“Cousins”
Ted Danson at his most charming, Isabella Rosellini is adorable. Sean Young. Man…poor Sean Young. She does a great job in this film, and she was great in Bladerunner. Lloyd Bridges is great.
Fantastic Angelo Baldalamenti soundtrack.
“The Seniors,” a fun T&A movie from the early 80s. A group of college seniors don’t want to graduate and go to work, so they scam a well known professor into signing his name for a sex study (he’s studying the sex lives of flies already, but the grant people don’t know that). The seniors get a lot of money, ostensibly to get laid, and stay in school, but they learn that creating a fake sex research company is a lot of work. Oh, the irony.
I watched it recently, and still thought it was funny, even if dated.
That reminds me…“Up the Creek” and “Making the Grade” (Especially Making the Grade) have their moments.
I havea blogthat covers these.
If I had to pick one right now, I’d go with Mary and Max, a charming and sad animated film about friendship and Asperger’s. It’s still on Netflix.
Another is Blancanieves, a retelling of Snow White, only she’s a bullfighter (as are the dwarfs) and the evil stepmother is a dominatrix. Also on Netflix.
Frailty, with Matthew McConaghy and Bill Paxton. Never heard of it when it came out in theaters. Saw it in the bargain bin at WalMart on DVD and picked it up and it instantly became one of my favorite movies.
Should have been a cult classic
Strange Brew, 1983. I don’t know, I’ve always been a sucker for Bob & Doug McKenzie. “I believe that there will be NO CHARGE for the beer, eh?”
Withnail & I, 1987. This is probably a “comedy cult classic,” but it should be just a “classic.” “We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them here, and we want them NOW.”
I really liked ***Moon ***with Sam Rockwell. I see it gets good reviews but no awards, and according to IMDB it cost $5mm to make and made $5.09mm at the box office.
I think it holds a special place in my heart because I work from home, alone, and I absolutely adored the way they captured the essence of working alone and made me feel like I worked on the moon. And it was a good story and good sci-fi.
Most people I’ve talked to that have seen it liked it, but most others haven’t even heard of it.
A couple years ago they were re-paving my street and they ground it down so for a few days it was very dusty, with loud machinery, and the street was closed so only a few of us could drive down it. It felt EXACTLY like Moon. I loved it 
RealityChuck writes:
> If I had to pick one right now, I’d go with Mary and Max, a charming and sad
> animated film about friendship and Asperger’s. It’s still on Netflix.
It slipped between the cracks in the U.S. because it wasn’t even released in the U.S. It was apparently very popular in Australia and got good reviews all over the world. It’s ranked #163 on the IMDb top 250.
Ukulele Ike writes:
> Withnail & I, 1987.
This has been on the IMDb top 250 in the past, although it’s not on it at the moment. This is indeed a cult classic. But my point is just that much of the time a film that you think slipped through the cracks did make a deep impression with a significant proportion of the audience.
Dangerous Beauty. It suffered from, best I can recall, absolutely zero marketing, even in industry rags. Added to that, a horribly generic Skinemax cover that reveals absolutely nothing about the film. Nothing about the beautiful cinematography or the vibrant feminist tale wrapped in some awesome angsty romance and a serious morality tale of abusive priests, featuring some of the steamiest not-gross sex scenes ever filmed, all on the backdrop of super glorious 16th century Venice.
Starring Catherine McCormack, no less…literally the most beautiful woman in the world.
It’s too smart to be a bodice ripper, too racy to be a serious period piece, too funny to be a drama and too dramatic to be a comedy. In other words, it’s perfect, and perfectly awful to market. So they didn’t.
Brick: the best film neo-noir since Body Heat, with the added brilliance of being set in a high school.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: the parody of film-noir that relaunched Robert Downey, Jr.'s career trajectory and is also one of the the best Chandler-esque stories put to celluloid. Also, a great Christmas film.
Stranger
Already mentioned Strange Brew, Dangerous Beauty, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang would be on my list. Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Meshould be on there too.
The Lucky Ones. Descriptions can’t really convey its charm. With Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins, and Michael Peña all in fine form.
Yes, such a great film!!!
I liked it too, the only problem I had is I wanted it to be better, like Blade Runner or Alien better. It was good but not on my top 5 sci fi list, definitely on the top 25 though.
Yes, such great films, two of my favorites also.
If you liked them you might also like I heart Huckabees
The Legend of 1900is movie that received some critical acclaim but then disappeared. A great performance by Tim Roth.
L.A. Story; a romantic comedy written by and starring Steve Martin, kinda sentimental but not cloying, kinda real and kinda fantasy, right in the sweet spot when his goofiness was wearing off but his inspiration wasn’t. It was a bit overshadowed by Roxanne. I also contrast it with Pretty Woman, which came out the year before; a hit about two people with nothing in common. L.S. Story is about two people who are the only ones right for each other in the whole world.
Another favorite that never seemed to get its due is The Right Stuff. I don’t know if it really fell through the cracks, though, but a lot more people have heard of it than seen it.
(Untitled) - a send-up of the world of modern art. The characters include a composer of nearly unlistenable atonal music, a painter who does the same boring painting over and over while insisting they’re all different, a sculptor who makes really gross stuff out of taxidermy, and a gallery owner who is trying to walk the line between artistic integrity and commercial success. Lucy Punch is very funny as “The Clarinet.”
Tender Mercies - Robert Duvall plays a broken-down alcoholic country singer who hits rock bottom before being taken in by a young widow. Duvall won the Oscar for best actor, and the movie won for best screenplay, but the movie never seemed to catch on with audiences.
Leaving Normal, starring Christine Lahti and Meg Tilly (Jennifer’s more talented and hotter sister).
Also Rustler’s Rhapsody, arguably funnier than Blazing Saddles.
Robot Arm writes:
> Another favorite that never seemed to get its due is The Right Stuff.
It won Oscars for best editing, best sound effects editing, best sound, and best original score music. It was nominated for best picture, best supporting actor, best art direction, and best cinematography. It has a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.9 on the IMDb ratings. It didn’t make much money at the box office, but it was pretty universally well rated at the time.
A 1991 TV movie, ‘Crazy From The Heart’, starring Christine Lahti as a small town high school principal who falls for the janitor, Ruben Blades. They elope to Mexico and come back to face the music - their friends, family, her dull long-term boyfriend are all aghast. It is utterly charming and I’ve watched it with delight many times.
‘Far From Heaven’, a lush, photogenic little film made in the style of one of those old romantic 50’s movies by Douglas Sirk. Starring Dennis Quaid. And Julianne Moore in sumptuous 50’s frocks.