Do these have to be BAD good films? Or just films that didn't get much press?

Number one underrated horror film of all time is John Carpenter's version of The Thing. It was roundly panned and outright reviled when it first came out, apparently. And I don't need to explain to you how great it actually is. Fucking disgusting, though.

Movies that didn't get the attention they deserved: Guarding Tess, Of Mice and Men (the Sinise version), The Iron Giant, and Better Off Dead.

Yeah, the critics wouldn't shut up about how disgusting and violent the Thing was.

It was the summer of ET. Maybe that had something to do with it.

I think that The Thing is pretty much considered a classic now, though.

Diggstown is very underrated. It was, yeah, the Rocky of its year. But few saw it in the theaters and I don't remember the critics being more than lukewarm on it.

True Believer. Kickass mystery/courtroom drama.

GI Jane. What a dumb, pompous, edgy attention grabbing idea for a movie.

But what a fucking cool movie.

Silver Bullet and Rear Window are two of my favorites. Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant is one of my all time favorites from when I was a kid. Those are all pretty good movies, but I often find friends of mine that have not seen any of them.

Recent underrated film that could well be my favorite of the past few years: Downfall. But then I was trained as a historian of Nazi Germany in a past life.

A movie that probably nobody here has ever seen or heard of, because it's an obscure Australian production:

Proof. It's Russell Crowe's first feature film, I believe. Caught it on Encore or something like that with my dad once. Fantastic film about a friendship between a slop cook (Crowe) and a blind man (Hugo Weaving aka Agent Smith and Elrond).

Anybody ever see Shattered with Tom Berenger?

The big reveal makes no sense when you think about it later, but really a true surprise twist. Not many of those.

For movies from the past decade, Frequency is one that my husband and I both loved and were surprised that it did not get more attention.

Sorry, I don't catch cool, edgy movies unless they show them on the Independent Film Channel and they show Boys Don't Cry way too often on that channel for me to watch it regularly.

"Smash Palace", directed by Roger Donaldson, is amazingly good, and seems little known. I agree as to "Cutter's Way".

boondock saints is one of my favorites. confidence was also great, but nobody i know seems to have heard of it

My underrated at PW:

Blade, Dazed and Confused, Mystery Men, About a Boy, Office Space!

Speaking of Tom, I do love a little Ruster's Rhapsody.

Yeah, Frequency is great. I knew I had to see it when someone described it as the "very best time-travel firefighter serial-killer police-procedural father-son-bonding ghost movie ever made."

Ahem, Rustler's Rhapsody.

Fuck.

I think Mystery Men is only slightly underrated.

It's got four or five great funny parts, and the rest is really not very good at all.

I do enjoy Mr. Furious. If I were a superhero, I'd be him.

Gotta agree with Nighthawks and Diggstown for sure. Weird Science never gets any credit but it is the one John Hughes teen flick I like more as an adult then I did as a kid.

"She's into malakas, Dino!"

Dead Again was great and is already forgotten- and let me throw in a book: Queen's Squadron. Great sci-fi book.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451451694/qid=1126419958/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-1724104-2023900?v=glance&s=books

Kung Fu Hustle.

It made less than $20 million US, so hardly anybody has seen it yet. The DVD just came out a couple weeks ago. It's the best foreign language movie I've ever seen.

And you can't go wrong with dancing axe killers.

Bubble Boy.

One of the best dumbass comedies ot the last decade. Good performances, and a really nice attitude.

It's got four or five great funny parts, and the rest is really not very good at all.

I do enjoy Mr. Furious. If I were a superhero, I'd be him.

I agree on all counts; it's not a great movie, but I was sort of "WTF?" about how badly it was panned.

The other movies on my list I thoroughly enjoyed multiple times, however.

digitalbrownshirt:

If you're going to drop in KFH, you need Shaolin Soccer.

Stephen Chow is a Ghod.

Kung Pow, of course, too.

Very funny. Even if you're NOT stoned.

Although it was clearly made with the assumption you would be.

I do enjoy Mr. Furious. If I were a superhero, I'd be him.

