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Ghost in the Shell (1995)

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE 2017 HOLLYWOOD REMAKE, THAT MOVIE IS TRASH IN EVERY WAY AND SHOULD NOT BE WATCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!  This is a weird one, no way around it, this movie is weird. Also, you will have to watch it more than once, sorry. It follows a cyborg cop named Kusanagi as she and her unit try to chase down a hacker who hacks into people’s brains, but things go wrong, and it all gets weird. Released in 1995, you can tell that the animators have been watching blade runner, the neon and rain-soaked city are pure cyberpunk. This does not mean it is bland though. The art in this movie is incredible, from the expansive cityscapes, to the incredibly intricate sci-fi machinery, the whole world really meshes together. Unlike other sci-fi movies, this one does not shy away from the nitty gritty details, the movie starts with a very long sequence detailing the construction of the mechanical body Kusanagi resides in. The detail shown in the movie is incredible, every single moving part of every gun, robot, helicopter and hover car has been carefully thought out. This commitment to detail really sells the world, you feel like everything could actually work, even if it really couldn’t. Then you have the background art itself, the city is incredible, the streets feel grimy and dark, the billboards are gaudy, it is cyberpunk done perfectly.

    The plot is also very cyberpunk, as it is mainly about hacking and what it means to be human. This is a very philosophical movie (I seem to like those) and it doesn’t set its sights low, aiming to pin down what makes us individuals and what makes us human. The way it goes about this is not that subtle, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting, spoilers ahead, and trust me this is one you don’t want spoiled. The brain hacker they are chasing code named “The Puppetmaster” turns out to not actually be human, but to be an AI made by another branch of the government that gained sentience and decided to try and escape its servitude. The AI brings up the argument that, if it is sentient, and has its own memories and experiences, what makes it less human that Kusanagi? Both of them are machines, the only difference is that Kusanagi has had her brain uploaded into her artificial body. I think it is safe to say that if you are religious, then you will not like this movie, as the conclusion that it comes to is that biologically we are all the same flesh and blood, the only thing that differentiates us from machines is the ability to reproduce and die.

    The puppetmaster wants to become human, to be recognized as intelligent life, so this is where the movie gets really weird and up to interpretation. The puppetmaster, through extenuating circumstances and some amazing action scenes, gets Kusanagi to link her brain with his. He proposes the idea that they should merge their consciousnesses, therefore they both die but they also both reproduce, making both of them human. They go through with this and it leaves you on an interesting and uncertain note, you see that afterward, a new being has been created that is neither human nor AI but both, and then it just ends. The movie takes advantage of a classic philosophical idea: the idea that assimilation is the only way to succeed. If a king has servants to do everything for him, eventually he becomes less powerful than the servants who now have all the strength and all the knowledge, so they will then overthrow him. The proposed solution to this is to have the king become one of the servants and to have them pool their strength to move forward without conflict. This is what ghost in the shell proposes, only with computers. It suggests that the only logical next step for human evolution when we hit a technological peak that allows us to simulate consciousness is that we must then merge ourselves with the machines. Whether you agree with this or not, the movie is incredibly interesting and one you will want to watch again and talk about with as many other people as you can.

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This is the best story of heartbreak and love (in that order) that I have ever seen. It also takes some weird turns that happen rather early on, so if you haven’t seen this movie, please watch it before reading this. Alright! Now I will move onto my analysis. This is a lovely movie, but it does not start out that way. The introduction to the movie is a very effective demonstration of atmosphere. Joel starts out so totally confused by his breakup it is making him hyper aware and anxious. While not stated, I feel that it is heavily implied that Joel suffers from some kind of anxiety disorder, and a common effect of anxiety is sensory overload. This is the sensation that suddenly, everything is too loud, too bright, and you are too hot or too cold. It is very unpleasant, I would know, and the beginning of the movie does a very good and very subtle job of building that same feeling. All the sound effects are turned up way louder than they should be, so it builds this feeling of being overwhelmed. All the characters he talks to aren’t really paying attention to him, making you feel weird and disconnected. Then obviously when the dream sequence starts, you are very overwhelmed, so many images and colors flashing so quickly. It works together to make a very effective atmosphere of oppression.

