Mudita Journal

Excellent movies, not so well-known

August 21, 2008 · Filed under: Reviews
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Sardonic movie critic Boffo asks for recommendations of movies that aren’t all that well known.

I’m not sure our personal tastes overlap that much — other than a shared hatred for Woody Allen — but here are a few of my all-time favorite movies that people usually haven’t heard of:

Dangerous Beauty (complete with Randian courtroom speech at the end), The Lost City (Andy Garcia’s love letter to Havana), Off the Map (meditative and gorgeous, can’t peel my eyes away), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (highly stylized, blatantly inspiring Objectivist fare), Vanilla Sky (surreal with a cryonics theme), and Waking the Dead (with Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly — absolutely not to be missed).

And if you haven’t seen Rob Roy yet … it’s Liam Neeson at the top of his form.

All of these DVDs are in my “once a year” category.

Posted by Joshua Zader · Trackback URL · Link
  • Reichart

    I see a pattern in your movies…

    Strife, pain, heartache…

    My fear is “being” Tucker!

    “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” – Woody Allen

  • http://www.zader.com Joshua Zader

    Reichart,

    Yes, each of these movies has a strong element of strife, pain, and heartache, in one form or another.

    That alone, though, doesn’t make for a compelling movie, to me. What makes it compelling is the prospect of redemption — of overcoming the challenges and achieving some form of victory, growth, or personal release.

    I’m often most moved — and I don’t think this is unique to me at all — by movies that involve some central conflict that forces the hero or heroine to look deep inside, muster their personal resources, and grow or persevere in some important way.

    In the list above, Dangerous Beauty, Rob Roy, and Tucker are clear examples in that regard. The Lost City not so much, I guess, but I was just taken by its beauty.

    Vanilla Sky, Off the Map, and Waking the Dead are, I think, more spiritually oriented — really about letting go into the universe and learning to embrace reality rather than hiding from it.

    Joshua

  • Austen

    I really liked Dangerous Beauty too. It’s HOT. I wonder, does the hatred for Woody Allen indicate a broader distaste for Jewish humor? Easy to imagine a stonefaced Zader watching, ya know, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or Sarah Silverman. hehe!

  • http://www.zader.com Joshua Zader

    Well I definitely never “got” Seinfeld much, so you might be right about me and Jewish humor! Surely there must be exceptions, though…

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