I pictured you more as The Spleen.

Blade, Dazed and Confused, Mystery Men, About a Boy, Office Space!

Has anybody ever seen Office Space and not liked that movie?

If you're going to drop in KFH, you need Shaolin Soccer.

Stephen Chow is a Ghod.

I haven't seen SS yet, but it's on my list for movies I'll be watching soon. KFH was so good it made me want to see a movie with the word "soccer" in the title.

Unbreakable.

M. Night Shyamalan's first film after the widely (and rightly) acclaimed The Sixth Sense was horribly underrated, for no reason I can readily discern. It was nominated for buckets full of awards, but I seem to be the only person I know who's seen it.

Long Kiss Goodnight.
Some laugh-out-loud funny lines.

Samuel Jackson character (cop) to a guy busted for soliciting;
"You see you're assuming I won't shoot your sorry ass.
You know what you get when you make an Assumption?...
You make an Ass out of You and Umption.

I bet I can stump everyone here, but I will possibly embarrass myself in the process. I love Ozzie and Harriet's only movie, "Here Come The Nelsons." My dad taped it off the television about 20 years ago and we watched it several times and laughed our heads off every time. Everyone else in the room looked at us like we were crazy, but to this day just thinking about a few scenes in that movie makes me laugh.

Ozzie Nelson and is just really funny in the movie. A Bob Newhart kinda funny. To boot, Rock Hudson is in the movie and he plays a women's "foundations" salesman, which is revealed when his sample case pops open revealing women's lingerie. Hey, it is worth a laugh for that alone.

My dad lost the tape and had not seen it on television again, so for his birthday this year I thought I would look for it on the internet. It was not available on DVD, but I found the video at Overstock.com for a buck. I ordered my dad and me one.

Has anybody ever seen Office Space and not liked that movie?

Well, most people I know like it. It typically gets 2 stars critically, though.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Ishtar

Still Crazy...

Small-ish British movie about the reunion of a 60's 'glam' band. Great music, very funny, great story.

Speaking of unbreakable, when my wife and I went to see it, we thought we were late so we went straight in and sat down thinking the movie had started. However, we were mistaken about the time it was supposed to start and had accidentally walked in to the last 10 minutes of the previous screening, therefore accidentally revealling all the spoilers at the end.

Yet more proof that Ace readers are retards who are unable to read anything more sophisticated on the web.

Brain Candy? The Pest?

Day-amn, I used to looooove that frickin' movie.

Do you not so much anymore? It's very dated, but when I've caught it on TNT or something I've always been surprised how well it's held up overall.

I don't get the critical reaction to Office Space, either, but then most people I know can recite it by heart, so I don't think it's underrated by its audience.

"No, man--shit, no. I believe you'd get your ass kicked."

Oh--Killing Mona. I liked that way out of proportion to the reviews. Sure it's got Bette Midler who is horrible, but it's a dead Bette Midler, and that ought to count for something.

Aaaggh! Drowning Mona is what I meant. Not killing.

It is that it is late and I am stupid. Sorry.

I never saw Rules of Engagement in any of the "conservative movie" lists, but it should have been. It was a good flick, expressed laudable values, and told an honest story without a lot of PC nitwittery. Also fairly underrated.

Babe, by not being voted "the bestest movie evah" is highly underrated. A seriously great movie on so many levels.

The Neverending Story. Not shown enough on cable. Great movie for kids and adults alike. Has stupid bits, but not many.

The Replacement Killers. John Woo, not much of a plot, but always watchable.

Stargate. James Spader needs a good asskicking in this movie, but woo, big fun.

Caligula. Nah, just kidding.

Ruster's Rhapsody was a great movie!
"Get me a root!"
"From now on I'm the town root junkie"

Also, Princess Bride is the perfect Date Movie!
"Inconcievable!!"

