Comments on: Help us with our NextFlix!

Question: Help us with our NextFlix!

dogmom — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:24:59 -0800

Please help me find some good small town/quirky character movies I'm watching "The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain" as I type this. Dogdad and I started talking about other movies in the same vein, and we came up with "Waking Ned Devine" "Mystery, Alaska" "Mumford" and, of course, "Local Hero"

Can the Hive help us add to the list?

By: Paragon

Paragon — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:28:00 -0800

It's a little older, but The Quiet Man is good. Or, if you want something a little more parodic, Hot Fuzz is perfect.

By: pablocham

pablocham — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:32:47 -0800

State and Main?

By: sulaine

sulaine — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:39:28 -0800

Cold Comfort Farm

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:42:52 -0800

Naked, Withnil and I, Bend it Like Beckham are all such interesting and diverse slices of London it's like a small town. Babette's Feast is super that way.

By: diamondsky

diamondsky — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:44:00 -0800

Maybe The Matchmaker, with Janeane Garofalo. Also, Saving Grace, which is a very funny movie.

By: Clay201

Clay201 — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:44:31 -0800

Slingblade
Doc Hollywood
To Kill A Mockingbird

By: peacecorn

peacecorn — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:44:48 -0800

Waiting for Guffman has to be on the list.

By: orange swan

orange swan — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:46:49 -0800

Men With Brooms.

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:47:02 -0800

Oh, and Kung Fu Hustle is about one particular apartment complex in Hong Kong, it's got great kung fu, and there's singing and dancing. But not too much.

By: Bora Horza Gobuchul

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:50:23 -0800

Waking Ned Devine

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:59:24 -0800

Malcolm

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:00:32 -0800

Housekeeping
Blue Velvet
It's a Wonderful Life
Junebug
Our Town
Paradise Postponed (BBC miniseries)
Deadwood (HBO series)
Northern Exposure (TV Series)

variation: Remains of the Day (NYC cast as a small town.)

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:03:57 -0800

The Snapper
The Virgin Suicides
Ramblin' Rose
Hot Fuzz
The Village

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:05:10 -0800

Napoleon Dynamite
Minute Man

By: thinkingwoman

thinkingwoman — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:08:20 -0800

chocolat
big fish
cinema paradiso
fried green tomatoes
the ice storm
the piano
the station agent
american beauty

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:13:28 -0800

Green For Danger
My New Gun
Vernon, Florida
Waiting For Guffman
The Good Girl
Spanking the Monkey
Me and You and Everyone We Know

"The Squid and The Whale" feels like it belongs on this list. It's set in NYC, but it's contained to a small neighborhood and deals a few with complex, quirky characters.

By: sien

sien — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:19:12 -0800

Northern Exposure.

By: hot soup girl

hot soup girl — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:21:12 -0800

Fargo and Twin Peaks

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:22:13 -0800

IMDb has a keyword search function, dogmom. Here are the "small town" results, and here are the "small town" plus "quirky" results (about twenty for the latter).

By: paulsc

paulsc — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:23:20 -0800

The Shipping News.
The Spitfire Grill.
Picnic.

By: puritycontrol

puritycontrol — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:24:44 -0800

On the small screen - Gilmore Girls.

By: pineapple

pineapple — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:33:18 -0800

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81

Ruby in Paradise

Lone Star

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:35:26 -0800

Amacord
I Vitelloni

By: kimdog

kimdog — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:36:39 -0800

grumble bee mentioned The Snapper which is really excellent... and it's also part of a loosely connected trilogy. The other two movies are The Commitments and The Van. The Snapper is side-sidesplitting funny, and The Commitments had the most commercial success. The Van is not as strong, but is still a charming little movie.

Oh, and then there's The Station Agent

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:38:53 -0800

What the Deaf Man Heard

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:40:35 -0800

The Dish

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:41:59 -0800

Malcolm

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:45:46 -0800

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

By: Frank Grimes

Frank Grimes — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:46:47 -0800

Funny Farm and seconding Vernon, Florida and The Station Agent.

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:47:00 -0800

Ghost World
Broken Flowers
Dead Man

By: sixpack

sixpack — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:56:38 -0800

If you liked Local Hero, pretty much anything by Bill Forsyth. Watch "Comfort & Joy" at Christmastime.

By: rob511

rob511 — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:56:59 -0800

Two charming seaside tales on opposite sides of the globe: The Secret of Roan Inish and Whale Rider

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:59:21 -0800

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreams House

By: starman

starman — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:04:41 -0800

The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch - not what you'd expect!)

