Nat runs a video shop in Libertyville, IL. He also is the founder, coordinator, director, secretary, fundraiser, and just about everything else for the Lake County Film Festival. I met him at the Waterfront Film Festival. I believe he holds the title of Midwest Regional Champion for IFC’s Ultimate Film Fanatic game show, or something to that effect. His comment on my post

yesterday really captured something I haven’t been able to put into words. It’s about the messy human nuances of finding a film, a really good film, which is whatever film I consider to be a really good film. I found it to be too eloquent to paraphrase, so here it is:

I thought about this question a lot on Friday, when I had someone bring back CRASH, and said (obviously) that she loved it, and wanted to find more movies like it that were good.

Well, I said, do you want another racial drama, like Do The Right Thing? Or did you like all the interconnecting stories, like Traffic and Short Cuts? Or do you just want something that’s gonna make you cry, like Mystic River, or Million Dollar Baby?

In the end I decided that the problem with most recomendation systems is that they only cover WHAT people like, and don’t ask WHY they like it.

It took a long time for me to pinpoint a trend in some movies. After watching about a dozen Ambient Films from Asia, I decided that I generally like Ambient Films set in remote locations (like Spring, Summer and 3-Iron), but generally dislike Asian Ambient films that take place in city environments (the works of Tsai Ming-liang, and Mysterious Object At Noon).

American films don’t seem to follow the same path for me, I generally liked Gerry and disliked Lost In Translation, but I LOVED Elephant (and what is high-school but a mini-city).

In the end of course, I believe everyone has intangible things that make them like or dislike something. I’ve gotten really good at guessing what films I’m going to like or not, but certainly I get surprised often still.

I love that bit about High School is a mini-city. How true.

Saturday I rocked my baby girl to sleep while I watched a Korean film Nat recommended to me, Chi-hwa-seon (Painted Fire). There was something “intangible” that I connected with when watching that film. Like over the course of 2 hours I was taken above thinking about what I need to do tomorrow and got to catch a glimpse of my life in the a bigger picture. I got to reflect on the things in my life I consider to be so important but really are not, and I felt freed up to savor those things that are really important-like rocking my daughter to sleep. I need those moments every once in a while. Thank you Nat for watching hundreds of films a year and being an expert who helps deliver those moments to me.