Some Streaming Levity To Help Get Us Through

So after making two posts about quarantine movies that were all small casts and scant locations to try to make us feel sympatico in being trapped in our physical isolation with what we see on screen, I think it’s time to post some escapist fare.

What follows is a list, in no particular order, of films of many genres, but all with some sort of humorous component to help you get you through your day or night

The Nice Guys (2016) -  IMDB.COM lists the synopsis of this as “in 1970s Los Angeles, a mismatched pair of private eyes investigate a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star.”   The keyword there is “mismatched” - as in the old mismatched partner trope.  But then the director and co-writer of this film, Shane Black, is the writer of perhaps the Citizen Kane of mismatched cop-buddy films, Lethal Weapon.  And unlike other writer/directors who return to familiar territory, Black manages to upend expectations and find new angles to play with here. Ryan Gosling as the sleazy PI dragging his adolescent daughter around and Russell Crowe as the PI who isn’t above nefarious work for hire (the cast Gosling sports for much of the film is the result of an injury received during his first encounter with Crowe) but still has his own code of honor that he lives hard and fast by.  Oh and the other keyword(s) in that description is “1970s Los Angeles” as in addition to getting the details of that period correct,  this film is also a bit of a throwback to the kind of hardboiled crime drama from the 1970s and 1980s that we don’t see much of anymore. Gosling and Crowe even uncover one of those vast conspiracies we used to find in those movies. The quips come fast and furious, but they work well. ( Hulu, $3.99 Amazon/Google/Youtube/Vudu, $14.99 iTunes)

Fandango (1985)  - The story behind director Kevin Reynolds first film is that Steven Spielberg saw his senior film at film school and liked it so much he helped Reynolds raise the money to make Fandango.  A bunch of freshly graduated Texas college students abruptly leave their graduation party to go on one last road trip to Mexico before the realities of real life, marriage and the Vietnam war turn their lives upside down. Kevin Costner, in his first starring role, plays the groups leader, Gardner Barnes who, incidentally, is the one who didn’t actually graduate (he failed out). What follows is a series of vignettes, drunken antics, comedic scenes and spiritual reckonings with what adulthood will immediately bring to our heroes.  Incidentally, there is a scene in the middle, where co-star Judd Nelson (in a very different role than he had the same years’ Breakfast Club) takes a skydiving lesson from a hippy pilot that is a shot for shot remake of Reynold’s student film that attracted Steven Spielberg’s involvement in the first place.  Costner would never be this good in a role again (though he’s come close in films like Bull Durham).  And he and Reynolds would team up a few more times, in Robin Hood and Waterworld.  But Fandango is far superior to either of those. ($2.99 YouTube/iTunes/google/Vudu, $9.99 Amazon )

Death At A Funeral (2007) - In one of the most beautifully ironic titles ever, Death At A Funeral is one of the funniest, laugh out loud farces of the new century.  Check out the setup - a middle to upper middle class british family tries to hold the funeral for the patriarch in their home, wacky chaos ensues.  Clearly it’s a delicate line to walk with such a morbid setting, but Frank Oz handles it all with the skill of a centuries old master.  Somehow the tone of solemn reflection and insane goings on of the funeral (previously unknown friends coming out of the woodwork, daughter’s boyfriend greatly unliked by the father, crabby ol Uncle Alfie) give us a good example of how humor helps us get through the worst. Sharp eyed HBO fans will notice Matthew McFadden playing a much different role than the one of Tom he plays on Succession. The Amercian remake, from 2010, starring Chris Rock, Danny Glover, Keith David, Tracy Morgan and others (Peter Dinklage is the sole actor in both versions), I’ve never seen, but I hear it is the rare Amercian remake that is the equal of the original. Death At A Funeral (tubi/vudu, $2.99 amazon/youtube/google/iTunes)