The number one underrated John Carpenter film isn't "The Thing", it's "Prince of Darkness". It's got Donald Pleasance, Murry Bazinski from Riptide, that other guy (not Major Dad) from Simon and Simon, two stars from "Big Trouble in Little China", and Alice Cooper. Add that to Quantum Physics, the father of Satan, and lesbian love, and you come up with a pure masterpiece of cinematic horror.

If we're recommending Stephen Chow flicks, check out God of Cookery if you can find it. Four words: Explosive Pissing Beef Balls.

Woo's The Killer is far more underrated than The Replacement Killers. The Killer always seems to take a back seat to Hard Boiled.

Johnny Dangerously is a highly underrated movie, or at the very least somewhat quotable.

sirens.

Elle MacPherson. Nude. One of the best movies ever made, in my twisted reality.

Kentucky Fried Movie.

I've met a couple of people who didn't like Office Space. I realized after talking to them that they had never worked in that type of environment as a drone in cubeville. So they could not relate to it. I think the critics are the same way.

Every IT geek I know smiles knowingly to "Ummm Yeahhh", or "PC LOAD LETTER!!"...

Ghost and the Darkness
Fright Night
Iron Triangle
Starman

Children of the Revolution. Its title sounds like a documentary, but it's really a twisted Australian comedy, starring Judy Davis type-cast as a lunatic leftoid who bears Stalin's baby. F. Murray Abraham is a terrific Stalin. Very funny, and one up the rear to pretentious leftists.

Ditto on Frequency, Unbreakable and About a Boy.

Also, Angel Eyes, The Cell, Twelve Monkeys, and Vanilla Sky.

Equilibrium is a mix of recycled 1984/Brave New World/ Farenheit 451, plus kickass action and Christian Bale effective as a martial artist-priest.

Few people seem to have heard of Mumford, a quirky romantic comedy, and a fascinating projection of Lawrence Kasdan's views on men, women, and himself.

Bad Influence is an excellent modern film noir. It was the first movie that Rob Lowe did after the home movie with the underage girl. You do want to occassionally smack James Spader, though, but that seems par for the course. How can you go wrong with credits that include Naked Woman and Stylish Eurasian Woman?

Equilibrium! Good pick, i'd almost forgotten that one. Also, Van Damme's "Cyborg". After Bloodsport, the best Van Damme movie.

Ace, I've done an analysis of yours and Jeff's readers based on their movie picks. Turns out your guys are weirder than Jeff's. I never expected that, since you seem to be such a grounded, down to earth kinda guy,

"The One", with Jet Li, if only for the climactic battle between the "good" Jet Li and the "bad" one, as they use two, possibly three different martial arts styles between them.

Love Downfall, love Nighthawks, love Proof, didn't care for Shattered, but love Berenger.

I like Rutger Hauer and I love german terrorists. I admit, me and margaret cho have a lot in common. But, I like my german terrorists all shot up, bloody, and dead in the end -- not pooping on my carpet.

Most under-rated great movie:

UNCOMMON VALOR,

starring Gene Hackman, Randall Tex Cobb, PATRICK SWAYZE (before he was "big"), Robert Stack, and the guy from Remo Williams. Plus a small host of other minor but very recognizable actors.

What made it so great? Americans doing what they have to do to rescue friends from Vietnam.

Second most...

THE CHALLENGE,

starring John Glenn before he made it big in Silverado. Around the same time he did Urban Cowboy.

One, Two, Three with James Cagney in a brilliant chew the scenery role that also was the rare Hollywood film that had a conservative take on the Cold War.

First Men In the Moon

Predator

Dune

The Island really wasn't that bad, tho it was quite formulaic.

An absolutely great movie hardly anyone's heard of is Murder by Death. Extremely funny lines from Alec Guinness.

A movie for the spiritually inclined is Peter Weir's The Seventh Wave. Richard Chamberlin actually acts!

Peace,

Tor

Don't jump on me for mentioning a Sean Penn movie, but I saw "U-Turn" a few times and thought it was pretty good. I can like the art and hate the artist, right?

(psst, gumball)

Mystery Men
Demolition Man
Big Trouble in Little China
Fifth Element

Fearless (1993)

Jeff Bridge's best movie ever. It also has the most harrowing and realistic airplane crash sequence filmed. Rosie Perez should have won the Oscar for her role.

