Best movie nobody's heard of...

[TracerBullet42]

So everybody has some movie that they absolutely love and think is the greatest that none of their friends have heard of or enjoy. I'm not talking about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or The Matrix, here. I'm talking about the ones that didn't get too much press. The ones that flew in under the radar and most people haven't seen.

What movie do you love that nobody else seems to have heard of?

For me, it's Boondock Saints. I hadn't heard of it until recently, and I love this flick. Willem Dafoe is at his finest/weirdest in this movie. Two brothers in a old irish neighborhood who decide they are called to distribute the Lord's justice/wrath on the local criminals. Great, great movie.

And for a movie that nobody else seems to like that I enjoy...Mars Attacks. Everybody I know hates this movie. It cracked me up, though. I love the fact that everyone just believes their translator. "Don't run. We are your friends!" And they kill them all with Slim Whitman! How great is that? And the secretary of defense yelling out ,"KILL KILL KILL!"

Ah...good times. What's yours?

 

[diaglo]

The Wedding Banquet.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. I don't think any movie has ever impressed me more than Stalker. I don't know if I love it or hate it, but it's forever embedded in my mind.

 

[Belen]

Equilibrium- the movie just rocks.

 

[BobROE]

Equilibrium- the movie just rocks.

Damn, that's what I was going to say.
I guess someone has heard of it.

 

[The Sigil]

Good, yet mostly unknown movies with a D&D application:

Vincent Price's The Abominable Dr. Phibes - The perfect case study for creating a very insane, very intelligent, yet not irrational bad guy. Just because you're insane doesn't mean you cackle and laugh and are irrational.

I consider Alexander Nevsky to be one of the best "mass-combat" pictures ever... tactically, it's a great watch for the "hows and whys" of certain weapons in combat. Not as colorful as LotR's mass combat scenes, and certainly lacks the same scale (and it's in B&W), but for my money, the longer shots give a better tactical feel than the "action" feel of LotR.

Best unknown movie, period? Hard to say, I don't see a lot of movies, but I'll throw this one out...

I really liked "The Spiral Staircase" - saw it on PBS at about 1 am a few months ago - another B&W oldie but goodie that does a nice job with an insane arch-villain.

--The Sigil

 

[Zander]

For pure cheesiness, there are a couple I like: Hawk the Slayer and Jack the Giant Killer.

There's a film that I enjoyed purely for the setting: Blood of Heroes starring Rutger Hauer (sp?).

And not forgetting Fire & Ice by Frazetta for its artistic value.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Really like The Man That Knew Too Little

 

[CCamfield]

I consider Alexander Nevsky to be one of the best "mass-combat" pictures ever... tactically, it's a great watch for the "hows and whys" of certain weapons in combat. Not as colorful as LotR's mass combat scenes, and certainly lacks the same scale (and it's in B&W), but for my money, the longer shots give a better tactical feel than the "action" feel of LotR.

Definitely an old movie - it's a silent as I recall - but the battles were pretty darn cool.

I'm going to mention another old B&W movie from the 30s that I rather like - I wish I had a copy of it: The Saint in New York. This is thrilling if low-tech pulpy action as the absolutely fearless Saint (aka Simon Templar), played perfectly by Louis Hayward, cleans up the New York mob with little more than a pistol and his hidden throwing knife, Belle.

 

[Particle_Man]

A more recent film that I liked was Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp -- An anti-western western that dealt with the inevitability of death and how to deal with it. (Don't confuse it with Dead Man Walking).

Also, The Impostors and Big Night were both hilarious, but no one has heard of them.