Movie Recs

[icarus]

It all started when I hit my limit on wildernessguru's action films...

I'm no fragile flower when it comes to movies, but this week while watching Army of Darkness (don't tell me you like it, please, I still want to respect you in the morning) I couldn't take it any more. Partially this is because Army of Darkness is just that bad, and partially it's because the last three weeks' entertainment choices have included:

- A sickeningly sexist brute movie from the 70s where women are drugged and kept in barn stalls as party favors and raped just for shock value, and the "good guy" is just as abusive (WG and I had a talk after that movie; I was angry) (Bad)
- A film where a guy locks himself in an FBI headquarters, takes hostages, and fakes an execution to reveal the fact that he was framed (Good)
- A movie where a hit man loses his memory and gets chased by other hit men while he tries to find out who he is (Good)
- A film set in the Viking era where the Vikings come over to North America, a boat crashes and a native american woman saves a little Viking kid, who later slices and dices the Vikings who rape and pillage the villages -- features a scene with a pungi trap where a bunch of native americans fall in (Bad)
- A film where a guy wakes up in a hospital and finds it completely abandoned; England has been overrun with a virus that turns everyone into zombies and the only effective weapon is burning zombified former family members to death (Bad)
- A hit man and a hit woman marry each other as a cover without realizing their respective professions; then they're contracted to kill each other (Good)
- A man comes over from Cuba to Miami and gets involved in selling cocaine, eventually becoming a drug kingpin; features a scene where a guy gets his arms sawn off with a chainsaw (Bad)
- A bullying wealthy man tries to pressure a cook to sell his restaurant; the situation slowly escalates to an armed stand-off (Good)
- A college kid starts earning extra money by selling marijuana to his friends and, being a savvy businessman, slowly spirals up in the crime world until he's a coke dealer, in way over his head; features such scenes as a friend being tossed out of an airplane (Good)

I've had it.

He's bitched and moaned about my Lord of the Rings marathon, groaned over my I, Claudius (though he got interested enough to ask me about it later), whined at Olivier's King Lear, walked out on and complained from the next room about West Side Story, avoided Evita! (he did love Cabaret), and put out a "get this movie out of my space" vibe when I bought Fantasia.

Now he's just going to have to deal with my kind of movie.

In my post entitled "This is war" I asked you guys to recommend movies of a nature that wildernessguru hates. This includes subtitles, slow-moving dramas, Shakespeare, musicals and... let's just say he fled from the delightful original Japanese Shall We Dance? Light-hearted romance (especially with subtitles).

Some people picked movies that would cause any human to keel over dead (read the descriptions here) and some of those I haven't included because most were movies wildernessguru liked and I hated. Ha.

But many of you recommended movies that sound really cool. I can't wait to see them, I thought I'd share them with you all. (Note: I'm still updating the list.)

The Movie Recs

First a rec for a listing of various foreign films, check 'the screening room'.

Also, check out the Dogme95 movement for the antithesis of the action blockbuster.

Foreign Films

Amelie (in French, as apparently the English is a terrible translation)

Tonari no Totoro (Miyazaki)

Kiki's Delivery Service (Miyazaki)

Nihon No Ichiban Nagai Hi

Sen To Chihiro (not the dubbed version, Miyazaki)

Mononoke Hime (Miyazaki)

Castle in the sky (Miyazaki)

Nausicaa (Miyazaki)

The Pillow Book (Japanese)

Il Mare (Japanese)

La Nuit de Varennes

The Story of Adele H. Camille Claudel

Cousin, Cousine

Peppermint Soda

Mostly Martha <

Truffaut's L'argent de poche

The Spanish Apartment (in Spanish)

Trois couleurs - Bleu, Rouge and Blanc

Krótki film o milosci (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Decalogue (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

A Time For Drunken Horses (Iranian art house film)

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (Korean, know this film, love it)

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Brodeuses

Solaris (the original version, Tarkovsky)

Mirror (Tarkovsky)

Italian For Beginners (Danish, romantic comedy)

Allegro non troppo

L'ami de Mon Amie

La Vie En Rose (My Life In Pink)

I Kina spiser de hunde (Danish)

