Movie buffs! Best unknown movies - any suggestions?

Cafe Society
1

This is not really a poll, it is more like a running list. And I do not mean “unknown” literally.

It just occurred to me that there are a lot of movies that are surprisingly good but that for some reason (marketing, subject, lack of big stars, who knows) are very little known or appreciated. Since most of us have movie channels or repertory theatres we can catch them on/at, I thought it might be fun to share our favourites. That way we will know what to expect.

Here are MY rules (Der Fuhrer hat immer RECHT!) that you must obey:

1.Give the title and a short description. Maybe the stars if you can remember who they are.

  1. Do not give away the ending or ruin it for us, but briefly describe the main plot elements and why you think it is such a good movie that deserves more recognition than it got.

Ready? Here is one of my favourite “unknown” fliks.

Buffalo '66 Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci, 1998. A young guy, Billy Brown, gets out of jail in Buffalo New York in 1966 after serving time for a crime he did not commit but took the rap for because some gangsters forced him to. He is a scruffy, ugly, skinny loser. First thing he does is kidnap an attractive but obviously lower-class young woman who at first comes across as a brainless bimbo. What he wants her to do is pretend she is his girlfriend to his parents, who live in a working-class suburb and are soooo self-centred and unloving that they did not even know he had been in jail. So the girlfriend is there to build him up.

The main plot is that Billy wants to shoot a former football player in Buffalo because he figures that his failure to kick a field goal a few years ago is what made him lose a bet and eventually caused him to go to jail.

What makes it wonderful: The film was made in 1998, but its recreation of the look and feel of working-class America in the 1960s is uncanny. The character development is amazing. You start to feel sorry for Billy and you actually get to love him. You suddenly realize what a nice guy he is, if only… . . .

At some invisible, seamless moment in the movie, you realize with a shock that the “kidnapped” young woman is staying with him voluntarily, and is in fact “in charge” of Billy, not his victim.
So, I will not give the rest away.

Do other Dopers have any nomiees?

2

How does this:

jibe with this:

?

:wink:

3

Me, I’ll vote Rize.

4

The fact that the young woman changes from victim to friend happens very early in the movie and my telling you this does not ruin it for you, I assure you. The main plot is that Billy is so fucked up and irrational and wants to kill someone. Even with the young woman wanting to help, you have no idea what way this troubled young man is going to go, and I am not going to telepgraph the ending, believe me.

5

Ahhhh. Usually, “switheroo’s” like that tend to be a major plot point.

6

we’ve had threads like this before. I’ll give a couple of my choices again:

The Adventures of Mark Twain – Will Vinton invented the term “Claymation”, and he was a wizard at the technique. Sadly, I don’t think he got the recognition he deserved. This was a full-length claymation movie about the works and life of Twain, told in a suiitably fantastic manner, with James Whitmore doing the voice of Twain. Well-written and beautifully executed. Some parts can bring you to tears. Includes “The Celebrated Jumping Frog”, “Captain Stormfiel’d Visit to Heaven”, “The Diary of Adam and Eve”, and bits of “The Mysterious Stranger”, “Tom Sawyer”, “Huckleberry Finn”, “The Damned Human Race”.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars – dumb title, but not a bad science fiction film for its time. There are some real reaches at times, but it’s a long cry from space opera and towards thing like 2001. Paul Mantee stars. There’s a small part by a pre-Batman Adam West. A lot of people think they lifted a lot of Enemy Mine from this.

The Lost Missile – Science Fiction writer Jerome Bixy gave us the almost-as-neglected “It! The Terror from Beyond Space” (which is arguably too well known to be included here), as well as the creepy Twilight Zone episode where Billy Mumy is the wish-granting monster who puts things in the cornfield and “Fantastic Voyage”. This is arguably his least-known film, about a missile of unknown (probably extraterrestrial) origin that threatens to devastate the earth by flying low over it and releasing extraordinary amounts of heat. Very intriguing concept, although they didn’t have much of a budget, and the acting is said to be sub-par (It’s been ages since I last saw this one). Robert Loggia stars:

7

Local Hero (starring Peter Riegert as Mac, Burt Lancaster as Felix Happer, and Denis Lawson as Gordon Urquhart!) gets mentioned a lot in threads like this, and I’m not surprised it’s a favorite among Dopers. I was only 14 when it came out, and first saw it on HBO or Cinemax; I don’t know how well it did box-office-wise, but hardly anyone outside the Dope knows about it.

