GOOD LITTLE-KNOWN MOVIES

                                                            Part 3

        Here’s another handful of pretty good movies that had their brief moment and then vanished. They are probably strangers to you, but maybe you’ll find one or two to try. 

Let’s begin with a really good, off-beat documentary: 20 Feet From Stardom (2013), which won that year’s Best Documentary Oscar. This one is about singers who do back-up work for big stars. Most of them never quite make the leap to stardom. They are uniformly good singers, much admired in the business, and we get to meet a number of them and listen to some of their music. There’s good stuff about how they get their jobs, and how they perform them.

Though it did get one Oscar nomination (for screenplay), Moonrise Kingdom (2012)  was pretty much under the radar. Twelve-year-olds Sam and Suzy met at summer camp, became pen pals and decided to run away together the next summer. Sam is in a summer camp; Suzy is at home nearby, and they hightail it through the woods to a cove they label Moonrise Kingdom. They’re discovered by the grown-ups, escape again, and both fun and danger ensue. This is a real charmer.

Robert Duvall is the county’s crustiest old hermit and he wants to have a bang-up funeral party BEFORE he dies. Bill Murray is the somewhat sleazy local funeral director, in a slump because people aren’t dying quickly enough. He is all for the big party and so are we in Down Low (2010). Sissy Spacek adds sparkle as Duvall’s old flame.

Goodbye Solo (2009) was shot in Winston-Salem and Hanging Rock State Park. It is the story of the somewhat shaky friendship between a Senegalese immigrant taxi driver and a mysterious passenger. When the passenger engages the driver for a long trip in two weeks, the driver realizes the passenger plans to end his life. His herculean efforts to change his mind will engage you to the very end. Director Rahman Bahrani was born and raised in North Carolina, and Roger Ebert called him the next great American director.  

A foreigner worth a look is South Korea’s Poetry (2011). An elderly woman belatedly enrolls in a poetry class at the local college. Her grandson is involved in a horrible crime with a worse ending, and she must decide what to do. She befriends the mother of the victim, and through her writing and thinking learns to look past the obvious and banal to what is truly beautiful and worthwhile. This film won the screenplay award at Cannes, and it’s easy to see why. 

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. Mature kids might enjoy the first two. The rest are for grown-ups.