By: Orinda

Orinda — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:07:12 -0800

La grande séduction / Seducing Dr. Lewis. The gag is very similar to the one in "Waking Ned Devine."

By: cocoagirl

cocoagirl — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:12:18 -0800

Groundhog Day

By: psmealey

psmealey — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:13:10 -0800

In the Paul Newman/small town in upstate New York canon:

Slapshot
Nobody's Fool

By: dog food sugar

dog food sugar — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:18:08 -0800

You might be interested in this book: Small Town American in Film, by Emanuel Levy.

By: Orinda

Orinda — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:21:19 -0800

Oh, you could also try In the Bedroom, though its view of small-town coastal life struck me as bothersomely outsiderish in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Maybe it was the presentation of lobstering as a hobby. For well-off people. Who speak with faked accents.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:31:30 -0800

Garden State
Thumbsucker
Milwaukee, Minnesota

By: vers

vers — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:42:11 -0800

More upstate New York, and if you watch the others that psmealey so rightly suggested, you won't want to miss: Empire Falls

By: slow, man

slow, man — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:45:29 -0800

Trees Lounge
Milagro Beanfield Wars

By: LoriFLA

LoriFLA — Sun, 20 May 2007 18:47:59 -0800

Look Both Ways

Bread and Tulips

By: jiiota

jiiota — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:04:47 -0800

Nthing The Station Agent and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. While we're on pre-titanic Leonardo DiCaprio, This Boy's Life.

The Spitfire Grill was good. Nthing The Good Girl.

I have to disagree with the Shipping News. I LOVED the book but hated the movie. I thought they took the life out of it. I can honestly say that I'm not one of those people who insists on movies being identical to the books that spawned them. I just thought the Shipping News missed the spirit of the book. I didn't get a sense that the director was a fan of the book at all.

Big Night

Chocolat

The Full Monty

Napoleon Dynamite

A River Runs Through It

Sling Blade

Pieces of April isn't strictly small town, but it seems like it could go here.

Circle of Friends

By: mykescipark

mykescipark — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:05:47 -0800

David Byrne's True Stories.

By: jiiota

jiiota — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:09:24 -0800

The Motel

American Splendor. This is another not-exactly-small-town movie, but it has that feel. And it's absolutely excellent and a joy to watch.

By: rhizome

rhizome — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:14:26 -0800

Any movie based on a Carson McCullers story.
Paris, Texas
U-Turn
The Man Who Wasn't There

By: jiiota

jiiota — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:20:44 -0800

Babe

Fly Away Home

In America

Bottle Rocket

Roxanne

Ghost World

I know I'm pushing my luck here, but also Raising Arizona.

By: KevinSkomsvold

KevinSkomsvold — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:36:17 -0800

Powwow Highway. Gary Farmer (from Dead Man) is awesome in this.

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:43:22 -0800

Danny Deckchair

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:45:31 -0800

The Bank Dick

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:53:24 -0800

Welcome to Woop Woop

and one of my all-time faovrites, the timeless Le Roi de coeur
aka "King of Hearts"

By: jamaro

jamaro — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:56:17 -0800

Out of Rosenheim (aka Bagdad Café)

By: jeanmari

jeanmari — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:56:31 -0800

Happy, Texas
Monsters Ball
Il Postino

By: amyms

amyms — Sun, 20 May 2007 20:45:58 -0800

True Stories

By: lou

lou — Sun, 20 May 2007 21:53:41 -0800

Grosse Pointe Blank

By: Lieber Frau

Lieber Frau — Sun, 20 May 2007 22:19:19 -0800

How about "To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar"?

or the vastly superior Australian drag queen movie, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert".

Though not set in a town, exactly, "A Prarie Home Companion" has a simliar feel to the movies I think you're describing. Quirky ensemble cast, cozy feeling, homespun, folksy (but intelligent) humor, etc.

Widow's Peak is a good one based on your enjoying the "Englishman".

Practical Magic, while God Awful, fits the description.

But perhaps one of the best ever small-town quirkfests ever filmed is The Witches of Eastwick. You'll never look at cherries the same way again.

By: squidlarkin

squidlarkin — Sun, 20 May 2007 22:33:06 -0800

You can't get much quirkier or smaller-town than Gummo, but it, uh, might not be exactly what you're looking for.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sun, 20 May 2007 22:53:35 -0800

Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune. Not his best work but very, very good. I felt all warm and fuzzy after watching it.

