The odd time I like to watch a good film.

The great problem though is that great films are very few and far between.

In a moment of madness, I signed up for the film package on Sky some years ago.  They used to bring out some reasonably mediocre stuff and new films were added to the package every Friday.  Now they add just one film a day and I can safely say that as quantity went up so quality went down.  Or maybe they are just producing crap films these days?

Is it my imagination, or are they stuck in a groove at the moment in the film industry?  Every fucking film that appears is either some kind of slasher/horror/zombie/aliens type, or even worse, coming-of-age/teen comedy? 

Take for example today's offering on Sky – The 5th Wave.  Apparently it's about "a regular teenager forced into survival mode when alien attacks decimate the planet".  Another teen one combined with aliens.  Yet another I won't be watching and it's a fair bet Herself will turn her nose up, and she's the film fanatic.

In fairness they do come up with a rare one such as "Bridge of Spies" or The Martian" but they are very few and far between.

Lately I have started a two-pronged attack on Sky Movies Cinema in the hopes that I can persuade Herself to drop the subscription.  My first tactic is obviously to point out how fucking crap all their films are.  She actually agrees with me on this one now.  The second is to find films from "alternative" sources and put them on instead.  This is working out better than I expected as I have found some really good ones, and then a month or so later the same film is "priemered" on Sky and I can point out that we have seen that already and how useless Sky are.

My big problem now is finding really good films in my "alternative" sources.  I tried looking at Netflix offerings but they only list them to members which is a real fucking nerve and a deliberate attempt to hook me into paying without seeing what I am paying for.  I wouldn't pay anyway as doubtless they're much the same as Sky and I'm paying far too much to them.

Now I'm reduced to scrolling through vast lists on the IMDB site.  In fact it was that scrolling that convinced me that the standard of film has dropped so far.  Maybe one in a hundred is worth watching.

Surely there must be a nice repository somewhere of decent films?  A decent film is preferably a drama that doesn't involve "unleashing horrifying forces", zombies, murder for the sake of murder, horror, or fantasy.  Comedy is fine provided it isn't American.  British and Australian comedies are the best [see The Castle, The Dish or a real cracker – Saving Grace].  I don't know what it is about Americans but they really are hard pushed to make a decent comedy.

Now I have to find time to search around some something for Herself to watch tonight. 

Maybe I'll just revert to the Ealing Comedies…..