Favorite Film Recommendations

Once upon a time, I posted an entry asking you lovely readers for movie recommendations, thanks to our foray into the world of Netflix.

I figured it was time to repay the favor and share some of the favorites we've stumbled upon over the past few months. Most of these are the ones you can stream for free from your computer, which is one of my favorite aspects of having a Netflix subscription.

As I mentioned in my original post, I gravitate toward movies that are pretty clean, especially when it comes to sex and violence. That holds pretty true for all of these recommendations:

The Songcatcher

Ever since reading Christy a few times over while I was growing up, I've had a thing for Appalachia. And that's only half the beauty of this movie, The Songcatcher. Set during the 1800s (I believe), a city-gal musicologist, Doctor Lily Penleric, takes a sabbatical to visit her sister who has started a school for the Appalachian children. Lily goes there to escape the double-standard of academia  (where she gets no credit for her research due to her gender), but ends up discovering in the Appalachian folk traditions, musical gems she never knew existed. She then goes around recording these songs--hence the name "Songcatcher"--which is where the beauty of this film shines, bringing to life folk songs that are hauntingly beautiful. There are also issues of earning trust and her culture clash with the Appalachians as well as (of course) a sweet love story laced in.

Phoebe in Wonderland

Phoebe is a 10-year-old girl who decides to try out for the Alice in Wonderland play at her school. She falls in love with it and turns out to be a natural on the stage. It's here that she feels "at home," when everything else around her seems not to make sense and be out of her control. She begins lashing out and doesn't know what's going on, even with herself. I'm not going to ruin this story, but it's a touching and psychological portrayal of a little girl, discovering and learning to cope with how she's different from everyone else around her.

Outsourced

I saw a commercial for a new TV series that is coming out soon that I think has to be based on this movie. I can't vouch for the series, but the movie itself is really funny! The premise is that the main character works for the customer service department of a company that makes cheesy American products like eagle-head cookie jars or cheese-head hats. To save money, the customer service department gets outsourced to India, so the main character has to go train the new workers (and his replacement). It's a funny and good-hearted story about the culture-clash he faces and, ultimately, how he begins to embrace the Indian way-of-life and actually enjoy himself. It was especially enjoyable for us, because our church supports a few missionaries to India, so we've heard them share stories about what life is like there that brought some of the nuances of the film to life.

A Walk to Beautiful

This is a documentary that was recommended to me on my original call for movies. Once I watched it, I've found myself mentioning it to a handful of people, which is why I've included it on this round-up. The documentary takes place in Ethiopia, where harsh living standards for women and malnutrition end up causing devastating effects during child birth. This movie follows a handful of women whose lives have been ruined by these realities, leaving them physically affected and outcast from society because of untreated fistulas. Each of them makes the decision to try to get medical help, journeying for up to 24 hours to the one hospital that will treat them. It's there that "they find a haven that they never imagined, transforming their long and arduous trek into a "walk to beautiful," says the Amazon description. I enjoyed this movie because it opens up a reality I was completely unaware of, and it made me ever more thankful of the medical freedoms that I otherwise take for granted.

Have you seen any of these movies? Any additional recommendations?

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{ photo by dailyinvention }