It has never been easier to create. It used to be that access to the necessary tools to make movies was out of reach to most, but now, technological advances have largely democratized that access. However, just because you can make something doesn’t mean you have the means to ensure it is seen. If anything, this new level of access just means that there’s a whole lot more noise from which you have to separate the signal of quality work.

On the other hand, there’s someone like Cooper Raiff, who seems to have basically sprung forth fully formed as a filmmaker. He’s still young, but hey – when you’re in your mid-20s and have already crushed Sundance twice, you’re doing something right.

Raiff’s latest triumph is “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” currently available for streaming on Apple TV+; the streamer bought the distribution rights for the film out of Sundance (where it won the Audience Award) for $15 million. Raiff wrote and directed and, oh yeah, stars in the film, the story of an aimless recent college graduate whose side hustle hyping up bar mitzvahs leads him into some unconventional relationships.

Equal parts sweet and sharp, it’s a well-crafted portrait of a young man trying to figure out just what it is he wants from the world even as he struggles. He’s adrift and looking for some kind, any kind of connection. It is funny and poignant, radiant with goofball energy and offbeat sincerity, a compelling look at what happens next when you don’t know what happens next.

One of the most difficult things to do as an actor is to perform by yourself.

From the outside, we tend to view actors as individuals and judge their work as such, but the reality is that so much of acting is reacting. Performers take what is being given to them by their fellow actors and respond accordingly. The quality of the work is amplified – often exponentially – by the quality of work that surrounds it.

This is why I will continue to praise Tom Hanks’s performance in “Cast Away” as one of the 20th century’s true triumphs of cinematic performance. He was brilliant despite being all by himself; people who haven’t done it have no idea how truly difficult that is.

Hanks’s latest film “Finch” doesn’t leave him quite so alone. Instead of wandering a deserted island with a volleyball for a companion, he’s got not one, but two fellow travelers through a post-apocalyptic wasteland – a dog and a robot. Still, even when your only speaking co-star is at best a dude in green spandex covered in ping-pong balls, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik, “Finch” – available exclusively on Apple TV+ – is the story of a man doing his best to survive the aftermath of an apocalyptic event, a man who takes his responsibilities – real and perceived – very seriously. And when circumstances force him to abandon the place that has been his safe haven, he takes to the road in order to ensure not his own survival, but that of those who rely upon him.

I’ll be honest with you – I’ve never really been much of a music guy. I simply don’t feel the same connection to music that so many people do. It’s not that I don’t like music, mind you. I just don’t need it in the way that true musicophiles do.

That said, I definitely dig a good music documentary. Even without that visceral, cellular-level type connection to the music, the stories behind the music – the people and places and influences that brought that music to life – remain fascinating to me.

As you might imagine, the new Todd Haynes documentary “The Velvet Underground” – currently streaming on Apple TV+ - fits the bill perfectly. To have someone like Haynes, a filmmaker with an idiosyncratic eye and an obvious adoration of music that permeates his filmography, take on one of the most influential rock bands of all time? What kind of wonderful result could we expect?

An apt one, as it turns out, a perfect marriage of documentarian and subject. Haynes proves to be just the right person to capture the frenetic bohemian energy of not just The Velvet Underground, but of their surroundings. The pieces will be familiar, but the whole into which they have been assembled is unlike any music documentary you’ve seen before. In many ways, this film is an experience – an evocative reflection of the band’s place in the cultural zeitgeist.

I’ve never been one to enjoy filmed versions of stage shows. Now, I’m not saying adaptations – those can be lovely. I’m talking pointing cameras at a stage where a show is going on. Most of the time, you lose the immediacy and energy that makes live performance great and you also lose the production values and delicacy that film provides. It’s literally a lose-lose.

And then you see things that remind you that every rule has its exceptions.

“Come From Away,” currently streaming on Apple TV+, is one of those exceptions. The musical, with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and which first hit Broadway five years ago, tells the story of a small town in Newfoundland that found itself playing host to thousands of unexpected visitors following the shutdown of U.S. airspace after the tragic events of September 11. It’s a tale of kindness and generosity, a story of love and loss and the myriad connections that can come from the unforeseen.

Now, this is very much a filmed play and not a movie. That said, it’s remarkable how well this show works in this context. There’s quality production work happening here, camera work and editing and the like coming together to find that very narrow sweet spot. “Come From Away” doesn’t suffer those losses of energy or delicacy; rather than be diminished by the overlapping of media, it is enhanced.

Of course, it helps that the ensemble is tight and talented and the songs absolutely slap.

Hollywood has long been fascinated with soldiers’ stories. Movies about soldiers, whether they’re on the battlefield or off it, have been part of the cinema since the beginnings of the medium. In the early days, those films tended toward the celebratory and/or laudatory, but more recent fare has leaned into deconstructing the physical and psychological impact of men going to war.

“Cherry,” the new film from Joe and Anthony Russo, is the latest in a long line of films exploring what happens to those who are broken by war and then dropped back into their old lives without anyone helping them to repair themselves. Adapted by Angela Russo-Otstot and Jessica Goldberg from Nico Walker’s acclaimed 2018 novel of the same name and currently available via Apple TV+, it’s a story of one man’s struggles to deal with the aftermath of his choices – an aftermath that leads him into a seedy and unsafe world of addiction and crime.

