Movie and TV show recommendations

As a rather straight-forward thought continuation in a very non-linear week, I decided to do a video recommends list to match my book list done late last week. I've tried to stick to things a little more obscure, just to make the chase-down a little more fun.
Again, if it's not your cup of tea, skip to the next item on your list.

MOVIES

Equilibrium- Christian Bale, Taye Diggs, Emily Watson- a postapocalyptic piece, where emotions are chemically suppressed and sensation is illegal. A really well-done movie, particularly if you have some comprehension of what living in that kind of world would be like.

16 Blocks- Bruce Willis, Mos Def- an action piece about corrupt cops, I recommend this because Bruce Willis is made of awesome.

Arsenic and Old Lace- a black-and-white Cary Grant flick, a comedy about a man who finds out just how nuts his family really is. Kind of reminds me of some of my relatives

The Cave- a group of cave divers stuck in a cavern complex underneath the Carpathian mountains. Creeped me out with the cave-diving.

Cold Equations- a Sci-Fi Channel movie (done when they actually could make TV movies) with Billy Campbell. The story's not the most original, but the acting was well done, I thought.

Crash- a James Spader flick about an underground group of people who are addicted to the feelings during and after car crashes.

Dark City- A city of people that never sees that Sun, and is run by a group of aliens called Strangers. Kiefer Sutherland, Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connolly. Hard to describe further without really futzkying it up.

Fallen- Denzel Washington must confront a a fallen Angel. Pretty creepy in the crowd scenes.

The Fountain- A Darren Aronofsky flick, this one is about the Tree of Life and one's man's search for it. Kinda what you expect from the guy that did Pi.

Freeway- a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland.

Haeckel's Tale- a creepy Horror mix of Frankenstein, the Monkey's Paw, and a zombie flick. Not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. REALLY.

Harvey- a Jimmy Stewart film about a man and his invisible six-foot tall Rabbit.

Hero- an awesome Jet Li flick, Wu-xia film extraordinare.

History of Violence- Vigo Mortensen stars in this film about a family man whose past comes back to life. Not a very original story, but also well acted.

Hot Fuzz- a comedy cop-film by the guys who gave us Shaun of the Dead.

The Illusionist- AWESOME flick about a 19^th century stage magician. Ed Norton, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell, and I can't recommend this highly enough.

Inside Man- Denzel Washington, Clive Owen in a movie about a bank robbery. Pretty original idea and excellent execution.

Man on Fire- Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning in a vengeance flick. The end of this movie STILL makes me cry, and I've seen it more than 7 times.

The Machinist- A creepy flick with Christian Bale, and that says something. The man dropped something like 50 lbs before doing it, he looks like he run through a food dehydrator.

Meridian- a dark fairy tale from the 80's, with Sherrilyn Fenn.

The Prestige- Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as a pair of duelling stage magicians in the 19^th century. One of the very few flicks that I liked MUCH better than the book version.

Smokin' Aces- a shoot em up flick with a huge cast list. One of those comedy-of-errors with a real cost in people. Ryan Reynolds is awesome in this one.

What Dreams May Come- Robin Williams, Annabella Sciora, Cuba Gooding Jr. Awesome movie about life after death. The visuals alone are worth seeing the price of the DVD.

TV

Babylon 5- Think Star Trek with some script control and better actors. Probably better known than most of the other stuff on this list, but I like this one enough to keep plugging it.

The Librarian – three TBS tv movies with Noah Wylie. Fun little romps by one of the smartest men in the world. A little simplistic, but good fun.

Prison Break- a group of inmates is broken out by a structural engineer, and that's just season one. The rest gets pretty weird, but still worth seeing.

John Doe – a one season show with Dominic Purcell about an amnesiac colorblind genius in Seattle. Completely awesome, and I have no idea why it was cancelled, except that network people suck.

Tin Man – Sci-Fi channels miniseries Steampunk Wizard of Oz.