    This makes it all the more interesting when Joel starts to have second thoughts, because as he starts to fall in love with Clementine again we get to see the atmosphere change again, the scenes hold longer, the sound effects are pushed into the background. The movie uses all of the tools at its disposal to heighten the story. This is what I love so much, the movie knows it’s a movie and takes full advantage of it. They use editing, sound mixing and the ability to make impossible things happen to make the internal external. The movie tries to tackle love in a visual medium, something that is really hard to do. In a book they have the advantage of being able to state the character’s thoughts, but in a movie they had to find another way to do it. This is a great example of a movie using it’s full toolkit and being bold and not being afraid of weirding people out. To me it works perfectly, never before have I seen a piece of media capture what it feels like to dream more than this movie. It perfectly blends the surreal with the real in the way that it does in a dream. The fact that the characters don’t react to the bizarre reality warps heightens that feeling of a dream, because a dream feels real while you are in it.

    The emotions are the only real part of this movie and they are done so well. I have not fallen in love, but the people I have shown this movie to that have say that it does an amazing job of making a realistic portrayal of that. The dialogue is written so well, we love Clementine’s bizarre, spontaneous nature, and we feel Joel’s awkwardness and accidental social blunders. It is relatable, at some point we have all wanted to be as spontaneous as Clementine or felt as awkward as Joel. The character’s emotions are real, but so are the audiences, it manages to make you care so deeply about this story, it makes it all the more tense because of it. I started off thinking that Joel was not right for Clementine, but I was amazed as the movie went on, because I started to believe them as a couple, and I wanted them to stay together. It does a great job portraying an emotion visually and it does a great job making us feel emotions as well, what else can I say?

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The Royal Tenenbaums

Hey look! Another Wes Anderson film! Man I just love his movies, if you look up the definition of whimsy you will just see a list of his filmography. This time we get to watch the strange reunion of a dysfunctional and estranged family. We briefly see the childhood of three children, the three Tenenbaum children. We are also introduced to their father: Royal. Despite the title, this is not a movie about him, it is a movie about all of them, but mostly about Royal. Due to depression, love and a missing sprinkler system, all the children end up living in the same house again, despite the fact that they are now all adults. Then when the news that Royal has cancer and wants to spend his remaining days with his family reaches them, the real drama kicks off. Royal is a lovable screw up, he is not a good person, and has driven off every member of his family, but he is trying his hardest to win them all back. This sounds like the setup for a super soppy sentimental story about family ties, it is not however. This is a story about drugs, suicide, there is a fistfight, and some dogfighting too. Wes could have gone down that soppy route, but instead he presents a more realistic view of what would happen if an estranged family got back together, they remember that there were reasons they grew apart.

    This does not mean it is not a fun movie to watch, while it is about some often quite serious subject matter it maintains a wonderfully funny tone. It manages to perfectly stride the line between being funny and being a joke. The movie is still taken totally seriously, and it has some moments that genuinely give me chills (if you have seen it you know the specific scene set to Needle in the Hay by Elliott Smith). You slowly get to see the development of eight different characters, who all get their own arc and have a great conclusion to each of their own stories. Despite containing so many threads to the plot, the movie manages to be very easy to watch, swapping organically between each of the characters as they are tied together through the giant house they all are living in. Like Hunt for the Wilderpeople, this movie doesn’t have some huge overarching message to convey,  it just wants to take you on a journey and make you laugh and cry and everything in-between.

    One of the main things that helps this emotional rollercoaster is the soundtrack. This is one of the best movie soundtracks ever! It mixes more widely known songs covered by interesting bands as well as more unknown but still amazing and totally fitting songs. It does what a good soundtrack should, because the songs were not meant to be a movie soundtrack they do bring attention to themselves, but they are also totally fitting for the scenes which they are put to. In classic Wes fashion, it is also striking to look at. While the visual style is much more subdued than The Grand Budapest or The Darjeeling Limited it is still very Wes Anderson. You get his traditional Pastel color palette, you get the very geometric camera movements, and the fun costume designs. All of the characters have a distinct style, From Richie Tenenbaum’s ever present tennis shirt and sunglasses, to the Cowboy outfits worn by Elie Cash. Like the soundtrack, they are weird but somehow fit perfectly. I think it is the consistency and commitment to the style that is what sells the movie, it has lots of weird elements, but they are all consistent, and so you believe that this all is just the story of a weird family and not a collection of people pretending to be a family. Somehow, the fact that all the weird stuff is consistent makes you stop seeing it as weird and just go along for the ride, and what a fun ride it is.