Clue (1985) -  Why does it seem like so many of the best, most, enduring comedies are considered disappointments when first released?  Caddyshack and The Big Lebowski are sort of the gold standards of this type of flick.  But this whodunnit Agatha Christie parody based on a boardgame, boasting a ridiculous all-star comedy cast (Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Madeline Kahn, Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren and Tim Curry among others) is a member of this club. Considered a disappointment upon release (“With that cast, it should have been funnier”) people have picked up on its ridiculous rhythms and the tropes it lovingly parodies. Another thing to watch for is Go-Gos guitarist Jane Wielden as a singing telegram girl. They shot three different endings to the film and the gimmick was, when originally shown in theaters you never knew what ending you were going to get.  By the time it came out on VHS, the tapes contained all three endings.  I’m assuming the streaming version has all 3 endings too. (Amazon/Crackle, $2.99 on youtube/google/vudu , $3.99 iTunes)

Bull Durham (1988) - What is it about baseball?  It seems to be the only big American professional sport that has produced multiple good movies.  Was recently arguing with some friends about which was the best.  This one has always been my favorite. Famously based on first time director Ron Shelton’s career in baseball’s minor leagues, Bull Durham is laugh out loud funny while dealing with various stages of adulthood, from Tim Robbins’ hot shot young pitcher trying to figure out how to put it all together and, well, be an adult, to Kevin Costner’s (him again!?) veteran catcher navigating the tricky point of when is it time to finally give up on a dream and move on? This is one of those movies that really can be summed up with “it’s funny because it’s true!” Neato fact - this is the movie Susan Sarandon met Tim Robbins and began their 20+ year unmarried relationship.  (Tubi/Vudu, $2.99 amazon/youtube/google, $3.99 iTunes)

Amelie (2001) - First foreign film on this list, this also may be the most uplifting.  Jean-Pierret Jeunet’s previous films were about nightmarish slightly futuristic dystopias.  Amelie is about the title character, who lives alone in Paris.  A quiet cafe waitress with melancholy eyes, Amelie decides to do little good deeds to help folks around her.  Jeunet’s films always have a very interesting visual style.  And his dark sensibilities help keep this one from floating away with too much lightness.  And Amelie’s sweetness does not prevent her from extracting revenge upon the fresh produce stand owner who is cruel to one of employees.  It’s a pretty clever revenge. It’s a pretty clever film.  (hulu, $3.99 iTunes)

Charade (1963) -  We’ll stay in Paris, but relieve you of having to read subtitles. Cary Grant’s last film is often mistaken as a Hitchcock film (in fact, I do believe some have called it the only Hitchcock film not directed by Hitch). Part thriller and part Parisian romance, Audrey Hepburn plays a single mother who has men, claiming to be former associates of her recently late husband, approaching her for the money they claim he owes them. James Coburn and George Kennedy play two of these men.  Walter Matthau rounds out the cast as the CIA contact helping Hepburn out. Director Stanley Donen, who just passed away in early 2019, was known for a wide range of films from musicals like Singin’ In The Rain to the romantic breakup classic Two For The Road.  tubi/vudu  $1.99 amazon, $3.99 youtube/google/iTunes

Out Of Sight (1998) -  It’s hard to remember now, but when George Clooney left ER to become a movie star, there was much doubt that he could succeed. By the time OOS came out, Clooney had starred in 4 films, including Batman & Robin and From Dusk Til Dawn and after those films, the jury was still out on whether or not he’d actually become a star.  Up to that point in time very few actors had made the jump from TV to Films.  At the time TV was still considered a major step down from film. Stephen Soderbergh’s film adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name is both the best adaptation to date of crime fiction writer Leonard’s work and the film that showed us Clooney was, in fact, a movie star. An ex-con who breaks out of prison, Clooney is magnetic throughout the entire film as the smart, frustrated everyman who turned to crime simply because he knew there was no other way to get ahead.  And his chemistry with Jennifer Lopez as the FBI agent who nearly foils his prison break and then falls in love with him while pursuing him is one of those legendary screen couples.  With an amazing cast that features Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina, Nancy Allen and Albert Brooks, Out Of Sight remains an underrated masterpiece of American Cinema.  (hulu, $3.99 youtube/iTunes/google/vudu, $6.99 amazon)

Naked Gun (1988) - When my buddy grabbed me after my last final of the semester and said “C’mon, we’re going to see Naked Gun” I had no idea what I was going to see.  What followed was one of the funniest 90 minutes of my life.  That Zucker Abrams Zucker formula, mastered with 1980’s Airplane! may have reached its zenith here.  A gag a second and infinitely quotable, I should prepare you now that when OJ first appears on screen at the beginning of the film and then, from time to time throughout, it’s a bit startling.  And for those of us old enough to remember when this came out, it reminds us OJ was a popular guy once.  It’s a weird thing to see him in this now.  But the rest of the film remains hilarious.  And that final set piece, at the baseball game (see?  What is it about baseball?) is one of the funniest in film history. (netflix, $2.99 amazon/youtube/google/vidi, $3.99 iTunes)