I also really liked

Starship Troopers

The first half of Office Space was great, but once they got into their caper it lost its way.

Cannery Row

and if you like flying and/or aerial photography at all

The Great Waldo Pepper

"Let it Ride", a nice little horse racing comedy starring Richard Dreyfuss from the late 80's. Dreyfuss (liberal mushbrain, but the dude has acting chops, and he plays this one out perfectly), Teri Garr, David Johanssen (that rubberfaced dude from the New York Dolls who briefly -THANK GOD - resurfaced as "Buster Poindexter") and Jennifer Tilly. It's not a profound picture, but if you take it for what it's worth, it's a good viewing. Especially if you're huffing paint that day.

Not to get personal, MasterofNone, but "Starship Troopers" sucked ass. It redefined sucking ass. A movie that sucked THAT much ass really should have featured Tom Sizemore in the starring role. Read the original book, and tell me that the Euroweenie director didn't totally ruin the story by going off on his whole "Nazi" tangent.

Of course, if you look at it through the lens of current events, the director wasn't cheering for the "bugs" against the humans.....he did "support the troops" after all.

Starship Troopers is good crap.

Not spectacularly craptastic, but good solid home-sick-with-the-flu viewable crap.

Agree with most of the movies posted. The only one I would add is Zero Effect

I agree with Russ - the director seemed to be mocking Heinlein's vision throughout. His smug, I'm-above-all-this direction really turned me off of the movie.

Truly, the most underrated movies of all time, in order:

Tremors
Cannonball Run
Psycho II
Lucas
Beavis and Butthead Do America
Deep Rising
Kingpin

Red. Dawn.

Ice Pirates

Zero Effect is great. I own it on DVD. If you're a Sherlock Holmes fan, it's a must-see; it's an update of the Holmes story (w/an Irene Adler character).

With Bill Pullman as a meth-addicted, socially-retarded rock-guitar-playing shut-in as Darryl Zero (Holmes) and Ben Stiller as his assistant.

Some funny shit along the way, and a not half-bad mystery and romance to boot.

Also... few saw this, but Below is a great ghost story. Set on a WWII american submarine. With a lot of terrific but barely-known actors (Bruce Greenwood, Zak Galifanakikisanalalopis or whatever, and the most gorgeous woman ever, Olivia Williams).

Directed, I think, by David Twohy, who was responsible for lots of small-to-mid budget sci-fi movies that are worth watching.

Speaking of David Twohy: The Arrival. Great movie.

Okay, with some coffee chugging through my veins, I feel much more confident to opine: it's difficult to remember which movies most critics panned that were actually good, meaning that I, and everyone else on the planet, found the films to be pallatable. And, craptastic movies are really just rainy-day guilty pleasures that you'd watch if nothing else was on TV; thus, there is a little, poorly defined window of movies between the two subsets that deserve mention: the 2 and 3/4 star features, which are slightly above cult status and slightly below cinema proper. (drumroll) My nominees for the best films that do not have wet t-shirts, yet still have little or no class are:

Hudson Hawk
Big Trouble in Little China
The Blues Brothers
Conan
Matchstick Men
Zero Effect
The Jerk
The Big Tease

Funny how they're mostly comedies (well, I guess that's debateable, since they're all comedies.).

Since I haven't seen it mentioned, I'll add Crazy People. It's about an advertising executive who starts making the most hilarious ads ever.

Rounders
Knockaround Guys
Miami Blues
Zero Effect
Used Cars
Something Wild
Suicide Kings
Dead-Bang
Very Bad Things
Galaxy Quest
Trespass

Also, if Dazed and Confused never received a single star from any reviewer in the entire world, it would still be overrated. That thing redefines suckitude. What a boring, meandering, pointless waste of time, with such a pathetic attempt at justifying its own existence in the final two minutes, when the jock refuses to sign the paper.

Good list, Elvis.