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

If The Hunt For The Wilderpeople was one of the most fun movies I have watched, then The Grand Budapest Hotel is THE most fun movie I have ever watched. Another Wes Anderson film, this one takes place in the fictional European country of Zubrowka in a grand hotel. The concierge is an absurdly detail focused and womanizing but lovable man, and when one of his lovers is killed mysteriously, he is blamed.  Heand his new lobby boy then embark on an absurd adventure involving murder, intrigue, art theft, love and friendship.

It is the most whimsical movie I have ever seen, and the most stylistically striking. The hotel itself, as well as some other notable locations are actually miniatures filmed to look large.  All the colors are pastel, and as the movie’s aspect ratio changes depending on the time period, so does the color palette change as well. The soundtrack is Russian folk music and somehow it all works. If you are not familiar with Wes’ work, then this is a great jumping off point, it represents everything he is famous for. Almost every single shot in the movie is symmetrical, leading to this surreal dollhouse-like feel to the locations. The dialogue is amusingly stilted and strange but delivered with such sincerity and formality you still accept it. The soundtrack is phenomenal but strange, and the whole movie has an immense attention to detail. All this comes together so perfectly into this dance of color, character and story that you believe this is a real country, and that these are real people.  My words cannot do justice to the majesty of this movie, it is insane and over the top in the best way possible, it has to be seen to be understood. Enough about the visuals, that is only half of the battle, although I could talk about them for at least another few pages.

The story is amazingly well written, particularly in the pacing. You can tell when a movie is paced poorly when you either feel bored or overwhelmed in a bad way. This movie perfectly straddles this line, the plot moves forward at a breakneck pace, but you are always given enough information to understand what is going on and to appreciate the view. Spoilers ahead. War is in the air, and in a parody of WWI one it begins. This complicates the escape of the two main characters, but services the main theme of the movie: Beauty does not last. We see the concierge, Gustave, go from the pristine head of a prestigious hotel to a ragged fugitive, and watch as the hotel loses its charm and beauty.

The story line matches this as well; it starts innocently enough but as it progresses, the murderous assistant to the dead woman’s heir Joplin comes into the story and leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. We see the lobby boy, Zero fall in love only to find out his wife died during childbirth after the events of the movie. However, this movie is not a bleak story, because there is another part to this message: although beauty and life are fleeting, that does not mean we can’t enjoy them. This is the take away from the film, that there is always beauty around us and we never know how long it will last so we should make the most of it while it is here.

This theme is represented well through the painting Gustave and his lobby boy steal, Boy With Apple. Right after they steal it, Gustave says it will hang above his grave to remind him of his dead lover, and mere moments later he says they should sell it and use the money to ride out the rest of their days. The movie is beautiful, exciting, ridiculous but enjoying, you will never see anything else like it.

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Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Have you ever watched a New Zealand based film? Probably not, neither had I before I saw this movie, but boy am I glad I did. New Zealand cinema often focuses on character dramas, zooming in on the odd and often dysfunctional relationships people can have with each other, and this film is no different. The story follows the juvenile delinquent Ricky Baker as he enters his new foster home. He is going to live with a family in the New Zealand outback, and he couldn’t be more out of place in his new environment.

Right from the get-go, you can see the unique character writing that director and writer Taika Waititi loves. His characters have this very natural but very goofy dialogue that is born from his encouragement of improvised lines.  Ricky is a wannabe gangster who isn’t really as tough as he pretends to be, his new foster mother is an incredibly sweet and kind woman who isn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty, his new foster father is a gruff and distant bushman who does not like Ricky, and the child protective services agent is a very gruff and overly militant woman who takes her job wayyyy too seriously. The film manages to strike this perfect balance between whimsy and reality, with humorous and silly dialogue which also includes some real heart, as we learn more about Ricky’s past. Then the whole family dynamic is disrupted with the sudden and unexpected death of his foster mother.

Thus begins the real meat of the story: child protective services will put Ricky in juvenile detention if he is taken back to them, and without a mother in his new family he has to be taken back. To avoid this he runs away into the forest. This ends up forcing his new foster father to chase him into the wild, then through an awkward misunderstanding, they both end up on the run from the law. The rest of the movie is their huge adventure through the stunning scenery of the New Zealand bush.

