Joan's Recommended Movies

JOAN'S RECOMMENDED MOVIE LIST

Unlike my recommended reading list, this is not (for the most part) a list of movies that are overtly about nonduality. Mostly, these are simply some of my favorite movies, documentaries and TV shows. But like all good stories, they may awaken and enlighten us in unexpected ways. New movies are added to the list periodically, so if you've visited this page before, you might want to refresh or reload it to be sure you're getting the most current version.

AMERICAN BEAUTY -- My all-time favorite movie. Subtitled "Look Closer," this is a funny, serious, beautiful, brilliant, quirky, enlightening movie that contains a wealth of spiritual insight without ever once mentioning the word. It reveals the miraculous in the mundane and how nothing is what it appears to be on the surface. Written by Alan Ball, directed by Sam Mendes, cinematography by Conrad L. Hall, starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, Allison Janney, Peter Gallagher. I recommend it very highly. (Writer Alan Ball is the brilliant creator of the also highly recommended HBO television series Six Feet Under -- see below.)

SIX FEET UNDER -- This HBO television series created by Alan Ball centers around a Los Angeles family that runs a funeral home. It is a show about death, and about what it is to be alive. In typical Alan Ball fashion, it is at once funny, serious, profound, spiritual, political, heart-breaking, heart-opening, life-affirming, quirky, enlightening, hilarious, daring, over the edge, and beautiful as it investigates life and death, relationships and family (interracial, gay and straight all included), art and social issues. All five seasons are available on DVD. I strongly recommend starting at the beginning and watching it in chronological order as it develops and builds. The wonderful cast includes Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Rachel Griffiths, Lauren Ambrose, Mathew St. Patrick, Freddy Rodriguez, Patricia Clarkson, Jeremy Sisto, Richard Jenkins, Ben Foster, Lili Taylor, James Cromwell, Kathy Bates and Joanna Cassidy. Very highly recommended. The show originally aired on HBO from 2001 -- 2005. Top-notch.

CHERRY BLOSSOMS and ENLIGHTENMENT GUARANTEED -- Two movies by the German film director, artist and author Doris Dorrie. Both of these movies go, in very different ways, to the heart of Zen. Cherry Blossoms begins as the story of a middle-aged couple, one of whom is terminally ill, visiting their grown children, who don't much want to see their parents. The movie unfolds into the most exquisitely beautiful cinematic poem that reveals what we so easily miss in the delicate transience of life, and also the love and freedom it is possible to find even at the last moment. Enlightenment Guaranteed is the comic saga of two middle-aged German brothers who head off to a Zen monastery in Japan in search of enlightenment. There the boundaries between the mundane and the sublime begin to collapse as the brothers find themselves exploring the relationship between cleaning the floor and cleansing the heart. Both these movies are very highly recommended.

BABETTE'S FEAST -- Based on a story by Isak Dinesen, this lovely film by Gabriel Axel tells the story of what happens when some very austere and pious followers of a puritanical brand of Christianity living on the desolate coast of Denmark meet up with a French woman who turns out to be an artist of sensual, earthly delights. It has much to say about spirit and flesh, heart and soul, art and true love.

WHO'S DRIVING THE DREAMBUS? -- This film made by Boris and Claire Jansch is an exploration of the nature of reality. It features interviews with Toni Packer, Guy Smith, Tony Parsons, Timothy Freke, Gangaji, Jeff Foster, Genpo Roshi, and Amit Goswami, along with some other wonderful material. The bonus features on the DVDs include an interview with Boris and additional interview material with all the others. The movie explores all the big questions: Who am I? Why is there suffering? Is there life after death? How Can I find happiness? What is enlightenment? Is there free will? More here.

I HEART HUCKABEES -- This wonderful comedy written and directed by David O. Russell is a real Advaita / Zen movie. The magnificent cast includes Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Isabelle Huppert, Mark Wahlberg, and Naomi Watts, with music by Jon Brion. There's some great material in the special features as well, especially the "Detective Infomercial" with Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman, and physicist Joe Rudnick. Very highly recommended.

