Can you recommend a good movie?

[Alex Franke]

We're probably going to be canceling cable pretty soon, so it's time to load up the NetFlix list!

Can you recommend 1 or 2 good movies? (Not just a link to an online list, but rather a personal favorite or two. Like, what's the best movie ever made?)

Edit: Feel free to add/edit here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...eX3gJ37NkYjxaA

The only thing we don't really like is horror, but pretty much everything else is a go -- including foreign (Babette’s Feast), oldies (Gaslight), classics (Godfather), war (Saving Private Ryan), comedy (MIB), fantasy (LotR), animation (Toy Story), even the occasional chick flick (Steel Magnolias), etc, etc.

Feel free to comment on your favorites!

[Kristofor]

If you're canceling cable perhaps you'd be interested in some series on DVD as well? If so and you haven't seen them already I can recommend a number of the HBO/Showtime series. The Wire might be my favorite, but about the first 4 seasons of the Sopranos, Deadwood, Oz, Dexter, Brotherhood were all enjoyable Sleeper Cell, The Tudors were okay(they all have some rough language and themes, but Deadwood is probably the worst if you prefer not to have f-bombs in your entertainment). On the comedy theme Entourage, Weeds, and Dead Like Me were pretty good.

The nice thing about watching series from premium channels (or PBS) rather than broadcast is that they're shot/edited for a straight through run. With broadcast TV you can tell were the commercials were and on some series you even get to watch 3-5 seconds over after the place where the break was. This is something that nearly ruins the experience for me.

For actual movies I've run down several of the AFI top 100 lists and tended to dislike more than I enjoyed, so you might not want to trust my taste...

[billwmeyer]

Movies

I tend to like action adventure type movies. I don't like horror, unless you are talking classic horror (old black & white stuff), and I don't like slasher stuff. I don't go to the movies often. My favorites that I can think of right now, are "Air Force One", "Space Cowboys" and "Armagedon". The "Bucket List" was very good too. I have been thinking of renting some Abbot and Costello Movies, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies too.

Bill

[OpaDC]

If you're a fan of foreign films, you might like movies with Audrey Tautou. This is the girl from The Da Vinci Code. Most of her movies are chick flicks, but foreign ones tend to be a little different then American ones. (Yes I watch chick flicks too!)

[Gator95]

Two very funny movies (both brits)

Death at a Funeral
Run Fatboy Run

Neither are probably suitable for watching with the kids, but both are laugh out loud funny.

[steve-u]

I second Hoosiers, Field of Dreams, and Seabiscuit as being a great movies even if you are not that much into sports. Rocky and Rocky II are also great. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles [Steve Martin and John Candy] and My Cousin Vinnie are a couple of my favorite comedies. Also very much liked National Treasure and Night at the Museum which are true familiy movies that you can watch with anyone. The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li was very enjoyable and another family movie. For science fiction the original Alien is hard to beat as is the original 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still and more recent Sci Fi movies Serenity [based on TV series Firefly], Iron Man, and Transformers are 3 I gladly own. Constantine with Keanu Reeves and Hellboy were very enjoyable though some could class these as being near horror. John Wayne made a ton of good war and western movies if you like him. I also like the Die Hard series and Jason Borne series action movies. I can't remember how many times I have watched the Hunt for Red October with Sean Connery.

Steve

[Tom Slick]

Waking Ned Devine
Dr. Strangelove
Planet Earth (series)
Chinatown (Nicholson movie)
In The Heat of The Night
Oceans Eleven
The Grapes of Wrath

not for kids:
Lock Stock and Two Smoking barrels
Snatch (sequel to lock stock)
Fight Club

I'll also get on an actor kick and choose movies that a particular actor has been on. Netflix is great.