We also get to watch the wonderfully written relationship form between Ricky, the incompetent city kid, and his foster father which he calls uncle Hector, who starts out hating him. They begin stuck together by only necessity and a common goal to not get arrested, but slowly they build a familial bond and become friends. The pacing is spot on, you never feel bored, but it never feels frantic or makes you nervous, you just get swept away into this amazing adventure. It is so much fun to see a movie that is exciting and mature while also never resorting to cheap thrills of violence. I am not against violent films (look back at my essay on Tekkonkinkreet) but it can be refreshing to see a movie that isn’t violent but never feels dumbed down for children.

While it might not be as complex in message and theme as some of the other films this one doesn’t lack in eliciting emotion. The story has so much heart as we learn more about these two misfits and watch their relationship grow and change as they learn to respect and value each other. It makes me laugh (especially a scene which involves what must be the best dad in all of cinema), but it also has some more melancholy moments that keep it feeling grounded and not just a happy go lucky fairy tale. It is one of the most fun movies I have watched, so if you want a good time that leaves you feeling happy you should totally check this movie out.

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The Darjeeling Limited

This is the first Wes Anderson film I’ve chosen for this blog, but it will be the first of many. Wes Anderson is a master of his craft, and every detail of every movie is meticulously hand picked by him. This leads to some very unique films, made entirely in his vision. The Darjeeling Limited is his most underappreciated offering to date. It is the story of three brothers, Francis, Peter and Jack, and their spiritual journey across India that turns out to not be that spiritual at all. Estranged after the death of their father and their mother’s disappearance, they all get roped into a trip by rail across India by Francis. He tells them it is going to be a spiritual journey to bring them closer as brothers and to reunite them as family. What he doesn’t tell them at first is that he has actually located their mother and is taking them to see her, even though she doesn’t want to see them. On the surface it seems to be a drama about family relations and how they strain and break, but if you look deeper it is a story about communication, and the importance of controlling your own life.

    At the beginning of the film, the three brothers have conversations that are so disjointed it is more like three people making un-connected statements than people talking. Jack doesn’t call his girlfriend, he only listens to her answering machine, Francis keeps making decisions for the others and Peter left for India without telling his pregnant wife. However, slowly, through these isolated statements we start to see that these brothers are all struggling to come to terms with grief. Despite the fact that their father died a year ago, none of them have moved past it, and they engage in self-destructive behavior. Peter is wearing their father’s prescription sunglasses so he doesn’t have to see the world outside of the blur of the glasses, Jack keeps getting back together with his girlfriend who he hates, and Francis crashed his motorcycle, and implies that he might have done it on purpose. They each are trying and failing to deal with this grief on their own, rather than communicating and sharing their pain with each other. They keep hiding things, and talk behind each other’s backs. Throughout the whole first act, all the brothers are constantly taking prescription drugs they got from an Indian pharmacy. Quite symbolically though, the drugs they are all taking are painkillers. They don’t know how to deal with the pain of their father dying. Their inability to move on is also represented through their luggage. They have an absurd number of suitcases and trunks that all belonged to their father, and carry this baggage with them across India.

    Their lack of communication comes to a head with a fist fight between all the brothers that ends with them getting kicked off the train. This is where their real spiritual journey starts. This next section contains spoilers for the rest of the film, you have been warned. When the brothers are forced to be together without the distractions of the train or the drugs, they start to actually talk. We get to watch the natural and believable bond forming between the brothers. It comes to a head when they see some boys from a local village fall into a river, and immediately drop their bags and jump in to save them. They each save one except for Peter.  He tries his hardest, but the boy he is rescuing hits his head on the rocks and dies. The brothers take the boys back to the village and then witness the grief of another family losing one of its members. It is a very powerful section of the movie, with very real depictions of a family dealing with trauma. We also see some very well written development of Peter. As he sees the love the family showed for their lost son and he interacts with the other children in the village he starts to accept the parenthood he is about to enter.

    When the brothers finally arrive at the temple where their mother is hiding out it is not the reunion they are hoping for. Their mother doesn’t have the answers for any of their questions, and it doesn’t give them the answer to all of their problems or help them deal with their grief. The next morning she has run away again, but this time it shows them all an important truth: they cannot control what happens to them or how other people react; they can only control themselves. Jack breaks up with his girlfriend, Peter accepts his fatherhood and calls his wife, and Francis admits the bike crash was an attempted suicide and accepts the loss of his father. At the end of the film, we see them running to catch another train, and as they do they realize that to continue their journey they must drop their baggage, and they do, jumping finally unencumbered onto the train to finish their journey.

