This is similar to the old "what's your favorite movie" threads, except that it's a personal request for help.
We watch a rented movie every Sunday, and Hollywood just doesn't make 52 good movies a year. So we've already seen the obvious things - Acadamy Award winners and classics of every genre and decade. Now we need to move farther afield. Please give me your recommendations of unusual, offbeat or overlooked (but still possible to find) motion pictures. Nothing is off limits except excessive violence.
Thank you!

Have you seen The Life Aquatic?

You've probably already seen it, but if not, Fellini's La Strada is fabulous. Or his Nights of Cabiria. These are two of my all-time faves. For more recent and American, Juno. I rented it last night--and loved it.

Ed Wood!

http://www.speechlessthemagazine.org...e%20movies.htm

I second Sam's Topsy Turvy and will add only four others off the cuff:

I Confess (early Hitchcock) Of course there's a murder, but nothing to flinch at here. Monty Clift is superb and so is the script.

Double Indemnity, 1944. Fred MacMurray's acting is not top flight, but Barbara Stanwyck more than makes up for it. Of course there's a murder but again, it's barely there.

DeSica's Miracle in Milan
Bresson's Au Hasard Balthasar

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Gail, the odd comedy, Idiocracy, starring Luke Wilson, is worth watching for its premise alone.

Bits from an LA Times review:

Idiocracy" is a vision of an American future bespoiled by rapacious corporations and so dumbed-down by junk culture.

The movie begins with a comparison of two family trees. A high-IQ couple waits for the perfect time to have a child, a decision they don't take lightly, while elsewhere, in the trailer park, the dim bulbs breed like rabbits. The high-IQ couple waits too long, the husband dies of stress during fertility treatments, and their line stops there. Meanwhile, the moron population explodes.

Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson), however, is not actually a moron. He's an average, unambitious, essentially lazy guy biding his time in the Army. It's his perfect averageness (that and his dead parents and no siblings or wife) that make him the perfect candidate for an Army experiment in cryogenics. The idea is to freeze the best soldiers for thawing at a later date, when they're really needed. Joe is chosen as the guinea pig, and because the Army can't find a servicewoman to meet the same criteria, they freeze a hooker named Rita (Maya Rudolph) alongside him.

The experiment is meant to last a year, but in that time the base shuts down, is replaced by a Fuddruckers, and Joe and Rita are forgotten for more than 500 years. Meanwhile, humanity devolves to the point where it can't take care of its basic needs, like dealing with garbage or growing crops, and when Joe and Rita find themselves unearthed during the great garbage avalanche of 2505, they discover to their great surprise that they are the smartest people on Earth.

An IQ and aptitude test he takes in prison (non-payment of his hospital bill) gets Joe taken to the White House, where President Camacho, a three-time "Smackdown!" champion and former super porn-star, makes him secretary of the Interior and entrusts him to fix all the problems. But Joe is focused on getting home and enlists his incompetent lawyer and stupid friend, Frito Lexus (Dax Shepard), with leading him, and Rita, to a time machine.

The plot, naturally, is silly and not exactly bound by logic. But it's Judge's gimlet-eyed knack for nightmarish extrapolation that makes "Idiocracy" a cathartic delight.

Withnail and I may well be the funniest film in the English language. Richard E. Grant is brilliant in it.

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited August 09, 2008).]

Idiocracy made almost zero money. Apparently the studio dumped it with no advertising at the end of the summer, assuming that the dumbed-down kids in the theaters would be offended by it. Ha! If the shoe ever fit . . .

Gail—

If you don't mind subtitles (or you're able to speak Korean) I'd recommend OldBoy. Hmmm. Just noticed your comment nixing excessive violence. No to that, then. Shame. Great film.

How's about The Motorcycle Diaries? You can't beat a bit of Castro. In all seriousness, I was utterly enchanted by it. The end, in particular, is a cinematic master-work.

If you're after laugh, try Sideways. Buy some wine to watch it with. Or The Big Lebowski or The Royal Tenenbaums. If you're after something quite other than a laugh, try Donnie Darko.

[This message has been edited by Mike Todd (edited August 09, 2008).]

Howdy Gail,

I second Quincy's Withnail suggestion (thanks, Quincy, haven't seen it in years and must now run out and rent).

