Your Best Book/Movie Recommendations

I've always wanted to see SLC Punk... what is so good about it, if I may ask?

It's really entertaining.
IMO, it's also an excellent critique of punk culture. I wrote a paper about that freshman year of college.

what is so good about it, if I may ask?

Matthew Lillard is phenomenal in the lead role. I keep waiting for him to use his talents so completely again, but so far nothing even close.

Even though the movie is an indie/Sundance-type it's not your boring old film-school, depressive, life sucks fair that usually comes out of that scene. The movie packs a ton of energy and is decently original and very fresh.

Just saw this down the comment thread, and figured I should answer it:

I'm going to amend my initial post to add a request that you explain the reasons for your selections. For example, I echo the question: Why SLC Punk?

I didn't choose my favorite movie or book, though they are both up there on my list. Instead I choose both because they are highly entertaining, highly original, and both make you think and present plenty of alternative views to the norm.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is probably one of the best works of libertarian fiction (I never cared all that much for Rand's writing), plus it's science fiction to give it that little something extra. It's also fun to find all the parallels written in to our own Revolutionary War. Plus, like all good Heinlein books, it's got a kick-ass character of unusual abilities named Mike.

I've already explained a little about SLC Punk! above, but I cannot emphasize how important Matthew Lillard's performance is to the success of this movie enough. Being about Punk, it also has a great soundtrack. It's also interesting to see the contrast of the punk element of the film with it's setting in Salt Lake City, Utah (that's the SLC part of the title). Even better, it's not some mainstream movie that everyone already saw in theaters, and you won't find it on TBS on Saturday afternoon, and it's not some trendy "indie" flick like Little Miss Sunshine or Lost in Translation that you have to pretend to get to feel cool. This is a real alternative film, but far more importantly is that it is entertaining and you'll probably want to watch it more than once. Because seriously, what good is a message or good acting or "edgy" directing wrapped n a movie that is not really all that entertaining?

I'm a big fan of SLC Punk. Many have never heard of it, but it's a real gem. And very funny but sad at the same time. Some of my favorite quotes:

Another thing that pissed me off, talkin' about who started punk rock music. Was it Sex Pistols in England? Was it the Ramones in the Velvet Underground in New York? 'It was the Ramones!' 'It was the Sex Pistols!' Raahh! Who cares who started it?! It's music. I don't know who started it, and I don't give a @!$%#.The one thing I do know is that we did it harder, we did it faster, and we definitely did it with more love, baby. You can't take that away from us.

Poseurs are people that look like punks, but they did it for fashion. And they were fools, they'd say, "Anarchy in the UK". See? Poseurs. What good is that to those of us in Utah, America? You don't live your life by lyrics.

You see life is like that...we change, that's all. You see, the guy I am now, is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now, he'd beat the @!$%# out of me. Those are the facts.

Great film...

Eco makes Dan Brown look like a child writing with crayons.

Ha! I was thinking something along those lines but couldn't find the exact words. Perfect!

Eco makes Dan Brown look like a child writing with crayons.

Wow, I COULD NOT agree more. Eco is truly brilliant. His passion for history and knowledge pours out onto every page. I saw him speak and read excerpts from Baudalino at a college nearby, and he was very articulate and down to earth, but he still had a no nonsense kind of attitude. One student who was clearly trying to impress the whole crowd with a long-winded question about one of the characters in Name of the Rose was dismissed by Eco with a wave of the hand and "He's one of my songs! He's one of my characters! What do you mean, 'who is he to me?' Next question."

I'm currently halfway through Name of the Rose. Eco is a personal favorite.

Ahh... hence the name ECO-geek? I assumed ECOlogy for some reason, not even stopping to think that there might be other Eco fans out there. Name of the Rose is indeed my second favorite.

Have you heard any more rumors about Foucault's Pendulum being turned into a movie? There was the long-time refusal by Eco to allow it because of what they did to Name of the Rose (which I didn't think was a horrible interpretation, by the way), but then I heard there was a proposal that would have given him a certain amount creative control over the movie and he accepted.

Actually, Ecology would be correct. I work as an environmental engineer. Guess I should post in that other thread to make that clear. :)

And no, I hadn't heard any rumors about Foucault's Pendulum. Would be nice to see a movie, but I don't know how well it would translate from the pages.

I never saw Name of the Rose. It's currently in my Netflix queue waiting for me to finish the book.

