Did I read this right? Some of these movies have not reached the theaters or streaming services yet? If that’s true How can any of us have an opinion about them?
Most of the big films will have screened at festivals. If you pay a bit of attention, you might find targets of opportunity. It only takes a minute to scan a list. This year, for example, Sundance had planned to return to an in-person/hybrid format this year but went all-online at the last minute (two weeks before the festival opened) because of the latest covid scare. I’ve never done Sundance but when everything went online, I thought what the heck.
There were a few films in which I had an interest and it’s fun to see something well ahead of its release date. There’s also an element of going in blind because many of the big festival films are premiers that no one has seen; you have to make a best guess depending on your sense of directors, actors and a brief synopsis. There were 82 feature films so you can’t see everything, but I took some chances and saw some good films. After Yang was the best of those I saw. I also saw a couple of clunkers: well acted and well reviewed, but definitely not my cup of tea. That too is part of “the festival experience.” I enjoyed it. Yeah, it takes a small investment of time and attention, but the alternative is to sit back and watch whatever Netflix or one of the other streamers decides to serve up.
I just got lucky on Montana Story, which I was able to fit into a bucket list family trip to the great Northwest. I was up in Great Falls and drove down to Missoula for a day. I had been to Billings, Yellowstone, Portland, and Vancouver in the past, but not to the Missoula area, which was wonderful to explore.
There are many movie festivals around the country. Most are small, local affairs — no harm in checking them out if any are close to you. The Montana Film Festival was a lot of fun. It focuses on local interest films and regional filmmakers but had Power of the Dog because it’s set on a Montana ranch (though it was filmed in New Zealand) and Montana Story, which is also set on a Montana ranch and was filmed locally. The theater probably held around a hundred people. A lot of the people in attendance were locals who had worked on the film. Missoula is a college town so there’s a local arts scene, but this is a down-home event. If you’ve washed your jeans within the last month, you’ll fit right in.
DC and Baltimore both have annual film festivals, and there are several more within easy driving range. They’re all small, but it’s easy enough to glance at the schedule and see if I get lucky. I’ve never done that in the past, but I will now.
P.S. All of the Oscar nominees have had at least brief theatrical releases. That’s part of the Oscar qualifying rules. I’ve not checked closely but I think at least a couple of them are still only in theaters and are not yet streaming; that’s all gotten very jumbled in the shadow of covid.
Some very good films have screened in festivals and have not yet found distribution. In addition, some very good foreign films may not reach U.S. audiences for a considerable time, although the streamers are getting more and more aggressive in going after foreign content. Hollywood is seeing its market share erode rapidly. And that is a good thing.
The first step is to boycott the bad stuff. But the second step is to support the good stuff when we find it. There are good movies out there. Some of them are made by filmmakers who may be quite liberal personally, but if they tell honest stories and don’t cheat on the big questions, they can still make thematically quite conservative films. Those are the ones I hope we can find. I always look forward to freeper recommendations. If a freeper recommends it, it’s worth taking the time to read a couple of reviews and watch a trailer.
Of the four films I recommended, none are Oscar nominees, though it’s possible that After Yang could be in the conversation next year. It premiered at Cannes last summer but was then held back until Sundance. It will be in theaters and will stream on Showtime on March 4, so it’s in next year’s awards cycle. CODA was the big Sundance breakout film last year and is an enjoyable film. I have hopes for After Yang this time around.