A few others (in order from lightest to heaviest):

Kinky Boots (it’s about a shoe factory and (but?) very funny)
Allegro Non Troppo (blows Disney out of the water)
How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
Peter’s Friends (very ‘80s but lots of good performances)


Any that you strongly recommend in return?

B.

Ha! I was going to say Batman the Dark Knight and The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but forget it now!

dwl

Gail, if you haven't seen Lina Wertmüller's Mimi Metallurgico move mountains to see it. But make sure it has subtitles and isn't dubbed.
It's a satire on the real nature of the southern Italian male as well as a nice tilt at the mechanism which controlled most events in Italy of the period.

A terrific cast. It's OTT as it should be.


I forgot to say it's very, very funny.
----
A marvellous Japanese film is TAMPOPO
Incredibly funny.
______
I saw THE RULING CLASS many decades ago but I suspect it has lasted because of the cast.

IT HAS! Watch this scene!

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 09, 2008).]

I'll leave most of the dark stuff to others, but for comedies I love the original The Producers, Love and Death, Heaven Can Wait, Animal House, The Graduate, Nuns on the Run, the first half of Stripes (until they go to Europe), Dave (Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, not Eddie Murphy) and Little Miss Sunshine. I don't know how to label it, but I adore Shakespeare in Love. Last year's In Bruges was also hard to characterize, but except for one brief excruciating scene, it was really interesting and inventive. My wife and I saw Body Heat when it first came out and all the cast was obscure, and that was a terrific movie. I also love Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven and Mystic River (except when the women try to do real Boston accents--the men made a better choice going for generic Northeast urban).

I was less impressed with The Dark Knight than others, but it did generally hold my interest and have amazing special effects. There are movies worse than Ishtar, such as most Woody Allen movies after Manhattan.

I love two music docu's by Scorsese: The Last Waltz (the Band) and Shine a Light (the Stones)--in the latter you can almost hear their skeletal bones clatter!

Oh, and Cinema Paradiso.

View on,
Ralph

Now I do remember one artsy enough really recommend: The Madeline Sisters, an Irish movie about the instituitions that existed in Ireland for girls who got preganant out of wedlock--like the one that is the setting of James Joyce's story, "Clay." Very moving, informative, and well-filmed.

dwl

No, tell me about it.

Thanks, people, I knew you'd come through.

Special thanks for the foreign movies. I love Italian movies, and the two that we own (Nights of Cabiria and Big Deal on Madonna Street)we've watched again & again...but Mimi Metallica is new to me & sounds great.

Keep 'em coming, if you have more to suggest.

While I was searching I found this!!
When you have some leisure do watch this tremendous icon of its time.

THE BED SITTING-ROOM with a cast of major English actors and comedians.
Not to be missed.

I didn't make it clear. The link I have supplied shows the entire film. It's very strange.

Donna in particular should watch it. It isn't too far from her poem in The Deep End but it's a surrealistic extrapolation.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 10, 2008).]

Desert Bloom
Lone Star
Sunshine State
The House of Sand
Girl with the Pearl Earring
Starting Out in the Evening
The Madness of King George
Ratatouille
In the Bedroom
The History Boys
The Snapper
The Run of the Country
A Man of No Importance
Nobody's Fool
State and Main
The 2005 3-part Bleak House
In Her Shoes
Quinceanera
Holy Smoke
Cross Creek
My House in Umbria
A Brief Vacation
In Bruges
The recent John Adams miniseries

No one has mentioned <u>Twin Falls, Idaho</u>. Gritty (to put it mildly), but surprisingly human and humane. [Premise: conjoined twins; one hires a prostitute for his brother as a birthday present... Things unfold from there.]

Gail,

I don't think you can beat Sister Act for the music and comedy. I is better than II , but I enjoyed them both.

Anne

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[This message has been edited by Brian Watson (edited October 19, 2008).]

Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Return, released about 2004 I think, is one of the most powerful and memorable films I've seen in the last decade. Do try to see it, Gail.

snooty intellectual recommendation (and a fun movie):

Providence (1977)
a french film in English (dir. Alain Resnais; screenwriter David Mercer) about writing and the mind, with John Gielgud and a bunch of other great actors


light comedy recommendations (underrated or obscure enough that you might have missed them):

Ruthless People (1984)
The Producers (1968) the original, pre-musical

Afterglow--wonderful, touching marriage/family film with Julie Christie

Citizen Ruth--Alexander Payne's best film--scathing, hilarious satire of the right to life/choice conflict, starring the great Laura Dern in her best role

The Opposite of Sex--Christina Ricci is a revelation in this very unorthodox relationship film. It's very funny, too.