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Stalker

The pitch for this movie isn’t great:  a slow-paced sci-fi drama that is three hours long and all in Russian. I admit it doesn’t sound like a great movie-watching experience, but trust me, it is. Made under the iron curtain, this Russian film is truly like no other. The director, Andrei Tarkovsky, has been quoted saying “If I make a shot and it looks like something another director would do, I scrap it and do it again more like what I do!” He is obsessed with making movies that only he can make, completely in his vision with a look and feel unique to him. His only constraint in this case was the miniscule soviet-era budget.

Tarkovsky sets out to write a philosophical sci-fi epic about human nature and the purpose of art, and he succeeds. While this might sound pretentious and high minded, the movie is still very watchable. It follows the story of three characters, the stalker, the writer and the scientist. Its premise: a meteor hits in a small, secluded Russian town, and as people start mysteriously disappearing the government quarantines the whole town and surrounding country. Rumor has it that the meteor, if it even was a meteor, left a room behind that if entered will grant the individual their deepest desire. Stalkers are paid guides who will smuggle paying patrons through the quarantine border into the zone and lead them to the room. The character of the Stalker only truly comes alive inside the zone. He is indifferent to his wife’s pleas not to make these trips, as she fears that one day he will never come back from the zone. He leaves her crying, so obsessed with the zone that he values his trips into it more than his family. It is his reality.  

The movie starts out in sepia tones, as the stalker goes to meet the writer and the scientist and together they travel into the zone. The city they are in before entering the zone is a hellish maze of barren concrete walls and dirty polluted streets, and it stands in stark contrast to the world they are about to enter.   Upon entering the zone, the whole film changes into color, with dramatic effect. While the outside world was sepia and industrial, the zone is tranquil, green and silent. As the characters move deeper within it however, the zone gradually degrades and becomes more industrial. The closer to the room they get, the dirtier everything becomes, until the characters are practically wading through decay to get to the room.  Nevertheless, though the characters travel through ugliness, this is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. The stark beauty of the landscapes and decay is shown through the incredible framing and composition of every shot. The characters are always framed to be tiny, highlighting their insignificance when compared to the zone.

One of the most striking features of the film is the lack of a soundtrack and special effects. Rather than using music, it only uses the ambient sounds of the zone to fill the spaces that lack dialogue. The constant rustle of grass and whisper of wind in the trees builds the atmosphere. To augment this environment, and because the tiny budget did not allow computer graphics, all the locations it was filmed at are real. Using actual abandoned factories and overgrown houses, the film pulls together totally believable post-apocalyptic settings.

It is also the most tension-filled movie I have ever seen. The zone is said to be full of invisible “traps” which will kill you if you touch them.  The purpose of the stalker is to guide clients through without touching the traps, although he says they move constantly, and one can never be quite sure where the traps may be. This sets up relentless tension. The lack of soundtrack heightens the paranoia and you start to be suspicious of every sound.  You feel like there is something watching the characters that is always just out of frame. The characters also become more strained, and as we delve deeper into the zone we see deeper into the minds of the characters, through some of the smartest dialogue I have ever heard. The characters manage to muse on the meaning of life and art, and it feels natural; they seem like real people trying to understand why they are all driven to endure this hardship for such a strange goal. It also says a lot with silence, some of the most powerful scenes had no dialogue, and were amazing in their minimalism, captivating me without music or dialogue. Where most “philosophical” movies shy away from actually having an opinion on humanity and avoid trying to answer these bigger questions, Stalker tackles them head-on and has something to say. You can see the time and care that went into the writing of this story: it is thoughtful, and intense, leaving you guessing right up until the climax. It culminates in one of the most intense scenes I have ever watched, it had me on the edge of my seat for what felt like twenty minutes during one particular scene right near the end. I will not ruin the surprise by telling you what happens, but you will think about this movie for a long time after you watch it, and you will be desperate to meet someone else who has seen it to discuss what they think it means.

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Tekkonkinkreet

In my first post I made the argument that film is underappreciated as an artform, and none more so than animation. It is one of the most incredible and versatile forms of storytelling, but it is crippled by its dependence on a child audience. That is precisely why I love Tekkonkinkreet so much; it is a movie about children and childhood that is aimed squarely at adults.

