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 Zen, Advaita, non-duality, or spirituality -- with a few exceptions. Most of these are simply some of my favorite movies.

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. More here. (Caution: I'd advise you to see the entire series first before exploring the website, so as not to spoil the plot).

WHO'S DRIVING THE DREAMBUS? -- This wonderful film made by Boris and Claire Jansch is an exploration of the nature of reality. I highly recommend it. The film 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 excellent bonus features on the DVDs include an interview with Boris and additional interview material with all the others. This is a great movie - it looks into 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

CRASH -- Paul Haggis wrote and directed this gritty, insightful, and compassionate look at how different social classes and cultures collide in post-9/11 Los Angeles during an ordinary 36-hour period. The movie does a beautiful job of revealing how commonplace prejudices and stereotypes prevent people from seeing each other clearly and accurately, and also how some of these ugly prejudices take root in otherwise "good" folks in the first place. This is a movie with surprising twists and turns, and some truly lovely moments. Just when you think you know somebody, you suddenly get to see them from a different angle, and your perspective shifts. Although the subject matter is often dark and brutal, the eye that sees it all is clear, there is (in my opinion) no gratuitous violence, and the movie has a strong redemptive quality to it. I came away uplifted. Very powerful, and beautifully filmed. The excellent cast includes Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Thandie Newton, Sandra Bullock, and Brendan Fraser. The movie won several well-deserved Oscars including Best Picture.

MONSTER -- This movie, written and directed by Patty Jenkins, is based on the true story of Aileen (Lee) Wuornos, a prostitute who murdered a number of her clients, and who was executed by the state of Florida in 2002. There are many versions of this woman's story (Lee herself kept changing it), but the version that Patty Jenkins tells is both moving and insightful, taking us inside Lee's life, showing us how an essentially good-hearted woman ended up being executed as a serial killer. Charlize Theron gives a brilliant, Oscar-winning performance as Lee, along with Christina Ricci as Lee's lover. (For more on Lee Wuornos, see the Nick Broomfield documentaries).

BRICK LANE-- This wonderful movie, directed by Sarah Gavron, and based on the novel by Monica Ali, is the story of a young teenage Bangladeshi woman from a small village who immigrates to London for an arranged marriage to a much older man. It is the story of a woman finding her voice and finding home, and it is also a beautiful story about love and about the collision of cultures in the postmodern world. Wonderful acting by Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik and Christopher Simpson.

THE VISITOR -- A middle-aged professor, played beautifully by Richard Jenkins, discovers an immigrant couple squatting in his New York City flat and becomes wrapped up in their lives in wonderful ways. Directed by Thomas McCarthy.

