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So, with all that being said, Free Fire would be my choice to see if I get to go to the movies this weekend, and that’s why I’ll be recommending five ways to prepare for it. I’m not saying I’ll actually be going to see it in theaters because I still have to go see Fate of the Furious, but if I was seeing one of the newcomers this would be it. Sorry, Pandas. Sorry, Katherine “please let me be famous again” Heigl. My girl Brie needs me and since she will be joining the Marvel family soon as Captain Marvel, I’m going with Free Fire. Join me on this journey as I look into five films that can help you prepare.

1) Room (2015)

Nobody knew who Brie Larson was a few years ago. She’d popped up in a few things here and there but I couldn’t point her out in a crowd if you asked me to. She had a small part in the amazing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in 2010 as well as 21 Jump Street in 2012, but still nobody knew her. I think she’s a beautiful woman but in the girl-next-door sense, not the bombshell sense. Someone like Margot Robbie is so stunning that one role in Wolf of Wall Street was enough to make her a headline actress. Brie Larson wasn’t so lucky. She had to work for it.

While I loved the two movies Larson was in that I already mentioned, it wasn’t until I saw her in Trainwreck with Amy Schumer that I thought to myself, “Who is that girl? I love her smile and laugh and I want to be her friend!” Then, without warning, she was EVERYWHERE as the front-runner to win Best Actress in a little seen movie called Room. It’s a haunting portrayal of a woman held captive in a tiny room with nothing to occupy her time except for raising the son she gave birth to with her captor. It’s some twisted stuff but the kind of material that all but guarantees an Oscar nomination. It’s Larson’s raw talent as an actress that landed her the win.

Since then she recently starred in Kong: Skull Island, which is the Brie Larson movie I probably should be recommending, since Free Fire is an action movie, but Kong is still in theaters so it’s hard to recommend a movie you’d want to see before going to the theater if that movie is also in theaters. Unless you were planning for a double feature, of course. Still, I’m recommending Room because it got Larson the Oscar and showcases her incredible acting chops. I want to undo the damage Katherine Heigl is doing to the female race this weekend and show that women can be strong survivors, not simply unstable, codependent man-chasers.

2) Hardcore Henry (2015)

There’s a century of cinema for me to pick from but for some reason, 2015 is proving very helpful to me for recommending movies for Free Fire. While Brie Larson is the sole woman headlining the new movie, the top-billed male is Sharlto Copley. Many probably don’t know him by name, but he has been in many movies you might have seen. For a minute there, he was the go-to guy for director Neill Blomkamp; the pair worked together on the Oscar-nominated District 9 in 2009, the Matt Damon-led Elysium in 2013, and finished the hat trick in 2015 with Chappie. And if you somehow didn’t see one of those movies, he played Aurora’s father, King Stefan, in Disney’s Maleficent.

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