A lot of these movies are quite well known, you just aren’t hanging out with the right people. Of course, I had cable as a kid, and I used to work at a video store. Hell, whenever a customer asked about any movie, no matter how obscure their hints were I could usually figure it out and point them to it. Good to see my childhood in front of the TV hasn’t gone completely to waste.
Also, I also hang out at the message board on the Bad Movies site. Any cheesy horror/sci-fi flick you thought nobody else have ever heard of, these people know it through and through. Oftentimes, they know all the lines by heart.
Anyway, I also really liked Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Someday I will have to get around to really reading Hamlet so I can understand more of the jokes. “Heads.” (Flip!) “Heads.” (Flip!) “Heads!” (Flip!) “Heads?” (Flip!) “Heads!?”
I nominate The Reflecting Skin. Little know film about a boy and his horrific life in the midwest during the fifties. Imagine the picturesque landscapes of David Lynch’s Straight Story, and then add all the horrifying elements and weirdness that is usually in a Lynch film. This is what The Reflecting Skin is like. I don’t remember who directed it.
Some of my favorite, and unfortunately pseudo-obscure films in my rack:
Silent: *The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Hey, the set designer went insane–or one of those long-dead guys. It’s like Frankenstein meets Adolf Wolfli. If you have a fast computer and a crapload of bandwidth, you can download the whole thing at http://www.throttlebox.com .
Propaganda: Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Willshould chill your blood. Anything by Eisenstein is genius, but not obscure. Why We Fight is scary, too, but I’m on the winning side of that one, so I guess the series is a “classic.”
Documentary: The Atomic Cafe should be shown in every high-school history class in America. Lloyd Bentsen calling for a preemtive strike on the Soviets? It’s in there.
Twisted: Night of the Hunter. Some films are scary, no matter how old they are. I’ll never see Robert Mitchum the same way again.
Modern: Lots of good ones get by quietly. To Live and Die In L.A. is unfortunately out of print–we should lobby to change that. Shallow Grave wasn’t too shabby. Way of the Gun is in theatres still right now. Go see this film–it is good.
Hong Kong: Indian film kicks ass, but Hong Kong was in its own league. The vitae of Chow Yun Fat, Tsiu Hark, Alexander Fu Chen, Jet Li… If I had to have just one in the collection, it would have to be Drunken Master 2, or whatever they’re calling it these days. Jackie Chan as Wong Fei Hung–you can’t go wrong there.
Did you know that Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, and Jackie Chan were all extras in Enter the Dragon? Jackie gets killed twice by Bruce Lee. They do a great comedy piece together in *Dragons Forever.
In honor of him I’ll toss out The Grey Fox, with Farnsworth as a man who’s just gotten out of prison at the turn of the century.
This is a good description from IMDB:
Old West highwayman Bill Miner, known to Pinkertons as “The Gentleman Bandit,” is released in 1901 after 33 years in prison, a genial and charming old man. He goes to Washington to live and work with his sister’s family. But the world has changed much while he has been away, and he just can’t adjust. So he goes to Canada and returns to the only thing familiar to him – robbery (with stagecoaches changed to trains).
Can’t believe I left off I Went Down, an Irish black comedy from a couple years ago. I think maybe three people outside of Ireland saw it, which is a damn shame because it’s really, really well-written, clever and incredibly funny. I wish more people knew about it.
“The Well” – excellent films about race relations, and especially impressive since it was filmed in the early 1950s.
“Deathwatch” – Nice SF adaptation with Harvey Keitel as a reporter assigned to film a woman dying.
“Black Moon” – surreal film by Louis Malle. Most interesting unicorn in film.
“Let’s Not Talk About All These Women” – nice slapstick comedy – by Ingmar Bergman (!). (Title sometimes shortened to “All These Women”).
“The Comic” – Dick Van Dyke as a silent film comedian. Funny and touching. Has one thing in common with the Bergman above – the use of “Yes, We Have No Bananas” at a funeral.
“El” – Louis Bunuel’s study of sexual obsession and paranoia.
“200 Motels” – Written and directed (in part) by Frank Zappa. Great visuals and a lot of general wierdness.
“Days of Heaven” – superb cinematography and a good story, told with very little dialog.
Two of my favorites are The Right Stuff and L.A. Story. They may not be totally obscure, but they seem to be headed that way. Everyone knows the phrase “The Right Stuff”, some people know it was a movie, and a tiny few have seen it. It’s brilliant (great book too).
