Suggest your favourite movies that people may have overlooked.

[Liam]

I'm gonna piss on the chips somewhat, but I felt completely let down by Oldboy. I heard how good it was, and frankly, it just did very little for me. I love foreign films as well, so it isn't even as if that was an issue.

EDIT: Actually, whilst I am here, I'll throw out some love for Love, Honour and Obey. Jude Law, Johnny Lee Miller and Ray Winstone, as well as some other UK stars. Written by the same guys who wrote the sitcom Operation Good Guys, and is just a really good UK gangster/comedy film.

Edited February 19, 2011 by Liam

[B-Rad]

"11:14" is one of my all time favorite films, don't know a lot of people who have seen it.

Other one I really like is "Bang Bang, You're Dead," low budget and about school shootings and stuff, but it's just a great fuckin' movie. (no official trailer, though)

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Anyone else seen 12:01? It's similar to Groundhog Day in that time keeps resetting for one guy at 12:01am every day. Bit less comical though but I think it's a great film.

[VinnyT]

One more for In Bruges. Didn't even hear of it until Colin Farrell won his Golden Globe for it. I saw it like two days later at the library, and thought it would be decent.

And by decent, it was really HOLY FUCKING SHIT! It is such a perfect script! If it had gotten a proper American release everyone would love it. But I love being able to show it to near everyone I meet. One girl I met was new to our social group and didn't talk much. Then I randomly said "Bruges is a shithole" and she laughed and said "They're filming midgets!". I miss her.

Anyway: Random suggestions.

Fracture: Ryan Gosling is a young lawyer on the brink of a six figure job, but is suddenly brought into an easy case where Anthony Hopkins shot Embeth Davidz in the face. It's really a great movie.

The Constant Gardener : Went into it not expecting much, just a random Netflix choice on a lazy afternoon. What looks like generic political thriller opens up to something a lot more emotional and thoughtful. Maybe a little slow at times, but it all blends well. Worth a watch.

La Vie En Rose : I only watched it because of Marion Cotillard, but instead I got a great biopic about Edit Piaf, who is more than just "Oh, she sang that song from Incepton". I usually can stay reserved during films, but one scene is done SO well I actually cried. The matter itself probably wouldn't have done it, but the way it just suddenly hits you, it's insane. Love this film very much.

Sweet & Lowdown : When I'm reading lists of Woody Allen's best films, I NEVER see this, and it's a shame. A mockumentary/biopic on a jazz guitar legend, this one surprised me too when I randomly grabbed it for cheap one day. It's really worth finding. If anything, it's Samantha Mortons movie. She's unforgettable.

Sullivan's Travels : A film from 1941 that seems to have inspired the Coen Brothers on at least two of their films. A film that's just as good as other films from the era that are talked about all the time, yet this one gets forgotten.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans : Fairly new, awesome "Nicolas Cage is insane" movie.

Harry Brown: Michael Caine drives wiggers (or, I suppose Chav's in this case?) out of his neighborhood by shooting them all in the face. I'm sold.

Affliction : Nick Nolte is a divorced father trying to keep things sane. His alcoholic badass father James Coburn isn't helping though. Pretty damn good.

I typed more than I was expecting...

Edited February 24, 2011 by VinnyT

[Timmoru Suzuki]

I TOTALLY forgot about this the other day; this is a real favourite of mine. It's such a simple film, yet possesing a powerful message, it looks gorgeous and it's well scripted and acted to boot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNq8LoYjG2E

[Jimmy]

Not too many people seem to have seen Mullholland Drive and it's one of my favourite films. It was my first David Lynch experience and, for lack of better words, it was a complete mindfuck. It's a film that's just stuck with me since I saw it, but I haven't come across many who've heard of it.

[Josh]

Seen it. And it's a mindfuck for the sake of a mindfuck. I found nothing of true substance in it, at least in the latter half or so of the film.

[Skummy]

Mullholland Drive is a fantastic film, and not that much of a "mindfuck", certainly not just for the sake of it. It's not Lynch's best work, but it's possibly his most "Lynchian" - all his key themes are in there, and expressed beautifully. I see Mulholland Drive as an extension of Twin Peaks, or at least something that occurs in the same universe (a lot of the ideas came from the proposed third season of TP, and even beyond that Mulholland Drive itself was intended as a TV pilot before it was a feature film).

It's a tribute to classic Hollywood ideals, while utterly rejecting them at the same time, and does to Hollywood what Twin Peaks did to small-town America, while keeping up the supernatural elements along similar lines. It's not the most linear narrative, but I can't understand people saying that they can't follow it at all, I certainly don't see it as a "mindfuck".

The thing with Lynch, and maybe I enjoy this more than some people, is it's not always about film-as-storytelling, sometimes it's about film-as-film. He films a lot of stuff because he likes the way it looks, or because he has a scene in mind, but he's not entirely sure where it fits. Maybe his approach isn't to everybody's taste, but I love it, and Mulholland Drive is one of the better put together films of his, between the story, the superb cinematography, a great performance from Naomi Watts, and the beautiful score by Angelo Badalamenti.

