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What Are Your Favorite Obscure Movies?
At the bottom of a webpage, between the “Actresses Who Age Badly” and “Bizarre Creatures of the Sea,” was a clickable list I couldn’t resist — “9 Great Movies You’ve Never Seen”. It turns out I had seen two of the movies, both of which I liked; the original Das Boot (with subtitles), and Fearless. The ones I hadn’t seen were:
- Amazon Women on the Moon
- Swimming With Sharks
- The Wild Blue Yonder
- May
- Secretary
- Hard Eight
- Bob Le Flambeur
Have you seen these films? If so, opinions please! What other lost gems should I be watching?
Published in General
The 1926 version of Ben Hur. And the first color movie ever made in Japan The Gate of Hell. Imagine Tristan and Isolde, only Isolde doesn’t reciprocate the feeling.
Oh, no. Shirtless Sean Connery in shorts. With a laser gun.
Well, apparently the reply function does not work. Dreyer’s Joan of Arc is one of the best films of the silent era. Everyone should see this. The Criterion Collection DVD is the best available to my knowledge.
Hey! Good to see that someone mentioned King of Masks. Let me also add Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.
@BastiatJunior: from what I remember of the short story “The Canterville Ghost” (it’s been ten years or so since I read it) I’d say that the 1996 movie is more sentimental and less witty but equally effective. Patrick Stewart pulls out all the stops as the anguished ghost; his intensity gives the film an emotional center that doesn’t depend on word-play alone.
Be sure to get the 1996 version with Stewart and Campbell; there’s a whole raft of TV movies and several feature films (as early as 1944) that have been made from this story, and I gather that most of them aren’t particularly good.
Edited: arrggghhh, this was supposed to post in Reply mode to BastiatJunior’s earlier comment [waves hands about in frustration].
There are some great movies here. I recently saw one I had never heard called Bronson. After seeing Tom Hardy in Warrior (movie of the year), I immediately became a fan. His range is nothing short of amazing.
Here is the overview: Based on the real Charles Bronson, Britain’s most famous inmate (not the American actor). He wants to be famous (like Kardashian famous). He enjoys prison, loves to fight and spent the majority of his life in solitary confinement.Tom Hardy gives one of the greatest acting performances of all time.
This is yet another film by Nicolas Winding Refn, which means that the direction is amazing as well. This film doesn’t really have a story, it’s a character study, and a damn fine one at that. This isn’t for everyone. Be prepared for oddness and an excessive amount of make full-frontal nudity, but at the end of the day you should have nothing but respect for Hardy as an actor.
Emphatic ditto to Sometimes a Great Notion.
But I wonder about “obscure” on this thread. How Green Was My Valley won Academy Awards for best picture, best director and best supporting actor. I Confess obscure? Can any film by a major director, Alfred Hitchcock, with a major star in the lead – Montgomery Clift- be considered obscure? If so, I’d nominate Ford’s Wagonmaster and The Sun Shines Bright.
Neither has a big star. Ford made the two low-budget movies in the Fifties, for himself, the latter especially so: a remake of a story he’d filmed two decades prior with Will Rogers. It was Ford’s own favorite of his films. I favor Rio Grande, but Ford may be right.
And Will Penny, a melancholy and wise, small-scale Western. Charlton Heston’s best performance; for once he doesn’t overact, and that aging, craggy face and the old athlete’s physical grace make for the perfect match between actor and theme. Opposite Heston is the wondrous Joan Hackett, who could be seed for another post – “Why not a big star?” Along with Paula Prentiss and Ann Heche and Cathy O’Donnell and Madeleine Stowe. No wonder actors pay astrologists.
The Great Jack Fowler from over at National Review suggested the Red Balloon, a beautiful gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdD49N5OmtE#t=89
I’ve always loved Westward the Women, a Frank Capra film that can be seen here: http://vdownload.eu/watch/2452244-westward-the-women-1951.html
Unbreakable will be remembered as M. Night’s masterpiece. Unlike his other films, the plot isn’t there to set up the twist.
A recent film that the FG wife and I — and JPod — highly recommend is All Is Lost.
Fans of Eraserhead’s Jack Nance should enjoy his turn as a squirrel-obsessed motel clerk in Motorama, a very strange road picture about a ten-year-old car thief searching across an America-like landscape for the winning ticket in a oil-company promotional contest. How David Lynch missed making this one I’ll never know.
