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MOVIES
Most of these links take
you to these movies at
Amazon.com or Netflix, where you can read
descriptions, reviews and find out more about each
movie. The most recently posted movies are at the top of each category: Mind
Altering Movies, Great Movies, Good Movies.
MIND
ALTERING MOVIES:
Crash (2005) A 36-hour period in post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles
is the theme of this unflinching drama that challenges viewers to
confront their prejudices.
Water (2005)
GREAT
MOVIES:
Gran Torino (2008) Clint Eastwood
The Good Shepherd (2006) Early history of the CIA. Matt Damon, Robert De Niro
Letters from Iwo Jima (2007)
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Battle for Algiers (1967)
Timeless lessons about occupation and terrorism.
Dogville
(2004) Nicole Kidman. Surreal My Town-like tale. Almost
"mind-altering" -- but i didn't understand it.
Focus (2000) William Macy. A man
and his wife are mistakenly identified as Jews by their
anti-Semitic neighbors.
Good
Night and Good Luck, 2006
Lord
of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001
Lord
of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002
Lord
of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003
12
Monkeys, 1995 Bruce Willis
Black
Orpheus, 1959
See also good 2000 remake Orfeu
(In Good list below)
Winged
Migration, 2002 Just plain beautiful
House
of Sand and Fog, 2003
Girl
with a Pearl Earring, 2003 Just plain beautiful
A
Few
Good Men
All
That Jazz
Amistad
Black
Hawk Down
Blade
Runner
Casablanca
China
Town
Citizen
Kane
Crimson
Tide
Dr.
Strangelove
Easy
Rider
The
Firm
The
Fugitive
Glory
Good
Will
Hunting
The
Great Escape
Hamlet
(Branagh)
Infinity
Insider
Jurassic Park
K-19
Kundun
Les Miserables
Life is Beautiful
The Man Who Fell to
Earth
Midnight Cowboy
Much
Ado
About Nothing (1993, Branagh)
Nil by Mouth
October Sky
Othello (Branagh)
Patch Adams
Paths
of
Glory
Philadelphia
Saving Private Ryan (1998) Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, Vin Diesel
Searching for Bobby
Fischer
Seven Years in Tibet
Silent Running
Sling Blade
Soylent Green
Star Wars (1977)
The Thin Red Line
The Usual Suspects
Wag the Dog
The Year of Living
Dangerously
GOOD
MOVIES:
King Corn
Seven Pounds
Battle for Haditha
Lulu on the Bridge
Slumdog Millionaire
Hancock
PU-239
In Bruges
The Bucket List
Charlie Wilson's War
No Country for Old Men [harsh]
Defiance
Eastern Promises
Imagining Argentina (2004) Antonio Banaras, Emma Thompson. Government abductions in 1970's Argentina.
Bottle Shock (2008) Alan Rickman. California wine country enters French wine contest.
Helvetica
(An 80-minute history of how the Helvetica font has become so
ubiquitous, in the context of the evolution of modern fonts and
graphics
Trade (2007)
Kevin Kline. Gritty story of the search for a 13-year old girl
kidnapped for the sex slave trade. Avoids superficial
sentimentality.
American Me (1992) Edward James Olmos. A godfather-like story of latino gang culture from the 1940s to the 1990. Odale
A Mighty Heart
(2007) Angelina Jolie. Powerful adaptation of Mariane Pearl's memoir
after her husband Daniel Pearl was murdered by terrorists.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) Tommy Lee Jones. Mythos arises from a grubby tale of incidental death on the Texas-Mexican border.
Gigli
(2003) Ben Afleck, Jennifer Lopez. Yes, it got very bad reviews, but i
liked it for what it was: a quirky love song duet by Ben & Jen
Enlightenment Guaranteed (2001)
Two unreconciled German brothers make an awkward trip to Japan to stay
a few weeks at a Zen Monastery. Gentle humor and unburnished insight
into the workings of a Zen Monastery and the nature of
Enlightenment, for these two brothers, at least.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) Matt Damon
The Departed (2006) Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
Dogtown
and Z-Boys, 2000 The original skate board guys. See also, the
good fictional remake "Lords of Dogtown"
Lords of Dogtown, 2005
Fictional remake of original documentary, "Dogtown".
Solaris,
2002 SciFi (*) George Clooney
Solaris,
1972 SciFi (*) The original Russian movie, worth seeing
before seeing the Clooney version.
The
Cooler, 2002 William Macy. About luck and the lack of it.
Step
Into Liquid, 2002 a beautiful documentary about
surfing
Meet
Joe
Black (1998) Seems innocuous, but it sneaks up on you
Code
46 Tim Robbins. SciFi
Schultze
Gets the Blues (2005)
Orfeu
Good but not Great remake of 1959 Black
Orpheus (in Great list, above)
The
Italian Job, 2003 Charlize Theron (*) Fun remake of
Cane's 1969 Italian Job
The
Italian Job,, 1969 Michael Cane (*)
Assassination
Tango, 2002 Robert Duval
Gigli,
2003 (Really, despite bad box offiee and bad
reviews-- if you like the young Ben Affleck and J-Lo)
Lost
in Translation
Master
and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Monster,
2003 Charlize Theron looks and acts remarkably like the
serial killer Aileen Wuornos
(*)
Aileen:
Life and Death of a Serial Killer, 2002 (*) Independent
documentary of the life of Aileen Wuornos
The
Station Agent, 2003
Last
Man Standing,
1996 (*) Entire plot is an homage to Fistful of
Dollars and Yojimbo
A
Fistful of Dollars, 1964 (*) Entire plot is an
homage to Yojimbo
Yojimbo,
1961 (*) First Japanese spaghetti western by director Akira
Kurosawa.
Defending
Your Life (1991, Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep)
15 Minutes
1984
2001: A Space Odyssey
Albino Aligator
American Graffiti
A
Night
at the Opera (1935, Marx Brothers)
Apocalypse Now
Apollo 13
As Good as it Gets
Bamboozled
Brassed Off
Bullworth
City
of
Angels (1998, Nicholas Cage. See also the much better "Wings of
Desire", with Peter Falk)
Close encounters of
the Third Kind
The Commitments
The Conversation
Contact
Cookies' Fortune
Dances With Wolves
Das Boot
Desert Hearts
Devil's Advocate
Dirty Dancing
Dona
Flor
and Her Two Husbands (1978)
Dragon Heart
Elizabeth (1999)
Fargo
Flash Dance
Flowers for Algernon
The French Connection
Holy Smoke
Heat
Mrs. Brown
Hoffa
Hunt for Red October
Independence Day
Jurrasic Park
La Bamba
Lantana
Last of the Mohicans
Leaving Las Vegas
Legend
Living Out Loud
Local Hero
Master
and Commander
(2003)
Men in Black
Minority
Report
Moondance
Moonstruck
Network
One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest
Passion Fish
Pay It Forward
The Postman (1997) Epic stuff. Kevin Kostner. It got very poor reviews, but i liked it a lot. But, hey, i also liked Gigli (2003)
Pushing Tin: Billy Bob Thornton,
Rebel Without a Cause
Risky Business
Rushmore
The
Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
Shakespeare in Love
Shipping
News
Shirely Valentine
The Siege
A Simple Plan
Sixth Sense
Sweet Hereafter
The
Constant Gardner
The Secret of Roan
Inish (1994)
Titanic
To Die For: Nichole Kidman
Train Spotting
True Colors
Vanilla Sky
What Dreams May Come
Who's Afraid of
Virginia Wolfe
The World According to
Garp