 | Local Hero
Buy new: $5.79 / Used from: $3.22 You will love the people. You will love the the place. And you will rue the fact that Mac ever has to leave.
|
 | Juno (Two-Disc Special Edition with Digital Copy)
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $3.20 Smart without being smart-alecky. Even more striking is the lack of hopelessly stupid parents in a movie focused on a teen. Nicely done.
|
 | Rushmore - Criterion Collection
Buy used from: $30.23 Max Fischer is an indefatiguable wacko on the order of Don Quixote or Ignatius J. Reilly. ANY Wes Anderson movie is worth seeing, but this is the one that put the hook in me.
|
 | The Royal Tenenbaums (The Criterion Collection)
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $6.00 A story of redemption with a generous helping of humor. Perhaps Anderson's best.
|
 | The Straight Story
Buy new: $16.49 / Used from: $8.91 Stands out in the David Lynch canon for NOT being dark. Brilliantly straightforward and beautiful.
|
 | Bottle Rocket
Buy new: $9.49 / Used from: $3.42 More Wes Anderson. Would-be criminals without a hint of menace about them. Seriously funny or funnily serious, I'm not sure which - but it's a pearl either way.
|
 | Tender Mercies
Buy used from: $10.75 Robert Duvall is, as always, flawless in his portrayal of drunken country has-been Mac Sledge who finally lays down his arms in the war he has been waging on himself. Tess Harper is excellent as well.
|
 | Small Change (L'argent de poche)
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $8.24 Truffault's song of praise to childhood. Not without strife, but done with real care for his subject.
|
 | The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Criterion Collection (2-Disc Special Edition)
Buy new: $19.99 / Used from: $6.99 It's took me two viewings to come around to this, but it's kinda wonderful. Should not be the first Wes Anderson movie you see, though.
|
 | Stranger Than Fiction
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $1.00 Features the Wreckless Eric tune "Whole Wide World." How could this not be good?
|
 | Passion Fish
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $4.86 John Sayles is always worth watching, and this story of a spoiled soap opera actress is forced to reckon with some real adversity is uplifting without being pious. Alfre Woodard contributes mightily to this film as well.
|
 | Wonder Boys
Buy new: $9.49 / Used from: $1.55 Nice people with plenty to sort out sorting it out.
|
 | Grand Canyon
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $1.32 |
 | Almost Famous
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $2.22 |
 | Big Fish
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $1.51 |
 | Spanglish
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $0.01 The incomparable Paz Vega very plausibly upends chef Adam Sandler's uncomfortable - but settled - life. Tea Leoni is superb as Sandler's way high-strung wife.
|
 | Best in Show
Buy new: $16.49 / Used from: $9.99 As goofy as each of these characters is, Christopher Guest never mocks them, and the humor is better for it.
|
 | Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $3.88 |
 | Dazed & Confused (Widescreen Flashback Edition)
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $3.85 |
 | Before Sunrise
Buy new: $5.79 / Used from: $1.95 |
 | Before Sunset
Buy new: $14.49 / Used from: $1.23 |
 | High Fidelity
Buy used from: $1.71 |
 | Mumford
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $2.50 |
 | O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $2.48 |
 | Lost in Translation
Buy new: $9.99 / Used from: $0.52 |
 | The Milagro Beanfield War
Buy new: $11.49 / Used from: $5.24 |
 | State and Main
Buy used from: $1.60 |
 | Waking Ned Devine
Buy new: $8.49 / Used from: $3.50 |
 | The Secret of Roan Inish
Buy new: $10.49 / Used from: $2.83 |
 | Raising Arizona
Buy used from: $5.98 |
 | Broken Flowers
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $0.17 |
 | Shopgirl
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $0.83 |
 | A Wedding
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $5.98 The most savage of the lot, but it's still fairly gentle in its treatment of its characters. The scene in the garden after the rain in which some of the cast are indulging an illegal pleasure is one of the most serene moments in film ever.
|
Listmania!
