Good movies are still being made. The trick is finding them. The big advertising campaigns are focused on the franchises, which are mostly schlock after the first movie or two, while the streaming networks tend to push lowest common denominator trash. The excellent movies are hiding in plain sight, but unless one makes an effort to ferret them out, they’re easy to miss.
Cannes just wrapped up. There are two American movies that premiered in Cannes that I am eager to see: After Yang and The French Dispatch. Stillwater might be worth a look; I don’t think I’d pay for it, but I’ll watch a trailer and probably start it when it rolls around for free. The advantage of the streaming networks is that one can sample and then move on quickly if the film doesn’t hold my interest.
A number of the Cannes films are pretty weird — this is France, and Europe, and Cannes and all that — but a scattering of the non-U.S. films also look interesting.
A few of the films are grotesque — this is France, and Europe, and Cannes and all that — but it doesn’t cost me anything to ignore them.
Instead of just kvetching about the industry, we should be supporting the good stuff. Anyone want to mention your own watch list, not necessarily limited to the Cannes selections?
P.S. I’m going to go way out on a limb and guess that Sean Penn probably doesn’t have a lot of fans here, due to the man’s nutball politics and some pretty shabby behavior years ago. But watch The Professor and the Madman. You don’t have to watch it for Sean Penn. Go for another fellow you might have heard of: Mel Gibson.
It’s streaming on Netflix and Kanopy, and it’s an inexpensive rental on several other services. It’s probably not going to make your all-time top ten list, but it is a solid movie with decent people behaving decently (including the lunatic) and traditional moral values. It’s one of many. I mention it here just to bait the hook with Mel Gibson and Sean Penn, about whom just about everyone will have strong opinions.
I appreciate your recommendations. Gibson was excellent in another picture I saw a while back — Dragged Across Concrete — which is not everyone’s cup of tea. He and Vince Vaughn did a great job as burned-out cops.