Now Watch This: The Fall (2006)

One of the main reasons for starting this blog is to get little-known or underrated movies to a wider audience.  This has inspired a new column called "Now Watch This".  I couldn't think of a better movie to open up with segment with than Tarsem Singh's The Fall (2006).  With only one movie on his resume before this (2000's The Cell, starring JLo), most people definitely didn't have this on their radar and with no household name actors too many people passed this up on the movie shelf.

Visually, this movie is like a live action piece or art, filmed across 18 different countries (instead of green screens) with amazingly colorful costumes.  Set in the 1920's, the story involves a stuntman (Lee Pace) with a seriously injured back who is laid up in a California contemplating ending his own life when he befriends a little Romanian girl (9 year old Catinca Untaru) herself recovering from a broken arm.  He begins to tell her stories which we get to see on screen from her own imagination - full of color and life and naivety that can only come from a young child.  Still fairly unknown, Pace does an amazing job portraying the brooding stuntman, but the young Untaru absolutely steals the show and is completely believable on screen as a girl who is slowly learning about the sadness that can live within adults.  I would challenge you to find a movie that is both larger-than-life and genuinely intimate as this one truly is.  If you have not yet seen this movie, stop what you're doing and find it now.  Absolutely gorgeous and touching.