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An Okie roughneck (Matt Damon) goes to Marseille, France, to exonerate his daughter (Abigail Breslin) by possibly finding the real murderer. Meanwhile he finds work and makes friends with a theater actress & her daughter (Camille Cottin and Lilou Siauvaud).

"Stillwater" is a quality drama with a reverent ambiance and the gorgeous locations of the westernmost part of the French Riviera. It has the confidence to take its time while Damon works well as the respectful protagonist for whom you root. The little girl is precious and you effectively get to know the city of Marseille, including its current social issues, largely due to unfettered immigration.

It turns out, the movie was inspired by the Amanda Knox story from November, 2007, to October, 2011, which involved the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, and Amanda's eventual acquittal, not to mention the acquittal of Kercher's beau Raffaele Sollecito. The most glaring difference is that Knox and Kercher weren't lesbians and the latter was a Caucasian from the London area, not of Arab descent. This was changed into an interracial lesbian relationship for the film (rolling my eyes). This factor and the revelations in the last act moved Amanda to denounce the film for profiting from her wrongful conviction and outrageously distorting the facts.

Needless to say, to appreciate the movie, it's necessary to separate it from Knox's real-life story and value it as its own story and piece of art. I did and did.

It runs 2 hours, 19 minutes, and was shot in Oklahoma and Marseilles.

GRADE: B.

A TV actress and her professor father (Kate Hudson and John Heard) stop at a dying mining town in the desert to see a roadside attraction and inadvertently become stuck there for a few days. The eccentric citizens include a young man preoccupied with his late father's dream (Brendan Sexton III), a girl obsessed with pipe bombs (Christina Ricci), an ATV racer (Casey Affleck) and a woman who runs a diner (Lucinda Jenney).

"Desert Blue" (1998) is a quirky indie drama influenced by TV's Northern Exposure. It's comparable to Australia's "Rikky and Pete" from ten years prior and a little "Gas Food Lodging," as well as later movies like "3 Nights in the Desert" and a bit o' "Don't Come Knocking."

There's an air of emptiness and the story is kind of boring, throwing in a curious subplot about an ominous cola factory. Still, the flick has its points of interest, like finding inspiration in the least likely places.

You'll see some snow here and there, which, by happenstance, was the most snow the isolated town had seen in three decades during shooting.

It runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in Goldfield in southwest Nevada with the Los Angeles Aqueduct scenes done in Jawbone Canyon, which is almost a 4-hour drive southwest of Goldfield and a 2-hour drive north of Los Angeles.

GRADE: B-/C+

A single mother (Brooke Adams) and her two teenage daughters (Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk) live in a bleak small town in the desert. They each struggle with the boredom of mundane life and pursue romance.

"Gas Food Lodging" (1992) is part reverent coming-of-age drama, similar to the future "Dreamland," and part aging mother looking for love in the remote American West, à la "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." Others that come to mind include: "Desert Bloom," "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "Desert Blue" and "Tumbleweeds."

It's a quality drama with a barren dust bowl milieu that creatively fleshes out the three protagonists, offering interesting insights on life in general and, especially, the pursuit of love and everything that goes with it. Unfortunately, all three females make the mistake of getting intimate on the first date, but I suppose that kind of folly is one of the real-life issues on which the film zeroes-in. It could also be argued that writer/director Allison Anders only had 1 hour and 41 minutes to tell the story and so had to condense time.

Fairuza was 16 during shooting and would turn 17 in a few months. She arguably never looked better. Meanwhile Ione was 20 whereas Brooke turned 42 during the shoot. Blonde Leigh Hamilton has a small but somewhat memorable bit part.

Anyway, I like the way the flick often takes the subtle route in detailing things. It's not necessary to spell everything out when it's all there for the viewer to discover and understand.

It was shot in Deming and Las Cruces, New Mexico, which are located in the southwest side of the state.

GRADE: B.