just saw Breakfast of Champions…ya gotta be a little weary of anything based on a Kurt V. book…
There’s a Breakfast of Champions movie?!?!
I did not know that. Good? Bad? Indifferent? Is it old? How old?
Personally, I think Sirens of Titan would make a better movie, but it might require an astronomical budget.
I haven’t seen it, so I can’t give an opinion on it, but as for the other question: It’s not old at all. It was a 1999 release, staring Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, and Nick Nolte. It (obviously) did not receive a lot of attention upon release. FWIW, a majority of the comments on the IMDB about it are negative (as is its rating).
My pick for a movie I don’t get is eXistenZ. I understand what’s happening (as much as is possible, anyways), but I just didn’t think it was that great. However, there are people who thought it was a great movie. Why, I’m not sure.
Really off-topic here, but…
The interesting thing to me is that they managed to get Cyberpunk right before it even existed. The original version of Blade Runner was released in 1982, whereas Neuromancer, the book generally credited with creating the Cyberpunk sub-genre, wasn’t published until 1984 or 1985. There were books prior to Neuromancer that had Cyberpunkish elements, of course (though the phrase didn’t exist back then), such as a bit of Dick’s work. But some of the things that were most Cyberpunkish about Blade Runner (the image of a dark, overcrowded LA, filled with corporate advertisements, and the Japanesse influence) were not in the book (from what I remember of the book, in it the city where the hero lives is half empty, due to viruses and emmigration off-world). Of course, there are elements of Cyberpunk that were absent from the movie (cyberspace is definetely a big one), so it’s not as if it completely foreshadowed the genre, but it did a pretty good job of it.
Don’t ask me why I know this, but Kathleen Kinmont was in Re-Animator Two (Bride of Reanimator), but NOT the original (which starred Barbara Crampton).
For what it’s worth, I thought the original was far better.
Your problem, egkelly is in trying to sit and watch the movie. The proper way to watch any Ed Wood film is with at least one 6-pack already in you or readily at hand, a couple friends to share your pain, and a good sense of humor. Then do your best Tom Servo or Crow impression and tear the film to pieces as it plays.
No one watches this film to enjoy it, they watch it to make fun of it - it is THAT bad!
BTW, IIRC, technically Lugosi died before filming started and Wood used old footage of him (to claim the film had star-power) spliced with a double who covered his face because he looked nothing like Lugosi.
And I think you’re being generous by calling the actors grade C, or is that a typo, since the C is right next to the X and not far from the Z.
All my friens think I am weird because of the movies I like but I thought I’d list mine here:
Brazil (of course. that’s one movie you don’t have to get to like it)
Yellow Submarine (Hillary is the coolest)
Head (how has a cult movie thread gone this long without mentioning Head?)
and though it is not one of my most favorites I saw Breakfast of Champions last night and quite enjoyed it.
I never got Citizen Kane. Liked it… never “Got it.”
“Rosebud” may have been Welles’ best known line, but for my money you can’t beat:
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
The Third Man was Orson’s best.
Cult? No. Classic? Yes
Crash, Videodrome and eXistenZ are all movies directed by David Cronenberg. His mix of graphic sex and violence is an aquired taste at best. I liked The Fly and Videodrome to some extent, and the exploding head sequence in Scanners was a pretty big deal when the movie came out, IIRC. I found eXistenZ to be a big waste of time. But that’s probably because I kept comparing it to the other two virtual reality movies of the time, The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor (A contender for cult statis, IMO).
Some other cult classics:
Highlander (And yes, like stated previously, skip the sequels, especially Highlander Two: The Sickening).
Robocop (Loser sequels here, two, although the third achieves a certain Zen state of cheese).
Flash Gordon.
Any Kevin Smith Movie (Esp. Clerks and Chasing Amy)
Any Quentin Tarantino directed movie.
El Mariachi.
Anyone remember Time Bandits?
What about Peter Greenaway’s films? If The Pillow Book, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and Prospero’s Books aren’t cult films, then what are? And aren’t they just high-class pornography? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…)
UHF, I’m told, is now considered a cult movie. I was a big fan of Weird Al Yankovic and the time and loved the movie. I believe it hit theaters the same time as Terminator 2 and bombed big time.
You wanna see really bad Vonnegut? Try “Slapstick.” I really enjoyed the book, but they made it into a movie (starring Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn as the two twins; Marty Feldman as the doctor) which was so bad that Vonnegut himself made them change the name to “Slpastick of a Different Kind.”
The only time I can remember when Vonnegut was adapted halfway decently was in a PBS filming of “Between Time and Timbuktu.”
Somehow most of these movies mentioned throughout the thread (promptly written down on my “Movies to see Someday” list) don’t strike me as the type I’d find at the good ol’ Blockbuster Video… d’ya think, for most of them, I’d just have to go to a more obscure, less run-of-the-mill store, or look for a downright eclectic store?
I bought Brazil a few days ago… gets better each time I see it…
Of course I remember Time Bandits…started to mention it before.
As for being able to rent…you should be able to rent a lot of these movies, I’d say especially the horror flicks. Video Clubs seem to have a lot of these, even the really cheaply made ones. They’re popular. The hard thing to get at your local Blockbuster is the strange foreign films. Not a big market for them in my area anyway. Perhaps if you live closer to a big city. I’m out in hicksville.
Needs2know
For folks who don’t like Citizen Kane, or who don’t understand why it’s considered one of the greatest films ever made, read Roger Ebert’s insightful analysis of it at:
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/kane.html
One my favorite cult films is The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, a live-action Dr. Seuss movie from 1952, starring Hans Conreid and Tommy Rettig(he starred in Lassie in the 50’s).
Don’t forget Pink Flamingoes and **Zardoz[/b.
Another interesting movie that is a little out there is THX-1138, Lucas’ first movie, with Robert Duval.