Exclusive: Julia Butters to Star in 'Freaky Friday 2' Alongside Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis

Happy Friday (evening), folks!

If you’re looking for something to watch this weekend, allow me to highly recommend Richard Linklater’s new movie Hit Man on Netflix.

Glen Powell stars as Gary Johnson (an intentionally boring name), a part-time cop down in New Orleans who agrees to go undercover as a fake hitman for hire, only he ends up falling for a woman (Adria Arjona) who tries to hire him to kill her husband. As their romance blossoms, a rival cop (Austin Amelio) begins to suspect that something fishy is going on.

This is Linklater’s best movie in years, anchored by a true movie star turn from Powell, who also co-wrote the script. The actor first landed on my radar eight years ago with his performance in Linklater’s college baseball comedy Everybody Wants Some!! 

Powell is ridiculously charming here, and the way he slips in and out of various disguises and employs different accents has me wondering when we’ll see him hosting Saturday Night Live, as he seems like he’d be a natural up there.

Meanwhile, Arjona is just as fantastic as Powell’s love interest, as it takes two to tango. This movie is genuinely sexy in a way that few movies are, and that’s as much because of her as it is Powell, who simply projects good vibes on screen.

You have to want to spend time around movie stars, and Powell radiates that kind of inviting energy here — the kind that makes the audience lean in and root for Gary, who is something of an underdog when he’s out of character.

Meanwhile, as good as the two leads in Hit Man are, this movie wouldn’t be what it is without Amelio, who also drew my attention in Everybody Wants Some!! If Linklater had cast some big-name actor, this would be a different movie, and I can’t say enough about his casting here, so I’m not even going to try. He’s just great. One of the industry’s best budding character actors.

Anyway, that’s enough about Hit Man. The movie isn’t quite capital-G Great, but it’s very good, and I think you’ll find it really entertaining should you check it out on Netflix this weekend.

In tonight’s newsletter, you’ll read about the young actress joining Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in Disney’s Freaky Friday 2, the probability of whether a Tarot sequel is in the cards, Kristen Stewart’s first big TV series, Jared Leto’s new indie movie about a jewel thief, the full cast of Wes Anderson’s next film, and the Euphoria star who will lead the Blade Runner 2099 series for Amazon.

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