THE DHAMMA BROTHERS -- This powerful documentary, made by Jenny Phillips, is about a group of prisoners at a maximum-security prison in Alabama who take up Buddhist meditation and how it transforms them. These are men who have been through great suffering and who have caused great suffering, living in one of the most difficult and dangerous environments imaginable. To see them undertake this practice and to hear them talk about it is incredibly moving and eye-opening. I was deeply touched by these men, and I very highly recommend this extraordinary documentary. More here.

HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG -- Based on a wonderful novel of the same name by Andre Dubus III, this movie (starring Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Ron Eldard, and directed by Vadim Perelman) tells a remarkable story of clashing cultures in which things are not always as they appear. A depressed young woman is evicted from her house because of a bureaucratic error, and the house is sold at auction and bought by a once-wealthy but now-struggling Iranian family. A brilliant look at escalating conflict and addiction, and how ordinary people make perfectly understandable "choices" that lead them deeper and deeper into destruction.

CRASH -- This 2004 movie written and directed by Paul Haggis is a gritty and disturbing, yet ultimately redemptive look at the colliding races, cultures and classes in post-9/11 urban America. It takes place on a single day in Los Angeles where the lives of many diverse people intersect - a white Brentwood couple, an African-American TV director and his wife, a Mexican locksmith, an Iranian shopkeeper, a pair of African-American carjackers, an African-American cop, several white cops, and many others. The movie won 3 Oscars including Best Picture. The cast includes Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard, Michael Pena, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Esposito, Ryan Phillippe, Ludacris, and Shaun Toub. Very highly recommended.

NORMAL -- Written and directed by Jane Anderson, this is a love story about a man (Tom Wilkinson) living in rural Illinois who announces to his wife (Jessica Lange) after their 25th wedding anniversary that he intends to have a sex change. How will she and their children and the community respond as the man they have known as Roy slowly metamorphosizes into Ruth?

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS -- Directed by Scott Hicks, this is a visually beautifully adaptation of David Guterson's novel. It is a story in which things are not always what they seem to be at first glance. It weaves together several different stories and time periods -- a murder trial in the 1950's, a pre-war love affair between the defendant's wife and a reporter covering the trial, experiences of the reporter and the defendant in World War II, and the internment of Japanese-Americans, including the defendant and his wife, during the war. It is about racism, love, and life itself. Wonderful acting by Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, Max von Sydow, James Cromwell, Richard Jenkins, Sam Shepard, Rick Yune. Very highly recommended.

ABSOLUTE WILSON -- This documentary by Katharina Otto-Bernstein is about theater artist Robert Wilson (avant-garde performer, dancer, director, choreographer, designer). Wilson grew up in Waco, Texas, where, as a child, he stuttered, had a learning disability, and felt out of place. He ended up in New York City and became one of the major figures of avant-garde theater there and in Europe. Along the way, he worked with people who had severe disabilities, many of them in iron lungs, and with children who were brain-damaged, hyper-active or autistic. Instead of trying to make these people like everyone else, Wilson found a way to allow their unique way of seeing and communicating to blossom and flourish, and his own art was greatly influenced by working with them. Wilson collaborated and performed for many years with a young man who had brain damage, and he also adopted an African-American boy who was deaf. The documentary includes interviews with family, friends, and people in the arts who worked with Wilson including Susan Sontag, Philip Glass, Jessye Norman, and Tom Waits. Wilson has a remarkable gift for turning everything upside down, opening things up, and making you see anew. Watching this movie is like attending the best satsang you can imagine. More on Robert Wilson here.

