Movies are a reflection of our culture and our time, but the good ones are also far more than that. They can change our lives by changing the way we see the world. They can inspire, inform, transform and confront while they entertain. They can open hearts and minds and go beyond being a reflection of the day's commonly held ideas and ideals.

I don't mean that films have to change the world (well, not all at once, anyway), but to be interesting to me they need to offer something special: to sensitively articulate emotion; to allow me to fall in love; to show me another way; to take me to places I never thought of going; to have a unique voice; to allow me to understand or to move me with their poetry or their insight or their imagination.

I love to be consumed by a story and its characters (regardless of genre) and be transported, seamlessly, beyond my own world and to feel the story as a metaphor for life. I approach each film I watch hoping for fulfilment, and when that is accomplished - oh, what an invigorating experience! If a film does nothing to cause some level of internal shift in me, then I am left, well, un-shifted, regardless of a blow-me-down budget, dazzle of stars, scale of soundtrack, level of spectacle or technical genius.

Some films I love, or like a lot are listed below, not in any order:

City of God / Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
The Beat My Heart Skipped /De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrete (Jaques Audiard, 2005)
Look Both Ways (Sarah Watt, 2005)
Pollock (Ed Harris, 2000)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
The Big Blue (Luc Besson, 1988)
Gridlock'd (Vondie Curtis Hall, 1997)
Mad Max (George Miller, 1979/1981)
The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephen Elliot, 1994)
About A Boy (Chris Weitz / Paul Weitz, 2002)
Lantana (Ray Lawrence, 2001)
Two Hands (Gregor Jordan, 1999)
In America (Jim Sheridan, 2002)
Camille Claudelle (Bruno Nuytten, 1988)
Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
High Art (Lisa Cholodenko, 1988)
Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000)
Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1988)
A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001)
As Good As It Gets (James L. Brooks, 2003)
American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)
Irreversible (Gaspar Noe, 2002)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992)
X-Pax (Iain Softley, 2001)
Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996)
Romeo & Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)
Lovely and Amazing (Nicole Holofcener, 2001)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
The Graduate (Mike Nicols, 1967)

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