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[Zuzanna Alondra]

Apparently I don't watch enough TV (like I don't... Havo's been pestering me to get cable TV before he moves up) or movies (they cost too much?).

But my sister has a NetFlix account - which means movies and TV shows are free.  I like free.

The problem is I've been out of the loop for long enough that I don't know *what* to watch.  I thought the Dark Knight was a "new release" in the theaters still after it had been out for *years*.

So call this "The Movie List" thread with awesome flicks to watch and maybe a sentence or two of why and/or the film rating.

I'll start with three I know:

Avatar: PG-13 - the graphics are absolutely stunning and the plot - while a bit of a Pocahontas redo in plot was still very touching.  Just enough "cool stuff" to not be boring and enough emotional pull to keep it romantic.

The Dark Knight: PG-13 - This was a complete mind bender.  The sheer insanity in the sanity of the character Joker made me pause quite a few times.  While PG-13, I don't recommend taking the kids to this one.  Thing to pay very close attention to - listen to why Joker has his scars on his face, he tells the story more then once in the movie.

Office Space: R - Don't ask me why this is really rated R; but for any person that works a white collar job pushing papers this film is a must see.  As an accountant in real life I just laughed and laughed when I finally got talked into watching this one.

Your turn!

[Casiella]

New movie: Inception. PG-13 in US for some violence and language. If Alfred Hitchcock's movies and Stanley Kubrick's movies had a baby, this would be that film.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Office Space is rated R due to adult language and adult situations (for instance the dream sequence).

Pi: The Movie. A fantastic portrayal of the idea of finding divinity in the laws of math. It's a story about a fellow by the name of Max Cohen that is a theoretical mathematician attempting to find a pattern in the stock market. This is Darren Aronofsky's first film, and one of his best. His use of camera placement is bar none, and his cinematography is excellent. Also this movie has been noted as being the most realistic and effective portrayal of the effects of suffering from a high-end migraine. Strongly recommended. It has been nominated for 7 awards as well as winning 9 others, including the Directorship award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Interesting factoid: All of the music for this movie was made using an Atari 5200. Clint Mansell is brilliant. You can see the trailer here. (This would be my favorite movie of all time).

On to the second film by Aronofsky...

Requiem for a Dream. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr, this is a rather dramatic and horribly painful look at the nature of addiction, following two heroin addicts through a short period of their lives where everything falls apart. It's brilliantly scripted, acted, and again Aronofsky's vision with a camera is apparent. This is not a movie for the faint hearted, but again one I strongly recommend. Also, Jennifer Connelly. *drools* Trailer right on over here. The soundtrack for this is also by Clint Mansell, and has a few very moving, very wellknown and remixed pieces, such as this one, that still gives me chills just to listen to.

Moving on to a new director:

District 9. An obvious allegory to Apartheid, this is a very epic, very deep, very moving film that will tear your still-beating heart out of your chest, stomp it into the dirt, grind it into paste, and make you beg for more. A strong piece with brilliant cinematography and a most epic storyline about a man working for the South African Government that is just doing his job in evicting a rather huge number of aliens (from space) from their squatters' camp that has been set up after their spaceship ran out of gas and broke down over Johannesberg. This movie is the most gut-wrenchingly depressing movie I have ever seen, and by god it was the first movie I saw that made me think that I may have found a movie that was better than Pi. Trailer is in this general area.

All of the above are rated R, as the trailers make evident.

For a change of pace.

Up. I still don't know how this got rated as a "kids" movie. It's certainly not. It's excellent, it's a man on his last adventure, however it's another of the saddest, most heart-rending films I have ever seen. It starts off spending a brief 15 minutes following the life an old man had with his wife before coming to the present time where he begins the quest for adventure he always promised her but they never took. . . by filling their house with balloons and floating away. This is a must see from Pixar, ever the brilliant lot they are. Float over here for the trailer.

[lallara zhuul]

Harry Brown - Touching story about an old man that loses his last friend to mindless violence and does something about it, thought it would be a remake of Deathwish but its not really.

Let The Right One In - A story about a boy and his neighbour who happens to be a girl, and a vampire. I think they are doing an American remake about it that will probably piss on the subtleties of the story.

