Kongo was based on a 1926 Broadway play of the same name. It had originally come to the screen in 1928 as a silent film called West of Zanzibar, starring Lon Chaney, Sr.
I have not seen Kongo, but Lon Chaney is interesting to watch.
The Specials, an excellent low-budget superhero movie by some guy named James Gunn. It is a comedy mocumentary following around a medium-to-low tier superhero team over a couple of days and is hilarious (and even has a Gunnish dance scene). It made something like 12 dollars in theaters. It seems like it would get more retroactive notice since Gunn is now bigger than Jesus, but it remains obscure to the point that (unlike pretty much everything else) I can’t even find clips on Youtube of scenes that I want to reference when I want to reference them. (Except for the aforementioned dance scene and The Strobe’s origin story.)
Walter Huston was the star of the original 1926 stage production.
West of Zanzibar is definitely one of Chaney/Browning’s best efforts, but with the addition of sound, Kongo is…something else.
The Spanish Prisoner written and directed by David Mamet.
It is unusual in many ways the least of which is, unlike your usual Mamet film, there’s so little swearing its rating is PG. He cast several comedians to play against type, Steve Martin as a conman, Ed O’Neill as an FBI agent, Ricky Jay as a murder victim (he doesn’t throw a single card).
On the surface it looks like your standard con movie. Campbell Scott has developed “The Process”* which is 100% McGuffin – you never find out what it is but it drives the plot. Set to make a lot of money, on a vacation he bumps into Steve Martin. He comes to find out Martin is a con man, leader of a big team that’s out to steal The Process. A lot of chicanery happens and justice triumphs in the end.
Spoiler
Or does it?
This is not a big reveal in the movie and is not mentioned in any plot summaries, but I believe the team got away with it. There are a lot of little inconsistencies that don’t seem like much individually but they keep adding up.
- US Marshalls [sic] being misspelled on the back of their jackets
- Why would they use a dart gun to take down the ringleader instead of standard firearms?
- A freight elevator in a police station
- NYPD detectives being the first on scene – in an unmarked car – to a murder just called in
- The same NYPD detectives showing up in Boston almost as soon as the spur-of-the-moment decision by Scott to go there and with no Boston police in tow
- A boat horn blatting out at just the right time to render a critical bit of dialog inaudible
There are others I don’t recall right now. The fascinating part is that Mamet plays the audience as much as his con team plays Scott. The more movies you’ve seen the more you’re willing to pass over as part of the movie-making “process” which alters the perception of what you’re seeing.
As an example, Ricky Jay’s death scene. Do you know what a large pool of fresh blood looks like? Neither do I and neither does Scott’s character, but I know what a pool of Hollywood blood looks like and he’s given no time closely examine things before the detectives show up and he has to beat it.
The clincher for me was after begging Scott to show her mercy and not receiving any, the enigmatic little smile Rebecca Pidgeon gives him before climbing into the paddy wagon.
A lot of critics cite the “unsatisfactory” ending. I think they didn’t realize what the real ending was.
*c.f. the Kafka novel.
I had to read that book for a class, and I want to say the movie came out the next year. So I remember watching it, but don’t recall much except for the cast.
“Lone Star” should definitely have greater recognisition in my opinion, Also “Primer” , a low budget time-travel movie that is proper hard sci-fi that doesn’t spoon-feed the viewer.
Thank you for posting about A Moment to Remember and Sunny. I completely agree that they are two must see Korean movies.
Sunny was so successful there’s a Japanese remake: Sunny: Our Hearts Beat Together and a Chinese remake: Sunny SIsters. I haven’t gotten around to watching them yet, but I’m sure no matter how good they are, they’ll never beat the original.
I have hundreds of Korean films I’d recommend, but two that are close to heart for different reasons are Cho Jung Jae’s Duresori - Voice of East and Spirits’ Homecoming.
