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, Heated Rivalry and its beautiful, gorgeous, tension-filled scenes of hockey players doing the deed kept us salivating at our screens. Offering a different kind of tension is Eileen, which stars Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway dancing to a thrilling romantic beat. For those looking for a more post-apocalyptic, sci-fi type of watch, turn to Pluribus and its character study on the worst person in the world. Jay Kelly explores a different type of main character, featuring George Clooney playing a sad boi version of himself. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is here for those looking for a silly, but slightly scary, watch. And i hate myself 🙂 presents us with a more problematic type of silliness, where one woman realizes that dating a racist edgelord slam poet is not exactly the best choice one can make.
‘Heated Rivalry’
The horniest show on TV right now
Suddenly, the gays and the girls (i.e., the fujoshis) are watching a show about hockey. Episode 4 of Heated Rivalry is about to drop today and if you’re into intense sexual relationships this show was made for you. There’s nothing romantic yet about Ilya (Connor Storrie) and Shane’s (Hudson Williams) secret affair and time-jumping meet-ups — though last week’s bottle episode concerning burly MAN Scott (A ravishing François Arnaud) and equally burly but tender Kip (Robbie GK) gave us the kilig vs Ilya and Shane’s fiery and passionate, uh, scenes. The show is based on a multi-volume Game Changers series by Rachel Reid, so those who can’t wait for the rest of the series to drop weekly can dig into the books, but where’s the thrill in that? If Shane’s yearning ass had to wait months and years, so can you. It’s cheesy, hot, and stars gorgeous men. Perfect Friday night fodder. —Don Jaucian
‘Eileen’
A noir that’s sultry and feverish but also cold and very gay
William Oldroyd’s 2023 thriller Eileen, which recently came to Netflix, could have been so much more, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying an hour and 30 minutes of “Wario Carol.” The film doesn’t quite capture the weirdness of Otessa Moshfegh’s debut novel of the same name, but it is nonetheless a captivating watch with a dark, jazzy score and endearing attempts at a New England accent. Thomasin McKenzie’s Eileen is a difficult character to connect with despite her plainness, but I felt for her whenever she shared the screen with Anne Hathaway as the blonde, liberated Rebecca. I, too, want Hathaway to tell me that my face has a beautiful turbulence. —Pie Gonzaga
‘Jay Kelly’
An existential crisis starring George Clooney, with Adam Sandler trying his best to save him, and Noah Baumbach sinking his teeth into more family trauma
Ah, the price of fame. Director Noah Baumbach’s latest romp into the realm of quiet, existential drama sees George Clooney play Jay Kelly (yes, the names rhyme for a reason), a character who feels like a sadder, emptier, alternate-reality version of Clooney himself. Jay is a very famous movie star, but also a very bad friend and an even more neglectful father. A lifetime of red carpets and starring roles has taught him little about how to be a decent human being, and he’s only discovering now, in the later years of his life, how selfish he’s been. As Jay spirals over the thought that he’s all alone in life (and yes, giving major BoJack Horseman vibes to boot), his manager Ron (Adam Sandler), his publicist Liz (Laura Dern), and his makeup person Phoebe (Emily Mortimer, who co-wrote the script with Baumbach) are there to try and pull him out of his slump. Despite this gaggle of supporters, Ron initially seems to be the only one who’s really committed to saving Jay from himself, making Sandler and Clooney a surprising, but endearing, dynamic duo. —Mel Wang
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’
Fan service and lore galore, plus the return of our favorite haunted animatronics
While Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (or FNAF 2, for short) may not be the pinnacle of modern cinema (and really, did we expect it to be?), it’s an amusing one hour and 44 minutes nonetheless. The sequel takes place a year after the horrors that unfolded at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and things are only slightly back to normal. Ex-security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson), his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio), and Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) are still dealing with the trauma of seeing a bunch of giant animatronics come to life after being possessed by the souls of the children murdered by Vanessa’s serial-killer father, William Afton (Matthew Lillard). Except it looks like Abby is taking the trauma harder than she should, because she really misses hanging out with her ghost children friends. She runs away to the pizzeria, setting in motion a sequence of events that throw her and her brother back into the robot-run hellhole. Just like with the first movie, it’s best to go into FNAF 2 with an open mind. Don’t worry too much about how this all ties together in the FNAF universe. Have fun with the kills, and look out for a sneaky Scream duo reuniting on the big screen. —Mel Wang
‘i hate myself :)’
A hard watch that screams, “Girl, stand up!”
Few autobiographical documentaries have ever truly shaken my existence as a young woman the way Joanna Arnow’s i hate myself 🙂 has. Available to view for free on Le Cinéma Club’s website, the 2013 film follows Arnow and her boyfriend, a racist edgelord slam poet who doesn’t even like her, and asks the question: Is he a good person to love? It’s clear very early on that he isn’t, but as the title suggests, Arnow couldn’t really bring herself to leave him. Here, she confronts their dysfunctional relationship and why she tolerated what she tolerated. It’s not an easy watch, but as an unflinching confessional, it does its job. —Pie Gonzaga
‘Pluribus’
An intense character study on, literally, the worst person in the world, all carried to greatness by Rhea Seehorn
Do the concerns of an individual outweigh the collective need? In Pluribus, Grade-A asshole Carol (a magnificent Rhea Seehorn) finds herself drowning in grief while the rest of the world is… a utopia? Pluribus distills its alien invasion premise with a philosophical tempest that only Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan could do. Carol longs for the world to go back to the way things were, a chaotic existence that fuels anger and hate. But these alien invaders insist that what they are doing is a helpful intervention, turning humans into one hive mind that only seeks peace and assimilation. Carol is one of the few humans remaining on earth who is immune to this alien virus. The aliens want nothing but happiness for Carol (her anger disrupts the hive mind and kills thousands of people in the process), but ultimately, their goal is to make her part of them. The rest of the series is just as thoughtful and complicated, daring you to ask, “What would you do if you were Carol?” Would you prefer the world to be a good place or lose your loved ones and yourself to this hive mind? —Don Jaucian