[SHADOWFOX]

Foreign Film Recommendations:
Stalingrad by Joseph Vilsmaier
Nowhere In Africa by Caroline Link
Ripley's Game by Liliana Cavani
The Day of the Jackal by Fred Zinneman
Amen by Costa-Gavras
In America by Jim Sheridan
Infernal Affairs 1, 2, 3 by Andrew Lau
Mongol by Sergei Bodrov
Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Death at a Funeral
Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore
Malena by Giuseppe Tornatore
Whale Rider by Niki Caro
No Man's Land by Danis Tanovic
City of God by Katia Lund
All About My Mother by Pedro Almodóvar
Amelie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
The Motorcycle Diaries by Walter Salles
Y tu mamá también by Alfonso Cuarón

And finally....
Any Akira Kurosawa films

[fbrend123]

1. The Illusionist (2006)
2. The Holiday (2006)
3. Under the Tuscan Sun (2004?)
4. Any John Ford flick w/ John Wayne and/or Henry Fonda
5. Island in the Sky w/John Wayne (1956)
6. Passionada (don't let the title turn you off) (2003?)
7. The John Adams HBO miniseries (excellent!)
8. Keeping Mum (hilarious british black comedy) (2006)
9. I AmDavid (2005?)
10. Friendly Persuasion (1956)

For starters........

[Knottscott]

August Rush is among the best movies I've seen in years....it's a bit similar in theme to Mr. Holland's Opus, so if you liked that one, you'll like August Rush too. It's uplifting and inspiring.

Eagle Eye is a great action suspense flick....unpredictable, imaginative, and makes you think a bit.

October Sky is an oldie, but is just an awesome movie. I get something in my eye every time I see that last rocket fly.

Waking Ned Devine is simply a riot.....very cute movie.

Sea Biscuit is another excellent uplifting movie that we actually purchased.

Edit: I'll add a plug for Shaw Shank Redemption, and the Bourne "XXXX" movies after someone else reminded me! Those are all great movies IMHO. I'll also add "Dreamer" to the mix if you like inspirational horse movies like Sea Biscuit. And "Meet the Parents" if you're up for a having a good laugh at Ben Stiller's expense.

[pierhogunn]

1. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
2. Anything by Mel Brooks, blazing saddles, young Frankenstein, the producers, etc.
3. The Bourne Seriers
4. Stargate series
5. Stargate Atlantis series
6. Modern Marvels
7. The Addams Family, and Addams Family Values

[Ed62]

If you like Westerns, try "Tombstone" if you haven't seen it. It's a great Western that came out in the early 90s.

"The Earthling" is not a science fiction movie, as the title might suggest. It's about a man, dying of cancer, who is walking home through wilderness, to die. Here is a comment by another viewer "In the tradition of great outdoor films like "Jeremiah Johnson" and "The Edge", this is an emotional film about human survival and love. Great performances by both actors, wonderful cinematography, and a really tight script make this improbably story believable. This can be a hard movie to find, but go to any good video store (not Blockbuster) and they should have it. It seems like nobody knows about this movie, but it is really one to catch on a Saturday afternoon. " I agree with that assessment. A link to Amazon http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800060576/info .


Ed

[cgallery]

"Road to Perdition" with Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.

Great movie, fantastic cinematography (won Oscar for cinematography in 2002).

[twistsol]

And now for something completely different.

The movie "No Country for Old Men" won the best picture oscar last year. It faithfully followed Cormac McCarthy's book of the same title. The book was far better.

Other good books I've read recently

"A Brief History of the Dead" by Kevin Brockmeier. There are religious traditions that believe the afterlife lasts only as long as someone alive on earth remembers you. This is the story of the city of the afterlife during a plague on earth.

"America, The Last Best Hope" by Bill Bennett is American History with all the gory details. Presented in two volumes. It is history presented with much less assignment of blame than you see in most texts.

Bill Carrol and Chunka Mui put together a book called "Billion Dollar Lessons" about some of the most spectacular and costly business failures of the past half century, where management failed and what everyone else saw that they didn't.

The Harry Potter books and movies are great lightweight entertainment. The later books are huge but written at a 6th grade level so you can fly through them pretty quickly. The movies are much better if you've read the books.

My daughters wanted to see the movie "Twilight" and we have a rule in the family that you can't see a movie unless you've read the book. I read it and unless you like teenage romance novels, avoid it. Fortunately my oldest will have her license by the time the sequels come out.

[Bigbit]

My # 1 Favorite is "The Shawshank Redemption"

Others on my A-List: The Green Mile, Fargo, Reservoir Dogs (v), Kill Bill 1 and 2 (v), My Cousin Vinny, The Fugitive.

# 1 Comedy: Animal House

Sleepers (movies I didn't expect to like, but really did): Tommy Boy, Kung Fu Hustle (fantastic Foreign film, subtitled), Happy Gilmore


(v) stands for lots of Violence