tackling issues related to public health, job discrimination, transgender rights, and more. This certainly won’t be the last fight for the LGBTQ community, but it is a great example of hope for an equal society.

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

Director: David France
Synopsis: A harrowing found-footage documentary of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), whose hard work led to breakthroughs for AIDS research and containment. Using only archival footage, the film tells a completely captivating narrative of activism.

Stream How to Survive a Plague on Netflix Here

Bridegroom (2013)

Director: Linda Bloodworth-Thomason
Synopsis: Documentary about Shane Bitney Crone and Thomas Bridegroom, lovers intending to marry after California passed their same-sex marriage law—but a tragic event leads to sad circumstances. A stark reminder of why the equal marriage laws are vital and the shifting social landscape offers so much hope.

Stream Bridegroom on Netflix Here

Call Me Kuchu (2012)

Director: Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Synopsis: Profile of David Kato, the first openly gay man and activist in Uganda, where a bill was introduced that would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. A terrifying inside look at a heavily publicized struggle not for equality, but the right to be gay.

Stream Call Me Kuchu on Netflix Here

Weekend (2011)

Director: Andrew Haigh
Starring: Tom Cullen, Chris New
Synopsis: After a drunken hookup, two gay men spend the majority of a weekend together, where they talk about the many issues facing their community. Less exclusively about gay rights, but an incredibly normalizing romance. Haigh would go on to produce HBO’s Looking, about a group of gay men in San Francisco.

Stream Weekend on Netflix Here

Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies on Netflix

The month is capped off by the birthday of our beefiest politician slash Hollywood star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even if he isn’t American, his incredible career is the American Dream encapsulated—European immigrant comes to America barely able to speak the language and through hard work, determination, and huge biceps, he rises to places no one could have expected. And are there any films that stand more for America than his work?

Hercules in New York (1969)

Director: Arthur Allan Seidelman
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Stang, Deborah Loomis
Synopsis: Arnold’s first film role as the Greek God sent to earth. This cult flick features the baby-faced star before he quite figured out his persona, or the English language.

Stream Hercules in New York on Netflix Here

Total Recall (1990)

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside
Synopsis: Arnold as everyman Douglas Quaid who has virtual vacation memories of a time on Mars implanted into his head. Or is he the dangerous and wanted special agent Hauser?

Stream Total Recall on Netflix Here

The Running Man (1987)

Director: Paul Michael Glaser
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Jesse Ventura, Richard Dawson
Synopsis: Arnold is a wrongly-convicted man who is chosen to participate in a cutting-edge reality television show where felons are hunted to the death. Prophetic to American television tastes decades later, it is a flashy and action-packed ride with cool characters and a satirical edge.

Stream The Running Man on Netflix Here

The Last Stand (2013)

Director: Kim Jee-woon
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Johnny Knoxville, Peter Stormare, Luis Guzmán
Synopsis: Arnold as small-town sheriff Ray Owens, the last stand between a violent drug cartel and the Mexican border. May not be a perfect English-language debut for Korean genre auteur Kim Jee-woon, but it is a fun full-time post-politician return for its star.

Stream The Last Stand on Netflix Here

The problem with reboots and remakes of great movie franchises is that, about 90 percent of the time, they get caught up in paying homage to their predecessors, recalling the original’s most iconic scenes and doing them half as well. Terminator: Genisys falls neatly into this category of uninspired fan service cash grabs, but to its credit, it’s the cream of the crop when it comes to Hollywood schlock. It’s a well-oiled, inoffensive thrill machine that doesn’t approximate T1 and T2‘s entertainment value by a zillion miles, but is by and large a painless, easily-digestible summer action movie starring the former king of summer action movies.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (I will from this point forward only refer to him as “Ahnold,” because I must) has reinvented his career in recent years by shedding all self-seriousness and making movies (as far as we can tell) for the fun of it. He acknowledges that he’s 67 years old and no longer pilots his career with a macho-bullshit attitude, and that’s really, really endearing. This newly acquired “old guy” appeal is the best thing about this fifth installment of the long-running Terminator franchise, in which he reprises his role as the T-800, though this time with a paternal twist (as strange as that sounds). Will hearing Ahnold say “I’ll be back” ever get old? His new catchphrase, “Old. Not obsolete,” might be the best answer to that question. Ahnold isn’t as badass or relevant as he was twenty years ago, but heaven knows he’s still fun to watch.