Blinkende lygter (Danish)


Black and White Drama

Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman)

Fanny and Alexander

The African Queen (Katherine Hepburn)

Suddenly, Last Summer (Katherine Hepburn)


Shows wildernessguru hates

The new Battlestar Gallactica (TV)

Oz (TV)


Hello, Shakespeare! (And an adaptation of Bizet)

Henry V (Olivier version)

Henry V (Branagh version)

Hamlet* (Branagh)

Hamlet (Ethan Hawke version)

Twelfth Night (Helena Bonham Carter)

Ran (Akira Kurosawa, adaptation of King Lear)

Carmen (flamenco version of Bizet)

She's the Man (teen adaptation of Twelfth Night)


Peppy Musicals

Sunset Boulevard (musical)

Annie (musical)

Mary Poppins (musical)

Brigadoon (musical)

Man of La Mancha (musical)

My Fair Lady (musical)

Evita (musical)

Victor/Victoria

An American In Paris (musical)

Strictly Ballroom

Xanadu (which I'm not sure I can take as an adult)


Highbrow, starched, and slow-moving

Pride and Prejudice (Austen, 5-hour BBC series)

Upstairs/Downstairs (BBC)

Duchess of Duke Street (BBC)

House of Elliot (BBC)

Brideshead Revisited (BBC)

Mansfield Park

Sense & Sensibility (Austen)


I'll have to look up what category these were in

The Weeping Camel

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Love Me If You Dare (French schmoop)

Muriel's Wedding

Ever After

French Kiss

The Fountain

Two Days In Paris

The Price of Milk (New Zealand)


Bollywood!

Lagaan

Hum Aapke Hain Koun

Taal (great music!)

Dhoom

Dhoom 2




In all fairness, so you can see that WG's not all bloody action all the time, here's what else he's brought home. (Also, I get frustrated in stores of all kinds, too many options, so if I don't bring a list I generally leave. This has left him in charge of the movie selection.)

- A really interesting and beautifully filmed documentary about the history of surfing
- A respectful and touching documentary about paraplegics who play Rugby in wheelchairs
- A painful and sensitive documentary about people who jump off the Golden Gate bridge, with footage of the suicides
- A documentary about the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam war and his take on war and politics
- The famous Michael Moore documentary "Bowling for Columbine."
- An illuminating documentary about the credit card industry that made me want to cut up every credit card and send credit card applications back with the words 'fuck you' across the envelope

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/shadowkittykat_/]

I want to see a bout 1/2 of the movies on this rec list :)

Also, Mostly Martha is delightful. I first saw it as a kid and was desperately bored, but re-viewed the DVD fairly recently and absolutely love it. If you don't have the patience for subtitles, then this movie is torture :), but if you do, then it's wonderful.

[titti]

*cough*I'd probably watch what he does *cough*

I don't watch foreign movies, comedies, chick flicks, romance. My movies have to have explosions, car chases, starships and/or magic, ergo my love for Star Wars, they have all of the above.

[slashpile.livejournal.com]

Combining both the peppy musical and Shakespeare, there's Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labours Lost.

And to throw in a few more possibles:
Girlfight
Gods and Monsters
The Princess Bride for the commentaries

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

I. . . might have to watch these. . . 0_0

[greenling.livejournal.com]

I think I've watched the first ten minutes of that fifth one several times. Is it the one with the monkeys?

[thalia]

*Definitely* Mary Poppins.

I forgot last time, but for the foreign movies, I'd suggest Jean de Florette and Manon des sources (a sequel); I think they just recently became available on DVD. They're terrific movies.

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

Er, Sunset Boulevard should probably be moved to the Black and White Drama category, as it is definitely not a musical, nor is it peppy. (There's a stage musical based on the film, but the film itself isn't one.)

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

Ooo, what's the title of the movie about the credit card industry?

Sadly, I recognize all but three movies on the bloody action list. I haven't watched near all of them, but I do recognize them.

