Ordinary People - an Oscar-winner for best picture in the early 80’s. Very good but very depressing.

The Rain People - an old Coppola movie that starred James Caan.

Other than that, I got nothing new to add.

Tree of Life

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Life as We Know It

Life as a House

Lifeboat

2. “The Great Train Robbery” with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. Another classic train movie revving around a master thiefs attemptto steal gold from a moving train in the late 1800’s in Englamd. A great story by Michael Crichton.

3. “Von Ryan’s Express” with Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard. Another classic involving a steam train and World War II. Allied POWs being transported by train manage to cleverly take control of the train and have to avoid detection and bkuff their way through occupied Italy.

4. “The General” with Buster Keaton. Yes, this is a silent fdilm set in the American Civil War and that may prevent some people watching this filme but this film amazes me for the train and action/stunt sequences. It scares me to think that this gem was produced so long ago.

5. “Unstoppable” with Denzel Washington is fairly recent but it revolves around a train engineer and his conductor’s efforts to catch and stop a runaway and unmanned train. Lots of good action.

6. Movies that revolve around a train but are more centered on the story taking place on the train are great flicks like “The Lady Vanishes”, “Murder on the Orient Express” and although the train sequence is not terribly long, Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” would ne included on my list.

I hope this list helps.

Too impatient for “Waking Life.” Please put the thinking points in a little book and I’ll dip into it from time to time.

My top 6 (seems reasonable to include foreign films familiar by their English titles):

6. The Life of Oharu (1952)

5. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955) - Luis Buñuel lite.

4. My Life in Pink (1997) - More and more timely.

3. The Double Life of Veronique (1991) - Two women, strangely connected, one Polish, one French.

2. After Life (1998) - The Japanese film in which, after you die, you must choose the one memory you will take with you into eternity.

1. My Life as a Dog (1985) - Swedish coming-of-age.

Worth a mention (other “Life” movies that I liked):

The Search for Signs of Inteligent Life in the Universe (1991) - Lily Tomlin’s show.

The Secret Life of Words (2005)

Life on Mars (2006) - Not a movie, but if you like British TV series and police procedurals and a weird blend of sf, crime, and pure soap, check out this show. Available from Netflix on DVD.

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982) - It still is.

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003) - Now he tells us.

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) - Paul Newman, RIP.

The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933) - Charles Laughton was the definitive Henry VIII when I was growing up. Throwing a drumstick bone over your shoulder at table was a must-do at some point.

Lust for Life (1956) - Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh. Oh, the angst.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) - A matter of taste but as an entry in the Bill Murray canon, a must watch.

I like that I can contribute with an actual top 6 this time. Here goes.

6. Life of Brian. I prefer Holy Grail and Flying Circus by far as far as Monty Python efforts go, but the scene where the disciples are chasing him around makes it worthy of including on this list. And although I find the situation in which “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” takes place a bit too… blasphemous, I guess, for my personal tastes, I really really really like the song. Heh.

5. A Bug’s Life. Down near the bottom of my Pixar list… but it speaks for the awesomeness of Pixar that even the movies at the bottom of their list are better than most other movies I see. I also have fond nostalgic memories of this, since I was only 12 or 13 when I saw it.

4. Life as a House. It was the movie that redeemed Hayden Christansen for me after seeing him in the Star Wars movies. (Shattered Glass also helped, but I saw this one first.) It’s been a couple years since I saw it, but I remember being very engaged in the story all the way along.

3. It’s a Wonderful Life. Such a very solid movie. It manages to make *me* feel sentimental about my life, and that really doesn’t happen to me very often.

2. Life Is Beautiful. Took me awhile to decide whether or not I liked this one. But in the end, it moved me in a way not a lot of other movies have.

1. Waking Life. This movie will always remind me of my father, because he had conversations like the ones in this movie with me ALL the time growing up, long before I was capable of understanding any of it. I love the philosophical discussions and the animation and the final shot… It *really* isn’t for everyone, but it is *exactly* right for me.

Honorable mentions go to Dan in Real Life, which is a pretty good movie (I saw it solely for musical theater guy Norbert Leo Butz, who plays the not-Dane-Cook brother), and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which is not really a good movie but I love Billy Wilder and I love Holmes, so I enjoyed it.