Some other favorite movies: Nowhere in Africa; Wit; Lars and the Real Girl; I Love You Phillip Morris; American Splendor; Frida; Away from Her; The Namesake; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Look Both Ways; Schultz Gets the Blues; Cairo Time; Sabah: A Love Story; Bagdad Cafe; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Monster; The Color of Paradise; Howl; Magnolia; As It Is in Heaven; Steel Toes; Babel; A Beautiful Mind; The Thin Red Line; The Matrix; Brick Lane; The Visitor; I Am Love; Harold & Maude; The Elephant Man; The Piano; Grand Canyon; The Burning Plain; Far from Heaven; Kinsey; The Hours; The Vertical Ray of the Sun; Then She Found Me; A Single Man; Venus; Snow Cake; Sunshine State; I've Heard the Mermaids Singing; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Burn After Reading; The Truman Show; Memento; Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her; The Big Chill; The Million Dollar Hotel; Beckett on Film; Freedom Writers; Temple Grandin; Up In the Air; Nine Lives; The English Patient; Rabbit Hole; The Safety of Objects; Dead Man Walking; The Sea Inside; Million Dollar Baby; You Don't Know Jack; The Upside of Anger; The Road to Perdition; The Notebook; My Left Foot; Junebug; The Band's Visit; The Straight Story; If These Walls Could Talk 2; The Last King of Scotland; Leaving Las Vegas; Postcardsfrom the Edge; The Life of David Gale; Adoration; Unfaithful; The End of the Affair; My Dinner with Andre; The Scent of Green Papaya; The Long Walk Home; The Usual Suspects; The Girl in the Cafe; Do the Right Thing; Vitus; Vera Drake; Apollo 13; Zorba the Greek; Forest Gump; Before Night Falls; Boys Don't Cry; Schindler's List; The Pianist; 13 Conversations About One Thing; Desert Bloom;Walkabout; The Last Wave; Bound; Angels in America; Waking Life; Little Miss Sunshine; The Reader; Synecdoche, NY; Primary Colors; The Ides of March; The Savages; Pleasantville; Milk;The Company Men; Miral; Strangers in Good Company; Fire; Water; Waltz with Bashir; The Stoning of Soraya M.; Midnight in Paris; Beginners; The Legend of Bagger Vance; Field of Dreams; Blue Velvet; Being John Malkovich; I've Loved You So Long; Me and You and Everyone We Know; Sliding Door; The Lives of Others; Blow-Up; Fargo; Everything Is Illuminated; Brothers; Atonement; The Kite Runner; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; Frozen River; Julie & Julia;The Mahabharata (Peter Brook's production); The Kids Are All Right; Edge of Darkness (2009); La Mission; Warm Springs; Winter's Bone; The Social Network; Down to the Bone; 127 Hours; Conviction; The Deep End; What the Bleep Do We Know?; True Grit (Coen brothers); Into the Wild; American History X; In a Better World; Battle for Haditha; Life in a Day; Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Queen to Play; The Debt; Casino Jack; Higher Ground; Restless.

Documentaries: The Corporation; Vietnam: American Holocaust; Bowling for Columbine; Sicko; Capitalism: A Love Story; Fahrenheit 9/11; Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture; What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire; Fear and Favor in the Newsroom; The Weather Underground (2002); The Times of Harvey Milk; Hot Coffee; The Buena Vista Social Club; The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill; Bukowski: Born Into This; Rivers and Tides; Leonard Cohen: Live in London; Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man; Black Sun; Touch the Sound; Michael Jackson's This Is It; Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision; The Garden; Before Stonewall; After Stonewall; Anyone and Everyone; For the Bible Tells Me So; The Cats of Mirikitani; Man on Wire; Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train; Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills; Paradise Lost 2: Revelations; Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory; Occupation 101; Shoah; American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein; Forgiving Dr. Mengele; One Bright Shining Moment; Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains; Food, Inc.; Citizen King: American Experience; V-Day: Until the Violence Stops; A Crude Awakening; The Oil Factor; Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism; Power & Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times; The Party's Over; An Inconveniant Truth; A Really Inconveniant Truth; The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair; The Road to Guantanamo; Taxi to the Dark Side; Southern Comfort; Transgeneration; Ram Dass: Fierce Grace; Winged Migration; 51 Birch Street; Amargosa; The War (Ken Burns); Into Great Silence; The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED (be sure to watch the entire presentation by Sir Ken Robinson); God Grew Tired of Us; Emmanuel's Gift; Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens; USA vs Al-Arian; Casino Jack and the United States of Money; The Power of Forgiveness; South of the Border; I Am (Tom Shadyac); Full Signal; Gasland; Choosing to Die (BBC).

TV Shows (available on DVD): Nurse Jackie; Modern Family; The Big C; The Wire; The Sopranos; Mad Men; The Killing; In Treatment; Joan of Arcadia; Big Love; Dexter; Boston Legal; The Shield; The Hour; Homeland.