Director Alan Taylor’s picture begins with the series’ most familiar scenario. We start in a machine-ravaged 2029 and find human resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) sending his right-hand man, Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), back in time to protect (and knock up) his mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). History gets skewed, however, as Kyle arrives in an already-altered 1984 in which Miss Connor is a far-from-fragile machine killer who’s been protected since childhood by a T-800 she calls “Pops” (Ahnold). From this point forward the film becomes both a continuation of the original mythology and a reboot of sorts, a la JJ Abrams’ 2009 stab at Star Trek. It sees Sarah and Kyle launched forward to 2017 to destroy Skynet, which has taken the form of a popular life-management operating system called “Genisys,” before the world-wiping “judgment day” ever happens.

It comes as no surprise the movie is packed wall-to-wall with time-travel explication, mostly administered by the socially ill-equipped Pops (in Ahnold’s iconic Austrian monotone, of course). Kyle hurtles from 2029, to 1984, to 2017, where he finds himself in the awkward situation of learning that his mentor is actually his son, whose mother is the girl he’s been manipulated to fall in love with for years, but just met yesterday. There are alternate timelines, memories from impossible pasts, flashbacks to the future—the mind boggles! But not too much. Taylor actually does a great job of making the time-travel loopiness easy to follow, though the humor mined from it is pretty lame; watching Kyle agonize over timeline logistics is grating, especially when he makes the obligatory “Say it in English!” joke.

The movie never gets stopped dead by the bullets of exposition because the action is piled on so relentlessly. It’s all pretty standard fare: big, meaty explosions; buses doing somersaults in slow motion; San Francisco getting brutally demolished (seriously, what’s with Hollywood’s current obsession with wiping out SF?). The action, like the plot, is comprehensible and well presented, but doesn’t bring a whole lot to the table in terms of artistry or innovation. (An effect that sees the newest terminator incarnation leaving shadows of itself behind while breaking free from an MRI is the sole exception.) Taylor simply doesn’t have the knack for over-the-top action Cameron does, though fans will be happy with some of the movie’s shameless recalls to the originals (“old” Ahnold throwing fists with CGI young Ahnold is awesome).

The father-daughter-new boyfriend dynamic between the three leads is amusing, but it fails to launch emotionally. It’s good for laughs from time to time (Kyle and Pops exchanging impudent glares as they race to fill ammo clips in an unspoken “best guardian” competition), but the movie’s dramatic climax is a stinker that goes nowhere fast. The actors are serviceable (Courtney is a much better villain than hero, as seen in the Divergent series), with Ahnold’s robot-failing-at-acting-human schtick being the most memorable character impression we’re left with. There’s a levity to the material that may infuriate those who hoped for a grittier kind of doomsday movie, though I found it welcome.

Terminator: Genisys is a bridge to the future in that it captures the feel (not the greatness) of T1 and T2 while laying the groundwork for a full departure from the old mythology in forthcoming installments. J.K. Simmons makes an appearance as the only surprise in a mostly unsurprising movie, playing a ruffled cop who’s spent decades obsessing over a life-changing experience he had with a deadly robot in 1984. He’s a warm representation of the legions of fans who’ve been in love with the Terminator series since 1984’s The Terminator; the childlike smile on his face while in the presence of Sarah Connor, John Connor, Kyle Reese and the T-800 says it all.

If last week’s release of the new Jurassic Park trailer wasn’t enough to trigger some pleasant nostalgia, then the trailer for Alan Taylor’s Terminator: Genisys, the first of a new trilogy of Terminator films, should really cap off your Throwback Thursday. As if this jaunt down memory lane wasn’t exciting enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger is BACK, making good on that over-quoted promise, to reincarnate the much beloved cyborg hero.

This time, Skynet has it out for John Connor using both the past AND the future to stage the ultimate attack. So it’s a good thing Matt Smith is rumored to be among the cast as he does seem to have a penchant for time traveling gigs. No doubt John Connor, played by Jason Clarke, will be needing a Doctor over the course of this three film journey. Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke will be breathing new life into the indomitable character of Sarah Connor. Really, as if we needed another draw. With the usual exorbitant amount of explosions, gunfire, and car chases complete with air-flipping school buses, the release date for this robot reboot is set for July 1st, 2015.