Lynch doing mindfuck for the sake of mindfuck is Inland Empire - a film that even as an enormous Lynch fan I just can't defend.

Good Night and Good Luck is amazing stuff. Just so brilliantly written, and so well-paced for a film that is essentially nothing but rhetoric layered on rhetoric. Absolutely love it.

[the machine]

Lynch doing mindfuck for the sake of mindfuck is Inland Empire - a film that even as an enormous Lynch fan I just can't defend.

Completely agreed. I didn't get Mulholland Drive the first time I saw it, but it's not incomprehensible, just something that makes far more sense on a second viewing. For more evidence about how much Lynch just loves referencing old cinema while taking it apart, check out his comedies, which in general are not great, but are at least different from most comedies. Wild at Heart is Nicolas Cage as an Elvis-obsessed man in love and contains several allusions to the Wizard of Oz of all things.

[Mysterio2000X]

Heat. Michael Mann at his best featuring one of the best modern casts, and including some of the best shootout scenes in any movie. Great, great movie, and what Public Enemies should have been (only set during the Depression, obviously).

From Dusk Til Dawn. Just a good, fun time to be had. By that same token, Desperado and Once Upon A Time In Mexico, though I like From Dusk til Dawn better than those two.

Once Upon A Time In America. I recently caught the original, 4 hour-ish cut of the movie. Oh, damn!

Universal Soldier: Regeneration, and I am totally serious. The original Universal Soldier's one of those childhood favorites of mine, and this movie actually comes close in terms of just being entertaining. Stars Van Damme, Lundgren, Andrei Arlovski and Mike Pyle.

Black Dynamite. One of the funniest movies of the past decade. Go watch it.

And finally, Big Trouble In Little China. Because, seriously. That movie rocks.

[hot rod]

SLC Punk

Brick

Daybreakers

Spun

Party Monster

Holy Rollers

Highway

[Mysterio2000X]

SLC Punk

Brick

Daybreakers

Spun

Party Monster

Holy Rollers

Highway

Spun, SLC Punk, Brick and Party Monster are all varying degrees of awesome. Daybreakers? Eh, not so much.

[hot rod]

I actually enjoyed Daybreakers a lot. I found it to be pretty clever, and the shot with the Vamp army killing one another was just awesome!

The Goods with Jeremy Piven doesn't get as much recognition as I think it should, as it's a pretty damn funny movie. I remember hating it in theaters, but when it came out I rented it and bought it the very next day. She's Out Of My League is pretty overlooked as well from what I have noticed which is unfortunate. It's not an amazing ground-breaking film or anything, but there's nothing wrong with it from the ten times I've seen. And finally Wristcutters, which is my favorite film of all time.

[OctoberRaven]

Daybreakers would have been an OK movie if the plot behind it wasn't "the vampires here are complete idiots, and get cured in a way that makes absolutely no sense"

Edited March 18, 2011 by OctoberRavenO

[hot rod]

I don't know what you didn't understand, it was quite simple... A vampire bites a former vampire and they turn back to a human.

[OctoberRaven]

I was talking about the sunlight and water bullshit, but that was kind of lame too.

 Also that these anti-sunlight shields were apparently made of glass, when shutter steel or kevlar would, you know, not shatter on impact so easily. 

Oh, and the human shortage bullshit. First of all, this wasn't even a big deal because animal blood worked just as fine. Second of all, the vampires are SHOCKED that their human cattle are dying, when they aren't bothering trying to make more. Or feed them. And probably not even monitoring their blood pressure to make sure they don't run right out of blood. If they just put half the female humans aside, fertilize them invitro by using samples from healthy male humans, they would have more humans. Oh, and giving them food and water, that's kind of important too. 

The movie was mediocre without these logical flaws, but with them they become probably the worst vampire movie not based on a Stephanie Meyer novel.

Edited March 18, 2011 by OctoberRavenO

[hot rod]

That's why Edward was trying to make the generic blood so vampires could continue to survive without having to depend on human blood. But the big corporation said that vampires would still pay for the real thing. And the shortage of human blood was why they started putting less blood in the coffee and other stuff like that, if you remember that at all.

The poor were feeding on themselves causing themselves to turn into sub siders while the rich were able to afford actual human blood. Kinda had a George A. Romero meaning to it, if you ask me.

I thought it was the best vampire movie to come out since Interview... that is until Let Me In came out.

As for the sun/fire that was pretty lame but was just the writer's own twist on the Vampire gen

Edited March 18, 2011 by hot rod

[OctoberRaven]

But they didn't even need human blood. Animal blood was a viable substitute.

That's like saying "there's a lobster shortage, so we're going to starve to death because we just can't settle for a goddamn ham sandwich. Also we could breed more lobster but we're too lazy to bother doing that"

[hot rod]

I understand that but if you remember, the head of the headquarters that was harvesting human blood, said and I quote "People will still pay for the real thing". The real thing being human blood, not animal blood or the generic blood Edward was trying to make. And besides they had human hunters (the army that Edwards brother was a part of) anyway to find any human they could possibly find to harvest them for blood. So it's not like they weren't doing anything about the shortage of humans.

[Meacon Keaton]

This argument is beyond lame. The movie sounds terrible.