A Houston oil executive is sent to a coastal Scottish town to negotiate terms for purchasing the town and surrounding beach so that the oil company can develop the land. It’s definitely a “fish out of water” storyline, but it’s handled with subtlety and grace. The screenplay is profound, the roles are perfectly cast, the scenery is gorgeous, and Mark Knopfler’s score is sublime. I suppose it’s a comedy, because there are some very funny scenes, but it’s a very droll, dry comedy that is made better by not answering all the questions it asks.

8

I’ve always had a warm place in my heart for

The Stepfather
“Daddy’s Home and He’s Not Very Happy”

9

I very much like Moon Over Parador, starring Richard Dreyfuss.

Basically, a never quite successful actor is filming a low budget movie in an imaginary South American country. When the dictator of the country dies, his seccond in command, after seeing Dreyfuss do a believable parody of the dictator, kidnaps Dreyfuss and forces him to impersonate the dictator.

While it is on the surface a switcheroo comedy, Dreyfuss’ character also deals with the fact that he finally has an amazing role, and pours his heart into it, but of course, no one can ever know; and fame and recognition as a great actor still elude him. Exploring what’s important in life, and in particular in the life of an artist, is a fascinating theme in this movie, and is the reason why I love it so much.

Also, aside from Dreyfuss’ great acting, Raul Julia gives a phenomenal performance as the seccond in command.

10

I’m not sure I’d count Local Hero – it seemed too well-known to me (and my friends). The following three seem to me to be pretty well-known, to, but may not be to the public in general.
The Hidden – Science fiction starring Kyle McLaughlin as a character very much like the FBI agent he played later in “Twin Peaks”, only here he has a good reason for acting weird. The plot seems to be derived from Hal Clement’s SF classic “Needle”. Very well done, with a lot of cute touches. Ignore the worthless made-for-TV “sequels”.

Creator – Jeremy Leven adapts his book for the screen. Peter O’Toole plays a Nobel laureate trying to clone his dead wife. Totally unlike any other “cloning” film you’ve ever seen – it’s witty and upbeat and has zero special effects. he college looks and feels like grad school. Vincent Spano, Virginia Madsen, Davide Ogden Stiers, and Mariel Hemingway. It has its bad points, too, but this is refreshingly different:

The Last of Sheila The illegitimate half-brother of Anthony Schaffer’s “Sleuth” was written by the unlikely due of Stephen Sondheim asnd Anthony Perkins (Yes, that sondheim and that Anthony Perkins), and directed by Herbert Ross. It’s a wonderfully convoluted mystery involving a wealthy eccentric puzzle-lover who plays sadistic mind games with his friends (as in “Sleuth”). Here James Coburn is the eccentric and, among his friends are James Mason, Raquel welch (without gratuitous semi-nudity) Dyan Cannon, and Richard Benjamin. The mystery, though convoluted, actually flows naturally from the premise, and there are mysteries within mysteries and unexpected twists. They play fair, though, and give you all the clues you need to solve it. A relatively unknown at the time Bette Midler sings the closing song.
Midler

11

David Mamet’s Spartan. Although it came out two+ years ago, Ebert featured it this year in his Overlooked Film Festival. It stars Val Kilmer, Williiam H Macy and Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars).
Kilmer plays a sort of special forces/special agent badass that is brought in to help with a major kidnapping. If you can take the completely unrealistic but fascinating Mamet dialogue, it’s an amazing movie.

The tagline is simply: She’s missing.

Six String Samurai is a well shot and well made surreal road movie about a post-Apocalyptic America where Elvis ruled over the last bastion of civilization (Lost Vegas) and upon his death guitar samurai make their way to compete to be the new king. We follow Buddy and his unwanted kid sidekick on adventure vignettes while they are being stalked by Death (who looks like Slash from GnR).

