Before Sunrise

Here's a highly regarded minimalist romance movie from 1995. It is essentially Lost in Translation set in Vienna instead of Japan. If dialogue ain't your thing, then don't bother; this movie is almost entirely dialogue-driven with the only "action" being the two main characters walking around in Vienna over the course of one night. It was a perfect movie to do some FF5 grinding during, since I only needed to listen to the movie and could easily steal glimpses at my muted DS without losing focus on the game. I thought Lost in Translation was a very overrated movie, but I did enjoy this one. The idea of two strangers spending a nearly perfect night together before departing in the morning to never meet again is not in and of itself a novel one, but the execution was pretty great and there were no unrealistic implications like "and the two spent the rest of their lives together afterward" or "but they never spoke to one another ever again." In fact, the ending is rather ambiguous and allows you to wonder whether the two will meet again or if their happenstance meeting was merely a "one night stand," so to speak. (Actually, the mere existence of the film Before Sunset implies that, yes, the two will meet again. But still.) Some of the dialogue felt hokey and forced, but the overall night-long conversation felt pretty genuine in general. All things considered, this was a decent movie with a pair of great performances from the leads. I'll certainly check out the sequel at some point.