It’s an intense and unwavering film, one that seeks to paint an unvarnished portrait of the pain of a young man left behind by the system that used him up. It is also a film not without issues, a story whose pacing is bumpy and whose character motivations are sometimes murky. All in all, an uneven but still worthwhile viewing experience.

I’m a huge admirer of triple threats – that is, performers with the ability to sing, dance and act at a high level. It’s a term most often foisted upon stage actors, specifically Broadway types, but it can be applied to a number of stage and screen talents.

Here’s the thing, though: Something has to be third. No one is EQUALLY gifted at singing, dancing and acting. Yes, you can be good, even great, at all three, but there has to be one that comes in last.

This brings us to Justin Timberlake, a performer of immense ability across the spectrum – a legitimate triple threat. However, I feel very comfortable saying that for JT, acting definitely comes in third.

And yet, when I watch him in “Palmer,” his new film currently streaming on Apple TV+, I wonder. Not enough to change my mind, of course, but that’s more because his singing/dancing talents are so extreme rather than any acting shortcoming. We haven’t seen Timberlake take on any kind of a serious role in years (and never anything like this one), so it’s easy to forget.

This movie – directed by Fisher Stevens from a screenplay by Cheryl Guerriero – pushes the pop star toward a darkness that is vastly unlike any of his previous efforts. It’s a heartfelt story of redemption and acceptance, one that goes to some morally murky places and is unafraid to venture into unpleasant territory. It’s about responsibility, about protecting those who need protection and how that protective instinct can grow into something more. And it’s about what happens when someone who has lost everything sees a chance to regain some of what he no longer has.

The relationships between parents and children have long been fertile fodder for filmmaking. These are easily recognizable dynamics in the macro sense that can nevertheless run the gamut in terms of specifics. That combination of universality and flexibility allows a lot of room for interesting storytelling.

Perhaps its no surprise that writer-director Sofia Coppola would make a movie that explores that dynamic – specifically, that which exists between fathers and daughters. One imagines that her relationship with her own father – the legendary director Francis Ford Coppola – might be fraught, particularly when you consider that she made her way into the family business.

“On the Rocks” is her latest film, currently available on Apple TV+. It’s a story of one woman’s attempts to take a closer look at her life and her relationship, exploring her own feelings of stagnation while also trying to figure out where her husband stands. Her enthusiastic and somewhat misguided ally for these efforts is her wealthy, wayward father, a man who has his own very particular ideas about marriage and relationships.

This is a movie that takes great pleasure in deconstructing the upwardly-mobile marriage at its center, digging into the feelings that can spring up when parenthood and other factors are clamoring for your attention. It also does a great job in shifting and sharing different perspectives regarding what it means to have a successful relationship – or if such a thing is even really possible. And with a dynamite pairing of talents driving the action, the end result is a film packed with heart and humor.

Many of our greatest stories have revolved around warfare. From the great epics of the ancient Greeks thousands of years ago to the continued proliferation of war movies today, the tragedies and triumphs of the battlefield have been major subjects of our storytelling since we first began telling them.

We’ve already seen one strong entry into the war movie canon this year with Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods,” but we can add another to the list courtesy of “Greyhound,” currently available on Apple TV+. The film – directed by Aaron Schneider from a screenplay adapted by Tom Hanks (who also stars) from the C.S. Forester novel “The Good Shepherd” – is a throwback of sorts, an ode to the WWII films of the past, telling the tale of the men tasked with protecting trans-Atlantic convoys in the empty stretches too far from shore for air support.

It’s a sharply-paced, engaging war movie, one that finds interesting ways to juxtapose the vast and harsh expanse of the ocean with the nigh-claustrophobic confines within a warship. It also captures the pressures that land on the shoulders of those in command, pressures that are exponentially heightened by the simple fact that the enemy is often invisible. That air of dread and anticipation – and the heroism that it takes to stand strong and fight anyway – permeates the film.

Fall TV premiere season is upon us!

Granted, the whole concept of the “new fall lineup” has increasingly become less of a thing with the proliferation of streaming services willing to drop entire seasons in one go and networks becoming more and more flexible with regards to when a series can and should debut, but whether it is by design or simply through inertia, we still see a whole lot of new material hit the airwaves in the autumn.

As per usual, this preview addresses only those shows entering their debut seasons. This isn’t about all the exceptional television that is returning for a second or third or fifth or tenth season – this is about stuff we haven’t seen before. It’s a chance to look ahead at what’s coming and think about what content – if any – we might be willing to invest our limited leisure time into.

It’s a mixed bag for sure. We’ve got broadcast and we’ve got streaming and you’d better believe we’ve got HBO. We’ve got comedy and drama. We’ve got prestige fare and we’ve got mass appeal. We’ve got highbrow, lowbrow, middlebrow – all the brows you could ever desire.

Will all of these shows be good? Absolutely not. Should you watch them all? Also – no. And this is far from everything. But if there’s even one or two gems among the flotsam, that’s a big win. And honestly, it looks like there might be a couple of winners here.

Or maybe it’s all just poorly-conceived adequately-executed entertainment detritus. Who can say?

Let’s have a look at a few of 2019’s fall TV premieres.