This is war.

[icarus]

I'm looking for art house films, costume dramas (go light on the history because he likes history), light romantic foreign language comedies (he fled from the Japanese version of Shall We Dance?).

Anything wildernessguru would hate. Because I want revenge, damn it, for the last two hours spent watching Army of Darkness.

I can't believe he likes this.


ETA: Don't tell me you like it because I will disown you, lol.

ETA: Thank you, guys, this is turning into an excellent rec-list of movies.

ETA 2: I'm making up a post with the names of all the movies recc'd here.

Oh, oh, oh! I love Bollywood movies! He'll hate those -- he can't even stand the music. Anyone have some recs?

Comments

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

Um, if you are not totally required to enjoy it, there's a French film called Four Stars that's kind of funny. There are a couple of moments of REALLY WEIRD AND UNPLEASANT (fully deserving the caps) characterisation, such as when the "boyfriend" is a total dick to the "girlfriend" (iirc, he actually slaps her at one point) and she decides to stay with him, but it is also a) French, b) a rom com, and c) was highly regarded by the sometimes-insane staffers at the 2006 SIFF. If you can ignore the fact that there are bits that don't really hang together re characterisation, there are some genuinely funny moments.

There is also Free Floating, which is Russian, and I swear to god I thought it was the second most shit movie I've ever seen at the festival this year, but I've evaluated it and evaluated it and I think I just don't know enough about Russia to get all the subtleties, but that it is a biting commentary on how Russia works now and how someone who is honest is going to get completely lost. Very good, I think, though, like I say, I hated it totally when I first saw it and really wanted to stab the director.

Beauty In Trouble is Eastern European and has a couple of flaws but is generally good - a woman divorces her husband slowly as she's falling in love with another man. Again a few weird parts, but overall I liked it. The ending montage could have used some work, but that's the way it goes.

I don't know what you mean by art house, but one of my favourite movies ever (and NOT for the faint of heart) is Twist, a Canadian retelling of Oliver Twist that uses junkie hustlers in place of orphans. A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't follow the story all the way through and lacks a happy ending (the ending is really ambiguous rather than concrete) and there are some VERY, VERY violent scenes in it, including graphic IV drug use, so not for anyone needle-phobic, very graphic (in more ways than one) sex, physical violence, gore, and slightly-more-than-implied murder, but Nick Stahl is possibly the finest actor of his generation and waiting for the right part for the world to know this, and he really carries the movie. It is not an action flick, despite having all those action-y elements in it; it's mainly about choices and honesty and has some very brilliant moments to it. This is probably the closest-to-perfect movie I can think of, but I tend to like very dark movies that aren't necessarily as well-filmed as they think they are. It might be well out of what you mean by art house, particularly given your other requests of costume dramas and light foreign language rom com, but it's what I think of as art house. This movie was nominated for at least one of the Canadian version of the Oscar, for either best actor or best film.

Another, similar film (I like me some gay hustlers, apparently) is Mysterious Skin. Also very good, and won the Golden Space Needle for either best film or best director for 2005. This one is pretty easy to find and is based off a book of the same name. I don't recall particularly horrible scenes in it (or more than you would expect from a movie that I like, anyway).

And in a completely different vein, Red Coloured Grey Truck is not the finest former-Yugoslavian movie I've seen, but it's definitely a funny romantic comedy (with, as is true of most Eastern European films, a very pointed focus on the war, but covered well by some very genuine humor).

I have no idea if ANY of these are likely to interest you at all, and I know they're all flawed (I'd love to hand you a selection of movies and say "All of these are brilliant, watch them all!") but those are the ones I could think of on short notice. I would strongly suggest checking them out a bit further via the internet to see if you have any interest, but you're hardly dumb, so of course you're going to do that. I just kind of worry that I overrepresent things as quality and then people get freaked out by what I've suggested and I've been an idiot.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, part of the goal is for me to watch movies that I enjoy, so I'm not sure about many of these.

Actually, I probably wasn't going to check these out on the internet first. I'm a little bit lazy like that. ;)

Icarus