Sing Street (2016) - John Carney’s film follows Conor who, entering high school in the 1980s discovers music and girls. He forms a band to use the former to woo the latter.  Or one in particular.  I’ve noticed Irish films seem to get the what a band sounds like rehearsing and playing small time gigs actually sounds like.  The humor here is light hearted, teenage humor.  The music, parodying different 80s genres as the band goes through different phases is pretty spot on.  “Drive It Like You Stole It’ was bound to be a huge huge hit had it been actually released in the 80s. The teenage romance works, the peculiarities (to Americans) of growing up Irish society are on display here (the catholic-ness of everything, the obsession of music in the culture, and the political realities all contribute).  Like some of the others on this list, the movie manages the balance of being light heartedly uplifting without getting too corny or annoying.At a point when I think we could all use a good time and some good escapism, Sing Street can fit the bill.   (vudu/tubi, $3.99 amazon, $5.99 iTunes)

Stuck In Quarantine Viewing #2

All right, so here we go again.If you missed the previous post, the theme here is films that have small casts and relatively few locations so as to be able to get lost in a whole ton of stories and situations that have at least some bearing on our own current ridiculous global situation.  So I give you 10 more films to watch and maybe feel a little bit better about our own quarantined situation. Note that listings about “free to watch” usually involves already having a subscription to netflix or hulu or whatever service is mentioned below.

Reservoir Dogs/ The H8teful Eight (1992/2015) - When Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs came out it was a revelation in American Indie cinema - at the time there were few to no hard boiled crime films with tight yet colorful dialogue that fleshed out the criminals as multi dimensional people, avoided most of the action, chopped up the timeline the way it did and still was fraught with tension and blood.  Over 20 years later The Hateful Eight takes many of those same themes - double crossing, funny & creative dialogue featuring much foul language, the pressure cooker situation that just keeps getting more and more and more intense and transfers it to the snowy old west.  Personally I prefer the Hateful Eight to Django Unchained.  Fun note here, the guitar Kurt Russell smashes was an old, vintage one of a kind acoustic loaned from Gibson that was definitely not supposed to be smashed up, so the surprise on the other cast members faces is genuine omg wtf surprise. (Dogs available on Hulu,  $3.99 to rent on Youtube/Google/iTunes/Vudu, $7.99 on Amazon;  8 available on netflix,  $3.99 to rent on Youtube/Google/iTunes/Vudu, $4.99 on amazon)

Interview (2007) - Not to be confused with the Seth Rogen comedy from a few years ago, 2007’s Interview is a chamber piece with essentially a two person cast, Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller.  Buscemi (who also directed) plays a jaded journalist who is a assigned to interview a big soap star (Miller) who is, of course, beneath him to interview.  Or so he thinks. While not an amazing movie, Buscemi and Miller pull us in with their empathetic performances that show us two characters who are a lot deeper than they may seem to us at first. Buscemi is of course one of our greatest character actors of the last 30 years who rarely gets the chance to step out as a leading man. Miller should have been as big in the 2000s as Margot Robbie became in 2010s - though Miller is British and not an Aussie, she combines Robbie’s striking dyed blonde bombshell looks with much more intelligence and skill than we might have expected and is every bit Buscemi’s equal in this movie that disappeared almost as soon as it came out.  ($2.99 to rent on Amazon/Vudu/Youtube/iTunes/GooglePlay)

