Does Gergory’s Girl count as unknown? I loved this movie when I was a kid. I have never seen it on TV, but I haven’t had cable for quite a while. It has one of the most perfect teen angst lines in cinema:
I agree with most of that, especially the first part. I didn’t love Existenz, I just thought it was worth seeing just for the ideas involved. Buffalo '66 got me interested by way of a very unique scenario.
My friend and I had just rented “Out of Sight”, yeah, I know. We had just partaken in a large amount of herbal refreshment (back when I still did that sort of thing) and I popped in the tape while my friend was cleaning up. The first thing that came up on the screen after the FBI warning was the theatrical trailer for Buffalo '66. There were no words, just “Heart of the Sunrise” by Yes playing and images from the movie being shown. Keep in mind, it’s a pretty obscure song as far as the general public goes, and it happens to be one of my favorites. The scenes from the movie appeared in chronological order (in the order they appeared in the movie) and changed in time to the music. I wasn’t sure if I had just watched a mini movie, or a trailer (I was high after all). The whole experience got me excited to see the movie. I loved the parts of the movie that were funny, but perhaps not intended to be funny, and I loved the soudtrack. It’s not for everyone, and I can see how some might hate it.
You need to see Boondock saints. Troy Duffy is one of the biggest douchebags I’ve ever seen, but he managed to get a great movie made. Willem Dafoe playing a gay FBI agent was very…interesting. Ron Jeremy is in it too, what’s not to like?
Did you see Deceiver?
Wow. I just sent Clerks back to Netflix after stopping about halfway through. I almost could not be less impressed. Crude does not mean funny. And personally, it seemed to be “clever”, but not really.
I never seen it or heard of it and I see the good folks at the IMDB gave it a 7.1 rating. Sounds like a good candidate to me. I just added it to my Netflix Queue.
Thank you,
Jim
Funny you should mention Shock Treatment, cause that’s my vote here. And it comes out on DVD later this year 
I’ve listed several before, but instead of my Usual Suspects, let me list a few others:
Mirage – I first saw this on Saturday Night at the Movies back in the 1960s. I very rarely see it now, but it’s sort of the darker cousin of Charade (and if you don’t know Charade, go out and rent it now! Great comedy-thriller-mystery with wonderful twists). It’s got the same screenwriter, director, and some of the same stars. I haven’t seen it on TV in ages. But what a cast – Gregory Peck (the hero) , Walter Matthau (a Private Detective), George Kennedy (a hit man), Kevin McCarthy. Based on a novel by Howard Fast. Gregory Peck plays a man who finds himself in a building afflicted with a blackout. He follows a woman down the stairs into a fourth-level sub-basement, but loses her. He comes out and realizes that he can’t recall where he’s been for the past year. When he goes to where he thinks he works, the place isn’t there. When he goes to find the sub-basement levels he chased the woman down to, her finds that the building has (and has only had) a single basement, with no sub-levels. He hires Matthau to try and figure out what happened, and finds out that he’s being followed. Great stuff.
Creator – Peter O’Toole stars as a Nobel laureate trying to clone his wife. Witty science fiction with zero special effects, and none of the usual dumb cliches about cloning.
Mystery of the Wax Museum - the original film that the later #D film House of Wax was based on (and, presumably, also the recent Paris Hilton flick). The origional is notable for the presence of a character excised from the 1954 flick – the tough female reporter, played by Glenda Farrell, who went on to play a very similar role in the “Torcbhy Blane” flicks of the 19330s. Great witty fast 1930s repartee between Farrell’s Florence Dempsey and her boss.
Amazon Women on the Moon – not sure how “unknown” this one is. It’s not as good as “Kentucky Fried Movie”, overall, but it has some hilarious stuff, especially “The Son of the Invisible Man”, starring Ed Begley Junior in the title role.
The Atomic Submarine – Atomic Sub finds Alien Spacecraft under to Polar Icecap. Very weird little flick, with effects by the guys responsible for Forbidden Planet
The Ugly Little Boy – Short, made for TV, and badly distributed. But it’s probably the most faithful rendering of any of Isaac Asimov’s stuff into film (possibly barring “The Bicentennial Man”, or the episodes of the British “Out of This World/Out of the Unknown” I haven’t seen.)
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
Night of the Shooting Stars
A Taste of Honey
Panic in Needle Park
The Collector
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Le Voyou (The Crook)
Dance With a Stranger
10 Rillington Place
He Loves Me…He Loves Me Not
Elevator to the Gallows
Great, great movie! Gave me a lot of respect for Weaving and Crowe.
Who’s Minding the Mint? – star-laden comedy starring Jim Hutton and Dorothy Provine, with Milton Berle, Walter Brennan, Joey Bishop, Bob Denver, a pre-MASH Jamie Farr, Jack Gilford, Victor Buono, and frequent Stooge co-star Emil Sitka.
It doesn’t always mean funny, but I laughed my ass off through this whole movie.
Rock and Rule is reminiscent of the Heavy Metal cartoon, but more balanced, with a passable plot, good animation, and a good soundtrack.
Rapa Nui is a pretty well done, dramitc account of how the people of Easter Island destroyed their culture.
And while these are just shorts, I can’t help mentioning the Thumbs! series. Hysterical.
I’ll agree with you on Streets of Fire. I also watched Mrs. Henderson Presents last night and loved it. Around here, it seemed to come and go with barely a trace.
My picks -
the Reflecting Skin (starring a very young Viggo “Strider / Aragorn” Mortensen.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (they just don’t make movies like this anymore.)
the Star (Bette Davis: I AM a star! I was a star then and I am a star today! Once you are a star, you never go back to NOT being a star!!!)
Great movie and it got mentioned on the Simpson’s episode that Tony Randall appeared in. We own a copy, the kids really like it.
CalMeacham are you sure that **Creator ** is obscure? My wife and I had both seen and loved it long before we got together. I thought it was a fairly well known movie.
I loved “Amazon Women on the Moon” and saw it again recently. It is not as funny now as when I was 20.
Jim
The one i always mention in these threads is The Year My Voice Broke, an underappreciated Australian gem with a young Noah taylor in the lead role and also featuring Bruce Spence, the helicopter pilot from the Road Warrior films. This is a brilliant, poignant coming-of-age movie.
The sequel, Flirting, is also a worthy film, and features a young Nicole Kidman.
Actually, I think that The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao is less obscure than Creator, but there are plenty of people who haven’t heard of either. I know they’re both not trivial to find in the video stores around here.
I enjoyed them both. I saw Dr. Lao years ago on TV, I was just a wee lad. I may have to try and rent it just to remember.
I have a copy of Creator. If you enjoyed it don’t read the book! I thought the book was horrible.
Bob Roberts
Best. political. satire. ever.
AND the scariest!
They Live
Silly though it may be at times, I think it’s Carpenter’s best effort. Watch about an hour of Fox News, then put this on. It just might make you go, “Hmmmmm”.
Rustler’s Rhapsody
Blazing Saddles without the fart jokes. Andy Griffith does a Leslie Nielsen that will fracture you!
Blind Fury - Rutger Hauer as a blind sword-wielding samurai… What more do you have to say? Cheesy, but fun.
The Tall Guy - Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson in a quirky and enjoyable romance. (The Underoos scene was hillarious…)