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).

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.

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.

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?

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.

THE WIRE -- This HBO series, set in post-9/11 Baltimore and now available on DVD, is a brilliant sociopolitical drama about urban America. In the words of creator David Simon, it shows "how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to." At every level of society, whether it's the street, the school system, the media, or the city government, the same forces are at work, making any kind of truly meaningful or effective reform virtually impossible. This series is coming from real love and insight into how things work. The wonderful cast includes Dominic West, Lance Reddick, Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, Clarke Peters, Michael K. Williams, Idris Elba, Wood Harris, Amy Ryan, and many others, including some actual former gang-members, police, and even a former mayor of Baltimore. 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.

A SINGLE MAN -- Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood and directed by Tom Ford, this beautiful movie unfolds one day in the life of a grieving college professor in the 1960s whose male partner of 16 years has been killed in an accident. Thinking this will be his last day alive because he plans to take his own life, the professor finds that ordinary moments become luminous and human connections are precious. Colin Firth plays the professor, and the cast includes Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult, Lee Pace and Gennifer Goodwin.

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.

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; Monster; 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 Life of David Gale; 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; You Don't Know Jack; 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 Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Little Miss Sunshine; The Reader; I've Loved You So Long; Me and You and Everyone We Know; Synecdoche, NY; The Squid and the Whale; Fire; Water; Volver; The Straight Story; The Battle of Algiers (be sure to see the bonus disc, too); Notes on a Scandal; The Queen; All the King's Men; Waltz with Bashir; Breach; Cache; Il Postino; Strangers in Good Company; The Mahabharata (Peter Brook's production); Sliding Door; Ushpizzin; The Lives of Others; Blow-Up; Fargo; The Crying Game; Everything Is Illuminated; Brothers; A Mighty Heart; Rear Window; Atonement; The Kite Runner; Primary Colors; There Will Be Blood; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; The Savages; Talk to Me; Juno; Pleasantville; Pan's Labyrinth; The Remains of the Day; Milk; Battle in Seattle; Tell No One; Frozen River; Secrets and Lies; Frost/Nixon; Julie & Julia; Towelhead; The Stoning of Soraya M.; Sunshine State; The Messenger; Disgrace; Doubt; Beckett on Film; Departures; The Constant Gardener; Match Point; Thumbsucker; The Girl in the Cafe; The Chumscrubber; Flags of Our Fathers; Something's Gotta Give; Terms of Endearment; Working Girls; Half Nelson; Sunshine; Peaceful Warrior; Blood Diamond; Shattered Glass; The Good Shepard; Zodiac; Freedom Writers; The Good German; L.A. Confidential; The Hoax; Puccini for Beginners; The Accused; The Contender; Imaginary Heroes; Cinderella Man; Together; The Brave One; The Devil's Advocate; American Gangster; Shine; Cider House Rules; Keeping Mum; 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; 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; Little Children; Inside Man; W.; Changeling; The Family That Preys; Rachel Getting Married; Elegy; Elizabeth; Head in the Clouds; Happy-Go-Lucky; Last Chance Harvey; The Wrestler; Valkyrie; Annie Hall; Powder Blue; Revolutionary Road; Gran Torino; Central Station; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; The Class; A Thousand Years of Good Prayers; Breaking and Entering; House of Games; Grey Gardens; Bubble; Precious; Benny and Joon; Live and Become; Temple Grandin; Walk on Water; Up In the Air; Broken Embraces; Wendy and Lucy; The Private Lives of Pippa Lee; An Education; Crazy Heart; The Last Station; XXY.

Documentaries: Bukowski: Born Into This; The Corporation; Sicko; The Buena Vista Social Club; The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill; What A Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire; The Garden; Occupation 101; The Weather Underground (2002); The Times of Harvey Milk; Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train; Bowling for Columbine; Before Stonewall; After Stonewall; Anyone and Everyone; For the Bible Tells Me So; The Betrayal; The Cats of Mirikitani; Man on Wire; Capitalism: A Love Story; Citizen King: American Experience; V-Day: Until the Violence Stops; Fahrenheit 9/11; Shoah; 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; 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; 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; Collapse; American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein.

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