where do people find out about movies like this?

I just surf the 'Foreign film' isle at Blockbusters.There's always some gems floating around there.

A good tip would be to - once you find a movie that you like - check out the other movies that the director has made. And also, many movies have threads here on IMDB where people recommend movies that are similar to the one in question. Those are the two primary ways in which I find new movies to watch. And as far as the ratings, I wouldn't pay too much attention to them, as we all know, tastes differ.

Recommendations: Movies by director Hirokazu Koreeda, 'Maboroshi no hikari' is one example. Ki-duk Kim is another director you can check out, specific movie-suggestions could be 'The Bow' and 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring' for example. Vietnamese director Anh Hung Tran has made some amazing atmospheric, beautiful, minimalistic movies that are slow in pace as well, for example 'Vertical Ray of the Sun' and one of my absolute favorite movies, 'The Scent of the Green Papaya '. The movie 'Last Life in the Universe' by Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is another gem as far as I'm concerned. And as I said, check out the forums of the films mentioned above for more tips. Hope you can find a few movies you like among the ones above.

*Edit* By the way, perhaps 'The Straight Story' by David Lynch could be worth checking out as well. Personally I absolutely love it.

I watch a lot of random movies on IFC and the Sundance Channel and this was one of them. Both of those channels play lots of good stuff.

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There are many contemporary masters of Japanese cinema around at the moment. Examples similar to Jun Ichikawa would be:

Takeshi Kitano - films such as 'Sonatine', 'Hana-Bi', 'Dolls', and 'Kikujiro'
Hirokazu Kore-eda - films such as 'Maborosi', 'Nobody Knows', and 'Afterlife'
Kiyoshi Kurosawa - films such as 'Charisma', 'Bright Future', and 'Tokyo Sonata'
Shinji Aoyama - Films such as 'Yurika'
Also worth checking out 'All About Lily Chou-Chou' by Shinji Iwai

I've read all of Murakami's books (excepting 1Q84, which isn't out in English yet). I originally heard of him when I was wandering around Barnes and Noble's website, looking at absurdist fiction.

Nothing but light! . . . Nothing but light!



Charlie (Requiescit in) Pace

I had finished college early that day, had very small amount of money at the time but really wanted to watch something. Stepped into hmv, it was £3 and in a pink DVD case...thought, why not.

Little did I know it would be one of the most inspiring movies I've ever seen, and that it would instantly become one of my top 10 faves of all time. I watched it twice that day, back to back.

The excellent making of was just a great bonus too.

STiCKMAN HRK!
http://www.vimeo.com/stickhrk

In this case I probably looked at a community recommending movies similar to Vertigo.