Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Tubi has become a repository for a wild assortment of TV shows, movies, and original properties. They're all free to watch, provided you're willing to sit through some ads. So we asked some Tubi files to help us sift through the thousands of offerings. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we are recommending some great movies that you can find on Tubi. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Joining me today is freelance music and culture journalist, Rihanna Cruz. Hey, Rihanna. Hey, Stephen. Also with us is Jordan Morris. He's a writer and the co-host of the podcast's Jordan Jesse Goh and Free With Ads. Hey, that's an appropriate name. Hey, Jordan. Hey, great to be here. It is great to have you. So if you haven't used Tubi, it's an ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox. It's got a deeply eclectic catalog that includes thousands of movies, a few of which we are discussing today. Jordan and Rihanna, we wanted to have you come on and share a few of your favorite Tubi finds. We're specifically focusing on movies. Jordan, I'm going to start with you. Give me your first pick. Okay, so my first pick is Hundreds of Beavers. And like any good movie on Tubi, when you're describing it to people, it should sound like you're making it up as you go. Yes. So it is a black and white slapstick comedy with video game logic. It is not from the 20s It came out in 2024 It is made for I believe $150,000 By an indie filmmaker Mike Cheslick It was filmed in Michigan and rural Wisconsin The pride of Wisconsin One of the prides of Wisconsin, George One of the many prides One of the many prides of a beautiful state So it is the story of a farmer who is plagued by beavers, played by members of the crew in these bad mascot outfits. They're not going for realism at all. It's all like very cartoony, very slapstick. And it's just Farmer for two plus hours trying to kill as many beavers as possible. It looks like a Charlie Chaplin movie. And it's just one of those like beautiful things that you would never see on Netflix. Peacock would never. It is so funny. And yeah, and I love that websites like Tubi are the places where this kind of thing thrives. It's something a little weirder. It's something for somebody who wants something a little more off the beaten path. And we should note here, this movie was not made for Tubi. It's just that Tubi is often a home for more esoteric titles. This qualifies as an esoteric title. And something else I like about Tubi is that they do have a lot of great classics. like the last time I checked, Tubi is the place where you can watch The Apartment. The hundreds of beavers of their day. Of course, yes. And yeah, and I think that's why it is such a fun website because it feels like you're browsing a video store in the 80s or 90s, you know? You know, it was kind of what streaming was when it started. And now it feels like, you know, when you go on a streaming site, they just kind of push their latest originals and maybe they have some weirder stuff, but it's buried kind of deep within the algorithm. But yeah, Tubi just has this feeling of like, what is this? Hundreds of what? Okay. You know, you can just press play as long as you're fine with a bunch of car insurance ads that are a little louder than the movie. I get the same six, like, progressive and, like, Trivago ads on Lube. Right Well it like anybody where you watch something kind of esoteric on cable somewhere and it like wow Sky Rizzy really bought into this one Yeah And you just wind up seeing the same Sky Rizzy ad twice in the same commercial break or whatever Yeah. So, yeah, there's a little bit of that for sure. And yeah, Hundreds of Beavers is just a great example of like, you're just flipping around. You're like, what is this? I think I've heard of this. Now, Rihanna, you are also a Hundreds of Beavers fan, correct? I saw it in theaters, actually. I saw it at like a local independent theater in Los Angeles. Shout out the Lumiere Music Hall. I was the only person in the screening. It was just me. But that's the beauty about Tubi picking up these movies, you know, and curating their catalog is that browsing on it and picking, you know, around the movie, it feels like you're getting like a curated screening. It's a movie that feels like it should be given to you by somebody else. And that's like, you have to watch hundreds of beavers. Yeah, it's like something someone showed you in a dorm room your freshman year of college. Like someone had a VHS tape that was hand labeled. And I always think about when I'm browsing on Tubi, I think about when I was a kid and we would go to Kmart. If we would behave, there was a bin of VHS tapes by the cash register. And it was like random cartoons. It was a lot of Godzilla movies. A lot of public