Misery (1990) - James Caan sure has had an interesting career, no?  Often thought of for his tough guy roles in films such as Thief, The Killer Elite, Roller Ball and of course The Godfather, he’s always made interesting choices - comedies such as Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie from 1976 and  Kiss Me Goodbye, where he plays the jealous ghost of Sally Field’s late husband trying to spoil her plans to marry Jeff Bridges.  In light of that his choice to play an author held captive and powerless by a female superfan (Kathy Bates) who is upset that he killed off her favorite literary character (the Misery in the title of the film) is maybe not as surprising as it may have first seemed when Misery came out (one could see more a Dustin Hoffman or Richard Dreyfuss in this role when hearing the synopsis of the film).  But certainly Caan’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s tough guys surely helped subvert the expectations in seeing this film play out.  It didn’t hurt that both he and Kathy Bates play off one another extremely well in this Stephen King authored story.  And after years of acclaimed broadway stage work where she would lose out to more attractive actresses when those plays went to films, Kathy Bates finally began to receive her due with her role in this film - she was in her early 40s at the time.  A classic thriller that, though I’ve not seen it in years, still makes my ankles ache just thinking about it. (unfortunately not an easy one to find if you don’t own physical media:  free on Vudu, but $14.99+ to rent on Amazon/Youtube/iTunes/Google)

Down By Law (1986) - Really you could practically put any of Jim Jarmusch’s films on this list, but  Down By Law remains one of my favorite Jarmusch films. After a slow set up that lands our 3 main characters (musician, painter and early Jarmusch favorite John Lurie, italian comedic actor Robert Benigni, and famous gravel & blowtorched voice actor/musician Tom Waits) together in jail, this slow movie finally picks up to be the brilliant oddball character study comedy it is. From chants of ice cream somehow reminiscent of Pacini chanting “Attica!” in Dog Day Afternoon to their various encounters once they escape jail, if you can get in tune with its slow rhythms and slightly off charms, you are in for a treat. Unfortunately many Jarmusch films  are hard to find to stream right now for some reason. (free on Kanopy,  $3.99 on Amazon/iTunes)

Cube (1997) - This Canadian indie film from director Vincenzo Natali is a good indicator of what one can do with little budget, a no name cast, but a great concept and creative excution.  6 widely different people wake up in a very industrial looking cube room and they have to find their way out of a maze of identical rooms (with each cube having potential exits on all 6 sides).  Of course, this being a horror movie, they will need to navigate through all sorts of deadly traps as well as their incompatible personalities - it’s almost as if these personalities were the prototypes for so many “reality shows” that followed in the next decade.  While the acting varies wildly from decent to not very good, it’s the puzzles and unexpected twists that keep up interest and entertainment in this one. (free on youtube/tubi/vudu/IMDbTV, $3.99 on Amazon/Google)

Closer (2004) - Mike Nichol’s debut, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? appeared on part one of this list.  Closer, his second to last film, is almost a spiritual successor to it.  Also involving 2 couples, the cast of 2 American women (Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman) and 2 British men (Clive Owen and Jude Law) has as much acting chops and presence as that earlier film’s cast but a script/story, while entertaining, is not as good or quotable.  Although I always enjoyed Owen’s line about the heart being a “fist wrapped in blood.”  That should also give you the gist of this movie - couples falling in and out of love with each other but not at the same time.  While this one has the cast appearing in many public places, we only ever hear from, or focus on, these four. Definitely a brutal character study of the same nature as Woolf, this one may actually be more true to life in how these love games play out than its predecessor. (free on HBO, $2.99 on Amazon/Vudu/Youtube/Google/iTunes)

Evil Dead/Evil Dead 2 (1981, 1986) - Sam Raimi’s epic series of films and TV show about Ash (Bruce Campbell) and the Deadites (a bunch of undead nasties) began with these two low budget horror films.  Evil Dead II is mostly a redo of Evil Dead, which was made by Raimi and his buddies for no money at all.  Played fairly straight, Evil Dead is a better than expected low budget early 80s horror movie about a group of 20 somethings who rent a cabin, sight unseen, in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, who are then plagued by an unknown evil unwittingly unleased by a previous occupant. Somewhat marred by a notorious scene in which one of the female victims is raped by a tree, the original Evil Dead brought so much creativity and innovation to horror films that today it seems obvious that eventually Raimi would be handed the keys to big money franchises like the original Spider Man series that stared Toby Maguire.  Evil Dead II both trims the fat of the original (including excising that notorious scene) while turning up the dark humor component, and making Ash more of the overly confident, smug boob he became in Army Of Darkness and the Ash vs The Evil Dead series which originated on Starz. I’ve never seen the 2013 remake of Evil Dead, so I say nothing about it, except maybe “why?”  ( Evil Dead is free on Netflix and Shudder, $3.99 on Amazon/iTunes/Vudu; Evil Dead II is free on Shudder, $3.99 on Amazon/Youtube/iTunes/Google/Vudu; Ash Vs Evil Dead the series is free on Netflix/Hulu/YoutubeTV/Starz and $1.99 per episode on Amazon)