Dead-Bang is a pretty damn good movie, though no one will believe you if you tell them that.

Galaxy Quest is a near-perfect movie, and no one acknowledges it as comedy classic.

I second Diggstown and Unbreakable.

I'll add Gladiatior. The Brian Denehy (sp?) as underground boxing bookie.

make that Gladiator.

Little Shop of Horrors

Yes, it's a musical.

But it's an evil musical.

Now if we could combine this with The Sound of Music and get those von Trapp kids into the same room as Audrey II...that would be a movie worth watching.

What about Team America: World Police? It's well documented that the same leftist critics who loved Kill Bill for its innovated blood splattering hated TAWP because of its overreaching violence. Of course, you knew that.... And, while I agree with the sentiments about Galaxy Quest, it was actually rated rather well.

1999's Titus with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Dir. Julie Taymor.

People keep saying "Office Space." This may be an underseen movie, but I don't know that it's underrated.

Everyone who sees it loves it, quotes it, takes it as a manifesto for living, and I even think the critics praised it too.

I don't understand why The Ghost and the Darkness wasn't given better praise by the critics because it sure SEEMED like a critic-pleasing movie. I loved it, but then, Val Kilmer was lookin' the hottest he'd EVER looked in a film so I'm biased. I think the cinematographer was nominated for an Oscar but I'm not sure. Still, IMO, it was underrated.

Zorro, The Gay Blade is freakin' hilarious but I wonder if it was too PI even for its time for most people to appreciate it.

Hook was a wonderful family movie and I really don't get why the critics hated it as much as they did.

The Fisher King is an amazing movie, too, but it was overshadowed by an RL shooting at the time which affected its popularity. Still, it's one of my favorite films and, IMO, was the best both Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges have ever been.

I don't think Executive Decision got the box office draw it should have gotten, but even though the premise was far-fetched (what action movie ISN'T?), I thought it was a better-than-average action film.

I think the main problem with Mystery Men and Galaxy Quest is that they both could have been funnier given their premises. Still, they both have some great one-liners we use here. "We're on a date with Destiny, and she just ordered the lobster," lol. And Tony Shalhoub STOLE every scene in Quest.

And not to knock other people's choices, but I completely get why Unbreakable and Starship Troopers didn't get any attention (they stank, badly).

Later,
bbeck

Office Space got a 76% at Rottentomatoes.com.

Oh, True Romance was the best movie Tony Scott ever directed but I think it's also one of his least popular.

Later,
bbeck

People keep saying "Office Space." This may be an underseen movie, but I don't know that it's underrated.

Uh, Ace? Did Office Space win an OSCAR? Did it inspire a burgeoning cult religion headed by a raft of major celebrities?

Is it roundly regarded as the Citizen Kane of the 90's?

No? Then it's underrated.

And more seriously, Sobek's analysis of Dazed and Confused is atrocious. If I was in the same room with him, I'd tie him to the floor and hire a homeless man to pecker whip him.

Rotten Tomatoes:

Movie Info

CONSENSUS
Mike Judge's black office comedy put many critics to sleep.

Oh. I guess I only saw the few positive reviews.

Eh. Critics are morons. Honestly, the more they praise a movie, the more I don't want to see it, and the more they slam a movie, the more I think it might be worth a look.

Depends, of course, on their reasons for slamming a movie. There is a certain kind of pan that suggests "real crap that even a critic can spot" and a kind of pan that suggests "probably a good movie, but they're too jaded to understand the typical moviegoer doesn't see six hundred movies a year, so what is 'cliched' to them is, to the average viewer, a common enough plot device that keeps being used because it keeps continuing to work."

but even though the premise was far-fetched

It was? Hijacking an airplane to crash it into washington DC?

Ummm... far-fetched?

The only element which is far-fetched is the stealth plane with the docking collar, but I don't even know if that's far-fetched.

What is far-fetched is the notion of Steven Seagal turning in a decent acting performance... but he did just that.