Book Recommendations

Wen Spencer- Tinker, Wolf Who Rules : Elfworld and hypertechnology, very well done

Laurell K Hamilton- Merry Gentry Series : One of the best soft-core elf series I've ever read. Think Grimm's Fairy Tales combined with the Kama Sutra

Justina Robson – Quantum Gravity Series (Keeping It Real, Selling Out, Going Under, Chasing the Dragon) : Elves, Demons, Angels, Fae, Hypertechnology; very dense, but damned good.

Jacqueline Carey – Kushiel Series; half-angelic alternate world French people; one of the few intrigue-oriented Fantasy series I've ever read, and damned good in the bargain.

Jacqueline Carey – The Sundering Duology; Think Lord of the Rings being told from the point of view of a likeable and understandable Sauron.

E. E. Knight – Age of Fire Series; A story told from the POV of three dragon sibling hatchlings, and the fourth book in the series reintroduces them after their own adventures

Alan F Troop – Dragon De LaSangre series; Told from the POV of a shapeshifting Dragon in modern day Florida. Think Interview with the Vampire but with Dragons instead.

Storm Constantine – Wraeththu Chronicles; hermaphroditic magic-users who inherit the Earth when humanity begins to slide down into extinction. The last three books are better than the first three, but the author had 20 years of practice between them.

Jim Butcher – The Dresden Files; modern day Wizard Harry Dresden's adventures in Chicago. One of my favorite series of the last decade.

Frank Herbert – The Dune Series; a sci-fi classic. The first 4 books are really good, the last two are much less so, but I also liked the ones written by his son Brian.

Brandon Sanderson – Elantra, Mistborn, Well of Ascension, Hero of Ages; this guy's work surprised the hell out of me. Elantra is a stand-alone novel, the other three are in the same series. I can't say much about Elantra that doesn't spoil the plot, but the other three are one of the best twist ending novels I've ever read. This is also the same guy that will be finishing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, so I'm not the only one that loves his work.

Steven Brust – Vlad Taltos series, To Reign In Hell; The Taltos cycle may be a little hard to understand, if you start with the wrong book, but it's well worth the effort for my money. To Reign in Hell is the best retelling of the War In Heaven I've ever encountered.

Terry Goodkind- the Sword of Truth series; long, and Goodkind's philosophical bent towards Ayn Rand's work shows through in a few places, but it's still enjoyable.

Dean Koontz – Frankenstein; an updating, but not in the cheesy retelling fashion. This picks up in Modern day New Orleans, and I liked it quite a bit.

Anne Bishop – Black Jewels Novels, Ephemera Duology, ; very emotive fantasy novels, the Black Jewels Trilogy is awesome, Ephemera is a little mushy, but I've enjoyed everything of hers that I've read, and I've read them all.

Patricia Briggs ; Raven Duology; a high-fantasy world, not incredibly original, but very well written.

Sarah Douglass; Wayfarer Series, Troy Game series; Douglass has a knack for making her heroes incredibly, brutally real people. They get mad for the wrong reasons, do horrific things, and still manage to keep going. I really don't recommend her Crucible series for the faint of heart, or for beginners. The medieval world she paints in that one is incredibly accurate, brutally so, and incredibly depressing in parts.

Simon R Green; Nightside series, Drood Chronicles; two very well done urban fantasy series, with protagonists that are very different from each other. Unlike a lot of other prolific authors, the narrators of each series have distinctly different voices. I prefer the Nightside books, but John Taylor is incredibly competent, and one of the best bullshit artists in the business.

Julian May – Galactic Mileu series; one of the best high-tech aliens-come-to-earth series ever, IMO. Unlike most other series of this length, you only really need to read Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask, and Magnificat. If you want to, you can add it on later, but it's not necessary, and I like these three the best.

Patricia McKillip- I can't recommend her stuff highly enough. Nuff said.

Judith Tarr- if you can find it, I recommend the Avaryan novels. If not, her other stuff is good too.

Kelly McCullough; His WebMage series is fantastic. If Ravirn, the narrator, gets any more like me I'll have to file a lawsuit.

Eric Van Lustbader; The Pearl Series; one of the best written science versus sorcery series I've ever read. A little lengthy but fantastically well done.