

It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books(1988)
A nameless young man travels the country by bus and train, visiting friends and making new ones, having banal conversations, and dedicating his existence to mundane activities.

Movie: It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books
Top 10 Billed Cast

It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books
HomePage
Overview
A nameless young man travels the country by bus and train, visiting friends and making new ones, having banal conversations, and dedicating his existence to mundane activities.
Release Date
1988-12-31
Average
5.4
Rating:
2.7 startsTagline
Genres
Languages:
English
Recommendations Movies

Drugstore Cowboy(en)
Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

964 Pinocchio(ja)
A memory-wiped and defective cyborg sex slave is tossed onto the streets and taken in by a homeless woman while his corporate creators hunt him down.

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance(de)
71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.

El Mariachi(es)
El Mariachi just wants to play his guitar and carry on the family tradition. Unfortunately, the town he tries to find work in has another visitor, a killer who carries his guns in a guitar case. The drug lord and his henchmen mistake el Mariachi for the killer, Azul, and chase him around town trying to kill him and get his guitar case.

Two Sides to Every Story(en)
Two 16mm films are projected in a loop on a thin painted aluminum screen hanging in the middle of a room. We can hear the projectors at each end of the room, which project images on the central screen. We can see the same scene on each side of the screen: a woman, seen from the front and front back depending on the side of the screen, painting it with spray paint. A man then tears up the screen and goes through it, followed by the woman. We can see Michael Snow sitting further away, giving instructions to the woman. We can also see the cameras filming the scene from each side. Visitors in the room can walk around the screen and thus watch the scene from one angle or another. Both films are projected in synchronicity on the two sides of the screen.
The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow(en)
February 5, 1993, in front of a standing room-only-crowd at Seattle's Moore Theatre, impresario Jim Rose performs his own odd tricks - putting a screwdriver up his nose, pounding a nail into his head, and pushing his face into broken glass. He also introduces and provides a running commentary on four other sideshow performers: Mr. Lifto, who can lift and swing heavy objects from various body piercings, the Torture King, who turns himself into a human pincushion, the Enigma, who swallows worms, crickets, and swords, and Matt "The Tube" Crowley, who ingests various things into his nose, mouth, and stomach and bring them back out. The crowd goes wild.

Antichrist(en)
A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

Late Spring(ja)
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

Ichi the Killer(ja)
As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.

Sunset Boulevard(en)
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

Wings of Desire(de)
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.

Duel in the Sun(en)
Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad.

Breathless(fr)
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

From Beyond(en)
The Resonator, a powerful machine that can control the sixth sense, has killed its creator and sent his associate into an insane asylum. When a beautiful psychiatrist becomes determined to continue the experiment, she unwittingly opens the door to a hostile parallel universe.

The Exterminating Angel(es)
A formal dinner party starts out normally enough, but after the bourgeois group retire to the host’s music room, they inexplicably find themselves unable to leave.

The King and I(en)
Widowed Welsh mother Anna Loenowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.

Fallen Angels(cn)
An assassin goes through obstacles as he attempts to escape his violent lifestyle despite the opposition of his partner, who is secretly attracted to him.

Sudden Impact(en)
When a young rape victim takes justice into her own hands and becomes a serial killer, it's up to Dirty Harry Callahan, on suspension from the SFPD, to bring her to justice.

Other People's Children(fr)
Rachel loves her life, her students, her friends, her ex, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she grows close to his 4-year-old daughter, Leila. She tucks her in, looks after her, and loves her like a mother... which she isn’t. Not yet. Rachel is 40. The desire for a family of her own is growing stronger, and the clock is ticking. Is it too late?
Similar Movies

The Wedding Banquet(zh)
A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.

Mouth to Mouth(en)
An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

Dreamland(en)
A young woman who lives in a desert trailer park must choose between caring for her hapless father and sick friend or fulfilling her own destiny.

Alice(en)
Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for a handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of her well-established rut.

Little Voice(en)
After the death of her father, Little Voice or LV becomes a virtual recluse, never going out and hardly ever saying a word. She just sits in her bedroom listening to her father's collection of old records of Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe and various other famous female singers. But at night time, LV sings, imitating these great singers with surprising accuracy. One night she is overheard by one of her mother's boyfriends, who happens to be a talent agent. He manages to convince her that her talent is special and arranges for her to perform at the local night club, but several problems arise.

Disco Fever(en)
Jaded night club owner stages the comeback of an ex-teen idol for revenge.

Frontier(s)(fr)
A gang of young thieves flee Paris during the violent aftermath of a political election, only to hole up at an Inn run by neo-Nazis.

Fuel(en)
Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues define our generation. The film exposes shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry, and the government, while exploring alternative energies such as solar, wind, electricity, and non-food-based biofuels.

The United States of Leland(en)
A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

Empire(en)
Big time drug dealer Victor Rosa is looking to get out of the game and sees his chance with a big deal with a new friend who happens to be a Wall St. stockbroker. Thinking this will be his chance to go out on top, Victor soon finds out that he's been double crossed and his last option is to get revenge.

Fifty Pills(en)
Unless Darren can survive New York's largest drug mogul, write a paper on Dante's "Inferno," escape three thugs chasing the wrong guy and sell fifty pills of ecstasy to make his tuition payment, he'll never date the girl of his dreams.

Since Otar Left(fr)
The one joy in the lives of a mother and daughter comes from the regular letters sent to them from Paris from the family's adored son, Otar. When the daughter finds out that Otar has died suddenly, she tries to conceal the truth from her mother, changing the course of their lives forever.

Japanese Story(en)
Sandy, a geologist, finds herself stuck on a field trip to the Pilbara desert with a Japanese man she finds inscrutable, annoying and decidedly arrogant. Hiromitsu's view of her is not much better. Things go from bad to worse when they become stranded in one of the most remote regions on Earth.

The Tracker(en)
Somewhere in Australia in the early 20th century outback, an Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman. Three white men are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced Indigenous man.

Write to Kill(en)
In this thriller, Jamie Sanford is murdered by a group of counterfeiters when he attempts to expose them in order to secure an early parole. However, when aspiring writer Clark learns of his brothers death, he sets out to exact revenge and bring the guilty to justice while being framed for his brothers murder.

Three Times(zh)
In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.

Class of 1984(en)
Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.

Answer(en)
A seemingly innocent voicemail message left on a man’s answer machine by his ex, soon turns on its head when we learn of his dark past in their relationship. We quickly learn that our protagonist may not be as innocent as he seems, through the heart-wrenching monologue delivered to him via the tiny machine in his home.

Out of the Blue(en)
Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.

The Wendell Baker Story(en)
Luke Wilson plays a good-hearted ex-con who gets a job in a retirement hotel. Three elderly residents help him win back his girlfriend as he lends them a hand in fighting hotel corruption.