By: travis08

travis08 — Sun, 20 May 2007 23:02:57 -0800

not a movie but one of my favorite tv shows, Northern Exposure, you can get the dvd's and they are great

movie wise I say "who's afraid of Virginia Woolfe"

By: robcorr

robcorr — Mon, 21 May 2007 01:04:37 -0800

buggzzee23 said The Dish, which is a good suggestion. It made me think of The Castle, which probably also fits the bill.

By: Rufus T. Firefly

Rufus T. Firefly — Mon, 21 May 2007 04:17:55 -0800

I always loved Beautiful Girls- great performances from Timothy Hutton as a guy returning to his small home town, Matt Dillon and a young Natalie Portman.

By: h00py

h00py — Mon, 21 May 2007 05:18:30 -0800

"The Last Picture Show" and "The Year My Voice Broke" are also good examples of small town life, I think.

By: macadamiaranch

macadamiaranch — Mon, 21 May 2007 06:56:10 -0800

Simple Men
Unbelieveable Truth

By: jiiota

jiiota — Mon, 21 May 2007 07:10:01 -0800

Rufus, yes- Beautiful Girls was excellent.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 21 May 2007 07:27:54 -0800

Many excellent selections here, but there are quite a few that miss the mark. Tony suburbs with sophisticated residents like New Canaan (Ice Storm) and Grosse Pointe (GPB), as well as the fictitious towns featured in American Beauty and Garden State are not at all "small towns" as the OP posted the question.

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:26:11 -0800

Why isn't the small town in "American Beauty" a small town?

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:28:11 -0800

I can't believe I forgot about "Breaking Away"! It was filmed in the small town I grew up in, Bloomington Indiana. (It was a small town back then, anyway.)

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:42:10 -0800

Why isn't the small town in "American Beauty" a small town?

Necessary attributes of "Small towns" such as the ones in Englishman and Local Hero, are a level of rural insularity, self-sufficiency and an essence of being lost in time that sophisticated American bedroom communities lack. The town in American Beauty, while I suppose it could have been anywhere, seemed to be overwhelmingly populated by urban city slickers whose day-time lives existed elsewhere.

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:45:38 -0800

Well, if you live in New York, "American Beauty" FEELS like a small town. The people in it actually care about what goes on in the house next door.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:48:04 -0800

There's no doubt it shares attributes in common, grumblebee, but the examples the OP gave were definitely of a specific type of small town. Quirky, "trapped in time" places that existed outside the fabric of any external urban area. Suburbs can't really exist as standalone entities.

By: Lionel d'Lion

Lionel d'Lion — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:58:56 -0800

If you want to keep the Welsh theme going (albeit in a totally different experience), I'd strongly recommend Twin Town.

It's not for those who dislike colourful language or violence, though.

By: ijoyner

ijoyner — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:59:16 -0800

I liked Eulogy

By: puddleglum

puddleglum — Mon, 21 May 2007 09:03:36 -0800

Running with scissors (quirky characters, yes - small town, maybe not...shrug)
About Schmidt
Me and you and Everyone we know
The Station Agent

By: jalexei

jalexei — Mon, 21 May 2007 09:34:13 -0800

Spring Forward, an overlooked Ned Beatty indie film.

By: Orinda

Orinda — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:04:20 -0800

Breaking the Waves

By: bricoleur

bricoleur — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:11:07 -0800

A Simple Curve
The Rage in Placid Lake
Monster Thursday
Wilby Wonderful
Marion Bridge
All available here and, I think, from Netflix.

By: bricoleur

bricoleur — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:14:33 -0800

Oh, and the BBC series Ballykissangel.

By: dizzycow

dizzycow — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:42:36 -0800

The Love Letter

By: dogmom

dogmom — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:08:50 -0800

Oh My!
I went away for a day, and when I checked in, there were all of these lovely responses! I suspect that I will be wearing out my DVD player over the next few weeks. And, to the debate as to whether or not American Beauty counts- for my purposes.... it sort of counts. I counts in the sense that there are just enough characters that we get a bit of backstory about all of them, and while they may live in the "big city" they are isolated enough into their own world. It doesn't count in that I am looking for more of the small town feel of things. Like The Full Monty. The town itself wasn't a charachter in that movie, but it had that small town feel to it where everyone seems to know each other and be in each other's business.

Thank you again, Hive! I knew you you wouldn't let me down!

By: Lieber Frau

Lieber Frau — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:33:29 -0800

My two cents: American Beauty is not what I would consider a small town movie. It's an explicit dissection of suburbia. Small town America and Suburban America are two very, very different things!