FUCK YEAH, shooting film has definitely helped me to improve as a photographer. Forces you to think so much more about your image in camera. Getting film back from the lab is also probably one of the single greatest feelings in photography!
As for camera's it's pretty hard to go wrong with film. As long as your not overpaying (easy to do these days with ebay prices), your gonna get a great camera. Lenses don't matter as much with 35mm, film isn't as 'sensitive' to flaws as modern digital sensors are. There are really two options with film cameras; a full manual camera (usually requires new lenses unless you shoot nikon primes with aperture rings), or a modern 35mm slr which has features like auto exposure, auto focus, etc and can accept modern lenses. Canon FD's (AE1/F1) are great, but if you go nikon or pentax you can easily adapt the lenses for use on a dslr are as well. Minolta is dirt cheap and has some great options as well.
Whats your budget? As for buying, I'd look locally, nice to be able to inspect before you buy and you can barter down. If you want to purchase on line check out
http://keh.com, great site, great prices, and the rating system is extremely conservative, BGN is usually in good condition.