Ginger Snaps - One of the best werewolf movies ever made, especially Ginger Snaps 2.

The Big Lebowski - If you haven't seen the story about the Dude, you haven't lived.

Whip It - A young woman goes to a rollerskate derby with her friend and decides to join the circuit, hilarity ensues.

Pandorum - One of the sci-fi flicks that was overlooked upon for some reason. A good watch, bit gory at times.

Stardust - A good adaptation to the silver screen from Neil Gaimans novel of the same name.

Coraline - Same. But this one is animated.

I don't know how far back you want to go with the film recommendations but a few of those I mentioned are 'old'.

[Casiella]

Re: Pi and Up... Lillith is spot on. I mean, really.

[Saede Riordan]

Sunshine: This has to be my favorite movie of all time. Its just so beautifully filmed, the plot is fairly simple, but at the same time, deep enough to get into it, and not get bored after one playthrough. Its just...I can't even describe it, its too epic.

[Kazzzi]

Netflix?

Suicide Kings was a good movie.

Pretty sure you can get both seasons of these TV shows too.

Legend of the seeker series. Kinda Xena-ish.

and the Rome series from HBO. Highly recommend, especially for Amarrians. 

[Lillith Blackheart]

Re: Pi and Up... Lillith is spot on. I mean, really.

Thanks. I tend to have a different perspective on movies these days since I took a film study course way-back-when. The good is that I've got a better eye for great cinema. The bad is I have completely lost the ability to enjoy some of the more mindless entertainment movies that are just horribly flawed. That and I like plots.

If older movies are countable I can create a much longer list, if people aren't annoyed by my more verbose reviews.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Pan's Labyrinth - Holy crap, Guillermo del Toro gets this RIGHT. There's an epic plot twist, which I of course won't reveal except to say that I did NOT see it coming, and overall just a good movie. A word of caution, though - it gets adult ratings (R/18+/FSK 16/etc) for a good reason; there's no hesitency to display the cruelty and death inflected by the Franco regime in Spain.

Charlie Wilson's War - halarious, yet epic view of the shenanigans US congressman Charlie Wilson got into while trying to convince us to help the Afgani rebels against Soviet forces... and how we fubared it up in the end.

Minority Report - Quite an neat little sci-fi thing. The plot can be somewhat convoluted at times, but it doesn't detract from the epic of it.

Hellboy (I or II) - yes, it's silly, pointless, absolutely mindless fun, but it IS fun. The second movie's plot is a little more stretched, but the setting details are better than the first.


LotR trilogy - Epic. 'nuff said. Get the extended/special edition versions if you can, as they add several scenes which contribute to the overall plot... although they do push the movies into the nearly-four-hours-long range.

[Wanoah]

Some good choices so far...and some not so good.

I also love Requiem For A Dream. It is incredibly depressing though, omitting any kind of redemption for any of the characters. It's quite nice to watch Trainspotting sometime afterwards as a kind of antidote. Whatever you do, don't watch Irréversible in the same month as Requiem...unless you have a phone number for The Samaritans handy.

I am convinced that The Big Lebowski is a goddamn masterpiece. I wish there could be more American cinema like this. Well, there kinda is...The Coen brothers' Fargo is also worth a look.

Pan's Labyrinth also gets a big thumbs up from me.

I was deeply unimpressed by both Avatar and The Dark Knight. Well, Dark Knight was more of a crushing disappointment after the excellent Batman Begins. Avatar simply met my low expectations.

I should add some more recommendations too. Recently, there have been efforts to convince me that animé isn't an utterly worthless genre. These efforts have been characterised by subjecting me to Cowboy Bebop (TV, so technically out-of-scope for this thread, but really fucking good! ) and various films from Studio Ghibli.

Grave of the Fireflies is the Ghibli film that I can honestly recommend without reservation. It has an emotional depth to it that I wouldn't have previously thought possible in traditional animation and a superb powerful storyline. Comparisons to Schindler's List aren't completely unjustified.