Ex Machina (2014) - We keep coming back to sci fi and horror movies with these small cast, few locations films, and Alex Garland’s film fits into the former category.  Domnhall Gleason plays the programmer employ of a google like company who wins an employee contest to go spend the weekend with the reclusive founder/owner of said company, played by Oscar Isaac. Taken by helicopter to Isaac’s remote compound, we soon find out that the tech mogul has ulterior motives for inviting his employee - it seems he’s been tinkering with giving human-like robots a realistic AI and personality and he wants Gleason to test it out.  What follows is a cat and mouse game in which who is the cat and who is the mouse keeps changing.  And of course the questions of  “what is human? and “what does it mean to be alive?” and “what is love exactly?” are constantly in thought here.  Alicia Vikander plays the artificial woman who may be in love with Gleason, or maybe she’s just using him.  The production design is beautiful, and the compound in which Isaac lives is both luxurious and claustrophobic. This one is a sci fi gem. (free on netfllix, $2.99 on YouTube/Google/Vudu, $3.99 on Amazon, $4.99 on iTunes)

Persona (1966) - A famous actress suddenly and inexplicably goes mute in the middle of a performance.  She is sent to a remote house to recover and has a young nurse accompany her to help in her recovery.  That is basically the plot to Bergman’s film, which exploded on the international film scene with a bang when it hit.  The Swedish Bergman was already a titan in the international film scene at this point, having released both Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal in 1959 and already having 26 films and numerous TV & stage productions under his belt. But this surreal film played with images in ways narrative film largely had not outside of purely experimental circles.  At one point we even see the film stock break and burn on the “projector.”  The two woman,  Liv Ulmann (the actress) and Bib Andersson (the nurse) interact, at first with only the nurse speaking, and eventually begin to take on each other’s, well, Persona’s.  An interesting and, yes, artsy film (and one with subtitles as, like almost all Bergman films it’s in his native Swedish) the movie is not inpenetrable. If you are able to open yourself up to its charms, it is worth it, even if you never really quite understand all that is going on. ($3.99 on Amazon/iTunes)

Solaris (1972) - The late Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky made slow films. I’ve even seen film critics describe viewing Tarkovsky’s work as “eating your vegetables.”  While I understand what they mean by this, I would disagree simply because I enjoy viewing Tarkovsky’s work.  That said it’s not for everyone, and even for those it is for, one has to be in the mood.  Sometimes described as the Russian answer to 2001: A Space Odyessy, Solaris is the story of a scientist asked to go to a space station where the mission has fallen apart because the crew have mentally fallen apart.  The Space Station is orbiting a mysterious planet that seems to have some sort of consciousness. This consciousness involves getting into the psyche of the astronauts and making real some form of their past that they have been grappling with.  Solaris is long on existential philosophies about the nature of existence of long beautiful shots and short on special effects and action.  There is even a long shot of simply the lights of traffic on a highway (we spend a lot of time on earth before heading out into the cosmos) that, if I remember correctly, is about 4 minutes long.  Of just the glare of lights of automobile traffic around the magic hour.  It truly is a beautiful film, if you can be patient. Beautiful both in the questions it asks but also it just looks very beautiful.  Don't let the lack of special effects make you think this movie doesn't have great design or spectacular cinematography, because it does.  Why else would you leave 4 minutes of evening traffic flow in your film if it wasn't beautiful? Tarkovsky called filmmaking “sculpting in time" and you can see what he means in this film. I’ve yet to see the Steven Soderbergh remake with George Clooney from 1999, but from what I understand it is a very different film, but one that’s worthwhile watching as well. ($2.99 on YouTube/Google/Vudu, $3.99 on iTunes, $12.99 on Amazon)


