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  1. #1

    blockbuster / netflix

    We seem to have some movie buffs out here in cyberspace any suggestions for obscure, semi obscure, or forgotten movies that are worth a view.
    I saw one yesterday which is a great rental for a "family movie" although the F word is used in the original movie...Adventures in Babysitting...really thought it was a funny movie had seen it before and forgotten how good it was. Also has some actors who you may recognize from other places.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles

    some thoughts

    I'm not sure one would consider these movies "obscure" but here are the following suggestions:

    Balls of Fire
    The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
    Holiday
    Killer Clowns from Outerspace
    the original Swept Away
    A Man and a Woman
    Z
    M
    Soylent Green
    Little Caesar
    Brother Orchid
    The Court Jester
    Twentieth Century
    Midnight Express
    the original Bishop's Wife

    Love to hear what you think of these. (And can't wait for others post)

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles

    more thoughts -- you're keeping me up at night

    Trying to sleep I keep thinking of wonderful movies. So...here goes:

    When the Earth Stood Still
    Lifeboat
    Boy on a Dolphin
    Never Cry Wolf
    Black Stallion
    A Little Romance
    Man of a Thousand Faces
    My Man Godfrey

    ...sleep now (I hope) pray that movies stop running through my head.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    St. Louis

    The Day the Earth Stood Still

    The Day the Earth Stood Still is the title. Klaatu barada nikto!

    also:
    Now, Voyager
    The Old Maid (yes, I'm a Bette Davis fan)
    I Know Where I'm Going
    A Letter to Three Wives
    Shadow of a Doubt (if any Hitchc*ck movie can be considered semi-obscure)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    I think this is an impossible exercise unless you let us know what kind of movies you like. I am sure we can all come up with huge lists of smaller, lesser-known films if we have something to narrow it down.

    Comedy? Action? Romance? Thirller? Sci-Fi/Fantasy?
    Do you like older films or want newer stuff?
    Do language or nudity or violence bother you?
    do you want to see big stars before they were stars or do you like watching no-name actors?

    --Jason "Give us that kinda info and we can work miracles" Evans

  6. #6

    Thanks

    LA Mom Thanks
    Jason you are thinking too much, say a cousin moved into the town you live in and you have not seen him for a while and he said I heard you are into movies why don't you bring a couple by and we can watch one or two on Saturday.

  7. #7

    obscure or fogotten movies?

    Looking at the titles posted here, it looks like some of you are kids (please take that as a compliment) who regard almost any pre-WWII (make that pre-Vietnam war) black and white movie as obscure or forgotten. Seriously -- Shadow of a Doubt? Lifeboat? Now, Voyager? Little Caeser? Twentieth Century? The Day the Earth Stood Still?

    Great movies, but why not suggest It Happened One Night or Bringing Up Baby? There's this neat little flick called Casablanca that a few of my friends like.

    I'm sorry -- I don't mean to be critical, but I understand where Jason was coming from. If we're going to merely list great movies from the past, the list would be nearly endless. We can give you a long list of films to illuminate film history or we can target interesting but obscure and interesting films.

    Just a few fairly recent examples of actual obscure films:

    -- Bubba Ho-Tep: Bruce Campbell, more famous as Sam Raimi's hero in films like Army of Darkness, gives a bravura performance as an aging Elvis Presley, living in obscurity in a west Texas nursing home (how he got there is a hilarious story-with-in-a-story). He joins forces with Ossie Davis, who turns out to be a crippled JFK (turned black so no one will suspect that he survived the shooting in Dallas with half his brain), to fight a 2,000-year-old mummy that is preying on the inhabitants of the nursing home. A whacked-out funny movie that will suddenly reach up and grab you with real emotion when you least expect it (like when the daughter of Elvis's departed roomate shows up to claim his pitiful belongings) ... and let me say that the King's final exit is one for the books.

    -- Funny Bones: Oliver Platt is the son of Jerry Lewis, a first-rank comic star, who ruins his son's first chance at Vegas. Platt returns to the small, rundown British resort where his father honed his craft and digs up some dark secrets. An amazingly insightful look at the nature of comedy and the risks involved in great humor. Great performance by Leslie Caron (who has aged very well) and Lee Evans, who turns out to be Platt's brilliant, but troubled half-brother. Platt deserved as Oscar nomination ... maybe Jerry Lewis did too as he played his vile, swarmy "Buddy Love" character to the hilt.

