Welcome to What to Watch Right Now, our weekly rundown of the best things to watch right now. The constant stream of shows, videos, and films to watch online can become a sludge to wade through, so here are a few things you can watch courtesy of the Rolling Stone Philippines team. Whether it’s a new film, a video essay, or even a home video release you should own (physical media is now available!), we hope it can ease the burden of choosing which streaming platform to use or of discovering a new cinematic odyssey.
This week, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein had us contemplating fathers, our issues with them, and how Jacob Elordi, frankly, still looks beautiful underneath all those prosthetics. The Running Man, the latest from director Edgar Wright, sees Glen Powell go full-on action hero while still making a comment on capitalism and authoritarianism. The Chair Company has Tim Robinson pushing the limits of cringe comedy (tinged with existential horror), and Unicorn Wars provides an animated, bloody portrait of war between “indoctrinated bear cadets” and unicorns (yes, you read that right).
‘The Running Man’
Deadly game shows, Stephen King adaptations, and Glen Powell as a desperate father
Glen Powell — perfectly beefed up, sweat glistening, and gorgeous in a teeny, tiny bath towel at one point — plays Ben Richards, an angry man with a hero complex and a baby girl who desperately needs to see a doctor. To get the funds and save his family from the slums, Ben signs up for The Running Man, a deadly reality show (hosted by the ever-suave Bobby T., played by the also-ever-suave Colman Domingo) where contestants must survive for 30 days while being hunted down by the show’s assassins, for the grand prize of $1 billion. But Josh Brolin’s evil Dan Killian is running things behind the scenes, so Ben must do what it takes to survive and also take the Man down. Michael Cera’s also in here somewhere with a dangerous water gun and a hotdog-related back story.
Everything in The Running Man screams blockbuster: big kill sequences, big explosions, and a big storyline that director Edgar Wright tries to navigate with his signature style of visual comedy (this is, after all, the man who gave us Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, World’s End, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). The movie also comes with some more-than-obvious messages about capitalism, freedom, and anarchy, as well as big bad bullies in power, but it’s also just an overall fun two hours of things going boom. — Mel Wang
‘Frankenstein’
The messy bonds between father and son, with a dash of Catholicism and Gothic delights
Does Frankenstein’s Creature have daddy issues? Yes. Does his father-creator, Victor Frankenstein, also have daddy issues? Yes, and herein lies the heart of Guillermo del Toro’s dream adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic horror masterpiece.
Oscar Isaac plays the manic, God-adjacent doctor like a man addicted to his own ego, smashing body parts together like they’re jigsaw pieces and silently cursing out his dead father (who was, appropriately, a surgeon) for not being able to save his dead mother. While taking the most convoluted, bloody route to birthing a son, Victor falls in love with his brother’s fiancée Elizabeth (played like a melancholic fairy princess by Mia Goth) and navigates a messy financial relationship with her uncle, Henrich Harlander (played by an untrustworthy Christoph Waltz). When the Creature – yes, that’s Jacob Elordi underneath all that makeup, can you imagine? — finally makes his big debut, he is the last, important piece of the puzzle that is del Toro’s Gothic meditation on fatherhood, grief, and that big question on what makes us human. — Mel Wang
‘The Chair Company’
A conspiracy that runs much deeper than it should (and Tim Robinson at his zaniest)
I’ve given my life to Tim Robinson ever since his days on Saturday Night Live (please turn to the bit where he ruins Kevin Hart’s cool by wiggling his shoulders at him) and then his comedy-defining sketch show, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (ahem: “55 BURGERS, 55 FRIES, 55 TACOS, 55 PIES”).
So when The Chair Company dropped on HBO Max, I needed to see how Robinson could carry his brand of humor — which, for better or worse, is best consumed in sketch-sized bites — for an entire series that markets itself less like a comedy and more like a comedy “thriller.” In it, Robinson plays Ron, a mild-mannered office man recently promoted to manager and trying his best to stave off the existential horrors of a mid-life crisis. Things quickly take a sharp, awkward turn when Ron falls off a chair in front of all his fellow office workers, sending him into a downward spiral of shame, frustration, and paranoia. The obvious answer to his plight, at least according to Ron, is that the world is out to get him, and the office chair incident sends him on a conspiracy-fuelled journey that only Robinson could pull off. — Mel Wang
‘Unicorn Wars’
The birth of man and the inevitability of violence
At first glance, 2022’s Unicorn Wars looks like a toy shelf come to life — cuddly bear cubs, candy-colored backdrops, and a looming promise of harmony. But Spanish comic artist Alberto Vázquez twists that innocence into something merciless. The film follows a platoon of indoctrinated bear cadets preparing for a holy war against unicorns, driven by the delusion that they’re purging evil from the Magic Forest. At its core, it’s a parable about mankind’s appetite for domination, filtered through the soft edges of childhood nostalgia. Brothers Bluey and Tubby march from playfulness into brutality, exposing the machinery of war and the corrosion of innocence. Unicorn Wars sits somewhere between Watership Down and Saving Private Ryan, but dystopic and nightmarishly beautiful. Vázquez has the ability to dissect how belief systems are weaponized during war. It’s a bloodstained fairytale that refuses redemption. —Elijah Pareño