Three that I’ll have to see again someday are The Magic Christian (Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr), Until the End of the World (directed by Wim Wenders) and Wrong is Right (satire with Sean Connery as a reporter).
A couple years ago I made a joke at work that “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle.” Everybody just stared.
a plethora of bad 80s movies (ie D.A.R.Y.L, Tank, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun)
and finally an anime that I am kicking myself for not remembering the name of ?Something? High, I think.
a genetic experiment escapee lands a high school teaching job and is pitted against the leader of the school gang. gang leader is almost defeated by a humilating experience in which it is revealed that she wears Hello Kitty underwear-- “TROMP TROMP TROMP Shuee Shuee!”
Inside Moves Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control The Last Wave Lonestar (maybe not obscure, but it deserves a look for any who missed it.)
I second the kudo for Night of the Hunter, but I strongly disagree with the recommendation of Valmont over Dangerous Liasons. All the pretension with none of the passion, IMO.
This might be a TV movie but I will include it anyway–nobody said that it had to be publicly exhibited in theaters to count, right?
I am evidently referring to the greatest romantic movie ever, Star Struck, starring Kirk Cameron–Mike from Growing Pains–and the girl who played Kate on that very same show. It is about a boy and a girl who meet at summer camp, fall in love and promise themselves never to forget each other. Of course, since they were a couple of 5 years old at the time that shouldn’t matter much, right? Well, not if you are Runner.
Forward in time 20 years when the girl is a famous–and spoiled–movie star and Runner decides to go look for her and try to renew their love vows without telling her who he really is. I won’t tell more, as I don’t watch to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. And if you haven’t I can only tell you one thing, shut down your computer, call your girl and go rent it tonight. You can thank me later.
The only deficiency I found was that the lead romantic role wasn’t played by Drew Barrymore or the lovely Katie Holmes, but hey, nothing is perfect, right? Well, the pure, sincere, passionate love being displayed by the characters is. I hope someday–hopefully sooner than later–I will find my soulmate and share with her those very same feelings. Hope you do to!
Changing the subject a bit:
Another seldom-mentioned movie–although more on the mainstream side of the entertainment industry–is Hearts and Souls with Robert Downey Jr. and Charles Grodin. It is a heart warming, faith-in-the-human-race’s-intrinsic-goodness restoring comedy that will cheer you up anytime. Technically it shouldn’t be considered a comedy but it has a particular scene–yes! The one where Downey’s character gets possessed during a meeting at work–that was obscenely funny.
Ok…i seriously doubt any of you guys have seen this movie.
Stalker- it’s a bizzaro, cryptic and damn gloomy sci-fi flick…it’s also russian.
Solaris- also russian, based on the book of the same name by Alexander Len
It’s a coming-of-age movie set in rural Australia in 1962. Beautifully drawn characters, several funny moments, and several that will tear your heart out. I love this movie, but get a lot of blank stares when I mention it.
Also good is the movie’s sequel, Flirting, with a young Nicole Kidman in a supporting role.
I took a Russian class in high school, and our teacher made us watch Solaris. She compared it to 2001. However, we only watched the movie in thirty minute chunks. Take that along with the slow pacing and obscure storyline, add a class full of restless high school students. I don’t remember a single thing about the film.
That reminds me, he was great in “Roadie”, and I haven’t seen that in years.
Hard to tell what’s really obscure to the people on this board, as there seems to be a high percentage of movie addicts here. Nevertheless, here’s a few more enjoyable(American) films that seem to have disappeared in the ground clutter:
The Big Bus (with the great Stockard Channing)
Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film)
The Quiet Earth (Aussie end-of-the-world flick)
99 44/100% Dead (bizarre, cartoonish gangster flick with Richard Harris; like a car crash, you’re horrified but can’t take your eyes away)
The Driver (existential car chase flick by Walter Hill)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (David Bowie as an alien who misses his family back home)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes directs Ben Gazzara as nightclub owner in hock to the Mob)
Saint Jack (Gazzara again, as an expat who runs a Singapore brothel)
Jim Jarmusch’s first two films were a real hoot:
Stranger Than Paradise
Down by Law (introducing Roberto Begnini!)
Well I saw this thread title two days ago and immediately thought “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” but didn’t bother to click and look at the thread. See what I miss? Nobody I’ve shown the movie to got it. Glad to know I’m not nuts for liking this flick.
I guess it doesn’t count as a movie nobody knows, but I have an unusually strong liking for Steve Martin’s “L.A. Story” that I can’t quite explain.
