(500) Days of Summer

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are perfect in this film. Possibly one of the best true romantic films i’ve ever seen. Its not a rom com so much as a study in life and love and appreciating the little things that make life truly great. Its poignant, touching, clever and fun.

Wiki: With a budget of $7.5 million budget the film made $40 million in worldwide returns. It was named one of the top ten best films of the year by the National Board of Review Awards 2009. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber received the 2009 Hollywood Film Festival’s Breakthrough Screenwriter Award. The film also received two nominations at the Golden Globes for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), and a nomination for Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Best Actor, Musical or Comedy.

Top Ten Art House Movies

Il Mare
House of Flying Daggers
Hero
Cashback
Garden State
Run Lola Run
Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas
Daywatch & Nightwatch
Brick
Pulp Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction

Featuring a stellar cast including Queen Latifah, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson.  Ferrell manages to grow a heart and brain, Hoffman is at his best and Gyllenhaal is refreshing as a bad girl.  Emma Thompson was amazing as she seemingly channels every drama, art and writing teacher I’ve ever met in this brilliantly composed film.  IRS agent Harold Click begins to hear a voice narrating his life.  His life takes an extreme left turn when the narrator says ‘little did he know he was nearing his imminent death’.  Harold learns he is a character in a novel being written by famous author Karen Eiffel who is renowned for finding clever ways to kill off her main characters.  Harold has to find Karen before she cures her writers block and thinks of a way to kill his character.  See this film you will not be disappointed.

Little Miss Sunshine

Delightful, Funny, Satirical, Moving.  This movie came right out of left field with its classic storyline and totally believable oddball characters.  This family stretches the definition of dysfunctional.  Olive (seven) is driven by her dream – to win the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, her entry into the competition hurtles the family into a road trip in an ailing VW with hilarious and tragic results.  The father is a failed motivational speaker and the opening scene with him is heartbreaking and reminiscent of anyone who has gone to a free seminar where unsuccessful ‘experts’ compel others to ‘follow’ their success.

The uncle painfully intellectual but not necessarily smart, comes to stay with the Hoovers due to a failed suicide attempt after his lover left him for the number two Proust scholar (he is number one).  The moody teenage son who reads too much Nietze for his own good, hates everyone, has taken a vow of silence to focus on fulfilling his goal of becoming a pilot.  The grandfather who gets thrown out of the retirement home for his recent heroin habit.  Who encourages Olives dream and becomes her pageant coach, with surprising and horrifying consequences.  The frazzled mother who is like sticky glue desperately trying to keep the family and all the pieces together.  This film is about dreams, illusions, failings, and how sometimes success isn’t always best.  The characters could have easily become clichés but the actors and clever script prevent this from happening.

Brick

At last film noir a guy and his girlfriend can both watch without arguing!  A super intelligent, cool, mysterious, intriguing, thought provoking, complicated journey through a tangle web of lies where everyone is hiding something.  With great twists like a yoga guy mimicking a pretzel.