What's a really good movie you'd recommend that most people probably haven't seen?

What's a really good movie you'd recommend that most people probably haven't seen?

My personal recommendation:  Synecdoche, New York.  It's one of those movies that words fail utterly to capture--which really is the hallmark of a good movie, I suppose.  Film, being an audio-visual media, allows for so many interesting and unusual narritive devices that you could never pull off in a book.  Anyway, please, if you have the time and the means, watch this movie without first having read any reviews or synopses, and without asking your friends about it--just experience it for what it is.  If you want your two hours and rental fee back afterwards, feel free to come back and complain and I'll listen, but that's all I can offer.  :-)

And if people start commenting about this movie below, and you haven't seen it--watch it first!  No reading ahead.  ;-)

Iranian Kidney Bargain Sale- Documentary about young people in Iran selling there kidneys for cash.

If you get a chance watch it. Great Doc.

One of my favorite movies is "Big Eden". It's a gay themed romance, so it might not be for you, but it's a adorable, touching and fun movie. I watched it with my kids...they loved it.

Cidade de Deus. It's Brazilian, but if you liked Goodfellas you should like this one and it is a true story. Life Mag. put in the top 10 of best 100 movies of all time.

I loved Synecdoche, NY.  It was so breathtaking in so many ways that I haven't been able to watch it a second time yet.  I think it's still percolating in my psyche.

If you don't mind reading subtitles, the Mexican film "Like Water for Chocolate" is extraordinary.  Sensual, beautiful, and simply profound.  

I saw like water for chocolate it was very good.

Motorcycle Diaries.

10/10

"Pieces of April"

It's a Thanksgiving story about a wayward daughter of a family of five who now lives in the Big city with an African American man. Her mother who now has cancer has totally given up on her oldest daughter April (Katie Holmes). She doesn't want to drive to the city for April's Thanksgiving dinner and doesn't even think April can pull it off. The Father who is trying to keep the family together while coping with his wife's illness tries to maintain his own stability on the auto trip to April's Thanksgiving dinner. Throw into the mix the other daughter, April's younger sister who hates April and the brother, youngest of the family who has a rare ability to see the moment. He photographs the trip. Then there is the grandmother who has what seems like dementia though at times her awareness is above average. All the while April is in her little one bedroom apartment preparing her first big meal. Her boyfriend is out on his own adventure in the hood.

Best watched at Thanksgiving.

LD

Sigh..........Like Water for Chocolate.

Matewan

Thanks for the thread!

I'm a big indie movie guy - I rarely watch any hollywood shit movies because they're just, well, awful. 

I'm assuming the espanol movies have subtitles, no?

Sim or si I speak Portuguese not Spanish

Jean de Florette!!!

The Station Agent

I watched the Wrestler with Micky Rourke tonight, it was good.

Travellers and Magicians.

A stunning movie from the Buddhist country called Bhutan. The directer is a Buddhist monk and the story flows on two levels. This movie gave me a greater understanding of the depth in Buddhist thought.

Sounds boring, I know but do yourself a favour and rent it. 5 STAR!!! (Oh, yeah, the cinematography is awesome)

A really unusual film which JWs would probably object to is "A Haunting in Connecticut". It is a story of a miracle as well as a haunting. It is based on a true story and is brilliant despite what some critics say. I give it 9/10.

Jakob the Liar with Robin Williams

1999 film set in nazi-occupied polish ghetto

Babette's Feast

1987 best foreign language film academy award
based on the story by isak dineson
(aka karen blixen "out of africa")

Chalk me up as someone who hated the Wrestler.  Very unrealistic, no old timer would do half the stuff he did regardless of how much "passion" he had for the business.  There's more than one area in the country, NY/NJ is this wierd sub-culture in indy wrestling which is not indicative of 90% of the country.  The rest of the country makes fun of that region for terrible wrestling and idiot wrestlers.

For my movies to recommend, I'm a huge dork when it comes to documentaries; I'd suggest "The Smartest Men In The Room" regarding the whole Enron thing.

For comedy I suggest Dirty Work

Pan's Labyrinth. I loved slumdog millionaire as well.The Diving Bell and The Butterfly- very French, is poignant.

David

I love all the Bourne films and have watched them a few times, but they are pretty big films most have probably seen and have a view on one way or another. Like Shamus I also loved Motorcycle Diaries - what young man doesn't dream of such adventure, and putting the world to rights?

I will try to choose a few perhaps slightly less well known films I have watched recently and liked.

About Schmidt - excellent story of an ordinary life gone wrong in a terrifyingly believable and ordinary way.

Everything Is Illuminated - about obsessions, identity, different cultures, coming to terms with the past.

Acts of Love (or Carried Away) - an older man has an affair with a young woman and reevaluates his relationship with his childhood sweetheart. The acting is patchy in places but good ideas well presented.

The Emerald Forest - a young boy is kidnapped by Amazon Indians and is integrated into the tribe only to be recovered many years later as the tribe faces existential threat.  

Evil - a boy has a hard time adjusting to boarding school, worth persevering with the English subtitles from the Swedish original.

Sweet Sixteen - about a Scottish boy who saw drug dealing as an escape from his background only to be overtaken by events.

The Importance of Being Ernest - I have good memories of watching this film in an English cinema in Vienna. I like Oscar Wilde film adaptations in general: also see A Good Woman with the beautiful Scarlett Johansson.

The Third Man - talking about Vienna, if anyone has somehow managed not to see it yet, it's an old classic with Orson Welles, not to be missed.

Most of these are fairly mainstream, but some ideas anyway.

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