Another vote for Fall by Eric Schaeffer. It’s one of the most erotic and poetic movies I’ve ever seen. The voice-over at the end of the movie is absolutely incredible. Anyone know where I can get a transcript of the script or screenplay?
Another of my favorites is Trust by Hal Hartley. A very quirky and funny romance. Here’s a quote from it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/630227883X/o/qid=987172258/sr=2-1/103-6951163-2756634
Zero Effect With the very underrated Bill Pullman as super sleuth Darryl Zero. Awesome music (had to buy the soundtrack!) and quirky not your run-of-the-mill mystery. Gets better every time I watch it.
OR
Fearless Jeff Bridges, Rosie Perez, Isabella Rosselini–all excellent performances. Beautifully directed by Peter Weir (also directed The Truman Show and Witness). Bridges character survives a plane crash, but the movie goes much deeper than that. It really defies description, you must see it!!
One that I LOVE (but hardly ever see) was “THE BIG BUS”. It is an “Airplane” style spoof-based upon the unlikely premise, of the first maiden trip, of the world’s first NUCLEAR POWERED BUS!
The acting is hilarious, and the guy that plays the piano in the lounge is a laugh a minute. Amazon has this one, but they want a foryune for it!
“The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai” would be a logical choice. Hysterical, deadpan dialogue and subtle acting does it for me everytime. Can you rent it at Blockbuster?
No. Can you find it at the library? No. Do they show it on TV? Once every 5 years or so. Underappreciated? Yes.
Recently - Requiem for A Dream, Pollock, Memento
I will put in another vote for Dark City.
Also, no one has mentioned it yet, but my favorite obscure movie would have to be Leningrad Cowboys Go America: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0097728
I love this movie! A Finnish “big band” sort of thing trying to get famous in America. As they travel the country, they play what they think people in each location want to hear. Country at one bar, “Born to be Wild” at the next, all with accordians, tubas, etc. mixed with electric guitars. They assume that by changing their musical identity depending on the audience, that everyone will love them. Unfortunately, no one does (except me!), until they get to Mexico to play a wedding, and find that some of the popular traditional music there is not so far removed from their own polka roots. The whole movie is completely deadpan, but in my opinion hilarious and very enjoyable.
One of my all-time-faves is
The Freshman with Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando.
The Princess Bride is another underrated/underappreciated movie.
Dead Man Don’t Wear Plaid is corny, but funny and well done. But then again, I liked The Man With Two Brains also.
Right-o, but The Princess Bride is indeed appreciated. I don’t know another college student that has NOT seen it. And 90% of them love it, especially the females. But a high percentage of guys really enjoy it, too.
I agree with many on this list, namely Nick of Time, Twelve Monkeys, and Ed Wood.
But I would add ‘In the Mouth of Madness’ to my own personal list. I don’t think it did anything at the box office, but I really liked it.
SF
Damn! You beat me to it! I loved ITMOM. Genuinely creepy, and Jurgen Pronchow as Sutter Caine gave me goosebumps. Sam Neill was great, too. Good call.
No one else seemed to like Hannibal. I did. Even if it had a few faults. Well, Deiket did too. (You rock! :p)
Anyway, Ferris Bueller is the best of those damned John Hughes movies. If it bombed at the box office, then it gets my vote for most underappreciated 80’s flick. Save Ferris, man!
Storm of the Century. I don’t know how anyone else felt, but most people tend to pass off made for TV movies as pointless drivel. I thought it was one of the best i’d ever seen (though it has been over two years since I saw it, and when I watched it, my taste in movies was a bit underdeveloped…so maybe its just me). Still, I would reccomend it.
I’ve mentioned this before, but Saint Jack is a lost gem. Ben Gazzara plays a pimp in Shanghai during the Vietnam era. Makes a good companion piece to the slightly better-known Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
Here’s an oldie but goodie:
<b>Kelly’s Heroes</b> : Late 60’s, early 70’s antidote to “Patton” about a group of soldiers going behind enemy lines to steal a mess of gold from the Germans. It’s sort of a war movie, but throws in the anti-establishment feel from movies like MASH, but not so much that it starts sounding like a hippie tract (although Donald Sutherland is very, very hippie-like in this, as a tank commander. My fave line of his is when his subordinate Gavin MacLeod points out that a plan of his won’t work, says, “Again with the negative waves, Moriarity!”)
This movie also has a s—load of familiar faces, from Clint Eastwood on down: Telly Salvalas, Carroll O’Connor, Sutherland, MacLeod (Murray on MTM show, among others), and Don Rickles. All good character parts.
I got it on tape and I still watch it from time to time.
@#%@#%, sorry about that, chief. I really intended to preview to make sure I got the coding right.
Like that. Time for bed. . .
I’d say The Right Stuff, but it was pretty well-received by the critics. It’s my favorite movie.
