Cinema Sunday 2 + Johnny Depp

EPIC CINEMA SUNDAY TODAY! As you’ll recall, PART 1 was specific to art & design documentaries.

PART 2 will consist of:

My favorite ambient movies for sights and sounds
Documentary Recommendations (other than art & design)
Documentary Queue

Without further adieu..

AMBIENT SELECTIONS

Portishead Live in Roseland NY
Baraka
Chronos
Babies

DOCUMENTARY PICKS

Red Without Blue
War Dance
Very Young Girls
The Bridge
Planet B-Boy
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Touching the Void
The Business of Being Born
This Film is Not Yet Rated
Kicking It
Modify
Ashtanga NY
Blue Vinyl
On the Edge, Ciudad Juarez Murders
The Future of Food
Killer at Large
Food Inc
King Corn
State of Mind
The Union
The Corporation
DiG!
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music
My Dog: An Unconditional Love Story
Facing The Habit

DOCUMENTARY QUEUE

March of the Penguins
Lost Treasures of Tibet
The Cove (I’ve been admittedly holding back on this one for fear I’ll bawl)
Derrida
To Be and To Have
Into Great Silence
Beyond Belief
The Devil Came on Horseback
A Walk to Beautiful
The Ritchie Boys
Confessions of a Superhero
The Giant Buddhas
Crips and Bloods
The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio
Steal a Pencil for Me
Forgiving Dr. Mengele
Munyurangabo
Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price
Mad Hot Ballroom
Outfoxed (Watched a little but blood pressure was rising steadily and had to take a break)
Encounters at the End of the World
For All Mankind
Motherland Afghanistan
The Cruise (note: watching it now, and not a huge fan so far…)
Blindsight
Note By Note
We Live In Public
Maxed Out

Clearly, I’ve been a happy Netflix Customer Since August, 2005. I’ve rated to date 864 movies!

Ok, bonus time… in a barely-related note, Let’s talk Johnny!

Who else can portray anyone from freak, druggie, pirate, greaser, demon barber and insane holder of tea parties to undercover cop, novelist, slick outlaw and sexy foreigner vagabond. No one, that’s who! Johnny Depp is so versatile and so willing to throw himself into odd roles, strangeness ensues, but to our benefit. On his relationship with director Tim Burton he explains:

He can ask me everything. If he wants me to have sex with an aardvark in one of his next movies, then I will do that.

In my extra reading about him, I’ve just learned that he was also appointed to star in The Matrix, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Speed, but he passed on the roles. He’s been married once, engaged four times, and has two children with his now-girlfriend Vanessa Paradis. His take on parenthood is by turns hilarious and sentimental. He says of his roll in Pirates:

I only wanted to be in a movie that my kids could see.

And he continues about children and fatherhood…

When kids hit one year old, it’s like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit. -Johnny Depp

I see this amazing, beautiful, pure angel-thing wake up in the morning, and nothing can touch that. She is the only reason to wake up in the morning, the only reason to take a breath. Everything else is checkers.

What’s he working on now?

A “Dark Shadows” inspired movie is reportedly in the works for 2012, revolving around vampires, werewolves, witches and monsters. Next he is rumored to be playing a huntsman who saves Snow White possibly alongside Charlize Theron (as the wicked queen) in the film Snow White and the Huntsman, also slated for 2012. Depp provides the voice for the titular charater in animated flick Rango, which will debut next year. Also next year we’ll see a revisitation of his Hunter S. Thompson connection. Depp was good friends with Thompson until his death in 2005 and helped make his last wishes come true: to have his remains shot out of a 150 ft. cannon, which had to be built. Depp portrayed Hunter S. Thompson in Terry Gilliam’s film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and now he will star in another film based on a Thompson novel, The Rum Diary, set for release next year. Lots to look forward to!

And now let’s enjoy the scenery of said star!