Creator with Peter O’Toole
Dracula’s Daughter
I’ve raved about this in another thread-Cold Feet
Tom Waits’ biggest role, and a truly funny movie.
Where The Rivers Run North - Rip Torn glows, and you will be fascinated by Tantoo Cardinal, an amazing Native American actress that is his perfect partner.
Add these to your “gotta see it” list. You won’t regret it.
I second “Cold Comfort Farm” and “Death Race 2000” among other classics mentioned here, plus add “Clockwise” (John Cleese is excellent - ‘it’s not the despair … it’s the hope!’) and “The Nude Bomb” - a Maxwell Smart Movie where the 1st 3 female agents he runs into are #'s 36, 22, 34 and where a huge zipper (closing up a mountain where the badguys are ‘That’s the 2nd biggest zipper I’ve ever seen’ - and ‘better watch out - no telling what might come out of there’)
Great for fans of the show. They basically use every line and gag out of the series in a make fun of themselves laugh fest (agent 13 in an airplane commode).
Oh, also “Baron Von Munchehousen” and “Erik the Viking” were great farcical fantasies (Robin Williams was hilarious in “Baron”).
Loved “Brain Dead” aka “Dead Alive”, 5 gallons of blood a second coming out of a lawn mower chewing through zombies. Peter Jacksons (Lord of the Rings) finest moment
Not to be confused with “My Dinner With Andre the Giant” who also appeared in "The Princess Bride.
“Buster with Phil Collins and Julie Walters. Just a great love story flick based on The Great Train Robbery. I have not met one single person who has seen it, it was only in our local theater for one week (and I missed it…had to wait for video) and it has a great soundtrack…which is what I bought first.”
I saw Buster and actually bought some flowers from the real life “Buster” at his flower cart outside Waterloo Station before he passed on.
Mine would probably be Dersu Uzala by Kurosawa.
I think I’ve seen about 2/3 of the movies here, including Forbidden Zone. I don’t necessarily think they’re great (in fact, I showed FZ at one of my annual Bad Film Festivals), but I’ve seen 'em.
Movies I love that it seems few people have seen:
Creator – Hastur beat me to it. Great cast, in a science fiction film about cloning that isn’t dumb! Witty dialogue, a grad school situation that actually feels like grad school, and no special effects.
The Adventures of Mark Twain Will Vinton studios came out with this superb “Claymation” film based on a lot of Mark Twain’s writings. Everyone goes gaga over Aardman studios’ “Wallace and Grommit” films and “Chicken Run”, with their dark and forbidding pallettes, but nobody seems to know about this work of art, done with bright colors and considerable flair and wit. The Diary of Adam and Eve sections alone can move you to laughter or tears. Well worth looking up – most video stores idiotically shelve this under “children’s”
Charade – Stanley Donen directs a Peter Stone script with a great cast (Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Coburn, Walter Matthau, New Glass, George Kennedy). It’s virtually a textbook on plot exposition, with more twists in it than my other facvorite, The Last of Sheila
Mirage – Stanley Donen, Peter Stone, George Kennedy, and Walter Matthau again, this time with Kevin McCarthy and Gregory Peck. Sort of the dark side of Charade, where Peck plays a man who emerges from a blacked-out building convinced that he’s had amnesia for years, and nothing is where it should be. Donen tried once more with Peck, in “Arabesque” to direct the same sort of story with twists, but Stone didn’t write the screenplay, and the result isn’t up to snuff.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space – intelligent, low-budget science fiction from the 1950s. If it had all been like this, we wouldn’t be making fun of it today. They ripped off “Alien” from this movie.
The Day of the Triffids – not the 1963 Howard Keel film, but the BBC TV version from circa 1986. Faithful to the book, and well worth watching.
After Dark, My Sweet
With Jason Patric, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern. Adapted from the original king of pulp fiction, Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me, The Getaway, The Grifters, you get the idea).
Great film, very well acted - entirely worthwhile.
Wow, I didn’t know I’d seen so many unknown movies!
My two additions to this august pantheon?
Killer Klowns From Outer Space For anyone who hates clowns. “You’re on Moony’s turf now.”
Night Of The Creeps Space slugs! “Screaming like banshees!”
I guess I need to get out more.
At least most of the posts are naming movies that are true to the OP… I’ve only heard about a third of these movies, and have only seen a handful of them.
In spite of that, I thought I had a great contribution to make to this thread… only to see that it’s already been mentioned. But it’s so good that I have to reiterate Shiva’s nomination of King of Hearts.
Oops. I mean to “reiterate AskNott’s nomination of King of Hearts.”
I was looking at the wrong post in the wrong thread in the wrong window.