Other movies with small casts/few locations (including duplicates from post #1): A Field In England, Free-Fire, Tape, Death & the Maiden, Woman In The Dunes, Hour Of The Wolf, Secret Honor, Blue Lagoon, Sleuth, 127 Hours, Hard Candy, Cloverfield Lane, Robinson Crusoe On Mars, Enemy Mine, Hell In The Pacific, Antichrist, Gerry, Time Crimes, Buried, All Is Lost,, The Shining, Gravity, Castaway, Coffee & Cigarettes, Pi, Rear Window, Locke, Room, Green Room

Stuck In Quarantine Viewing #1

As so many of us (unfortunately not all of us yet) self quarantine at home, we look for things to occupy our time other than reading articles about what is going on and depressing social media posts and comments.  So naturally we watch TV. Lots of it. Super Extra Binge mode. Only “Netflix and Chill” has become “Netflix and Try Not To Freak The F$*@ Out.”

Movies can be a nice escape, a good place to get lost in other worlds, other universes.  Except when they remind us of how our own world used to be only a few weeks ago. A good friend of mine posted this on Facebook the other night: “Watching movies every night. Nice escape. Except in every scene people gather in restaurants and bars, shake hands and hug, hop on airplanes and trains ... and it reminds me of the simple things we took for granted and how much our lives have changed, all in a few short days. I look forward to getting back there!”

It got me thinking about movies with tiny casts and very few, even a single, location.  Watching some of these may make us all feel better about our own isolation and, in some cases, maybe even make us feel like “hey - my life is not as bad as that character’s!”

So here is a list of 10  movies with tiny casts, small locations, and a brief synopsis on what it is about.  I will post more film lists, some with this theme, in the coming days. 

Moon (2009) - Director Duncan Jones’s first movie was a brilliant sci fi chamber piece.  Sam Rockwell stars as the sole staff person on a moon base at the end of his 3 years stint there.  He’s waiting for his relief to arrive so he can finally return home to his family. What follows is a clever investigation into what it means to be human, with excellent production design and a great performance by Rockwell.  Jones’s subsequent films have been spottily received (video game based World of Warcraft, Amazon Prime’s sci fi film Mute) by audiences and critics alike, but Moon remains a great debut. (available on netflix, $2.99 to rent on amazon)

Rope (1948) - Largely considered a failed experiment by Alfred Hitchcock (and many Hitchcock fans), Rope is a thriller based on the infamous Leopold-Loeb murder.  Two wealthy, private school classmates decide that murder is a sport for those like themselves and murder their classmate, then follow it up with a small dinner party in which they’ve invited the victim’s father, girlfriend and their old professor, whom they used to engage in philosophical discussions about the ethics of murder.  Shot to look like a single take (at the time film roles were only 12 minutes long, so cuts are cleverly “hidden”) and taking place in real time, the only location is the apt where the murder and party take place. I disagree with those who say it is failed. It is one of my favorite Hitchcock films, with Jimmy Stewart as the professor. (available on hulu, $3.99 to rent on amazon/youtube/googleplay free w starz subscription)

Clerks (1994) - Kevin Smith’s ultra low budget black and white talkie film about two slacker store clerks (one in a convenience store and one in the video rental store next door) helped launch the indie movie craze of the 90s. Filled with a range of acting from ok to not so great, the dialog, relatable situations and then the insane situations that occur make this a very entertaining film, one where, like the basis of a famous 90s sitcom airing, really nothing happens.  Being trapped in the convenience store may be very relatable for us right now. (available on hulu, $3.99 to rent on amazon/youtube/googleplay)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) - One year before making The Graduate, Mike Nichol’s debut film based on Edward Albee’s play, is a helluva debut. Starring real life couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor with George Seagal and Sandy Dennis, Wolf is about two couples where the men are faculty at an unnamed college.  Burton is the longtime professor, henpecked and cuckolded by his wife, Taylor, who is the daughter of the college’s president. Seagal is the young upstart professor looking to get a leg up (which apparently you can do sleeping with Taylor) and Dennis his wife. What follows is 2 hours and 11 minutes of weird pscychological games, extraordinary acting, a witty script, I believe only 2 or 3 locations and just those 4 people.  It’s great. ($2.99 to rent on amazon/vudu and $3.99 on iTunes)