    -- Britney, Baby, One More Time: An amazing confluence of two true stories -- one about an 18-year-old Britney Spears impersonator who was mistaken by ET as the real Britney and the other about a real Minnesota filmmaker (Mark Borschardt, featured in the Sundance prize-winning documentary "American Movie") trying to get his sci-fi masterpiece financed, in a fictional story about a Britney lookalike contest winner traveling with a small-time filmmaker from Minnesota to New Orleans to meet the real Britney. An amazing twist on the classic American road picture. Be warned, Borschardt is a terrible actor, although Angel Benton makes a great Britney.

    -- Infinity: Maybe not quite as obscure, but surprisingly little buzz about a film that stars Matthew Broderick, Patricia Arquette and Peter Riegert (of Animal House and Local Hero fame). Directed by Broderick, it's the true story of Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynmann and his tragic romance with Arline Greenbaum in the period just before and during WWII (the movie ends on the night after the successul A-Bomb test at Trinity). A true three-hanky weeper and IMHO a much better film than the similar, but much-honored A Dangerous Mind.

    PS I did like rasputin's suggestion of I Know Where I'm Going. A great example of a quirky British comedy and more obscure than the equally entertaining Whiskey Galore, Passport to Pimlico, Titfield Thunderbolt or the very well-known Alec Guiness masterpieces (Kind Hearts and Coronets, etc.).

    I would suggest a weekend double-feature -- rent I Know Where I'm Going and Murder on the Orient Express ... you would get nearly a life-spanning look at actress Wendy Hiller -- from an attractive, vibrant young woman to an aging, fragile crone. If you like Hiller in "Where I'm Going" you might want to check her out in Pascal's GB Shaw films -- Major Barbara and Pygmalian.

    And if you really like British comedy, try this double feature: Whiskey Galore (sometimes called Tight Little Island) and the more recent Local Hero ... sometimes I think the two films are about the same Scottish community, just 50 years apart.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    I've mentioned there two here before but if you have not seen The Matador or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang then you are missing something. Kiss has some great writing by Shane Black and Matador features amazing acting by Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. Both are violent and deserve their R-ratings, but were enjoyable trips.

    Kinda busy at the moment-- but I'll come up with more soon.

    -Jason

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles

    Wink to Olympic Fan

    Yeah, I know that some of my movies aren't really that 'obscure.' BUT if I can entice the 'youngsters' on this site to enjoy the magic of James Dean, Alec Guinness, John Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, K. Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson, Cagney, etc. etc. then I feel that I have been of service.

    Wonderful movies that I didn't list (besides the ones you've mentioned) include: Anchors Aweigh, Sayonara, Some Like It Hot, Citizen Kane, Dr. Strangelove, Lavendar Hill Gang, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, It Happened One Night, etc. etc. BUT I felt these choices were not really 'obscure' at all.

    Sorry I disappoint with my use of the word 'obscure.'

  10. #10
    For a fun movie(s), watch The Italian Job. I really like both - the 2003 movie with Mark Wahlberg and the original, 1969 with Michael Caine.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lompoc, West Carolina

    You Can't Take It With You

    Nearly anything starring Peter Sellers.
    Also
    Time Bandits
    Yellowbeard
    Being There
    All the Pink Panthers-my fav Shot in the Dark
    Dukemom mentioned The Day the Earth Stood Still. Scared me nearly to death back when I was still in the whelping box. It was shown on NBC's "Saturday night at the Movies" then.
    She also included the original The Bishop's Wife-my all time fav Christmas flick.
    Any Frank Capra movie

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lompoc, West Carolina

    Talking Continued due to grill ready to cook

    The Miracle of Morgan Creek
    Any Marx Brothers
    My Man Godfrey was already mentioned, to add
    anything with William Powell-all the Thin Man series
    If you can find it, Burns and Allen Shorts-one reelers from early 30's
    also Burns and Allen TV show from early 50's. Gracie Allen was a comedic genius any Harold Lloyd film-Mr. Diddlebock in particular

  13. #13

    harold lloyd

    Interesting that you would mention The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Harold Diddlebock (the film has actually been released under two titles -- Mad Wednesday and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock).

