Great Movies Are Hiding in Plain Sight

I'm never not amazed at how many movies exist and continue to be made.

Hundreds, thousands every year, judging from what I see when I lazily surf Netflix and Amazon to see what's out there.

You could spend your entire life looking at their listings and occasionally stopping to find out more about those that look particularly interesting.

Using "If you liked that, you might like these" rarely turns up anything of interest.

What's so vexing is that no matter what, I simply cannot pick out the few great ones from the dross.

I see films I loved thrown in amongst far more I've never heard of, and I know there are limitless wonderful ones right there in front of me hiding in plain sight.

For example, last night I watched "Anniversary," which I'd never heard of until I happened on it while title surfing: it was terrific.

Last week I watched "FUZE," indistinguishable from other thrillers that were displayed by the score: it turned out to be riveting, with a twisty, unexpected narrative that was hugely entertaining.

Yet those two were outliers among the many others I started watching and then abandoned after 5-15 minutes because they were so dull.

This is Part 1 of 2; next month I will report on the results of my attempt to organize a systematic approach to this problem.