Eco makes Dan Brown look like a child writing with crayons.

Dan Brown looks like a child writing with crayons all on his own, no help required.

I think Eco is intentionally unclear and convoluted--the curse of the postmodern. It's not pleasurable, it's just an egoistic display of his voluminous knowledge and intimidating vocabulary. I don't find his writing elegant, just burdensome. I really tried to like Eco, I did. But at a certain point I just think, "if he's got something deep to say, why's he so afraid to just come out and say it?"

I think it's the mark of an excellent author to write with clarity, precision, and courage. I didn't find this in Eco's work.

Personally, I find the complexity of his writing to be one of his greatest assets. I like to challenge my vocabulary and reading comprehension, and Eco is fantastic in this regard. I don't see it as egoism, but rather an attempt to precisely convey meanings and impressions.

You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but why should we have so rich a language, if not to use it.

Great book choice. One of my favorites.

I love Watership Down.

Crazy, I come on this thread to state my favorites and they are both already here.

I, Lucifer is a great work of fiction that just provides--pardon the pun--the devil's advocate point of view to what Satan really does think/do.

Little Miss Sunshine, to me, symbolizes the personal struggles I've had to go through in life and portrayed by an amazing cast.

Much in the same genre, I've been a fan of the movie High Fidelity for years. When I read the book (also by Nick Hornby) it was like reading the director's cut of the movie. Probably my favorite read from last year.

If you liked High Fidelity you should definitely try Long Way Down or About a Boy.

I loved Almost Famous because it did all the little things right. They actually recorded a decent fake song for the hit single for Stillwater the band in the movie. The kid's mother is a wonderful role, and trust me, other directors/writers would have ruined this movie with a more conventional parent. They wrote friction within the band perfectly. They made Elton John and "Tiny Dancer" cool, if only for a moment. They created an "Almost Famous moment" with the lead guitarist randomly going to some high school party because it was "real" which was then copied and cited in Entourage. The roles of the groupies Band Aides was great. And all the great music did not hurt the movie one bit.

If you haven't seen it, Untitled, the Director's Cut of Almost Famous, is phenomenal. Adds about an hour or so to an already great movie.

Yeah, that's the copy I own. The double disc with both versions of the movie.

I got it, I think, used at a CD Warehouse. I'm sure you can find it at Best Buy or Amazon.com.

The actors in the band (Stilwater) were trained by Peter Frampton and Nancy Wilson (from Heart, and also Cameron Crowe's wife.) They really wanted them to pull it off. They learned so well, they actually played live at the wrap party.

I tried watching Requiem for a Dream a couple of years ago. I had to stop watching like 15 to 20 minutes into it because it was too sad. And I'm talking I was depressed for like a week after watching those 15 minutes. Seemed like a really well done film (it would have to be to affect me like that) but I dunno if I could get through it.

It's kind of like how I had to stop reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and come back to it like 6 months later.

I watched Reguiem once and I have no interest to do so ever again. Not because it was a bad movie, and it wasn't exactly depressing to me as it was to Eric, but there was just something about the subject material that didn't sit with me right. Though it does have that Jennifer Connelly scene...

I guess my suggestion for anyone who hasn't scene it is rent it, don't buy. It is definitely worth seeing once, because it is very well done, but I'm not so sure about its rewatchability.

That said, the director of the movie, Darren Aronofsky has some real talent and I'd also recommend The Fountain which was released just this past December, but had terrible turnout.

If you had to stop 15-20 minutes in, be glad you didn't watch it the whole way through. The first half-hour is the "happy" part of the movie. Things get much, much worse.

I routinely joke that you should have a suicide hotline on speed-dial if you're gonna sit down and watch Requiem.

Still, I have to emphasize that it's much more than just depressing. It's also breathtakingly beautiful.

A similar movie (also with Jennifer Connelly, my favorite actress) is House of Sand and Fog. Depressing, but without all the drug content. Also features Ben Kingsley in a fantastic role.

Adam,

I agree, most people will only watch Requiem once. This is probably a good thing in that knowing the depths of the characters' falls only makes the first "season" all the more depressing, when it's not so bad upon a first viewing.

Mmmm...Jennifer Connelly....