Dead Calm (1989) - For many Americans, this thriller was our introduction to Nicole Kidman.  Kidman and her husband (Sam Neill) are sailing around the world on a small sailboat after experiencing a tragedy.  They rescue a stranger (Titanic’s heel, Billy Zane) from a lifeboat who says he has abandoned a sinking ship. What follows is an interesting cat and mouse game as both men battle for control of the ship and “possession” of Kidman. A pretty good thriller. ($2.99 to rent on amazon/youtube/googleplay, free with cinemaxgo)

Knife In The Water (1962) - Roman Polanski’s first film, and the only one he made in his native Poland (so it is in Polish).  This one also follows a couple on a sailboat with another male interloper, but in this case the couple picks up the interloper hitchhiking, while they are on their way for a day on their sailboat on a lake.  The husband is a member of the ruling communist party and so there are themes related to living under the iron curtain in the 1960s. I realize that Polanski brings up many conflicting issues for people, but I would argue that an artist’s work is seperate from an artist and that any positive a problematic artist brings into the world ought to be appreciated if only as an offset to the damage that artist may have cause.  Besides, despite the horrendousness of his actions, Polanski has remained an insightful and even humane observer of the human condition. ($2.99 to rent amazon/vudu/itunes)

Stranger Than Paradise (1984) -  The film that put quirky indie director Jim Jarmusch on the map.  Willie’s (saxophonist/painter/twitter poet John Lurie) low key life is interrupted when his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) visits him in NYC from Cleveland.  Then eventually Willie and his buddy Eddie (Richard Edson - a “that guy” you may know from films like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off who was also the original drummer for Sonic Youth) go visit Eva in Cleveland and go to Florida.  Mostly taking place in rooms, this black and white film is truly a place where nothing happens. (free on kanopy, $3.99 to rent on amazon/itunes)

My Dinner With Andre (1981) -  The very famous arthouse film about 2 dudes in the 70s/80s NYC theater scene having dinner, catching up and discussing both their work and their world views.  While one definitely needs to be in the mood and open to its charms, the discussion is actually extremely interesting, esp given the different fortunes of their careers at the time of the film.  Real life NYC theater scene members Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn play versions of themselves and worked out the script from their actual conversations. Sharp eyed viewers may recognize Shawn as Vizzini from The Princess Bride.  Sharp eared listeners may recognize Shawn’s voice as that of the T Rex from the Toy Story films. (free on kanopy, $3.99 to rent on amazon/itunes)

The Thing (1982) - John Carpenter’s cold horror classic has been atop many of the best horror films lists for better than a decade now, but when it first came out in 82 it was dismissed as a meh flick.  But the stellar cast (Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley and a host of That Guys), creatively gorey practical special effects and claustrophobic direction by Carpenter make this a fantastic film - it’s much easier to understand why it tops so many lists now than why it initially was considered a flop.  And while Carpenter famously does the fantastic music in so many of his own films (Halloween of course), it is interesting to note that Carpenter managed to get the magnificent Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly) to write this score. (available on hulu, $3.99 to rent on itunes/youtube/googleplay, $6.99 on amazon)

The Martian (2015)  - The surprise minor hit starring Matt Damon, and even more surprisingly subtly directed by Ridley Scott of 2015 is another sci fi movie about an isolated man, this one stranded on Mars.  After an accident destroys any ability to communicate with Earth, astronaut Mark Watney must figure out how to save himself and then survive on Mars long enough to figure out how to communicate with Earth and then be able to wait years for a rescue mission to make it to him. A film with much more humor than may be expected from such a situation, The Martian does have an overall larger cast than many of the films in this list, but it focuses on Watney’s complete isolation and how he manages to survive it as sanely as possible.  And while Ridley Scott was always able to direct subtly, before this film it was many years since he actually had. (available on hulu, $3.99 to rent on itunes/youtube/googleplay, $14.99 on amazon ye gods)

Other small cast films: Down By Law, Closer, Reservoir Dogs, All Is Lost, Gravity, Buried, Time Crimes, Blue Lagoon, Castaway, The Shining, Enemy Mine, Robinson Crusoe On Mars, Hell In The Pacific, Secret Honor, Misery, Persona, Woman In The Dunes, Solaris, Coffee and Cigarettes, Night On Earth, Antichrist, Cube, Closer, Sleuth, 127 Hours, Death and the Maiden, Gerry, Hard Candy, Green Room, Room, Cloverfield Lane