Off the Map--charming film about a very unusual family, and how its members transform the life of a man who stumbles into their isolated environment--beautiful scenery--and Joan Allen!

Fearless--one of my very favorite films, a beautiful piece about a man and a woman who survive a plane crash, and how the event changes their lives. Outstanding performances by Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez

Volver--Almodovar's hymn to his beloved La Mancha--about women and death and life--and, well, it's my favorite Almodovar film, and it's wonderful. Outstanding performance by Penelope Cruz.

The Band's Visit (Hebrew)
Waking Ned Devine (Irish)*
Les Choristes (French)
Mostly Martha (German)
Ushpizin (Hebrew)
Cyrano (French)
The Importance of Being Earnest*(old or new version, both delightful)
Great Expectations (David Lean, John Mills, Alec Guiness)
The Captain's Paradise* (Alec Guiness)
Our Man in Havana* (Alec Guiness)
The Lady Killers* (Alec Guiness)
To Be or Not To Be* (Ernst Lubistch, dir., Jack Benny and Carol Lombard)
My Man Godfrey* (William Powell, Carol Lombard)
The Kite Runner
John Adams (HBO)(7 parts based on David McCullough's biography)
The Imposters* (Stanley Tucci, Oliver Platt)
Sullivan's Travels* (Preston Sturges, dir.)
Much Ado about Nothing* (Branaugh and Thompson as Beatrice and Benedict)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town* (Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds, the greeting card poet who inherits millions)
All the King's Men (Broderick Crawford-based on the RP Warren classic)
The Shop around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch dir. James Stewart)

* Comedies

"Diabolique'" -- original by Clouzot.

Everything by Sturges and most of Lubitsch.

Eric Rohmer's movies of the late sixties and early seventies.

"Queen Margot"

And for pure melodramatic romance, “Strangers When We Meet” with Kim Novak and Kirk Douglas. Nobody did vulnerability better than Kim Novak.

Here are a few Canadian films I've enjoyed:

The Decline of the American Empire
The Barbarian Invasions
Jesus of Montreal
Exotica
Snow Cake

I also loved The History Boys and thought the French film The Valet had a lot of laughs.

Susan

My Dinner with Andre, The Commitments, Encounter with the Unknown (in the “so bad that it’s good” genre), The Woman in Black, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Dresser, Duel, The Return of Martin Guerre, Being John Malkovich, Wit, Secret Honor, Wise Blood, The Brainiac/El Barón del Terror (another “so bad it’s good” entry), A River Runs Through It.

The Life Aquatic's about a Jacques Cousteau figure who has seen better days... I don't want to give too much else away other than that the film is like a very compassionate, funny, colourful aquarium. I've seen this about five or six times and it keeps revealing more - maybe more surreal than Wes Anderson's other films, less cynical, less clever for its own sake and with more of a heart. And at heart it's a discussion about art, discovery, nuance, beauty; the transcendent power of attention. Hence it's my favourite Wes Anderson film.

<u>drama (non-Shakes,non-mus,Eng-only)</u>
The Barretts of Wimpole Street,
The Petrified Forest,
The Grapes of Wrath,
Mr Smith Goes To Washington,
Casablanca,
Maltese Falcon,
Stage Door,
High Noon,
Shane,
Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor & Elizabeth Taylor),
Quo Vadis,
The Silver Chalice,
Excalibur,
Ladyhawke,
The Secret of NIMH,
The Fisher King


<u>comedy (non-Shakes,non-mus,Eng-only)</u>
Bringing Up Baby,
The Philadelphia Story,
Sons Of The Desert * (Laurel & Hardy, 1933)
A Night at the Opera,
A Day At The Races,
Room Service (w/ early Lucy, playing straight to Marx Bros),
The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
To Be Or Not To Be (Carole Lombard & Jack Benny)
Snow White And The Three Stooges (great ice skating scene)


