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So many movies, so little time. There are a dozen I want to see, right now. What have y'all seen lately that you recommend (LotR aside, being hors concours and all). I'd like comments on anything recent, but am especially interested in these four: Far from Heaven The Hours About Schmidt Adaptation I do *not care to see Gangs of New York, but don't let that stop y'all from tossing it around. 
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Kandahar - wow. wow. wow.
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) - the first film made entirely in Inuktitut. It won all sorts of prizes at places where non-English films do well. The language isn't actually much of a barrier because so much is said with significant looks. It is a great story but also a great cultural experience.
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Ungh. I wouldn't recommend Atanarjuat at all. I loathed the thing. I do know others who enjoyed it (Bean is clearly one of them!) but I have to confess, I wondered if it won all those awards because the award-givers were trying to kiss some serious Inuit arse. It was long, awkward, confusing and pointless, as far as I could make out. I left well over an hour into the movie. I was trying to stick it out, but when the dumb chick who tried to (or perhaps did) screw someone else's man started wandering the landscape, wailing, I just couldn't bear it any longer and I struggled my way out over the laps of the people next to me and straight out the door. I saw it at a film festival and if only I'd left earlier, I could've made it to the other venue in time to catch Come Together, which I hear is really good....Damn!
From that same festival, I can highly recommend two other Canadian films: Treed Murray and Last Wedding. The former is an edge-of-your-seat drama, set entirely in a park in Toronto - where a businessman, confronted by a punk trying to mug him, fights back - and then is further confronted by the punk's back-up gang. The action takes place during one looong night, as Murray the businessman goes up a tree for safety - it's very interesting to watch how the power shifts from the group on the ground to Murray and back again. Really great piece of filmmaking. And apparently, the filmmaker ALWAYS gets asked if he's thought of making a play out of it. It's that good and focused.
Last Wedding follows the lives of three relationships, from the guys' perspectives without ever actually being through their eyes. It's wickedly clever and very poignant in places, has some great lines and great scenes, and I found it supremely engaging.
But those were from last year....I still recommend 'em, though.
I'm really glad AnnaS. started this thread - because I've been wanting to ask the US'ns here if they've seen Bowling For Columbine or not? It's HUGE up here in Canada - it's been playing in Kingston for ages, and we're not a big city centre (pop. about 60,000 in the city proper, 116,000 including the outlying areas). A lot of people up here are talking about it and yet I don't hear much buzz on it coming from across the border. It's a very good documentary on guns and the culture of fear in the US - something that hadn't occurred to me (the culture of fear part in particular - because there are some interesting stats on guns in the US and several other countries in the world). Michael Moore rocks my world. I laughed, I cried - I cried a lot and am almost crying again, remembering it. Plenty to think about, compellingly presented.
And if there's anyone left Out There who hasn't seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding - well, it's not deep or message-laden, but it is a charming story, nicely told, sweet without being saccharine. Everyone I know who's seen it (lots of people!) has really enjoyed it. It's not at all challenging or thought-provoking but it's very engaging fluff.
And for them as likes it, there's Bollywood/Hollywood (do I watch a lot of Cdn films or what?! am just realising that - wow, I never really noticed what a lot of them we produce, after all). It's also fun and sweet. There's a bit more to think about and it's not always the nicest stuff (lots to do with lying and being yourself, and trusting people you love even though they have given you reasons NOT to trust them, etc), but the music is very jolly and the leads are good. I suspect it might have been even more enjoyable if I'd been familiar with Bollywood films (more than just having heard about some of their conventions), but still, I found myself smiling most of the way through.
I have to submit one more (long though this already is!) and it's not recent - but if you enjoy foreign films at all, or if you love a good comedy, run to the nearest video store and rent the French film The Closet. It's about a man who's threatened with losing his job - until he pretends to be gay, and the company decides it can't sack him or it will be descrimination. It's very cleverly done - has to be seen - no, he doesn't suddenly start flouncing around and lisping - it's subtle. Of course this affects the other relationships in his life, not just with his co-workers but also with his estranged wife and his very estranged son. Many great lines, many great scenes, and not a wasted scene among them (unlike so many North American films). Gerard Depardieu is among the cast but he's not the principal role. This movie makes me hug myself with glee - it's perfect!
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"Edi". you MUST see it. doesn't mean you'll like it :)
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It's a very good documentary on guns and the culture of fear in the US - something that hadn't occurred to me (the culture of fear part in particular - because there are some interesting stats on guns in the US and several other countries in the world).
Just curious young lady, where were you when the US'ens saved you and yours from the huns?
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Carpal Tunnel
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milum - Even more interesting is that I picked out the exact quote to question MG about, but my question was...
... Hey, ya big tease, what were the stats and what made them so interesting to you? PM me, as this has the potential for entering a political atmosphere not appropriate here... Mind you, I have no intention of taking time to see it... there are so many more on my backlog list...
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Musick, what intersted me even more was discovering that the US saved Canada from the Huns. Prior to reading milum's post, I had never known that Canada had needed saving from the Huns.
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we must allow milum his mythopoetic license--mustn't we?!
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enthusiast
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If it's OK to get back to the movies, I just saw Chicago and thought it the best musical since Cabaret...a brilliant transfer from stage to screen.
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addict
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Adaptation is a must-see. It's a very clever movie, filled with the sort of understated almost-self-depricating humour that has a deeper meaning if you are looking for it, but is still funny unto itself. Very well cast and acted, especially Cage.
Bowling for Columbine, though in parts inaccurate, is nonetheless though-provoking and littered with typical Mike Moore humour, which is good if that's your thing. Will undoubtedly be more popular outside the States as it's also typical Mike Moore US-bashing.
