obscure MUST SEE movies

[luckyjimm]

London d. Patrick Keillor, narrated by Paul Schofield. More a novel than a film, and bearing comparison with Iain Sinclair's Orbital, it's told entirely through highly literate voiceover, e.g:

"For Londoners, London is obscured. Too thinly spread, too private for anyone to know. Its social life invisible, its government abolished, its institutions at the discretion of either monarchy or state or the City, where at the historic centre there nothing but a civic void, which fills and empties daily with armies of clerks and dealers, mostly citizens of other towns. The true identity of London, he said, is in its absence. As a city it no longer exists. In this alone it is truly modern. London was the first metropolis to disappear."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110377/

[luckyjimm]

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - not really obscure since it was the crowning glory of England's Ealing studios, but perhaps not so well known in America. A ludicrously dark and funny film, in which Alec Guinness - who was a talented and accomplished actor, not just Obi Wan Kenobi! - plays eight different characters.

"Louis Mazzini's mother belongs to the aristocratic family D'Ascoyne, but she ran away with an opera singer. Therefore, she and Louis were rejected by the D'Ascoynes. Once adult, Louis decides to avenges his mother and him, by becoming the next Duke of the family. Murdering every potential successor is clearly the safest way to achieve his goal... "

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041546/

(#147 in the top 250).

[Superfluous Man]

Wow, someone already mentioned Spirit of the Beehive. Good call.

Also, Luis Buñuel made some pretty good movies: Viridiana, El Angel Exterminador, and Belle de Jour come to mind.

[TomTom]

The General (1927) staring Buster Keaton.

The IMBD tagline is Tagline: Love, Locomotives and Laughs

Recreates the civil war story of the stealing of the engine of title fame, some of the most amazing truly death defining stunts ever done.

Yeah, it’s a silent movie. Yeah, it’s incredibly great.

[Clarkmeister]

All gamblers must see Let it Ride at least once, maybe ten times, in their lives. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Jennifer Tilley and David "Buster Poindexter" Johanssen.

[Badger]

[ QUOTE ]
I also finished Mike Judge's newest movie Idiocracy and though it was absolutely hilarious.

[/ QUOTE ]
Good lord, I thought this movie was awful. I hate to rip on another person's taste in movies, as I have plenty of favorites that are not beyond reproach, but my antipathy towards this movie demands that I do so.

I felt swindled upon leaving the theater. I hadn't heard of the movie until a friend sent me a Guardian article that talked the movie up, as if it was some hidden gem that the Fox Studios didn't want you to see, because it was too clever, too witty and too satiric. The author made it sound almost like it was a great injustice that this movie was not getting the wide spread opening he thought it deserved (Fox drastically cut the number of screens it was showing on and didn't do much to advertise it). I went with about 5 other people, including said friend. I consider the group as having a good sense of humor that was also varied. Upon exiting the theater my friend whose idea this was simply said. "Guys, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." Not a single person I was with enjoyed the movie.

It's hard to cite specific references to why I disliked this movie so much as I saw it soon after it released over 9 months ago and tried quickly to forget about it. The edgy and clever satire which I was expecting was blunt and about as low brow as it gets. It was like they hired an army of 4th graders to write all the gags. It felt very uninspired and seemed did little to challenge or engage the viewer for a movie that was supposed to be creative and intelligent. And I'm buy no means someone who thinks "Oh this movie has poop and dick jokes, how lame."

I feel like Mike Judge is given far too much credit as a satirist. His "intelligent" humor appeals to those only a few rungs above the lowest common denominator, giving those barely outside of his satirical target range a chance to feel intellectual superiority through his so-called brilliant comedy.

None of this jives in my mind with how he hit the home run that was Office Space. Maybe I'm way off base here, and maybe I need to give this movie a second viewing. After all, it did get a 6.4 on IMDB, which isn't great, but it's far from horrible too. Maybe I was the one that missed the boat.

I apologize for my rant and detracting from the purpose of this thread, but I really hated this movie.

[NoPoHustler]

Shakes the Clown and Killer Clowns from outer Space are two unknowns that I find hilarious. Odd that both are about clowns. I wonder what that says about me...

[O Fen�meno]

[ QUOTE ]
This likely doesn't qualify as unknown, but only one friend of mine out of 30 had seen it in college (until he showed it to all of us) but meh:

Boondock Saints:
Two Irish brothers accidentally killed mafia thugs. They turned themselves in and were released as heroes. They then see it as a calling by God and started knocking off mafia gang members one by one. Willem Dafoe plays the detective trying to figure out the killings, but the closer he was to catching the Irish brothers, the more he thinks the brothers are doing the right thing.

[/ QUOTE ]I would say this movie has a cult status for highschool/college aged guys

[sip]

As Tears Go By: Chinese triad story
Wicker Man (the original ONLY):Scottish pagan fun + great soundtrack
Magnolia: Who the [censored] knows?
Glengarry Glenross: The best of the (only) 4 films Pacino isn't an overacting [censored] in.
Croupier, by the way, is the most pretentious, flimsy, badly acted pish ever.

[ryanghall]

I also really like Talk Radio, a movie from the 80s that not many seem to have seen.

Ryan