I’ve posted about Duresori - Voice of East before. Filmed in a pseudo-documentary style, the movie is the dramatized story of the formation of Duresori, the choir of the Seoul National School of Traditional Arts. All the members are real students of the school and Teacher Ham is the real director of the choir.
I’ve been continually listening to the theme song Duresori Story ever since I first saw the move over 5 years ago.
Cho Jung Jae said that he made Duresori to gain attention and funding to make Spirits’ Homecoming about comfort women during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
Spirits’ Homecoming (Korean: 귀향) is a 2016 South Korean period drama film written and directed by Cho Jung-rae.[1][3] It was released in South Korea on February 24, 2016.[1][4][5][6][7] Production of the film was halted several times due to financial issues, but was revived with additional 75,200 people contributing to the production fund. The screening date was delayed due to the lack of theaters willing to show the film. However, people bought tickets in advance and issued petitions for the movie to be screened in more cinemas.[8] The first screening was March 1, the Anniversary of the Samil Independence Movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirits%27_Homecoming
The remembrance of the comfort women is especially important today because the number of women who suffered that fate is quickly diminishing due to age.
On a lighter note, there’s the Japanese Little Miss Period, about every female’s monthly visitor! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Higrk3g6Ea8
Little Miss Period is based on a manga of the same name.
The Dish (2000; from Australia) — A remote Australian community, populated by quirky characters, plays a key role in the first Apollo moon landing.
Interestingly I was waffling between posting about “The Station Agent” and “The Straight Story”. I love them both. (wanted to post just one at a time)
I’ve been intending to see “You Can Count on Me” for decades; clearly, now I need to.
I guess you and I need to go to the movies, @JKellyMap.
mmm
Looking forward to it! Another gem I rewatched recently was Big Night, with Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub.
Mark Ruffalo shines in You Can Count On Me, and Laura Linney is her usual, fantastic self. It’s a travesty that she has never won an Oscar, despite 3 nominations.
I just watched this last week, I have the DVD. I love the two old guys riding naked on the motorcycle.
Tucker and Dale Vs Evil is a great movie. Plenty of gore and plenty of laughs.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1465522/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Like Sunday Like Rain.
Enough Said which is James Gandolfini’s last film.
The Kid Detective.
8 Legged Freaks, and in a similar vein, Big Ass Spider
Esio Trot, an adaptation of a Roald Dahl story.
The Little Hours, a partially improvised comedy movie about nuns. Sort of good, but more of an experiment that almost works.
Wolfwalkers
Shadow In The Cloud
The Aeronauts
Greyhound
Also in the more recent Foxcatcher (includes a terrific, serious, haunting Steve Carrell performance); I’d considered this film as my contribution to this thread, but wasn’t sure if it’s obscure enough.
I didn’t see Foxcatcher, but I really enjoyed his performances in Spotlightand The Kids Are All Right.
Love that one. I think of this, House of Games, and Glengarry Glen Ross as the classic trilogy of Mamet dialogue (the dialogue in The Spanish Prisoner is less stylized than that in the other two).
Pontypool: it’s a typical morning for a talk radio host at a small-time radio station until reports start coming in about people going berserk. What is happening and is there any way to stop it?
There is a movie in Norwegian (English subtitles), “Trollhunter” , that I found very entertaining. I won’t plot spoil but, if you want to learn more, click the link and read the plot summary.
Many people know that Scorsese’s Departed is a remake of a Hong Kong movie called Infernal Affairs. It was a monster hit in its native Hong Kong, so it’s hardly “little known” there, but not enough Westerners have actually seen it, so I recommend it every chance I get. Personally I prefer it to the American remake, for many reasons (a more abstracted tone which foregrounds the two leads’ existential confusion, a better balance between the mentor figures on each side, etc.), though of course this is a matter of taste. If you haven’t seen it, you should know the Criterion series just announced it will be releasing a deluxe edition of the film, in a bundle with its two sequels. These are decidedly not as good as the first, but the collection will be worth acquiring for the original movie alone.