I thought Nighthawks had a lot going for until the last scene, where we are supposed to believe a guy the size of Sylvester Stallone is going to put on his girlfriend's nightgown and robe (how in the hell did he even get them on?), put on a wig, and wait for Rutger in the kitchen.

Until then, I thought he was a smart terrorist. He became a dumb ass in 3 and a half minutes.

Anybody remember Breaker Morant? Great film. From a book written by George Witton called Scapegoats of the Empire.

Greatly underrated actioner:

Navy Seals.

Is it just me, or is this movie f'n' fantastic?

where we are supposed to believe a guy the size of Sylvester Stallone is going to put on his girlfriend's nightgown and robe (how in the hell did he even get them on?)

Come on. That worked so well when you first saw it. You're nit-picking in retrospect.

He wasn't being a dumb-ass. He was on tilt. His plans had just been foiled, he was the subject of an international manhunt, he knew he'd be captured or dead in a week. He decided to get vicious revenge on his nemesis before he went.

Stallone wasn't huge in that movie, he's actually kinda short anyway, and no one says it was actually his gf's robe he had on. Could have bought one from a plus-sized shop, could have borrowed one from the chubby lady upstairs.

Rutger Hauer was too focused on the kill to notice details like the woman's size.

Diggstown.

And pretty much the entire ouvre of Jedi Master Oliver Platt.

Christine?

Scared me.

let's not forget "Bob Roberts."

Yes, it's all the things we love to hate. But dammit, it's a good movie - and liberals come off almost as bad as conservatives in it (Gore Vidal? Laughing at, not laughing with ...)

Shoulder to shoulder, he had to be twice her girth. I'll concede the camera work minimized it, which is why we would buy it, I'm just saying when you play it back in your head, no way.

But yeah, it's nitpicking. He coulda made a trip to Lane Bryant, never considered that.

Does Dr. Strangelove belong on this list? Hard to tell - I don't recall hearing how well it did at the box office, I have seen some of the promotional clips shot for the media (interesting, half screen views of Sellers and Scott, answering questions that ostensibily were distributed with the film clips, so local talent could be filmed asking the stock question, next to the actor answering the stock question).

Anyway, I love that friggin movie.

I don't know what kind of reviews Three Amigos! got, but I can't imagine they were glowing. So I'll assume it's underrated.

Breaker Morant?
Great movie.

The only element which is far-fetched is the stealth plane with the docking collar, but I don't even know if that's far-fetched.

That's a pretty darn big one...and the fact that they're crawling all over the insides of an airplane without having to feel even a little bit cramped. But hey, I'll forgive that 'cause Hollywood takes such liberties all the time. It's still a good movie, WAY better than Air Force One, for example. (And funny, I didn't see your "overrated movie" post until after I wrote my list here. I personally never forgot The Fisher King and I have it on DVD. It's hardly an art film.)

Another underrated movie: The Stepford Wives (the original)...but maybe you have to be a housewife to fully appreciate that one. :)

How about starting a thread about underrated actors?

Later,
bbeck

How about starting a thread about underrated actors?

or my personal favorite - best post-apocalyptic movies.

Breaker Morant was a great film (saw it about the same time as the great film Gallipoli, and so was Dr. Strangelove (got that on DVD). Strangelove is one of my hubby's favorite films.

Later,
bbeck

bbeck, your husband is probably flying one of the same 52s

"Nighthawks" and "Diggstown" were great movies. "Diggstown" is the only movie among the many attempts to replicate "The Sting" that actually pulls it off.

bbeck, I'll consider your agreement that "Starship Troopers" was a giant steaming turd to be validation of my original point. Maybe I'm just pissed that Heinlein's original point about whether a society where those who have served can rule more justly than those who never bothered to volunteer got steamrolled by a director obsessed with explosions & scoring political points against Republicans.

That doesn't mean that I don't see laura's point about ST being good brain candy (another good movie mentioned above). Heck, if they would have worked Denise Richards' lesbo antics with Neve Campbell from "Wild Things" into the plot - I could probably get around their butchering of the original story.

bbeck, your husband is probably flying one of the same 52s

Heh, they didn't use G or H models. I think they used D.