Favorite esoteric film is The Ninth Configuration – written and directed by William Peter Blatty, author of the Exorcist. The elevator pitch for this movie is: it is a meditation on God’s existence which asks the question “If you think God is dead because of all the evil in the world then how do you account for all the good?” SEE THIS FILM!
Silent Running,,, Bruce Dern at his best. Admittedly an early environmental movie whose theme is a bit of a stretch, the acting and, for it’s day, sci fi effects are very good…..
Oh, and I forgot, The Lives of Others. It’s standard indoctrination in Castle Flenniken. On the conservative theme scale its rates an 8 on a 10 high scale. And in addition it stars my favorite German actress Martina Gedeck. Interestingly, I was in a conversation with a young German national the other day who was only 6 when the Berlin Wall fell. When I mentioned that my favorite German film was The Lives of Others she told me that this movie is a cult classic among young Germans that were too young to remember the East German oppression.
And while I wouldn’t class it as a “favorite” I will encourage people, sometimes, to watch The Stoning of Soraya M. It takes genuine courage to watch. I’ve only seen it once, in a small Indie theatre in Atlanta. At the end of the movie the audience just sat in their seats.. stunned. I won’t watch it again but I will offer it up to anyone that wants to argue about big government and civil liberties.
Horror Hotel aka City of the Dead (1961) starring Christopher Lee- a classic, eerie horror movie- relying on mood and story, not blood and gore- complete with witches and their evil ways. Never forgot this movie since seeing it for the first time when I was in the single digits. Best to watch on a dark and stormy night. (Available on Amazon Prime).
Oh, I’m glad I saw it. It’s an interesting film. It’s required-viewing for a film geek.
But it’s not a “lost gem” or required-viewing for a general audience.
No! No, no, no, no!!!
Not only is it a terrible sop to foolish environmentalism, the Joan Baez sountrack is like nails down a blackboard, the robots are ridiculously silly, and the plot is full of holes big enough to fly a Star Destroyer though.
The visual effects are sumptuous. That’s what you get when the director was the visual effects supervisor on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I admit that it’s theme is environmental pap. That said, I enjoyed Dern’s acting and for its day it worked for me on the sci fi level.
Can not agree more. This movie is one of the best I’ve seen recently and I avoided it precisely because of the sex doll thing. Great exploration of the importance of women told in such a refreshing way.
Also, loved that it had a strong sense of place where religion was naturally incorporated. Highly underrated movie.
How could I have forgotten Babette’s Feast (1987)? A very interesting film. I will never forget one of the dishes she prepares: Sarcophagus of Quail.
Lunopolis – two documentary filmmakers stumble across a powerful cabal on the moon. Kinda like Colin Wilson meets Scientology.
I saw “Sometimes a Great Notion,” many years ago under the title “Never Give an Inch.” Was that the title given it because Ken Kesey was off limits after “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?”
I also second Buckaroo Banzai. For years, I thought it was edging up on Casablanca as the best ever movie.
A few relatively obscure films come quickly to mind, all with either terrific soundtracks and/or connections with outstanding rock musicians.
Streets of Fire – Michael Pare, Diane Lane, Willem Dafoe ( a fun fantasy with one great song after another)
Performance – James Fox, Mick Jagger (features the great uptempo Jagger song “Memo from Turner”)
Local Hero – Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster (haunting Mark Knopfler score with the Gerry Rafferty-sung “That’s the Way It Always Starts”)
The Family Way – Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, John Mills (Paul McCartney score)
And, just for the heck of it,
Walkabout – Jennie Agutter
My husband suggests that Bandwagon is a good film that few people saw that accurately conveys what it’s like to be in a band (the 1996 Bandwagon, not the musical).
Meet John Doe
Gary Cooper \ Barbara Stanwick by the guy who did “It’s A Wonderful Life”.
-wbajr tbc
I don’t know if any of you have seen it but there’s this really obscure film called Citizen Kane. I thought it was pretty interesting.
I rewatch Pi fom time to time. (Not “Life of…”)
Amazon Women on the Moon is a truly great sketch movie. I’d suggest the original (1974) Talking of Pelham One Two Three. Walter Mathau made Charley Varrick the next year, another forgotten gem.
Evil Roy Slade is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. The sight gags alone are worth watching it for.