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Sometimes my job is easy and I am given “Fate of the Furious” as the movie I get to prep for. Super mega franchises with star studded casts give me a lot to work with. Maybe “easy” isn’t the right word, because I do have to then somehow narrow down the list of movies I’d recommend to only five. But then sometimes there is a weekend, like the weekend after a super mega franchise releases a movie and scares away any competition for at least 14 days, where I am left with only garbage to pick from.

Should I recommend five movies that could prepare you for Born in China, the next Disney Nature film to exploit the animals of the world in ways already done better by TV shows like “Planet Earth”? I mean, just turn on your TV or go to the zoo. I’d basically just recommend prior Disney Nature films or Kung Fu Panda and I’d be bored doing it because I’d be stretching, at best, to come up with five watchable comparisons to an animal documentary. Also, there’s like zero chance you’re even considering going to see Born in China, so I’d be wasting my breath.

Or, should I recommend five ways to prepare for the horrors of watching a failed Hollywood abortion on the big screen? I don’t mean to make light of that very personal and private decision woman face but, let’s be honest, Katherine Heigl JUST WON’T DIE! We all want her to stop making movies and there isn’t a coat hanger big enough to scrape her filmography from our memories. Her latest film, Unforgettable, has been made a thousand times already with only minor variations. Obsessed starring Beyonce comes to mind. MOTHER. F-ING. BEYONCE. Sorry, Katherine, but you just don’t compare to Queen B or the many other single ladies who have been in movies about women acting bat-shit crazy over men. It’s a tired concept and to be frank, it sets women back a hundred years and I won’t stand for that. It’s 2017. Women don’t need men, so they shouldn’t be crying over them. NEXT!

That leaves us with Free Fire. Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of it either before looking into what movies come out this weekend. As it turns out, the most unknown of the three releases is also the most interesting, which just goes to show you the power of advertising. If there’s a big studio behind the piece of crap coming out, then you’ll smell it from a mile away. What about the little guy?! Free Fire is a smaller, independent action movie that was made in the UK and released there last year. It’s not an independent drama or small studio Oscar bait, but a potentially fun action movie not confined to the restrained corporate consensus of a big studio.

Free Fire, if you’ve seen the trailers, is about an arms deal gone wrong with a bunch of people fighting their way out of warehouse. If Disney made this movie, nobody would die. If Universal made it, Vin Diesel would drive through the warehouse and save everyone. If Fox owned it, Deadpool would somehow be involved. Since this is distributed by StudioCanal UK, you have no idea what to expect. Except for British humor. It’s safe to say there will be plenty of that. Although humor from the other side of the pond doesn’t always translate here in the states, it can often produce something unique and amazing. Some of my favorite films have British backgrounds, like Love, Actually. Like that film, it also has an unexpectedly robust cast of semi-familiar faces like Brie Larson, Sharlto Copely, Armie Hammer and Cillian Murphy.

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