It follows the story of two orphans named Black and White. They live in a dilapidated car under a bridge and spend their days protecting the city they love from the Yakuza and other outside gangs who seek to disrupt the life they cherish so much. Despite being orphans, they have each other, and they also have super powers, often defying the laws of physics as they leap and bound around the city. They use their lack of parents and super human abilities to make their life into a comfortable haven of never-ending childhood. Black is implied to have had a rough and abusive upbringing, and because of this he shelters the immature and innocent White. Their life starts out as the dream of every child: they dress in ridiculous and colorful outfits, they have no one to tell them what to do, they own their world, and they never have to grow up.

However, from early on we see the cracks in this life. We learn that despite how childlike they act, White is actually eleven years old and Black is somewhere in his early teens. Both of them in the twilight of childhood, but still clinging to the innocence and ease of this artificial childhood they have constructed. We see the loneliness of being so different than everyone around them, shown through some unbelievably beautiful tableaus of Black and White sitting on top of buildings and signs as the vastness of the city spreads out below them.  They are above it all but not part of it, separate and alone. We see scenes of the younger White watching through a chain-link fence as children his age go to school and play sports and games and make friends. These feelings of melancholy are heightened by the uncontrolled joy of the beginning of the film, making it all the more troubling to see how they are clinging onto childhood for longer than they should. This change of tone is echoed in the world around them, as the city of Treasure Town is changing along with them.

Before I go on, I must talk about the city itself. Treasure Town is possibly the most beautiful and well realized location I have ever seen in a film. It is unbelievably detailed, with the background frames just bursting with texture and character; you can feel the rust and the wood and the chipping paint on the buildings. This is a city that matches the theme of endless childhood because it feels like a city designed by children. The buildings are all bright colors, the statues are all giant cartoon characters, it feels like a toybox with a city built around it. It also mirrors the character’s dilemma, because while everything is childlike, everything is also fading.  The colors are pastel, but the paint is peeling, the metal rusting. It is a beauty to be sure, but it is also reaching the end of this stage.

The audience are not the only ones to notice this change. The Yakuza is funding a huge project to wipe the city clean and fill it in with new shining amusement parks. This signals the complete change of tone in the film, and it is purposefully jarring, and it impacts the main characters. Black wants to keep his life the same and keep enjoying this childhood he never had, so he will stop at nothing to prevent the Yakuza from destroying this city he works so hard to keep the same. This is where a darker element enters the picture, because Black fights back, and it is brutal. The scenes of violence are purposefully hard to watch, both because these characters you love so much get badly beaten, and because you see the savagery and darkness that Black’s hard childhood instilled in him. These new Yakuza are much more serious, and the movie keeps taking a progressively darker tone, as the mob violence becomes more and more severe. To match this change in the impact of the Yakuza, we see Treasure Town change along with them. The shiny amusement parks start dominating the skyline as Black is powerless to stop them.

Unstoppable change is the overall message of the film; things end and there is nothing we can do about it. Black and White have to grow up, just as the city has to change.  However, we also see that change is not all bad. When something ends, it gives us the space to start something new. Once the weight of what came before is lifted and we have no choice but to move on we can find happiness in something new, maybe something we had never thought to try before. Although this movie is dark and hard to watch, it is also very beautiful.  It has an important message to convey and it does so through some of the most beautiful animation I have ever seen. It is thoughtful, exciting, beautiful and very underappreciated, so if you can, please watch Tekkonkinkreet.

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Why You Should Read My Blog

First off a short introduction: Hi! I am Daniel, I am an artist by day and a big movie watcher by night. Most people watch movies but most people just go for the big blockbusters in theaters, or whatever won the oscars this year. I am going to try and show, by explainging my favorite weird, obscure or underrapreciated movies that I think everyone should watch. Movies are an art form and I think that not enough people appreciate them for that. With the mega studios who are only interested in how much money a movie can make a lot of this artistry is lost or at least not at the forefront. I don't claim to have the best taste in the world or that anything is wrong with liking bombastic hollywood blockbusters, but I am going to argue my case. Many people don't think about why they like or don't like things, it makes it very hard to discuss things and means that lots of people don't understand people with different tastes. I am going to try and explain to my fullest extent why I love these movies, hopefully you will learn something and be able to take away a new appreciation for good filmmaking and are inspired to tell someone else why you love something. Some of you might have heard of these movies, but some of you probably have not, and I hope that either way I can show you why they are important, beautiful and worth your time. I am not trying to be a hipster, I just feel that mainstream movies often have been simplified to be more mass appealing and have lost some of the artistic vision the creators hoped to convey, and because indie films are not as much about money it means that they can focus on conveying their artistic vision rather than a mass appealing money maker of a movie.