domain. A lot of public domain, like celebrity workout tapes. And I'm like, Tubi is if that bin became a website. But I do agree with Rihanna. It's kind of a curated madness, you know? Curated madness. I'm here for it. All right. So Jordan, you recommended Hundreds of Beavers. Rihanna, give us your first recommendation. All right. So something I think that is amazing about Tubi, as we've been talking about, is its recommendation algorithm specifically. I mean, maybe it's because I use Tubi all the time. It's my number one streaming service, but it knows me so well in a way that I really, really love. And so a couple years ago, it thrusts this movie into my feed and is really like one of the most meme movies I've ever seen. It's called Mambo Italiano. and it is basically like a 2000s gay rom-com kind of similar to like but i'm a cheerleader this character angelo is the son of italian immigrants one of whom is played by paul sorvino and is trying to come out as gay to his parents while also dating his italian best friend nino who doesn't want to come out of the closet. And so hijinks ensue. Things have changed slightly in the landscape of gay movies and gay content since the first time I watched it. But I thought at the time it was refreshing, and it still is, to have a gay movie that felt A, real, but also healthy. It's a very healthy movie. It's very sweet. Honestly, my mom's Italian, and it made me really connect to those characters. I saw like real lived in quirks saturated in this movie. It's really, really sweet. It's shot so lovely. It's really oversaturated in Technicolor. It kind of plays like a sitcom a little bit. Like the humor is very sitcom-esque. The blocking is very sitcom-esque, but it's funny. And that's the thing. It's like, I think it's Paul Sorvino's best role. He plays Angelo's dad. He's hilarious. I need more people to see this movie because it spoke to me and it's very underseen. You had me at D, but I'm a cheerleader comparison. Yeah. That's great. Well, I watched it and I was like, that feels like the closest conduit. Like it's very like plotted by the books, 2000s rom-com, but I really loved it. It feels like the characters have real motivations. It feels like it reflects real life, honestly. And I love a coming out of the closet comedy. And this checks off all my boxes. So one thing I love about this pick, kind of in relation to Jordan's first pick, is like, Jordan first pick is an esoteric movie that gives you exactly what its title suggests Yeah Your first pick is a movie that sounds generic in one way but you would never necessarily glean what it about from the title Like the title might as well be, That's Amore! Exactly. The moon hit my eye. Right, exactly. So like that title, I would look at that title and be like, okay, I know what that is. But I would not think what you just described. So that's a good example of a movie that a lot of people who would enjoy that movie are going to miss it because the title suggests something it's not. Well, right. And the poster is like a terribly photoshopped, like classic 2000s comedy font. Like I don't really know even why I clicked on it, like how it found me. But that's the thing. Like I said earlier, like Tubi's algorithm is honestly really good and really based because it gives me things that I hate. Let's use the word based unironically in the year 2026. I'm very impressed. Yeah, it is based. It is based. Tubi's algorithm's based. So yeah, Mambo Italiano, great flick. Nice. All right, thank you, Rihanna. All right, Jordan, hit me with your second pick. Yeah, so I don't think we could do this segment without mentioning at least one Nick Cage movie. I would say that Nick Cage's movies compose probably 30% of Tubi's content. So there's a lot. As opposed to only 15% in the actual world. Right. Yes, exactly. So slightly overrepresented on Tubi. The man loves to work. My favorite Nick Cage movie currently on Tubi is Color Out of Space. And this is a cosmic horror, body horror movie. I think it's based on an H.P. Lovecraft story. Nick Cage as a alpaca farmer. Of course. And again. Typecast. Typecast as always. Yeah, that old chestnut. A kind of a psychedelic meteor lands on his property, and things go bananas from there. There's a lot of great gore. There's a lot of great practical makeup effects. It's really trippy. It's really funny and weird. It's very shocking. And it's definitely one of those Nick Cage movies. Like, I'm thinking of Pig. I'm thinking of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. He's always fun to watch, but sometimes the movie around him isn't matching what he's doing, you know? And occasionally, like, the movie meets him where he's at, and it just works. That sounds awesome. You know, funny, it was directed by Richard Stanley, who was the original director of The Island of