Movies, Movies & More Movies

I love a movie that places me in a time/setting and portrays it so accurately that I feel as though I learned a certain way of life while watching it. A movie is great to me, if, when I think about a certain time period and/or culture, that movie immediately comes to mind. For example, Gangs of New York, to me, is a great movie. It portrays the Five Points of Manhattan in the mid-19th century, and while I was learning about that time period in History class, I kept on picturing Scorcese's film.

New York mid 19th-century

Django Unchained is also very successful for the same reason. Although it was a bit exaggerated (Tarantino seems to do that quite a bit), I think that it covered nearly all the aspects of slavery at that time in a very visually powerful manner. I also love mafia movies, such as Goodfellas, and the Godfather's I and II. These epic movies not only show me a way of life that I know very little about, but they are so well acted and well written that I can watch them a hundred times and still take away something new from them every time. One movie that I saw very recently that I think was fantastic was City of God, which is a story about a young photographer in the slums of Brasil who risks everything to uncover the truth about the immorality of the gangsters there.

Lil Dice - the youngest gangster

This movie is entirely spoken in Portuguese with english subtitles, which I think added to its cultural aspect.
Finally, I have always loved surfing movies. They are so calming and relaxing to watch and put me in a great state of mind. My favorite would have to be Riding Giants. It is so, so epic.