Television:
Anything with Bryan Fuller is pretty amazing
Dead Like Me- 18 year old girl becomes a Grim Reaper, awesome ideas about death and it's nature, plus razor sharp Inigo Montoya.
The Amazing Screw-On Head: Based on Mike Mignola's one shot comic, was piloted but never took off. Art is incredible and David Hyde Pierce voices EMPEROR ZOMBIE
Wonderfalls- Disaffected 20 something has inanimate objects with animal faces talk to her ("Fireflied" after 4 episodes), more girly, but nevertheless great
Tim Minear is also fantastic, they worked together on Wonderfalls
Most things Tim Minear or Bryan Fuller touch is great (First season of Heroes ring a bell?)
Film:
Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources, dir. Claude Berri. One of the most beautiful films I have ever seen, period. The frailty of humans, the dark places in people's minds, in the backdrop of the French countryside. This movie is a poem.
Cinema Paradiso: One of the best films about the effects of film.
Truly, Madly, Deeply: A movie about dealing with loss done with love.
Brick: Film Noir modernized splendidly.
Mr. Deeds goes to Town: Not the insipid Adam Sandler version, the real one with Gary Cooper making you feel real feelings.
Singing in the Rain: I dare you not to love this movie
Speed Racer: This one gets a lot of flack, possibly because people have no sense of joy. This movie is Saturday Morning Cartoon in all of it's glory. The CGI is masterful, the races are exciting, and the movie is FUN. All the negative reviews forget that you really shouldn't take a movie that HAS A MONKEY IN THE ENSEMBLE probably isn't 12 Angry Men. (Which is also a good movie).
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: I am really sad that Michael Cera is associated with one of my favorite films of all time, but it really doesn't matter. It's just so damn great.
Hard Candy & Sleuth (Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier): If you ever thought acting was easy, watch either of these.
Books:
Stone Butch Blues Growing up stone butch before and after Stonewall, makes you realize how terrifying our past was
Cannery Row Loneliness at its most accessible, and it's Steinbeck <3
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer A man with super-smell in 18th century France. Hatred never smelled so sweet.
I could churn them out, but I figured that's good for now.