Sylvester Stallone and his band of aging muscle-buddies probably had a blast making The Expendables 3, the latest by-product of Sly trying to help his pals out with a nice little payday in the twilight of their careers. Audiences get the wrong end of the deal, however, as the film is a messy action schlock that symbolizes the death knell for a franchise that’s worn out its welcome. The shameless appeal of the first Expendables–old action stars from the ’80s and ’90s teaming up to form a middle-aged super team–has long-since lost its sizzle, and Sly knows it: Here, he’s brought in a group of hot young actors into the fold to give the franchise a much-needed shot of vigor, but to no avail. Cursed by its PG-13 rating, The Expendables has lost too much blood (literally) and liveliness.

The film opens with Stallone’s Barney Ross leading his team of globe-trotting, government employed mercenaries (including series vets Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Jason Statham) on a rescue mission. Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), a long lost teammate and friend of Barney’s, is being transported on a maximum security locomotive and, using a helicopter, big guns, and bigger balls, the Expendables manage to free the knife-savvy, old-school killer. The sequence pales in comparison to the train action scenes in Skyfall and Fast Five. Hell, even Toy Story 3 puts it to shame. But sadly, despite its mediocrity, the explosive train sequence winds up being the most entertaining set piece in the film. In other words, it’s all downhill from here.

Doctor Death, who’s been imprisoned for 8 years, has a little trouble integrating himself into the group, as all his old teammates (save for Barney) have been replaced. He trades barbs with Statham’s Lee Christmas, boastfully referring to himself as “the knife before Christmas” (hardy-har-har). Snipes’ snappy braggadocio wears thin quickly. No matter, though, because his storyline gets booted to the background for the remainder of the film. Let’s be honest; the writers just needed to get Snipes into the fray somehow so that he could kick and punch and jump off of high things.

Following Doctor Death’s recruitment, the Expendables carry out a routine mission that goes South when Barney spots Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), an old nemesis he thought dead. Deeming his team too old and beat-up to continue doing the government’s dirty work, Barney disbands them and subs in a younger team of tech-savvy killers played by UFC champ Ronda Rousey, boxing champ Victor Ortiz, and handsome newbies Glen Powell and Kellan Lutz. Call them “Team Viagra”. When the new team flubs their mission and are apprehended by Stonebanks, Barney and the old-fart-ables band together to rescue the young blood.

The film upholds the franchise tradition of delivering a ridiculously beefy cast: series mainstays Terry Crews and Jet Li return; Antonio Banderas pops up in an unintentionally grating role as a chatty, wannabe Expendable; Kelsey Grammar plays a gruff old-timer who helps Barney recruit the kids; Harrison Ford plays Barney’s government boss; and, of course, good ol’ Arnold makes an inexplicable appearance. Grammar brings the film down to earth (in a good way) in his brief appearance, and Gibson exhibits the same entertaining mega-villain gusto he brought to the table in Machete Kills, but no one else impresses.

The series is desperate to create snappy new one-liners like Sly and Ah-nold’s greatest hits (“Get to de choppa!” gets a shout-out), but they’re all duds. What’s worse, each new, lame catchphrase gets repeated for no reason at all. For instance, in an early scene, real-life badass Rousey beats up some D-bags in a club. Upon disposing of the jerks, she looks down and growls “Men” in a faux-feminist scoff. Later in the film, she beats up another jerk, looks down at him, and growls, “MEN”. It’s the same exact joke, repeated in the same context, for no reason. These demonstrations of the law of diminishing returns are actually a good metaphor for the Expendables franchise as a whole.

The charm of the first Expendables was its transparency; the first film was a blatant invitation to indulge in famous tough guys kicking ass and making things go boom. It was uninhibited fun, and the fact that the script was poorly written meant little in the grand scheme of things. It was fetishistic, kill-’em-all ecstasy. Expendables 3 is no fun, with its muted colors and piles of grey rubble adding to the numbing effect of the nonsensical action. Director Patrick Hughes shot most of the film in Bulgaria, and you can tell; the film is meant to take place in several locations across the globe, but none of them look authentic. The locales all sort of mush together, much like how the myriad stars mush together and the endless, forgettable kills mush together. 126 minutes of action movie mush is hard to keep down. More like, “The Indedibles”.