How I Got Into College- the last of the Savage Steve Holland comedies (the guy who did Better off Dead and One Crazy Summer as well as the animated series Eek the Cat) It stars Anthony Edwards and Lara Flynn Boyle (who look amazing as a real sized person and not a stick figure). It’s about the craziness that goes on with high school kids attempting to get into college. It also features Phil Hartman and Nora Dunn in small but hilarious roles as SAT-prep scam artists.

Leap of Faith- stars Steve Martin, Liam Neesom, Debra Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Lukas Haas and Meatloaf (Phillip Seymor Hoffman in a small role). It is probably one of my three favorite movies of all time.
Martin plays a scheister revival preacher whose traveling show gets stuck in a small Texas drought town. Winger plays his partner in crime and Neesom plays the towns sheriff.

12

Miracle Mile, with Anthony Edwards (again!) and (I think) Phoebe Cates. Takes off a bit from where Martin Scorcese’s After Hours begins, but ends up much, much darker (and AH was pretty dark indeed). Set over the course of one night in the LA basin, this starts out as what looks to be a light romantic comedy, then, following a bizarre phone call taken by Edwards at a convenience store, veers wildly into a horrifying apocalyptic nightmare. The audience is thrown way off balance early on, and never regains it again. Fascinating stuff, I thought, despite having perhaps the most depressing ending in the history of cinema.

13

The Rocketeer, with Bill Campbell and a stupendously attractive Jennifer Connelly. Any movie with a jetpack, two GeeBees, the Spruce Goose, Howard Hughes, a zeppelin, Rondo Hatton, and Nazi spies has gotta be great, right? Right! And Timothy Dalton is wonderfully slimy.

Did poorly at the box office (I think audiences were turned off by the massive, massive saturation ad campaign) but I personally think it’s one of the greatest adventure movies ever.

14

I haven’t seen Miracle Mile since I was a kid… but I remembered really liking it.
A few weeks ago I finally made it to the La Brea Tarpits and was reminded of the ending of the movie.

15

Gotta agree with you, Rocketeer, about Rocketeer. (I said that right, didn’t I?)
You left out the Great James Horner score. The opening bars are among my favorite for a film. Disney musta liked it, too, because it got used a lot for Disney trailers.

I still can’t understand why this film isn’t more popular, or shown more often even today.
But I still wouldn’t classify it as “unknown”. Most Disney films aren’t exactly unknown. But if you want one I’ll bet you never heard of, try Perri:

Never, to my knowledge, released on VHS, laserdisk, or DVD. Never shows up on TV. Based on a book by Felix Salten, who wrote “Bambi”. In fact, Bambi has a cameo in this film!

16

I haven’t seen this one, and didn’t even know about it until I read about it on the 'net. It’s based on a Kuttner and Moore story (“Vintage Season”) that’s in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and every review gives it high marks. Now I’ve got to get it to see if it lives up to its hype – there’s little enough good SF cinema ut there:

Grand Tour: Disaster in Time

Stars Jeff Daniels. Directed by David Twohy, who did Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick, although I won’t hold it against him.

17

Cal I have that movie on tape, but under the title Timescape. So you may want to keep an eye for it under that title also.

18

I’ve seen it -in fact, I own a copy- and it’s very nice. Even Mrs. R, who is usually a tough sell on SF, liked it.

19

Wanted to add “Jesus’ Son” since HBO is playing it right now.
It is based on the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson, one of my favorite books.
It stars Billy Cruddup as the lead and features Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, Dennis Leary and Jack Black in supporting roles. Its the story of a junkie on the path to recovery and is told (as in the novella) through a series of short stories. Performance Artist Miranda July has a small role as a nurse…

and speaking of Miranda July… her film “Me and You and Everyone We Know” was pretty much the best movie I saw last year. ))<>(( … see the movie, you’ll get it.

20

So true. Just last night I was watching a trailer for Secondhand Lions, and there was the familiar swelling strains of the Rocketeer score. The other movie score that gets used a lot is the one for The Shadow, not a bad movie at all if you fast-forward through the opening scenes in Tibet.