Dr. Moreau, starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. He was booted off the movie. It's a whole wild story. That was a misbegotten film. Yes, a famous bomb. And yeah, and this is his movie back. And it's wild and Cage is just Cajun all over the place. He's at 10, but the movie is also at 10. And I think that's why it works so well. It's just a hoot. If you're looking for kind of a midnight movie, if you're looking for something to watch with other horror sickos, The Color Out of Space is a great choice. All right, Color Out of Space. Rihanna, you got one more pick. Give it to me. All right. I think we'd be remiss to talk about Tubi and not talk about its repository and support of black cinema. They have Tubi originals made by creators who very clearly have no money but have a vision that they want to put out into the world. I've seen many of these movies, Sugar Mama, et cetera, et cetera. But it also has a really large catalog of vintage blaxploitation movies. Tubi is really great at holding these genre flicks and kind of giving them space to shine. And so I bring you today the 1977 Rudy Ray Moore movie, Petey Wheatstraw, a.k.a. Petey Wheatstraw, the devil's son-in-law. And Rudy Ray Moore, he was Dolomite. He was Dolomite. He was the human tornado. He was Disco Godfather. We have to mention avenging Disco Godfather I love Disco Godfather I almost recommend the Disco Godfather but Petey Reitstra I think is a little bit more wacky Deeper cut Yeah. Petey is a stand-up comedian and has beef with another duo of comics named Leroy and Skillet. Basically, Leroy and Skillet are in debt to the mob and need to make up their money through putting on a stand-up show. But Petey is a much more popular, and he's much funnier. he's having an event on the same night Leroy and Skillet ask him to move the event Petey says no they kill him and this is where things get a little wonky and you get the title involved because Petey goes to hell meets the devil aka Lucifer oh that's good oh boy yeah promises Petey his life back under one condition he marries the devil's quote unquote ugly daughter to give him a grandson and then he goes back to earth he has like the devil's cane which causes havoc every single thing I could tell you about this movie it does not do it justice like I could sit here and be like it's not really a comedy it's a surreal almost lynchian horror he has his own funky theme song Petey Weedstraw it's awesome the first scene in the movie is Petey Weedstraw delivering like a rhyming prologue as what he does in Dolomite. He just rhymes and delivers these lovely sayings. There's a graphic reenactment of Petey Weechstraw's birth in which he comes out as a fully sized child. There's some genuinely horrifying images in this movie. And yet it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I love Rudy Ray Moore movies. I think he's one of America's most innovative and forward-thinking gifts to the cinematic medium, frankly. And I think Petey Weedstraw is the clear example of that. So cult cinema, if you are a cult cinema person, if you are of a certain age and traded VHS tapes with your dirtbag buddies, we are recommending Tubi as a medium, as a source. But again, you can watch The Apartment on there. You can absolutely go on there and watch The Apartment. apartment. That's right. This is not trauma.com. This is not like specifically just cult cinema. And I do think it is like really great for a certain kind of movie lover who wants to watch The Apartment but also wants to watch Petey Wheatstraw. Right. And that's what I love about it is that like I watch a lot of B and C tier genre movies. Like I could search the word shark on Tubi and have 30,000 shark movies at my disposal to watch. I love that. And that's why I love the platform so much. Nick Cage is on Tubi a lot, but just below him is Ian Ziering. But I could see an Ian Ziering movie and then I could go on Letterboxd or whatever and search up some five-star foreign flick that I've never seen, and that'll be on Tubi as well. And if you could get over the Sky Rizzy ads. The Sky Rizzy of it all. Every 20 minutes. It's a beautiful watch. And I don't know. I love the free ad supported television streamers because they give me like the feelings of scrolling on cable, you know, and flipping through the channels. It's basically just free basic cable. Yeah. And everything at my disposal is so epic and awesome. They don't just have one beaver. They have hundreds of them. Hundreds of them. All right. Well, we want to know what are your favorite movies that you have found on Tubi. Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Rihanna Cruz, Jordan Morris, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, this is a blast. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Lattimore, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org.