Later,
bbeck

Well, I did say it was crap. Part of this thread is underrated movies, and part is craptastic movies.

Come on. Doogie Howser and giant bugs? Fugheddaboutit.

lots of Ds were upgraded... they didn't chop up all the airframes at Davis Monthan

Doogie Howser and giant bugs?

Admittedly, the FX were decent and Doogie was the best part...especially when dressed in black leather at the end.

But, putting aside the butchery of Heinlein's work, sippin' brains through a straw was just one of the many scenes that didn't do it for me. :)

Later,
bbeck

My two favorite guy movies of all time:
Zulu and The Man Who Would Be King
Throw in The Wind And The Lion and make it a Limey sweep.
Being a real man does not get much better than these!

Funniest movie no one ever seems to have seen?
Whoops Apocalypse! (the movie version with Loretta Swift and Michael Richards, not the chopped together TV series version with John Cleese).
It does what Fish called Wanda tried and failed to do, combines the best of American humor with the outright wackiness of British humor.

Agreed, Starship Troopers sucked. And Jan Verhoeven directed Showgirls, which is an awful movie.

But Verhoeven also directed Robocop, which is a pretty good action flick. And he directed Soldier of Orange, a terrific movie about the occupation of Holland during the war - one of the best war movies I've seen. Both of those flicks belong on my "most underrated" list.

I don't know how these movies were rated when they came out but I think they are definately underrated now...

The Long Riders
Kelly's Heroes

Craptastic;

Buckaroo Bonzai across the 8th Dimension

Good 'Sunday morning with bacon n' eggs and the funny papers' film.

Yeah, don't really care for good films. Get enough drama in real life.

Victory with Michael Caine, Max vonSydow, Sylvester Stallone, and Pelé. I haven't seen it since it first came out, except for one late-night showing on TNT years ago. Most people have never even heard of it.

It had two things going against it: despite the fact that Caine and vonSydow can act both of them decided this one wasn't worth the effort, and the screenplay gave them every opportunity. But, astonishingly, it was still a great movie. How? Well, I'll just say this was the movie that taught me that any movie can be saved with a decent soundtrack. And this one was better than "decent".

Great movie? No. But definately underrated.

Hey, Buckaroo Banzai is a GREAT movie! :) Got that on DVD, too.

"I've been ionized, but I'm okay now."

And it's the best performance John Lithgow has EVER given.

I also have Victory, which IMO isn't that good, but it was in the Walmart $5.50 bin and Michael Caine is worth THAT much.

Later,
bbeck

Does anybody else here feel like they've done this before?
I think we've had this thread before, like a year ago.

Am I wrong?
Recommending Buckaroo Bonzai gave me wicked deja vu.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we've done this before.

I guess that's 3 thumbs up against my solitary thumb down for Buckaroo Banzai. Oh well.

On a brighter note - has anyone seen Plan 10 from Outer Space (not Plan 9)? Very quirky and funny.

Yes, when the subject of movies in general comes up around here, we all tend to talk about the same ones. I think we should all just post a list of our movies on DVD and never bring it up AGAIN.

Later,
bbeck

Zulu. Definitely.

Introducing Michael Caine.

Number one on my list is...not quite a movie. It's an anime series of 13 episodes of twenty-plus minutes each, Haibane Renmei. One of my favorite stories in any medium. For god's sake, don't look up anything about it, not even the briefest synopsis. One of the greatest things about this work is the way it reveals its secrets, and the more you know about it, the fewer secrets it gets to reveal. Because of slow pacing, some folks don't make it past the first (of four) discs. At least make it through disc 2. If you're not hooked by then, don't bother with the rest. There are no giant robots, ninjas, magical girls, or panties.

I strongly recommend watching the whole thing in one or two long sittings, say over a weekend. Then watch it again. Everything about the first two discs will now glow with foreshadowing and promise.


This is a story with deep mysteries, and it does not reveal all the answers.



If I'm absolutely stuck with 1-2 hour movies:



The Lighthorsemen: Beautiful WW One drama, set in the desert.



