Best movie nobody's heard of...

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

A couple of people have mentioned Bill Forsyth's Local Hero. Has anyone seen his film Comfort and Joy? It came out the year after Local Hero and I last saw it when I was just a kid. Very funny film about duelling ice cream vendors in Glasgow. I find myself still humming the ice cream van music to this day:

"Doot-doo-doo doot-doot-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo! Hello folks!"

It's hardly unknown, but for some reason no one I know has seen Raising Arizona. That's just wrong. Hell, I saw that when I was 10.

 

[Welverin]

Great topic, and I have the perfect movie to suit the category -- the version of 'Robin Hood' which starred Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman. Loved, loved, loved that movie, and I don't know of anyone else that's seen it. It came out at approximately the same time as Costner's version <*spit, spit*>, so the producers got scared, I suppose, and just ran it on network television. Definitely a "darker-n-grittier" version of the tale.

I desperately want this on DVD.

I'm not sure how unknown it is, but Josie and the Pussycats is great. I'd say it qualifies for overlooked though.

I too am a Boondock Saints fan who had never heard of it until a friend handed me the DVD and said I would like it.

 

[Kesh]

Gonna back Dog Soldiers as a really good low-budget flick. As the director said, "It's a soldier movie with werewolves in it, not a werewolf movie with soldiers in it."

Forget about Omega Man. Doesn't hold up well over time. Instead, pick up the black & white Last Man On Earth, starring Vincent Price. Both of these films are based on the short story "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, though the Price film stays closer to the original subject.

Hm, what else...

Oh! If you didn't grow up in the 80's, you might have missed The Lost Boys. Cheesy flick about teenage vampires, but it does really well with the monster conventions. (Holy water, flying, the master, etc.) Kiefer Sutherland stars in this, rather early in his career IIRC.

Also, if you're not familiar with anime, you might want to pick up Perfect Blue. Think of what would have happened if Alfred Hitchcock got to do an animated film, and you'll start to get an idea of the mind-trip this film puts you through.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I was going to say both Dog Soldiers and Equilibrium, but I see they've already been mentioned.

How about Identity? That was good.

BTW - I hear Dog Soldiers 2 is in the making.

 

[Harp]

It's hardly unknown, but for some reason no one I know has seen Raising Arizona. That's just wrong. Hell, I saw that when I was 10.

And that's the funny thing about this category. Just about everyone in my circle has seen this one, definitely my favorite Coen brothers flick.

"No, not that mother-scratcher! Bill Parker!"

Another one I get a lot of blank stares at is Waking Ned Devine, a great little movie about a winning lottery ticket and a small Irish village. Definitely non-genre, but a personal favorite of recent years.

 

[The Sigil]

I was thinking... I saw this really great series of movies recently, which I'm sure flew under most folks' radar, considering they star almost exclusively foreign actors and was filmed by a foreign director in a foreign country... anyone here seen Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy? Great D&D movies, that's for sure, if you can find someplace that's heard of them... I hear you can find the earlier offerings in the series on VHS these days... though I guess they're too obscure to have the entire series put out yet... maybe I can lobby for a "Collector's Box Set" in DVD or something...

--The Sigil

 

[The Sigil]

There's also this one, done by my brother's old college roommate... takes a while to load, but worth it.

http://www.spiritonin.com/animation/film/rubbersharktrailor1.mov

Some funny spoilers regarding the fate of the actors in this movie (SEE THE MOVIE BEFORE READING SPOILERS!!!):

Spoiler

when my brother was rooming with this guy, their entire front room was absolutely covered in rubber sharks. They were on the TV, on the bookshelves, nailed to the walls, and so forth. For a while, all the roommates were a bit weirded out about having guests - especially ladies - over to visit with all the rubber sharks around, but eventually they just got used to it and would laugh if someone freaked out during their first visit ("they're just sharks, come on..."). When he got married and his new bride came over to help him move out, she looked at the sharks, and said,

"those are NOT going in MY front room!"

Spoiler

So of course, they left the rubber sharks in my brother's apartment for a while, then he came along and picked them up a few days later (without her), mumbling something to the effect of,

"man, she doesn't know a good deal when she sees it... I got those guys on the cheap every time."

Spoiler

I guess he was allowed to put them into his "work room" or something. Apparently, he made sure to collect them at Toys Sure R Expensive and whatnot during "going out of business sales" and combed garage sales. The guy just had a thing for rubber sharks. I think he once bragged that he had never paid more than $3 for any of them. Then again, my brother always did have weird roommates.

Oh, well, I guess dealing with people like that's a part of the college experience.

--The Sigil

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I'm always surprised by how many avowed Highlander fans haven't heard of Highlander 2: The Quickening. There's people who even say it doesn't exist. I'm not even a Highlander fan and I've seen it. Weird...

 

[Kai Lord]

1. Nightwatch - Ewan McGregor thriller about a security guard on the night shift at a morgue who gets framed by the murderer sending all the bodies his way. Excellent movie, with some very creepy moments.

2. Bullet in the Head - The best of John Woo's Hong Kong flicks. Be warned, its a downer.

Recent recommendation:

The Salton Sea starring Val Kilmer in a Memento-esque tale of revenge for his wife's murder.

And a USA Up All Night classic:

Tammy and the T-Rex - Denise Richards' boyfriend (Paul Walker) is grabbed by bullies and dragged out to a park at night in L.A. where he is mauled by a lion before his brain is transplanted into a full size T-Rex allowing him to get his revenge on said bullies. Concludes with Richards performing a striptease for Walker's disembodied brain and eyeballs. The epitomy of high art.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Tammy and the T-Rex - Denise Richards' boyfriend (Paul Walker) is grabbed by bullies and dragged out to a park at night in L.A. where he is mauled by a lion before his brain is transplanted into a full size T-Rex allowing him to get his revenge on said bullies. Concludes with Richards performing a striptease for Walker's disembodied brain and eyeballs. The epitomy of high art.

I'm... speechless.

-Hyp.