Well, it's not obscure in any sense of the word, but I saw "Silver Linings Playbook" the other day, and there was a moment in the movie that literally changed my life right there in the theatre.

I saw Silver Linings Playbook and wondered if it was made by Scientology. I thought it was well made and I cried several times (I cry frequently while watching movies). It was a deftly manipulative film that did what it set out to do, but I'm getting tired of Robert De Niro in that role.

I saw Kolya (on Netflix) during a very long pair of recent treadmill runs and loved it.

I was also very impressed with the recent crop of best picture contenders. They were all either very good or great.

That sounds great! I'll put Kolya on the Notflix queue.

Speaking of films involving newly unemployed cellists (and of the Academy Awards), 2008's Best Foreign Language Film, Departures (Okuribito) is definitely worth a look.

Oops, I think the award was given in 2009.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003 - Korea) ranks right up there with my other favorite Buddhist films, Running on Karma (2003 - Hong Kong) and The Burmese Harp (1956 - Japan).

Two movies I watched on Netflix last year that I really wish more people would see:

"Mary and Max" (2009), a quirky claymation movie featuring the voices of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette about an 8 year old girl in Australia and adult New Yorker that is on the spectrum that become pen pals. Really fantastic.

"Four Lions" (2010) a British comedy about wanna-be Jihadists that will leave you in stitches and make you *really* uncomfortable.

Both are still available on instant. Both very much worth watching.

I agree, Four Lions was tremendous. It's a tough sell, though; I haven't convinced any of my friends to give it a try. They're missing out.

I'll give Mary and Max a try. Sounds pretty good, thanks!

Yeah, Four Lions is a tough sell in that you sorta want warn people without ruining anything but it's so worth it kind of way. But it was *so* fucking brilliantly done. That said, I'm still pretty particular about who I recommend it to.

And yeah, def. give Mary and Max a shot, especially if you're a fan of claymation. But it *will* make you tear up a couple of times. It's one of those movies that I sorta heard about but had lower expectations and came out of all "Damn, that was far better than it should've been".

(see also: The Host - but in an entirely different way)

Definitely, The Host is a great film. It features Song Kang-ho, one of my favorite actors. Hard to pick a favorite film of his. Memories of Murder is also outstanding. He's great as a North Korean border guard in J.S.A.: Joint Security Area, as a South Korean intelligence agent in Secret Reunion, and as Park Chung-hee's barber in The President's Barber.

Of those I probably like Secret Reunion best, though Memories of Murder is a better film. J.S.A. is fantastic, and you might recognize Song's co-star Lee Byung-hun from A Bittersweet Life or G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The President's Barber is a sort of Korean Forrest Gump, not in the treacly platitude sense but in the historical fly-on-the-wall sense.

I could go on and on about recent Korean cinema. Maybe I will, some other time.

Also, I cry in movies all the time, I call it "expressing my humanity." I'm looking forward to Mary and Max.

Thanks, ufez, I watched Mary and Max last night and really liked it. I was impressed with Phil's voice acting. I'm usually not into animated stuff, nor do I usually like things that seem like children's stories but are actually aimed at adults, but Mary and Max managed to avoid irritating me. In fact, I thought it was excellent all the way through.

I recently watched a remarkable Japanese film called Café Lumière. That is to say, it's filmed in Japan and about Japan, but the director Hou Hsiao-hsien is Taiwanese. It's a clear homage to Ozu Yasujirô's work (now there's a guy one could write a book about!), and I thought both Yô Hitoto and Asano Tadanobu were great in the main roles, but the real star of the film was the Tokyo train system.

Asano Tadanobu is great in general; another of his films I saw recently was Last Life in the Universe, which, like Café Lumière, I can't recommend enough. As a matter of fact, Owl and the Sparrow, Café Lumière, and Last Life in the Universe are a pretty good trio of unusual is-it-love stories.

Asano Tadanobu was also in the tiresome Avengers setup Thor and, speaking as we were of tough-to-convince-friends-to-see flicks, the immensely satisfying demolisher of low expectations, Battleship. Along with the aforementioned G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and the amazing Speed Racer, Battleship fits into a short list of straw-into-gold shockers, excellent movies based on pretty lame kid stuff.

I'm sure I'll keep updating this thread with recommendations as I keep watching movies and plumbing my memory. If anyone's reading, feel free to add to it.

Thanks, bearwife, I watched Kolya last night and really enjoyed it. Charming from end to end. Now I can recommend it, too!

I've seen a few other movies about kids recently. Most have not been uplifting at all. If you can stomach movies about kids in perilous situations, I have a few recommendations. Ali Zaoua, prince de la rue is excellent, about glue-sniffing Moroccan street urchins trying to break away from their former gang. As you might imagine, it's hard to watch but it's satisfying and beautiful in its own way.

Johnny Mad Dog, about child soldiers in an unnamed African country, is not uplifting. It's not a movie I would recommend to most, but it's very well acted and offers a slice of life that's, well, it looks true, and well, it's tough to watch.

Nobody Knows is also incredibly difficult. It's about four children abandoned in an apartment by their mother. There's not much of a lesson of hope, I had to get up and walk away a few times before I could finish it, but the children in it are amazing. The director told them more or less what was happening and encouraged them to have their own unscripted conversations, which really works well with child actors of such a young age. Apparently Yûya Yagira, who plays the oldest brother (winning best actor at Cannes for the role) found the pressure too much and shut himself away from society for a couple years, but then found love and a fresh start.

Anyway, if I were to recommend only one film directed by Koreeda Hirokazu, it would be either the lovely Still Walking (see it!) or Air Doll, which is definitely not for everyone, but it's surprisingly philosophical and not particularly scummy, considering its subject (I loved it).

A Brand New Life is great film about growing up in an orphanage in Korea, directed by French-Korean filmmaker Ounie Lecomte and based on her own experiences. Kim Sae-ron, who plays the main character, Jinhee, is my favorite child actor. She just has it. She's also fantastic in The Man from Nowhere, which, in the shocking and gritty style of many Korean action movies, may not be for everyone.

I also want to mention a couple of French films. The boys in them are older, so they're not exactly films about children, but they're both remarkable films during which I kept thinking about how young the characters were. The first is Welcome, about a Kurdish boy who makes his way from Iraq to Calais and tries to make his way across the English Channel. The other is Un prophète, about a 19-year old Franco-Arab criminal coming of age in Brécourt prison. Both of these movies are captivating, and both are also somewhat upsetting. But they're really worth watching.