10-week programme of movies with high-functioning aspies

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Here are my suggestions for a 10-week season of feature-length films for adult aspies. The first eight feature - as central or key roles - _adults_ with high-functioning Asperger's. One of these movies (Real Genius) does feature near-adult older teens, but in my view these are old enough to count as 'young adults'.


* Definite:

Snow Cake (2006)

American Splendor (2004)

Mozart and the Whale (2005)

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

Real Genius (1985)

The Sterile Cuckoo (aka 'Pookie') (1969)

Breaking the Code (1996)

Amelie (aka 'Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain') (2001) - if your audience is used to watching foreign-language films with sub-titles.


* Possible:

Edward Scissorhands (1990) - as an allegory for difference in general.

Harvey (1950) - as an allegory for difference in general.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Many small 'art house' cinemas in larger cities are open to the possibility of having local groups programme a short 'film festival' programme. Some of the movies are old, however - so may be difficult to get on celluloid.

All the movies are now available on DVD in the USA/UK -- except _The Sterile Cuckoo_ (Liza Minnelli's first role; I suspect she's suppressing the movie, although it won her an Oscar nomination) and _Breaking the Code_ (it's on VHS tape). So this film season could be screened via a digital projector in a community centre.

Eh...sorry to be the naysayer, but I don't really think that American Splendor and Napoleon Dynamite are about aspies. I also think Amelie should be under definite--it's way more Aspie than either of those. Splendor's a great film, but I fail to see how it's AS at all. Dynamite isn't very Aspie either--he's just a geeky outcast, and not every geeky outcast has AS.

Really, I think that we should wait until more movies directly and explicitly dealing with AS and Autism come out before hosting something like this.

I recently watched Chuck & Buck; it's a great film.
Don't know what disorder he had, but he certainly wasn't 'normal'.

'Amelie' is a marvellous film; at the time i never really considered that she had AS.
I think people are too quick to label anyone who is vaguely different as being autistic (well, around here anyway: but i guess this is an 'Aspie' Forum).
Maybe she is, maybe not. It's such a good film on a lot of levels.

_Amelie_ is only "a possible" because the movie's in French - and watching a sub-titled film may not be to the taste of a general U.S. audience. It could be shown, but only if we were sure we were dealing with an audience who were familiar and comfortable with the art of watching art-house movies with sub-titles.

As for _American Splendor_. You're wrong, Veresae. Don't you remember Toby Radloff, probably the aspie who's had the most TV and movie exposure in the U.S.A. to date? He's a central character in the movie. In fact - there's a new feature-length documentary out about Toby, too, _Genuine Nerd_ that might be suitable if the field for a film festival was widened to documentaries.

As for _Napoleon Dynamite_ - yes, I personally didn't like it. He was too much of a geek. But I thought it might spur debate, and also (importantly) get a younger audience along to the screenings.

Do you think you may be underestimating your audience in regards to Amelie?
Watching a sub-tiltled film isn't to the taste of most UK citizens either.
But i would guess that this is the most popular sub-titled film in recent years ( except maybe 'Passion Of The Christ'?).
I think you should change your mind.

You're right - I edited my post and swopped _Amelie_ and _Napoleon Dynamite_ around.

amelie was a good movie.