At the Movies

When a delusional loner buys a life-size sex doll over the Internet, promptly falls in love with her and starts telling people that the doll is his girlfriend, his brother and sister-in-law decide it's time to intervene. Patricia Clarkson co-stars in this offbeat feature film debut about love, loss and human relationships from director Craig Gillespie.

This is the description provided on the Netflix DVD slip for the latest movie to arrive in our mailbox. It's called Lars and the Real Girl and is surprisingly rated PG-13. We haven't seen it yet but I'm excited to. I remember having seen commercials for it at the movie theater a number of years ago.

When we lived in St. Louis there were a handful of great theaters that showed independent films like this one each week. Refusing the bigger ticket titles such as Sex and the City or Armageddon,  the Tivoli, Chase, and Plaza Frontenac theaters chose to show small budget films that were, more often than not, a lot of fun.

It would be easy to become disheartened by the fact Columbia doesn't offer many opportunities to see movies like Limbo or The Lost Boys of Sudan. But we're not. Because of all the great inventions of the past 100 years perhaps none are quite as life changing as Netflix. Any movie delivered straight to your house. Keep it as long as you want and send it back in when you finish. They'll send another! Who goes to a video store anymore?

A few years ago an old friend extended an on-line request that we set our i-Pods to shuffle and then list the first ten songs to appear. My ten songs included, among others, Simon and Garfunkle, Elliott Smith, The Beatles, and Radiohead. I enjoyed reading everyone else's playlists. I think it'd be cool to see these lists from a whole variety of people I know now. Would I be surprised?

In the same vein, and thinking about movies, I thought I'd share ten movies from our queue. I don't think the music we listen to or the movies we watch define us all that much but it's still interesting to see our choices in list form. Here they are...

***
100 Years of Horror: Disc 1

Christopher Lee hosts this chilling anthology of clips with commentary from stars such as Robert De Niro and Charlton Heston, assessing some of the most memorable -- and horrific -- scenes in cinema history. This collection rounds up more than 10,000 monstrous moments featuring scream queens, maniacs, demons, sorcerers, witchcraft, the walking dead, Frankenstein and many more.

***
 Waiting for Superman

Dynamic documentarian Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) weaves together the stories of students, families, educators and reformers to shed light on the failing public school system and its consequences on the future of the United States. In this Sundance Audience Award winner for Best Documentary, Guggenheim deftly examines the options to improve public education and provide America's teachers and students with the help they need.

***
Bill Cosby: Hiimself

Bill Cosby, television's favorite avuncular funnyman and one of the longtime masters of stand-up comedy, treats his fans to this funny, satirical and heartwarming live concert from Canada. Riffing on such varied subjects as the trial by fire of marriage, parenthood and the side-splitting antics of toddlers, and even a hilarious encounter at a dentist's office, Cosby will tickle your funny bone until you hurt from laughing!

***
King Corn
In Aaron Woolf's thought-provoking documentary, friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis move back to America's Corn Belt to plant an acre of the nation's most-grown and most-subsidized grain and follow their crop into the U.S. food supply. What they learn about genetically modified seeds, powerful herbicides and the realities of modern farming calls into question government subsidies, the fast-food lifestyle and the quality of what we eat.

***
God Grew Tired of Us
After raising themselves in the desert along with thousands of other "lost boys," Sudanese refugees John, Daniel and Panther have found their way to America, where they experience electricity, running water and supermarkets for the first time. Capturing their wonder at things Westerners take for granted, this documentary, an award winner at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, paints an intimate portrait of strangers in a strange land.

***
The Fighter
After a string of defeats, Mickey Ward rediscovers his fighting will with help from trainer and half-brother Dicky, a once-talented pugilist and small-town hero now battling drug addiction. 

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Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
When he's not busy breaking the law or trying to get close to his secret crush, Penny, supervillain wannabe Dr. Horrible boasts about his exploits via his Internet video blog and dreams of defeating his nemesis, Captain Hammer. Conceived during the 2008 Hollywood writers' strike, Joss Whedon's quirky musical comedy originally debuted as an online miniseries.

***
National Geographic: Return to Everest/Surviving Everest
National Geographic offers an insider's look at the history of Mount Everest -- the highest peak on Earth -- and the remarkable athletes who dare to scale it. Climbers Peter Hillary, Jamling Norgay and Brent Bishop battle the extremes 50 years after their fathers made successful treks to the top in this one-hour documentary, which includes interviews with Sir Edmund Hillary and others who have answered the mountain's call. 

***
The Most Dangerous Man in America
Revisit a pivotal point in American history in this documentary that chronicles Pentagon insider Daniel Ellsberg's daring endeavor to leak top-secret government papers that disclosed shocking truths about the Vietnam War and Nixon's presidency. Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith direct this absorbing, Oscar-nominated account that features compelling interviews with Ellsberg, retired New York Times editor Max Frankel and other key figures.

***
The New Recruits
Tag along with brash business students Suraj, Heidi and Joel as they attempt to help poor communities in Kenya, India and Pakistan through a social entrepreneurship initiative that focuses on saving the world through capitalism instead of charity. Narrated by actor Rainn Wilson, this unflinching documentary reveals what happens when jet-setting idealists attempt to force underprivileged people to pay for essential goods and services.