As for The Fountain, I liked it...okay, I really liked it, but it's not for everybody. I didn't quite realize how much I liked it until I started explaining it to a friend. It doesn't follow the standard...structure...of a movie, and I think that turns a lot of people off. But it is tremendously complex and interwoven, and overall a great movie, if you can get past the experimental nature of it and accept that Aronofsky was really trying to do something "different."

And with the mention of Pi, we have included the entire professional filmography of Darren Aronofsky, albeit with three different authors.

Pi is excellent, though a little rough around the edges. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and overanalyzed it.

BTW, cute anecdote.

(based more on the clues than anything else) Eyes Wide Shut?

I haven't seen The Fountain yet, but Aronofsky is amazing. Requiem would defiantly be my pick for favorite.

I don't really know what grabbed me with it, but grabbed me it did. There are just so many things that I thought were amazing about it, the cinematography (such as the cyan tone of the movie in contrast with the bright red symbol of the red dress), the tempo that flows throughout the whole movie and ties it together (we saw this a bit in Pi as well), the use of the Kronos Quartet for the score, the story itself that tackles addiction on so many levels and in so many areas of our lives, even ones we might look at to be trivial and take for granted, like beauty, love, television, family, or fame. The whole package is just incredible, I'm not a huge movie critic so I can't really give it justice.

Yeah, it is a movie that gets harder to watch the more times you see it. Even the first time you know that this bliss cannot last, and after you know how it ends up, it's just painful. I usually lose it around the same time - the scene when Harry is calling Marion from jail, and she's about to go to the dealer's place, and she asks desperately "Can you come home today?" and he assures her that he will, he promises, and she should just wait for him... and you know that it's over. That neither of them believe it, the last attempt to hold on to that dream has failed, it's finally hit home. From that point, heavy sobbing continues throughout the end of the movie for me. Every time.

I know exactly what you're talking about with that phone call, Stacy. Ouch.

The cinematography alone is sufficiently beautiful to warrant a viewing, regardless of content. But the content itself is so painfully moving so as to illustrate the power of film, and the depths of the medium.

I feel like I've been through a meat-grinder every time I watch that movie, but I am constantly impressed at how much it can make me feel.

the use of the Kronos Quartet for the score

Stacy, you'd be happy to know that both the Kronos Quartet and composer Clint Mansell are back for the score of The Fountan. It also uses a very Aranofsky directing style. It just happens to deal with death and immortality with a touch of love rather than drugs.

It's certainly not a perfect movie, nor is it even great. It's solid and good, but it's missing that little something to propel it to great.

Is DMZ an abbreviation or the actual title?

Along the lines of graphic novels Watchmen and Sandman are must-reads.

DMZ is the actual title (although it stands for demilitarized zone). It's the story of a modern-day civil war in the US, with NYC being the middle ground between the two sides. You can download a PDF of the first issue somewhere on the DC/Vertigo site (sorry, it's blocked here at work, so I can't point you directly to it). There are only 17 or 18 issues so far, with the first 12 compiled in two trade paperbacks. And yes, Watchmen and Sandman are both great, too. And to think that a few years ago I'd never read a comic book (although I still can't stand the majority of the superhero stuff).

I had the same problem with all of Gaiman's books I've read. He really has a knack for making his characters real.

That was a beautiful and heartbreaking movie. Thanks for bringing it up.

Wow..I'd never heard of this before.

I just got married to a (non-Maori) Kiwi back in February, so anything related to New Zealand is of interest to me. Thanks for the recommendation.

Her Majesty is pretty good as well. Kinda of cutesy, but good.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Seen Whale Rider? I did at my wife's suggestion...pretty good.

BOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Ender's Game- Orson Scott Card. Amazing. Simply amazing. Card's talent for examining the inner psyche is astounding.

That's my absolute favorite book (which doesn't mean that I think it's the best book I've ever read—it's my favorite; that's different). But not what I'm gonna list here, though.

The original Foundation trilogy is one of the great contributions of science fiction to the body of literature. I've loved Asimov since I was a young child.

I also am a huge fan of Ender's Game -- I wish I was a kid again and could go to Battle School.

For more on the sci-fi, The Stars My Destination. I'm determined to jaunte before I die.

And Jennifer Connelly. :)

Movie: Tron If you've seen this movie, you're officially "in". Anyone up for a light cycle race?

Book: A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier I just read this. If you think for a minute that your life is bad this will change your perspective.

Tron...TRON?!!? This movie is the most outrageous, colorful, eccentric, piece of...

Ah what the hell, let's race.