Some other favorite movies: Frida; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Bagdad Cafe; Nowhere in Africa; Far from Heaven; Kinsey; The Color of Paradise; Magnolia; A Beautiful Mind; The Matrix; Thelma & Louise; Harold & Maude; The Elephant Man; The Piano; Look Both Ways; Lost in Translation; Grand Canyon; The Hours; Leaving Las Vegas; Wit; The Vertical Ray of the Sun; Lars and the Real Girl; The English Patient; The Safety of Objects; The Deep End; The Big Chill; The End of the Affair; The Year of Living Dangerously; Dead Man Walking; Monster's Ball; The Sea Inside; Million Dollar Baby; The Upside of Anger; The Road to Perdition; The Notebook; The Departed; My Left Foot; Junebug; The Band's Visit; If These Walls Could Talk 2; Babel; The Last King of Scotland; Schultz Gets the Blues; Away from Her; The Namesake; No Country for Old Men; The Illusionist; Then She Found Me; Venus; Rendition; Snow Cake; I've Heard the Mermaids Singing; Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Burn After Reading; Do the Right Thing; Vitus; Vera Drake; Apollo 13; Zorba the Greek; Forest Gump; Before Night Falls; Boys Don't Cry; Fried Green Tomatoes; Schindler's List; The Pianist; Sophie's Choice; Bent; Before Sunrise; Before Sunset; A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman's); The Truman Show; Born on the 4th of July; Blue; White; Red; Living Out Loud, Billy Elliot; Transamerica; Brokeback Mountain; Memento; Ray; Sideways; Hotel Rwanda; Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her; All About My Mother; Live Flesh; Talk to Her; 13 Conversations About One Thing; Desert Bloom; Paradise Now; The War Within; Adaptation; Shower; North Country; Capote; What the Bleep Do We Know?; Pieces of April; The Barbarian Invasions; King of Hearts; Last Tango in Paris; In America; The Million Dollar Hotel; Walkabout; The Last Wave; Witness; Bound; The Station Agent; Dirty Pretty Things; The Closet; Angels in America; Waking Life; Calendar Girls; The Legend of Bagger Vance; Dances with Wolves; Field of Dreams; Blue Velvet; Being John Malkovich; Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean; Nashville; Short Cuts; The Constant Gardener; Walk the Line; Good Night, and Good Luck; Munich; Match Point; Moonlight Mile; The Straight Story; Thumbsucker; The Girl in the Cafe; The Chumscrubber; Little Miss Sunshine; Me and You and Everyone We Know; The Squid and the Whale; Flags of Our Fathers; Something's Gotta Give; Terms of Endearment; Working Girls; Half Nelson; Sunshine; Peaceful Warrior; Fire; Water; Blood Diamond; Shattered Glass; The Good Shepard; Volver; The Battle of Algiers (be sure to see the bonus disc, too); Notes on a Scandal; The Queen; All the King's Men; Breach; Cache; Il Postino; The Mahabharata (Peter Brook's production); Zodiac; Freedom Writers; Sliding Door; Ushpizzin; The Lives of Others; Blow-Up; The Crying Game; The Good German; Aimee and Jaguar; Tipping the Velvet; Strangers in Good Company; Everything Is Illuminated; L.A. Confidential; A Mighty Heart; The Hoax; Puccini for Beginners; The Accused; The Contender; Imaginary Heroes; Cinderella Man; Together; Rear Window; The Brave One; The Devil's Advocate; Michael Clayton; American Gangster; Shine; Atonement; The Kite Runner; Cider House Rules; Keeping Mum; Primary Colors; There Will Be Blood; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; The Savages; Talk to Me; The Walker; Starting Out in the Evening; As Good As It Gets; Play It Forward; Love in the Time of Cholera; I'm Not There; The Bird Cage; A Good Woman; Juno; The Air I Breathe; Moonstruck; Poor Boy's Game; Flawless; The Doctor; In the Valley of Elah; The Bucket List; Nina's Heavenly Delights; The Conversation; Pleasantville; Pan's Labyrinth; Little Children; Inside Man; The Remains of the Day; W.; Changeling; The Family That Preys; Milk; Battle in Seattle; Rachel Getting Married; Elegy; Elizabeth; Head in the Clouds; Happy-Go-Lucky; Tell No One; Frozen River; Secrets and Lies; Frost/Nixon; Last Chance Harvey; Synecdoche, NY; The Wrestler; The Reader; I've Loved You So Long; Doubt; Valkyrie; Annie Hall; Powder Blue; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Revolutionary Road; Towelhead; Waltz with Bashir; Gran Torino; Central Station; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; The Class; A Thousand Years of Good Prayers; Fargo; Breaking and Entering; House of Games; Grey Gardens; Julie & Julia; Bubble; Precious; Benny and Joon; Live and Become; Departures; Temple Grandin; Amelia; Quid Pro Quo; Walk on Water.

Documentaries: Bukowski: Born Into This; The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill; The Buena Vista Social Club; Sicko; Bowling for Columbine; The Corporation; The Garden; What A Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire; Occupation 101; Shoah; The Weather Underground (2002); The Times of Harvey Milk; Anyone and Everyone; For the Bible Tells Me So; The Cats of Mirikitani; Man on Wire; Citizen King: American Experience; V-Day: Until the Violence Stops; Fahrenheit 9/11; Paragraph 175; Forgiving Dr. Mengele; A Crude Awakening; The Oil Factor; Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism; Power & Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times; Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train; The Party's Over; An Inconveniant Truth; A Really Inconveniant Truth; Maxed Out; The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair; The Road to Guantanamo; Taxi to the Dark Side; Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains; Bush's Brain; Leonard Cohen: Live in London; Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man; Southern Comfort; Transgeneration; Ram Dass: Fierce Grace; Rivers and Tides; Winged Migration; Jesus Camp; The Ground Truth; 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; In the Shadow of the Moon; How to Cook Your Life; The U.S. vs John Lennon; Stealing America Vote by Vote; How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It); Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens; What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann; Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye; Bonhoeffer; USA vs Al-Arian.

TV Shows (available on DVD): Boston Legal; Joan of Arcadia; Dexter; In Treatment; True Blood; Mad Men; The Shield; The Sopranos.