One I enjoyed, but which didn’t get much positive press (except from Siskel and Ebert) is Kingpin - from the makers of Dumb and Dumber (the Farrelly brothers) and similar in plot, but much funnier. How can you not like a movie about a washed-up bowling star who discovers an Amish prodigy and makes it his mission to get him on the pro bowling circuit? The best parts are the scene where the Woody Harrelson character “pays his rent” to his disgusting rag of a landlady, and Randy Quaid as the dim-bulb Amish bowler who, seeing a urinal for the first time, takes a crap in it. I also enjoyed the Bill Murray character (Harrelson’s arch-rival from his days on the bowling tour, played with just the right amount of cheesy arrogance). Damn, I’ve gotta go rent it again now!
OMG, troub! Leningrad Cowboys is one of my two favorite movies! Yes, it’s just like you said.
I love the scene where the manager says, “Have you ever heard of hrock and hroll?..Schtudy this boock.” Matti Pelonnpaa: a Kaurismaki brothers regular, and also in the last sequence of Night on Earth. Unfortunately, he died in 1995. Also, I love Jim Jarmusch as the first car salesman, and Mr. Rilch swears that the second car salesman is Ice Cube, though the credits list that guy as someone other than Cube’s real name.
That film rules. “I wonder when the murder starts. You always get murdered when you go to New York. I’ve seen it on television.”
There was a sequel: Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, but I’ve never been able to find a copy, and the one review I’ve read says it’s excruciatingly bad, even to someone who liked the first one. However, I’ve seen Ariel and Match Factory Girl, two other Kaurismaki films. They’re not funny like LCGA, and MFG may break your beating heart, but they’re worth checking out.
Without a doubt, Shakes the Clown. So glad to see others feel the same way.
Hajario
The Wedding Banquet Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fans can see what Ang Lee does when he tries his hand at comedy…or drama. The film slips from one to the other without missing a step.
Devil in a Blue Dress Denzel Washington in an excellent mystery. The Walter Mosley books have a strong following. Movie audiences never caught on.
Safety Last Remember that silent movie still of a guy hanging off of a huge clock? It’s from this film. Perhaps the most dangerous movie stunt ever done: Harold Lloyd climbs the outside of a Los Angeles skyscraper with his bare hands and without a rope. Although it’s comedy it’s almost too scary to laugh.
The Last Picture Show A movie about 1955, shot like a 1955 film with a 1970’s attitude. The old movie house closes and a small Texas town loses its soul. Sound wistful? Not when you see Cybil Shepherd twist every man in town around her finger.
Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead is one of my very favorite movies. My parents rented it one night, and then went to bed. So I watched it by myself, and loved it! But nobody else has seen it, or wants to rent it and watch it with me. It’s very frustrating.
Glengarry Glen Ross That movie made me so depressed. Jack Lemmon turned in one of the greatest performances by any actor in any movie. I was practically in tears over it. But the rest of the cast was phenomenal too.
The Big Kahuna is another excellent movie. Very emotional, but not manipulative.
Swimming With Sharks was very disturbing. I loved it.
There have been a number of threads with very similar subjects. Here are some of them:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=55721
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54449
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54466
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=49919
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41343
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=37254
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=35565
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=18987
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=12381
You can find a lot of recommendations for good films in these threads. Here’s some of my favorite lesser known films:
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989, U.K./West Germany, dir. Terry Gilliam)
Barry Lyndon (1975, U.K., dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Blood Simple (1985, U.S., dir. Joel Coen)
Chungking Express (1994, Hong Kong, dir. Wong Kar-Wai)
Code of Silence (1985, U.S., dir. Andrew Davis)
Excalibur (1981, U.K., dir. John Boorman)
The Fantastic Planet (1973, France, dir. Rene Laloux)
House of Games (1987, U.S., U.S., dir. David Mamet)
La Jetee (1962, France, dir. Chris Marker)
A Little Romance (1979, U.S., dir. George Roy Hill)
Play It Again, Sam (1972, U.S., dir. Herbert Ross)
They Live (1988, U.S., dir. John Carpenter)
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978, Italy, dir. Ermanno Olmi)
The Year of Living Dangerously (1983, Australia, dir. Peter Weir)
Here’s a few more of my favorite lesser known films:
After Hours (1985, U.S., dir. Martin Scorsese)
My Brilliant Career (1979, Australia, dir. Gillian Armstrong)
Play Misty for Me (1971, U.S., dir. Clint Eastwood)
Ride the High Country (1962, U.S., dir. Sam Peckinpah)
Salvador (1986, U.S., dir. Oliver Stone)
Slacker (1991, U.S., dir. Richard Linklater)
Starting Over (1979, U.S., dir. Alan J. Pakula)
Trouble in Mind (1985, U.S., dir. Alan Rudolph)
Unmade Beds (1997, U.S., dir. Nicholas Barker)
The Whole Wide World (1996, U.S., dir. Dan Ireland)
Underapreciated, heck, this movie was voted the worst movie of the year.
Battlefield Earth- I actually thought that it was a pretty decent movie. Decent acting, thought provoking, and halfway decent special effects (compared to some movies at least)
Granted, it wasn’t something extremely deep, and it certainly does not deserve an Academy award, but I felt it should not have gotten worst movie of the year.