Ha, here’s one obscure enough that I have literally never met anyone who’s seen it unless I basically forced them to–Barry McKenzie Holds His Own. Fucking hilarious with a bizarre left turn into a weird vampire subplot and plenty of Dame Edna. I might be the only non-Aussie who’s voluntarily watched this movie–more than once, even!
The Odd Angry Shot - Possibly the best movie on the Vietnam war, from an Aussie perspective.
Two Australian films I fell in love with when we lived overseas. I have no idea how they did anywhere else.
Muriel’s Wedding
On my top 5 movie list: Strictly Ballroom
Out of the hundreds of DVDs I own, the 2010 film Miss Nobody is one of my favorites. It’s an awesome black comedy. Yet I’ve never met anyone else who has seen it.
Another favorite of mine is the 1991 film Black Robe. Ever seen it?
Yep, seen that. I remember it being quite funny.
I liked this movie… It was always playing in the US (Sundance channel) around 2007
I love Little Children, House of Games and Local Hero.
Mine are:
A Midnight Clear (WW II American soldiers in a German forest-I think it’s based on a true story)
Bad Influence (James Spader and Rob Lowe)
Matchstick Men (Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell as con men)
Purple Hearts. Vietnam war movie with Ken Wahl and Cheryl Ladd at their peak as medicos. Trying not to get too romantic 'cause … war.
The secondary cast is great. Stephen Lee is amazing as one of Wahl’s buddies. The always charming Annie McEnroe as Ladd’s. James Whitmore Jr.* as the aptly named Bwana. Etc.
Throw in R. Lee Ermey because it’s a Viet Nam war movie because who else are you going to cast as Gunny? (And 3 years before Full Metal Jacket.)
Good acting, good dialogue, good story.
- That’s his stage name. He is actually III. Which makes his son not III but really IV. Got it?
Hope and Glory (1987)
It’s about growing up as a child in London during WWII.
Not sentimental, not conventional, not sanitised, not dumbed down. Not made for American audiences. Brilliant child actor in lead role.
Director John Boorman drew on his own personal experiences. There are many reviews by people who actually grew up in London in WWII who say, ‘That’s exactly how it really was.’ Great scene of children celebrating when their school gets bombed!
The Red Shoes (1948)
Absolutely the best ballet movie ever made, whether you care about ballet or not. The original trailer is misleading, and doesn’t give a sense of the movie. Anton Walbrook is brilliant as the imperious Russian impresario, Lermontov, who runs the dance company. He cares deeply and passionately about ballet… but not so much about people. Moira Shearer is an incredible dancer in the lead role.
Clips:
Lermontov has hired Vicki Page on a trial basis, and later watches her dance for another company at a small, cheap matinee in tiny hall.
Great scene: Rehearsals for a new ballet.
That was a good mainstay of French class movie day. Versailles Dirty Dozens.
It came out the same year as CB4, and the latter had Chris Rock so not many people watched FoaBH. They should’ve, it’s way better.
The author claims so. I read the book, if I’m not butchering it I recall the dedication is something like “This is a true story. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.”
The cool ones.Roddy McDowall.Debbie Watson
the shooting Jack Nicolason
A Ghost Story - this one streams included with Amazon Prime
Gist: Casey Affleck plays a husband who die(<–not spoiler) and remains as a ghost. One with a sheet and two eyeholes cut out. He watches his wife go on without him, the world go on without him, time go on without him, and we see the things he sees and hear what he hears. Cheesy sounding, but powerful and haunting. Great movie.
Big Man on Campus a re-telling of Hunchback of Notre Dame. Has some great lines that one friend and I use frequently, but no-one else has ever heard.
I watched this last night on your recommendation and really liked it. As you say, Do-yeon Jeon’s acting was excellent. Also, the story line isn’t predictable: there are a couple of changes in direction that I didn’t see coming at all. One of them happens in the scene you describe.
Bill Pullman is great as a private detective. A master of disguise when pretending to be someone else. A miserable wreck when being himself.
Huh. Not only did I not know that movie had ever left our shores, now I really wonder how they translated it since so much of the *esprit *in that movie is so very much based on either French culture or its language.
But yes, very good movie. If you’d like to see more of the sort-of-similar, I’d highly recommend Beaumarchais l’Insolent.
Six String Samurai - in the aftermath of a US/Soviet war in which the US lost and was invaded, Buddy Holly is on a pilgrimage to Vegas for maybe a chance to be king, after The King dies. Along the way he has run ins (resolved both with music and the sword) with other guitar wielders of various genres, all of whom are on the same pilgrimage. Russian surf rock, imminently quotable, very bizarre.
The Red Elvises are in that! They were great back then, not sure what’s become of them lately.
Reminds me: Bubba Ho-Tep. An evil mummy stalks a retirement home, and only Elvis and John F. Kennedy (who has since been turned into a black man) can stop him.