    Both were directed by Preston Sturges, although only the latter stars Lloyd.

    I quite agree that Lloyd is an underappreciated genius -- in the silent era there were three great clowns: Keaton, Chaplin and Loyd. Lloyd's silent masterpiece is Safety Last (with the famous sequence on the side of the building), but I prefer Speedy (with an extrended camero -- almost a supporting actor performance -- by Babe Ruth).

    For those of you who don't like silent films, Lloyd made IMHO two brilliant sound comedies -- 1938's Professor Beware (with a great comic turn by Frank Morgan, a year before he played the Wizard of Oz) and 1947's The Sin of Harold Diddlebock.

    Let me suggest the latter (it's available on DVD) because it is also a Sturges film.

    Sturges started out as a successful writer who crossed over into directing in 1940 when he sold the script to The Great McGinty to Paramont for $1 and the right to direct. That was the first of a series a absolutely brilliant comedies for Paramount -- The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is one, along with the brilliant Sullivan's Travels (Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake), Palm Beach Story, Christmas in July, the Lady Eve (Barbara Stanwick and a goofy Henry Fonda) and my personal favorite Hail the Conquering Hero (great comic turn by Eddie Bracken and William Demerest as the sarge in charge of a bunch of crazy Marines). All of them still hold up as great, hilarious comedies.

    But by 1947, Sturges was out with the studio and had to made Diddlebock on a shoestring. It's brilliant in a lot of ways ... It opens with a 10-minute sequence from his 1925 hit The Freshman (who Lloyd becomes a college football hero)... Sturges film is an examination of that young hero 20 years later and how he turns his life around after getting fired, drunk (the scene where bartender Billy Gilbert, the former silent star, creates "The Diddlebock" is a masterpiece) and something else we don't learn about until the end.

    DEFINITELY a forgotton masterpiece!

    PS Sturges was uncredited, but actually had a lot to do with polishing the script of Twentieth Century, the Barrymore-Lombard classic that Dukemom mentioned earlier.
    Last edited by Olympic Fan; 07-15-2007 at 11:41 AM.

  14. #14

    "Silent" Movie

    If you really like silent movies and music there are a few places where you can experience silent movies as intended with an orchestra and live music. My family went to one a couple of years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lompoc, West Carolina

    Talking

    The scene of a drunk Lloyd with the lion is brilliant.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Raleigh NC
    Movies I recommend:
    My top 5 "recent" but not entirely mainstream recommendations:
    A Bronx Tale
    Dogma
    Coming to America
    Saved
    The Usual Suspects

    But if you want the classics, here are some to consider:
    "On the boardwalk"
    "It Happened One Night"
    "The longest Day"
    "Tora Tora Tora"
    "Casablanca"

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, NC

    good movies

    I absolutely love the Black Stallion and Time Bandits. Have both on DVD.

    For more grownup movies, I would recommend The Getaway with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, Racing with the Moon ( a very young Sean Penn), Breaking Away (a classic, especially during the Tour de France). The Sting is always one of my favorites. I also loved O, Brother Where Art Thou?, Usual Suspects, and Sling Blade.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Raleigh NC

    Blockbuster/Netflix

    Amost forgot: Stalag 17!

  19. #19

    Thanks

    Thanks for the suggestions some of these films I have seen but some I have not and look forward to seeing them. I am a Peter Sellers fan and one good and bad thing he did is make his Inspector Clouseu so unique that no one else can play the role. I was surprised that Steve Martin would try it seems like a losing proposition. Some of my favorites. .

    The Thin Blue Line....is the movie that opened up my eyes to how the death penalty is flawed

    Breaking Away...everyone cheats and this was before EPO and BALCO, just a great feel good movie.

    Picnic at Hanging Rock... my wife's pick not everyone's cup of tea but it stays with you.

    What's eating Gilbert Grape... see two great young actors early in their career. But a really fun movie.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles

    Oh, yeah

    Just read the mention of "Black Stallion." Awesome -- so visually stunning. Shot by the best DP on the planet earth.

    Also glad to hear some kudos for Preston Sturges. Ain't he grand?

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