The Expedables 3 trailer

The recent revival of bombastic ’80s action flicks spearheaded by Sylvester Stallone hasn’t been as unwelcome as I thought it would be pre-Expendables. That movie, though unremarkable, is a lot of fun because it’s so honest about what it is–a big, loud, unabashed testosterone parade for people who like watching things go boom. Escape Plan, the newest Stallone vehicle (the fact that the man can still sell tickets on name recognition alone is amazing), directed by Mikael Hafstrom, isn’t fun at all, and exchanges fun, blood-pumping, excessive action for a lame prison-breakout puzzle that we have to watch two oafs (masquerading as geniuses) attempt to solve. Dumb fun is fun, at least. Dumb is just dumb.

Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a man who can break out of any prison on earth (he literally wrote the book on prison security). He’s a voluntary jailbird, though; for his (bizarre) job, he’s placed in prisons to break out of them, illuminating for the wardens where the holes in their security systems are. He’s basically a bad-ass security consultant. When an especially high-paying prison-break gig comes along, Breslin embraces the challenge, even though he and his team (Curtis Jackson and Amy Ryan, both virtually inconsequential) are given dangerously little information. Predictably, the mission isn’t what it seems to be–Breslin finds himself in a prison built of technology so advanced it looks alien and, to his surprise, he’s legitimately locked-up.

His escape hinges on a partnership he forms with a fellow prisoner, Emil Rottmayer, played by–wait for it–the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger (he told you he’d be back). From here, we watch the two lugs try every trick in the prison-movie handbook (staged, diversionary fistfights, sharp object hand-offs) to bust out of the maximum-security hellhole, and their faux-intellectual scheming is torturous to sit through. Are we really meant to believe that these inarticulate muscle-heads are calculating masterminds? Don’t get me wrong–I’m almost certain that, in real life, Sly and Arnie are smarter than the average man. But seriously, veiny-armed Sly builds a sextant (an instrument of celestial navigation) out of a pen, a piece of paper, and a pair of glasses. It’s not just the absurdity that’s painful; it’s the fact that I’d much rather watch these guys hit, shoot, and maim things! About two thirds of the film seems to be spent with the dynamic duo plotting out their boring little strategies. We’ve waited decades–DECADES–for these knuckleheads to do a team-up movie, and you give us an hour of hallway walk-and-talks? For shame!

The film isn’t without its high points, though. Whenever Stallone and Schwarzenegger do get to crack some skulls, it’s a thrill that’s half driven by decent filmmaking (Hafstrom’s a solid action director), half by Rambo-nator mash-up nostalgia. Though the sloppy script is working against him, Schwarzenegger puts on an unexpectedly entertaining performance. In one of the only good dialog-driven scenes in the film, he’s allowed to speak German, which astonishingly reveals that when you take away the language barrier, Arnie loosens up and is actually a great performer (gasp!). Jim Caviezel has a lot of fun playing the intellectually dominating, soft-spoken warden. Watching him interact with Schwarzenegger is particularly enjoyable. The shoot-em-up finale is a lot of fun to watch, but it deserves more movie real-estate than it gets. The final set piece is pretty epic, but it ends up feeling anticlimactic after the trudge that is the film’s chubby middle section.

Stallone and Schwarzenegger are occasionally funny together–Arnie’s “You hit like a vegetarian!” line is wonderfully low-brow and hilarious–but they’re best as a pair of ass-kickers, and Hafstrom overestimates the entertainment value of watching them yap. Easily, the film’s biggest thrill comes near its conclusion, in a slow-mo closeup of Schwarzenegger’s eyes as his head turns toward the camera, ready to unleash hell on the bad guys with the giant machine gun he’s just ripped off of a helicopter turret (like only a former body-builder could). If only we’d gotten more of this dude-tacular ridiculousness, this action star team-up-for-the-ages could have been all we ever dreamt it could be. Instead, we get Stallone explaining to Schwarzenegger that toilet water swirls counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. Wake me up when the guns go bang.