The other Ghibli films I have watched have all had problems, but are decent nonetheless. Princess Mononoke - has (severe) issues with pacing, but otherwise interesting in that it's an action-heavy film that doesn't seek to simplify or paint things in black and white. Every character - even the nominal 'bad guys' - are acting for understandable reasons that you can sympathise with. Howl's Moving Castle was marred by a pretty terrible third act. Spirited Away would have benefited from tighter editing, but was otherwise a fantastic piece of work.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Grave of the Fireflies is phenomenal. Sad as hell, though. Talk about bleak and unforgiving, but an absolutely masterful bit of storytelling.

I also strongly recommend Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade along the anime lines. It's a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in a fairly dystopian future, where a young gentleman (the Wolf in question) is joining an elite military unit (oddly called Jin Roh, aka The Wolf Brigade) and he meets this beautiful young woman in Red and falls completely in love with her.

As one may be able to tell, I like tragic stories.

[Vlad Cetes]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

NI!

Tis' but a flesh wound!

We have found a witch, may we burn her?

WHAT! Is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
What do you mean, African or European swallow?
I don't know that.WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

[Aodha Khan]

and the Rome series from HBO. Highly recommend, especially for Amarrians.  

My favourite series. Awesome!

Movies: 300, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, The Dark Knight, Sin City, Slumdog Millionaire, District 9, Life of Brian, Trainspotting, Twelve Monkeys, Kick-Ass, Children of Men, Shaun of the Dead.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Going a bit more oldschool:

Citizen Kane: This... well, this is a difficult film to explain. A mogul dies, and on his death bed speaks a single word "Rosebud". A reporter is intent to dig deep and find out what it means. Orson Welles was brilliant in all aspects, and Kane is no different. This was the first Mercury Theatre motion picture production, and it is a cornerstone of all cinema. Its telling may be a bit dry for some tastes, and it tends to be a bit.... anticlimactic, but it is a thought-provoking film that can make one question how they will be seen by people after their death, and how they might resonate. I recommend it to everyone, but only those with a true appreciation for film and film-making will generally like it. Those looking for naught more than entertainment may well find it to be dry and nap-inducing. Trailer

Lifeboat: One of Hitchcock's best. During WWII, a pleasure cruiser gets sunk by a German U-Boat, which also takes a direct hit. Seven people off the luxury liner end up on a lifeboat, possibly the only survivors, all very different personalities, trying to survive. A German naval officer from the U-Boat swims to the lifeboat, and ends up thrown into the mix. This is a well-crafted psychological thriller depicting what happens when people are put in a precarious situation and forced to not only tolerate each other, but also work together to survive. Scene from early in the film. Fun facts: Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in virtually all of his films. When making this one, he puzzled with the idea of how he would do it given that they were stuck on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, see if you can catch how he did it, it's pretty hilarious. Fun fact 2: Hitchcock was addicted to the use of the MacGuffin, having them again in almost every film. In Strangers on a Train; for instance, the MacGuffin was the wife's Glasses. . . find the Macguffin is a fun game in Hitchcock movies! (And all movies, tbh)

12 Angry Men: The ultimate courtroom drama, this is the story about a young minority american man that is being tried for the murder of his stepfather (or father, I forget), for the death penalty; but not about the young man, about the jury. One man dissents from an almost unanimous cast of Guilty votes, because he does not feel there is enough evidence to put a young man to death, and the next hour and a half of the film is an emotionally charged struggle for the jury to reach a verdict. There are two primary versions of this (I have not seen the russian remake yet), both are excellent, Henry Fonda was outstanding in the original (Trailer here). Like the original, the 1997 remake contains an all-star cast, with Jack Lemmon reprising Henry Fonda's role, and doing the legend amazing justice, filling the rather large shoes with ease. George C. Scott, Hume Cronyn, and Mykelti Williamson also shine brightly. Sadly there is no trailer and this is the best I could find. Honestly I prefer the remake over the original, not due to better production, so much as the cast was more well-rounded. I strongly recommend this movie to anyone that likes Drama, especially court-room drama.

If only it were a true reflection of how the US court system actually worked these days. . .

Edit: Found better trailer link for 12 Angry Men