There’s a certain kind of movie that we don’t see very often anymore. The small-scale film with an unflashy but talented cast, telling a simple story. Maybe a comedy with some dramatic elements, maybe a drama with a good sense of humor. Nary a superhero to be seen nor an explosion to be heard.

Those films, once a staple of the cineplex, are now largely the domain of streaming services. Their ongoing and unslakable thirst for content means that they have, almost by accident, become the last bastion of this sort of movie.

“Jerry & Marge Go Large” is a perfect illustration of this shift. You’ve got a couple of older stars in Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening – capable, consummate pros who are very good at what they do – in the lead. Based on true events involving a man who figured out a loophole to game the lottery, it’s a movie that offers a story that revolves around people who are neither young nor wearing spandex. A movie for grown-ups, as my friend Rich Kimball likes to say.

But movies for grown-ups don’t sell. Not anymore.

Twenty years ago, this movie opens in theaters and does perfectly serviceable box office. Now, it’s an exclusive offering from a lower-tier streaming service like Paramount+. No judgment – I’m glad that there are folks out there willing to devote resources to this kind of movie – but it’s undeniably different.

The film itself is pleasant enough, albeit a little slight. It’s a story of ordinary folks stumbling into something extraordinary, yet never changing who they are. A tale of older people looking for meaning in a world that has in many ways left behind, and finding it – but not where they thought it would be. You won’t be surprised by much, but that’s part of the joy. In many ways, this is a favorite blanket of a movie: warm and a little worn, frayed but comforting nevertheless.

So much of Hollywood is driven by spectacle. There’s a bigger-is-better ethos at work that drives more and more of the industry with each passing year, often crowding out some of the less flashy fare. Yet one could argue that movies work even more effectively as a medium for delivering smaller, more intimate stories. Bigger might be better, but sometimes, smaller is superb.

Take “Blackbird,” the new film directed by Roger Michell. A remake of the 2014 Dutch film “Silent Heart,” “Blackbird” is the story of an ailing matriarch bringing her family together for one final celebration of their lives together before her death – a death that she intends to be entirely on her own terms.

Featuring an absolutely stacked cast, “Blackbird” is a heartfelt meditation on the familial complexities that come with death and a look at how an impending loss can impact our choices. It’s a movie about choices and wrestling with the consequences of those choices and how, in the end, we must allow people to make those choices for themselves.

After nearly a decade of reviewing movies, I’ve learned that some of the best cinematic experiences come from sitting down with simple expectations and having those expectations met. When you know what you want to get from a movie and then get exactly that, well – you’ve won.

However, that also means that when those simple expectations AREN’T met, you’re even more disappointed than you might otherwise be in a less-than-stellar film.

This brings us to “The Meg,” a movie that would seem to have it all: Jason Statham, a giant shark, a … well, that’s it, I suppose. Jason Statham and a giant shark. Those six words would almost seem like a guarantee of a goofy good time at the movies - ludicrous CGI and over-the-top action sequences and shark-pun-laden one-liners galore.

But while all of those things are there, “The Meg” never quite rises up to become even the sum of its parts, instead wandering along in a disjointed and haphazard progression, unable to decide whether to take itself seriously or to throw the metaphorical elbow to our ribs and hence arriving in a weird tonal limbo where we’re not sure how we’re supposed to react. Are we laughing? Are we tense? We don’t know … and neither does the movie.