[twistedrecesses.livejournal.com]

You might also want to watch "A Long Engagement", which is actually in French with subtitles, starring ... the girl from Amelie (I just completely blanked on her name). It's rather slow, but it's not bad, and it sounds like he'll despise it. :)

[cabayuki.livejournal.com]

"Amélie" is a wonderful movie. It's so optimistic, and playful, and light... It always makes me smile :)

[cabayuki.livejournal.com]

Audrey Tautou :) (I couldn't help it! That actress is awesome.)

[quivo.livejournal.com]

OMFG Lagaan XD

I think I need to see that again. Oh, and *plunders your movie recs list* I'll take that for safekeeping.

PS: When you're ready for a truce, maybe try the Dexter series? IT IS AWESOME. Yes, just finished watching it again *wibbles*

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Muriel's Wedding is an Australian film with some really wonderful character development. The protag comes off as this brainless bimbo (except not pretty enough to qualify for "bimbo" status) with this imaginary fairy-tale wedding occupying most of her brain cells. She moves away from her family and lives this total fantasy life, going around to bridal shops and trying on wedding dresses while spinning stories for the clerks about this wonderful wedding she's going to have. Then she falls into a situation where this completely hunky South African swimmer is going to marry her because when the movie was made, SA wasn't allowed in the Olympics and he wanted Australian citizenship. More running around and silliness. She actually ends up turning into a human being at the end, though, and the actress's skill seriously amazed me because when she "grew up" her whole face changed.... You have to see it to know what I mean, but it's pretty cool.

The Price of Milk has some LOTR actors in it, including the male lead (Karl Urban, played Eomer) and another Rings actor directed. It's a magic-realism movie with some weird stuff going on but you just have to go with it like you're watching a fantasy movie. My favorite part is the agoraphobic dog who lives under a cardboard box -- too funny. :D

French Kiss is a fun movie with Kevin Kline, a romantic comedy where this American woman is giving up her citizenship to marry a Canadian guy, but then half way through the process it all goes pearshaped and she's left with no citizenship. She meets this French guy (Kline) and goes to France with him, then finds out that his offer to help her was just because he wanted to smuggle this grape vine for his vinyard. It sounds weird but it was fun. :)

A Bollywood movie I just saw and liked was Bride and Prejudice, a re-telling of Austen with an American guy and an Indian girl. It was just close enough to the book for some good giggles in places, and was definitely worth watching on its own as well.

Angie

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

- An illuminating documentary about the credit card industry that made me want to cut up every credit card and send credit card applications back with the words 'fuck you' across the envelope

I think my mom's read a book like this.

[enname.livejournal.com]

The Weeping Camel

Subtitles

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Katherine Hepburn - it is colour but only just.

You mean there is a dubbed version of Amelie? *blinks* Yargh. Even with my sketchy working French... so very sweet and funny. Like trying to watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in English. I got about ten minutes in before I hurt myself laughing .. and I don't speak Chinese.

Pfft. Subtitles are only until I... learn every language under the sun.

*takes some notes* This makes me want to rec more and more... and must. stop. :P

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

I didn't think of this before, but try Babette's Feast. It's a Danish film about two religious spinster sisters who take in a refugee from France, Babette. Babette wins a bunch of money and decides to thank the sisters by cooking them a meal. It's rather slow moving (the dinner scene takes half the movie), but touching and funny by turns. Won a whole bunch of awards. Between the subtitles and the slow pace, he'll go nuts.

And one I'd recommend, but not for this, because he might like it, is Everybody's Famous. Of course, if he fled from Shall We Dance?, it might work. Basic plot is Man kidnaps pop star to force her manager to give his daughter a shot at fame. It's Belgian.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah a few of these need to be moved around, but whatever, this isn't the top priority of the week.

[nykohl.livejournal.com]

You should see if you can get your hands on I See You and Namastey London, also Munna Bhai MBBS, if you liked the Bollywood movies. (My ex-boyfriend is Indian, and if there was one good thing about the relationship, it was the food and the movies. Okay, that's two things, yes.)

[harveywallbang.livejournal.com]

Amelie is awesome. I hear The Spanish Apartment is really good. I think you'll like Victor/Victoria. i loved it :) The Fountain.....that was a weird movie. it wasn't supposed to be funny, but there were parts where this bubble was floating through space, and me and my friend died laughing.
happy movie watching :D