Outland: Sean Connery is a Fedral Marshall assigned to the mining colony on Io (orbiting Jupiter). He uncovers an illegal narcotics ring sanctioned by the station manager (Peter Boyle, almost unrecognizable in a full beard). Previous Marshalls have taken their payoffs and looked the other way. Sean, of course, don’t play that way. This one came out in 1981. The interiors of the mining colony appear heavily influenced by the Nostromo of Alien fame. The place looks like it could actually exist.
The Draughtsman - an interesting arty film hardly anyone seems to have seen.
What’s up Tigerlily? - a relatively early Woody Allen.
The Party - a somewhat obscure Peter Sellers film that was discussed some time ago in a thread on comedies. I know that a few other dopers have seen it.
nitpick – it’s The Draughtsman’s Contract,and it’s by the same guy who did **Prospero’s Books[-/B], discussed recently on this board.
As for Outland, it got a lot of play when it came out. It’s kind of hard to call it an unknown film. It’s clearly trying to be “High Noon” in space, and it’s disappointing. Harlan Ellison wrote an interesting essay in which he tore it to shreds. It’s in Peary’s “Science Fiction in the Cinema”.
Well, imagine that, Harlan Ellison not liking a mainstream Hollywood offering. That NEVER happens. :rolleyes:
P.S. No offense to you, CalMeacham
It’s a scary world where no-one has heard of ‘A Clockwork Orange!’ There aren’t many hear I haven’t heard of, and most of those I’ve seen.
How many of you have seen ‘Peeping Tom?’ It’s a horror movie from the sixties, destroyed the reputation of its director, although now it’s being rediscovered as a horror classic. The killer (not a spoiler; we know this from the start) is a photographer who kills women by means of a machete attached to his camera. The camera has a mirror on the top, so that not only is the woman filmed at the moment of death, she is forced to watch herself die too. That concept does kind of horrify me, I admit.
Wizard of Speed and Time. Oddball film by Mike Jittlov, about a “creative type” in Hollywood (played by MJ) trying to make special effects for a TV special. Jittlow was noted at the time for making several short films using stop-motion animation, several of which were inserted into the film. Low-budget parody of Hollywood hell.
I have been told, in a sadly ironic touch, that the producer and Jittlov fell out over the movie, which received no distribution, was released for a short time on videotape and laserdisk, and sank nearly out of sight.
Yes, Freeway has long been one of my favorite movies.
Back when I was a loser and stayed home on Saturday nights, I watched many Sci-Fi movies that suprisingly, weren’t too bad. The Cube was pretty good. Not on SciFi, but The Burbs is funny too. Not too many people have seen it that I know of.
This doesnt really have anything to do with the thread, but when I was little, I had a movie that my grandma taped for me because I LOVED it. It was about an invasion of slugs that took over this town, and the only part I remember was slugs coming out of the drain while a guy was taking a shower. That movie finally got to me after I watched it too many times, and I made my mom BURN IT! Anyone know what that movie is? I think it was called Slugs (duh!).
The Horse’s Mouth - British comedy with Alec Guiness as an over-the-hill artist. Worth seeking out if you like British humor.
Pocket Money - Paul Newman and Lee Marvin as down-on-their-luck modern day ranchers/cattlemen. Breezy story with a wry charm to it. Screenplay by Terrence Malick.
Castle Keep - an odd war movie starring Burt Lancaster, with a very intense finale. I wish more big stars now would take risks making films like this. Lancaster knew how to find good material in the mainstream and outside it.
Max Dugan Returns - 1983 - Nora (Marsha Mason) is a single mother who lives with her son Michael(Matthew Broderick) in a small house. They don’t have much money but at least they have each other. Out of the blue comes Nora’s father Max Dugan(Jason Robards), who left her and Nora’s mother when Nora was nine years old. He brings a suitcase with dollar bills and showers her and Michael with gifts, trying to make up for lost time, knowing that he has a fatal heart ailment. The money comes from his shady career in Las Vegas and Nora is dating a policeman (Donald Sutherland) who is very interested in meeting him. - synopsis from IMDB.com
It was written by Neil Simon. I really need to see if I can find a DVD of this movie, it is the cutest.
Only When I Laugh - 1981 - A boozy Broadway actress (Marsha Mason) comes out of a 12-week cure to face the problems of her best friends (James Coco, Joan Hackett) as well as her needy daughter (Kristy McNichol). She tries to balance the terrors of returning to work with the demands of all around her with humor and insight, while staying off the booze. - synopsis from IMDB.com
This was also written by Neil Simon.
I really like Marsha Mason, and apparently Neil Simon also.
I loved Miracle Mile. ! But boy was it depressing!
I would send up Matewan, a great John Sayles movie about a battle between striking coal miners and their company.