The Great Movie Conquest of 2022 - August

    I was intentional in my focus on Netflix original films this month because I've long been fascinated by the questions they pose to film production, distribution, and reception. And yes, most other services also have their own catalogue of exclusive films, but I wanted to keep things focused. 

    Netflix started this train in 2015 when it began releasing its own feature films beginning with Beasts of No Nation. Plans were originally made to have the film debut simultaneously in theaters and on the service, but this was downgraded to a limited theatrical release when major theater chains started boycotting the movie. ("How dare Netflix disrespect the traditional 90-day window of theatrical exclusivity?") Producer Amy Kaufman said at the time, "It could be a game changer. This has the potential to change the way people perceive how movies and art are delivered to them," and still you wonder if she had any idea ... 

  What's interesting is that even as direct-to-streaming has come to be associated with run of the mill product, Beasts of No Nation was actually an attempt at producing more high-brow content. Here you had a social issue drama adapted from a novel featuring high-power talent like Idris Elba. That kind of recipe commands respect, or at least attention.

    Before films were "direct for streaming," you also had films that were "direct to video" or "made for television," and various streaming services have to prove that their exclusive films are meaningfully different than films of those class. Netflix has tried to counter these claims by courting top-tier talent like Alfonso Cuaron and Martin Scorsese to release their Oscar darlings through the service. And yet, as the service averages over a hundred original films per year, it's inevitable that some of these are going to be nothing more than fluff. I went into this chapter of my movie conquest hoping to reflect on my own potential biases on the matter.

Netflix Originals

    Patty Jenkins has famously said that streaming movies look like fake movies. I must have had this thought in the back of my mind when I observed that the early minutes of Extraction kind of looked like some of the films I saw being made by my classmates in TMA 185: Basic Media Production. 

    Extraction is actually a really good starting point for our discussion on the stigma around streaming exclusives because it was a smash hit for Netflix despite no one having high praise for it. The story drew some obvious parallels between Tyler's grief over his dead son and his mission to protect Ovi, and Ovi saw in Tyler a fatherly presence he's never gotten from his own dad. The ingredients are there, but I'd argue that any pay-off comes less from the film's execution of the relationship and more from a Pavlovian response that audiences are trained to recognize in films. We're about halfway through before Tyler and Ovi have a meaningful conversation, so their development falls flat. Again, you see what they're going for, but the film itself isn't trying as hard as it should be. 

    The movie's reception was proportionally middling, but a film like Extraction can still harvest a lot of eyeballs because audiences invest in streaming films differently than they do films they have to pay for directly. Extraction has a very marketable setup: take a recognizable movie star, put him in a familiar genre where he gets to be a hero, make sure the trailers show-off that somewhat gratuitous David Harbour cameo, and you've got yourself a film everyone has to talk about, even if they're not necessarily talking about how masterful the final product was.

    The film I probably came closest to liking was probably The Sea Beast. The movie's animation was top tier, but I found its attempt at social commentary desperate and graceless. Still, it's the kind of movie that probably wouldn't reach as wide an audience without being made widely available on a service like Netflix. And when people defend the Netflix model, that's usually the talking point they go to first: audiences are more willing to experiment with their movie selection on a streaming service than they are in theaters, and in theory that means higher exposure for more niche films. In theory.

    If I'm being honest, none of the films meant for this month's challenge left too deep an impression on me. I lament this because these films were probably made with genuine love by their cast and crew, but in a system where media outlets try to assert their dominance by showboating just how large their library is, not enough attention is given to the development of these films. It's also not like streaming movies can't be high quality. I can think of more than a few Netflix originals that I have genuinely loved, seen multiple times (Klaus will be a Christmas tradition until the stars turn cold). But this isn't an ecosystem where creativity thrives.

    Owing to increased competition from other services that have risen in its wake, Netflix has announced that it will be modifying its model in the years to come, moving away from quantity to quality: more individual attention to fewer films. This is also a riskier model for the service because with fewer horses to hedge their bets, the failure of any individual project can't be so easily buried. Just so, this can only mean Netflix invests more in each individual project. Perhaps this will pave the way for a golden age of Netflix originals? 

Other Movies I Watched

    It's kind of poetic that the one film I reviewed this month was itself a streaming exclusive but landed on a service other than the one I was spotlighting--Amazon Prime Video's Samaritan. I would be happy to report that this was the movie that restored my faith in the current state of streaming films ... if that were actually the case.

    I closed out the month finally watching Pixar's Lightyear (yup, it took me this long to watch a Pixar movie), and wow did it leave me with a lot to unpack. I would honestly need to devote a whole essay to wrap my mind around how incoherent the film was and what it reveals about the state of Pixar, but I'd need to rewatch the film several times to pull this off, which I'm not eager to do. Perhaps we can take comfort, then, that Pixar at least gave us Turning Red this year. 

    Also, I loathed Deadpool. That's all I feel like saying right now.

    But even if this was one of the limper months of this challenge, it wasn't all for naught. I finally got around to The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is somehow the perfect embodiment of 1940s ennui. Cynical, yet so dignified. Most of my favorite movies this month were of that classical Hollywood brand (in addition to Shaun of the Dead ... don't know what to say about that).

    A film I didn't particularly like but can't stop thinking about was The Talented Mr. Ripley. The talent assembled made for a force of nature, but what really fascinated me was the film's twisted look at male affection. I can't help but wonder if I'm the only one who's given this thought. I've been here many times before: I tell myself I didn't like the movie, I keep thinking about movie anyways, and somehow it lands among my favorites. I imagine we'll be seeing each other again, Mr. Ripley. (But let me assure my readers it will be safely on dry land.) 

Looking Forward

    This month we'll be returning to my cinema world tour by exploring the library of Brazil. I anticipate this will be more a challenge because, unlike my exploration of Japanese cinema, I'm coming into this not especially fluent in the genres, directors, or movements of the country's filmography. But that's kind of the point. I'm wanting to learn more about a country whose films I'm not super familiar with. We'll see how that goes.

    As I head into the final third of the year, I'm really trying to close in on what kinds of movies I want to fill these last hundred or so days with. I used to love thinking about all the favorite movies I haven't found yet, and finally finding them has been one of the greatest parts of being a film nerd. I think I started this challenge in large part because I wanted to explore that feeling in a big way. Eight months into my mission, it's sometimes easy for me to take for granted what an opportunity it is to really survey the terrain and absorb so much of what the world of cinema has to offer. I'm holding out for a few undiscovered favorites before the year's out. 

    As always, thanks for indulging me. 

            --The Professor

Yes, Simon Pegg, only four months left of this challenge. And I still haven't seen Trainspotting ...

August's Harvest: 

Eternals (2021)

The Hunchback Horse (1947)

The Adam Project (2022)

Hooper (1978)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Lonesome (1928)

Passing (2021)

Wages of Fear (1953)

Deadpool (2016)

Blood on the Moon (1948)

Extraction (2020)
A Fistful of Dollars (1968)
The Sea Beast (2022)

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Ivanhoe (1952)

The Literary Guernsey and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
Working Girl (1988)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Lolita (1962)

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

Key Largo (1948)

Beasts of No Nation (2015)

Shaun of the Dead (2004)
The Phantom from 10,000 League (1955)

Samaritan (2022)
The Irishman (2019)

The Big Sleep (1946)

The Big Short (2015)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Lightyear (2022)