<u>musicals</u>
The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman - best opera on VHS/DVD),
Jesus Christ Superstar,
Evita,
Phantom of the Opera (Andrew Lloyd Webber),
Amadeus,
Carmen Jones (black cast, 20th cent USA, new lyrics to Bizet),
Kiss Me Kate *,
Yellow Submarine,
Concert For Bangladesh,
Swan Lake (almost any version - greatest ballet ever),
Spartacus (Vladimir Vasiliev w/ Bolshoi Ballet),
Oklahoma,
The Student Prince,
South Pacific,
Camelot,
Can Can *,
Man of La Mancha,
The Magic Bow (Paganini biography),
I'm Not There (surrealistic Bob Dylan biography)


<u>Shakespeare</u>
Taming of the Shrew * (1st WS talkie, Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks),
Henry V (Sir Laurence Olivier, film opens & closes in "The Globe"),
Richard III (traditional version w/ L. Olivier, 1955),
Taming of the Shrew (Elizabeth Taylor),
Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli version),
Richard III ** (R3 as 1930s fascist - Ian McKellen, 1995),
Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh & Derek Jacobi version),
Midsummer Night's Dream (Flockhart & Kline version),


<u>foreign, generally non-musical</u>
Alexander Nevsky ** (Eisenstein - medieval Russian hero as WWII metaphor),
Orphee (Jean Cocteau - Orpheus as a 1950s beat poet),
Belle et la Bete (Jean Cocteau),
El Tesoro del Rey Salomon * (Tin Tan & Ana Bertha Lepe),
Carmen (Carlos Saura - a director discovers a lead & fantasizes about her)


<u>Sci-Fi and Horror</u>
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original version),
War of the Worlds (original version, 1953),
Things To Come (WWI doesn't end & society crumbles, 1936),
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price as Moses - take that, Heston!),
Theater Of Blood (V Price & Diana Rigg having fun with the Bard)


-----------------------
* = kinky warning
** = maybe too violent
-----------------------

Robert Meyer




[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited August 12, 2008).]

Other poets' lists here:
http://www.speechlessthemagazine.org...ovies_home.htm

Gail, I'm not much of a movie person, but one recent favorite of mine (and one you might enjoy, being a fellow statesman) is A Love Song for Bobby Long, an independent film from 2004 set in New Orleans, starring John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson. It's based on the novel Off Magazine Street, by Ronald Everett Capps -- lazy plot, heavy on atmosphere, and one of the more realistic depictions I've seen of Louisiana life. If you liked The Big Easy, this is NOT the movie for you.

Travolta plays a retired alcoholic English professor, a misfit who spends his days quoting Auden, Shakespeare, and the usual suspects, along with a writer friend. When an intimate female friend of theirs dies, her sober daughter (Johansson) comes to live with them. They get her into Tulane; she restores them to hope, and belief in a few lost ideals. Bittersweet. In tone and mood, I would say it leans toward Carson McCullers, maybe Tennesse Williams.

Mr Hulot's Holiday.

Who has time to go to the movies!?

I guess the final hour and a half episode of "The Avatar" doesn't count, does it? That's the closest thing to a movie I've seen, lately.

I really did enjoy The Bucket List, though.

Omigod! Don't get me going!

SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS:

The Sixth Sense - if you haven't already
The Others - lesser known, quietly eerie gem
The Invisible - a strange, haunting, poignant ghost story
Dead of Night- the grandfather of them all! (the British film from the 40's, not the one with Vampira!)
Carnival of Souls - low-budget, cult classic. Can't miss if you're a horror buff.

SUPERHEROES

I haven't seen The Dark Knight because I haven't liked the other Batman entries. I didn't like Batman Returns

On the other hand, Superman Returns is excellent.

Spiderman I, II, III He's such a sweet, awkward, appealing superhero.

COMEDY

Lars and the Real Girl - sweet and charming
Napoleon Dynamite - hilarious, offbeat charmer. Nerds rock! Vote for Pedro!

MARION'S ALL-TIME PICKS

Free Willy Boy meets captive killer whale. 'Nuff said. Co-starring the beautiful Keiko.

You've probably seen it but Lord of the Rings I loved the books, but the movie's better. Costarring the beautiful Orlando Bloom.

Tristan and Isolde - Haunting, passionate, beautiful. The actors are perfect. It didn't receive the acclaim it deserved, but the critics didn't get it! The absolute best version of this story, literary or cinematic, I have ever seen, and I've probably seen 'em all. Costarring the beautiful James Franco.

Regarding Tristan and Isolde -

yes, Marion: I wouldn't praise it quite so highly, but it was pretty good and got little attention.