Funky Foreign Arthouse Ish

[Max Headroom]

I've found myself watching a lot of foreign movies recently through Netflix on my TV. For one thing the selection is more interesting than the range offered on the American films, I can watch it quiet while the kids sleep without impacting anything because I'm reading anyway, and I don't have to worry about my daughter hearing someone curse because she does not speak Japanese.

Thus, I recommend:
Mongol
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Experiment

Mongol is violent at a pace in line with reality, which means it is more brutal and less action-packed. Helps build drama. I liked the development of Ghengis Khan as a cool movie arc, whether or not this thing has an historic validity. It's interesting.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is funky. It's another slow pace movie interjected with some really unbecoming scenes that caught me off guard. It's atypical in that way and the plot is not exactly the most compelling but enough to work. Be warned, this movie is not for women!

The Experiment takes an actually documented case and turns it into a movie that goes beyond reality. I remember reading once about an experiment where some college students pretended to be prison guards and others prisoners that had to be stopped because they got violent. Of course great fodder for a sick movie. It's definitely more psychological than action, of course, and the very down side is the massive amount of male nudity. It's German and one of the final scenes a guy calls another a Nazi and you get why this would be a film made by Germans. This movie might not be that great but I did always wonder what would have happened if that real life experiment continued and this is one fictional take on that.

[Max Headroom]

North Face: German film about rock climbing. Movies about that topic never moved me for two reasons. One, the riskiest maneuvers do not feel unrealistic and the motivation for such risks does not seem to justify them. This movie takes a real life story done up realistically and supplies a great reason - Nazis made them climb. It's dramatic and deadly and Lisa got all into into so probably means a decent selection for your women too.

[Ken]

What the FUCK is this thread? WHAT THE FUCK?? What in God's name is going on down there?

[Max Headroom]

Dylan is teething and up all kinds of hours. These are the movies I watch with the sound off.

[Rob G]

Good shit. I dont have a good excuse. But i am always up all night often watching netflix.

[Max Headroom]

Valhalla Rising is cool if you thought the 13th Warrior was a light adventure movie. If you that that was at all slow you have never seen this movie, which is possible the slowest movie I have ever seen. And confusing too. The fight sequences at the beginning are cool and One Eye is intriguing. After he sets out from gladiator to adventurer that shit requires a preview of Wikipedia plot to have any meaning, even with that I was mystified. But the movie was unlike anything I have seen so thought to mention. The vivid filming attempts realism, which works great for the fights at the beginning, but the intermixing of foresight kind of detracts from that effect.

I read One Eye is supposed to be Odin. If that gets you hard, look into this. If you're like me and that means little, then the movie is simply funky. Check it out.