Big Trouble in Little China: "You never can tell." Hm, almost time to watch it again.


Stormy Monday: Perhaps the best noir film ever shot in color. Certainly the best one set in a London jazz bar.


Local Hero:A greedy Texas oil tycoon sets out to buy an entire Scottish town for his next supertanker terminal. Of course, the townsfolk are in an uproar over this evil plan, and devise a way to thwart it and humble their would-be master.

Oh, wait, sorry, wrong film. This one's the same, but different. Watch out for that motor bike.

The Crow: "But... this is the really real world." Must be watched in a darkened room, or you will miss a lot of detail.

Open Range: I am at a complete loss to understand why Kevin Costner, a hard-core gun grabber, made this magnificent testament to the Second Amendment.

Red Dawn: Implausible scenario precisely because conventional invaders knew this is the way things would play out. Hated by critics because the cuddly commies are defeated by wicked Americans--with personally owned firearms.

"I've been ionized, but I'm okay now."

Howard Dean got ionized...but he didn't get better.

He talks like some wretch that made a MatTrans jump gone bad that fried his brain.

[I'd like to see Deathlands made into a movie, it would be underrated]

Postman was kinda close and very underrated. Brin's book was better than the movie though. My mutant stickie brain thought Waterworld was pretty good too.

Does anybody else here feel like they've done this before?

It's worse than you thought. I think this is deja vu amnesia,

which means I think I've forgotten this before.

The Great Raid -- liberals hated it

Buckaroo Banzai -- best John Lithgow movie ever

Anything with Cary Grant

There are a couple of movies that come to mind as underrated or forgotten and deserve better:

A little 60's piece of fluff called "The Happening" Four teenagers (one of them Faye Dunaway) are goofing around one afternoon doing a little impromptu street theater with toy guns; creating a "Happening". Anthony Quinn is local gangster who mistakes their toy guns for real guns and believes he's being kidnapped for ransom. The teenagers go along with the theme - as you're supposed to do in a "happening". However, when it develops that nobody who knows him is willing to pay to rescue Anthony Quinn, he gets,uhm, angry (!) and takes control of the happening. It's a very dark comedy that's been forgotten.

Second: A movie called "Bad Timing" starring Art Garfunkle- Yes THAT Art Garfunkle. A dark but erotic study of several rather unsympathetic characters. A psychiatrist has a beautiful patient with whom he's having an affair. He grows tired of her erratic behavior - she keeps attempting suicide whenever she feels he's not giving her enough attention. One evening, she takes a lot of pills and, this time her suicide succeeds. The question: Did the psychiatrist wait to call the hospital until he knew it would be too late to save her? The answer: see the movie and decide.

Not to get personal, MasterofNone, but "Starship Troopers" sucked ass.

Why would I take that personal, I didn't make the movie? If you hadn't read the book (I have not), you might have a different perspective on this movie. If you substitute "Jap" for every utterance of the word "Bug", you'd get a pretty good approximation of a 1940's US propaganda film. I didn't get much of a Nazi feel from the flick, except for costumes. While the movie was made prior to the GWOT, it certainly picks up a lot of meaning in present term. Other positives include: excellent special effects, and a very fresh Denise Richards.

GI Jane. What a dumb, pompous, edgy attention grabbing idea for a movie.

But what a fucking cool movie.

Posted by ace

Ace,
The combat scenes sucked. Blair Witch Project with automatic weapons.

Urban Cowboy, Defiance, House Party, About Last Night, Drumline, Three O Clock High, The Big Picture, The Cutting Edge, Over The Edge, Accidental Tourist, Dinner Rush, North Dallas Forty, Boomerang, Swingers, Boogie Nights, High Fidelity, Quiz Show, Audition, Donnie Brasco, Bullets Over Broadway, Glengary Glenn Ross, The Firm...should I go on?

Office Space rocks, I totally agree with that one...

The Truman Show was awesome, and a rarely known movie called Under Hellgate Bridge was amazing.

The best movie ever...Almost Famous