Donnie Darko is probably the best film I have seen in the past ... well 6 months or so. A black thought provoking almost comedy with a surprisingly accurate portrayal of a teenage boy with schizophrenia. Nice twist at the end.
Frida is a slightly less than accurate portrayal of the life of .. well ... Frida. Not my cup of tea but reasonably well acted.
No ieda about the other three you were after. The Hours is suppsed to be good. About Schmidt looks like it will be carried by Jack.
As for more mainstream movies, The Ring was very good, though not quite up to the original. It was, not surprisingly, a little Hollywoodified. Catch Me If You Can is not a great story and a little long, but very well acted, especially Leo, and Christopher Walken. The Cat's Meow is also worth a watch, if only for an intersting take on the events and the times.
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Has anybody seen Max with John Cusack? It's not, and probably won't be, playing around here. But I read some good things about it, and I'm curious for some first-hand feedback.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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Thanks for reminding me, Bean and mg. Atanarjuat is also high on my list; it just hasn't arrived here yet.
Yes, Bowling for Columbine is a big deal in the US, too. We hosted a lecture/book signing for M. Moore last October, when his "Stupid White Men" had already been on the NY Times best-seller list for months. Great book, better even than the movie.
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Don't be fooled, AnnaS, it sure wasn't playing in a theatre here. (This is St. John's, after all!) We rented it. 'Tis the only way to get non-mainstream movies here.
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Thanks, Bean. It may take longer to arrive in a video store here, but we will be on the look-out.
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where were you when the US'ens saved you and yours from the huns?O Milo honey, yer missin' the point! I enjoyed the movie (if "enjoy" isn't too emotive a word for something I found compelling but not pleasing) because it made me think about things in a different way. It had never occurred to me that there's a culture of fear in the US, but Moore makes a pretty good argument for this. That's not to say that all US'ns are fearful people - far from it. I've always found that some of the very best Canucks I know are former US'ns, as a matter of fact - they tend to be brighter, bolder, more intelligent and more engaged than a lot of other Canucks. (But I hasten to add that I do also know a lot of bright, bold, intelligent and engaged/engaging native-born Canucks!) Moore did make some interesting points, though, about the slant of the news in the US and Canada - the US preferring to focus on doom-saying. It was quite a funny segue, actually: US news shows going on about killer bees, epidemics, threats of nuclear war kinds o' thing, and then Moore crosses the border into Canada and discovers what's on the news up here: shot of a tv in a bar with a news item on it about new speed bumps....  But I do realise that Moore would have been selective about the footage he chose to use, in order to shore up his argument. I do try to think while I'm watching things, y'know! It had never occurred to me how much the news and what it says and how it says it, could create a culture of fear. But then, perhaps it had never occurred to me because I haven't yet read Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness. Have only read Postman's first chapter, in which he suggests that the medium, far more than being the message, DICTATES the message (eg, you can't have a philosophical discussion with smoke signals, you'd run out of wood and wet blankets too quickly). And I still say Bowling For Columbine is fascinating watching. And I still wonder how much US'ns have heard about it and how many of them have seen it. and my mother has a copy of Stupid White Men, which I have not read yet - do know she laughed and despaired while reading it herself, though....
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journeyman
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Two of the better movies i've seen in the past year were set and filmed in Australia. I'm not sure if these have been released overseas but if they are available may prove worthwhile.
Lantana - A thriller that won 11 Australian Film Industry awards in 2001
The Man Who Sued God. - Comedy starring the wickedly funny Billy Connelly.
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>we must allow milum his mythopoetic license--mustn't we?!
I assure you, I feel no such compulsion.
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Thus spracht a bonafide ayleur.
Je glaube dass tu need no "t" - seulement "sprach", niet "spracht".
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Sandra Bullock 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hi, lapsus! <grin> Confess I have never heard of most of the movies mentioned here, nor Michael Moore. Billy Connolly, I have, though, thanks to a clip a friend sent me. He is funny!
(Man, y'all are killin' me with all these Rx! Has anybody figured out how to simultaneously read a book and watch a movie? There are so many of each that I want to experience but don't have time for...)
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simultaneously read a book and watch a movie?
nope, but I do know that if you go to the theatre and sit in the front row with your copy of Hamlet and follow along, line by line and page by page, eventually a pissed-off actor will snatch the book from your hands and fling it down the vom....I heard about it happening at Stratford (Canada, not England!)! Ahhhh....Wish I'd been there to see that!
I s'pose you could always get the book on tape and play it in your Walkman at the cinema.... [dead serious-e]
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Carpal Tunnel
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if you go to the theatre and sit in the front row with your copy of Hamlet and follow along, line by line and page by page, eventually a pissed-off actor will snatch the book from your hands and fling it down the vom.... Ohmigawd, how funny! I suppose they would think you were checking up on them! Vom... = vomitory?
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checking up on them!
We'll see that sometimes during chorus performances. It can be a little disconcerting.
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Vom... = vomitory?
close enough! since the word is "vomitorium" but I just looked it up in my trusty dic and the definition was "vomitory"....There are two of them at the Festival Theatre at Stratford (Ontario!), kinda downstage L and R (WO'N, can you have "downstage" on a thrust stage?! guess you need some way of referring to the front of the stage...as much as a thrust stage has a front....). - They serve (at Stratford) as an entrance/exit from/to the area under the stage, which they call the Underworld.
'Tis quite a beautiful stage altogether - if any of y'all ever gets there, it's well worth trying to fit in a backstage tour (as well as going to a performance, of course!).
Back to movies/films/fillums/the pictures/the talkies: About A Boy just came out on video. Well worth a look - Hugh Grant actually can act, after all! and that little boy - can't remember his name, alas - but what a great face he has. Toni Collette is wonderful in this too.
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I saw a movie on PBS a few weeks ago that I liked quite a bit called "Almost a Woman". Hope you can find it.
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