The purpose of this thread is to draw attention to movies that few people have seen. There are so many gems out there, some from years ago, that nearly 100% of the population has never seen.

I've heard a lot of praise on this board about films like Amelie, and yet, I've never seen it, and fear that I'm missing some really good stuff.




I'll start us off:


Chariots of Fire

Even though this movie won a best picture Oscar, and everyone instantly recognizes the main title song, this is a movie almost universally unwatched by anyone younger than 40.

If you want to see an amazingly movie, check this one out.


Some info:

The movie is very slowly paced, which I believe leads to some people not liking it, but the reason for the pace is because the characters are so well developed. I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie with more fully developed characters.

The story follows a Jewish and Christian runner from Scotland, just after WWI, leading up to them both competing for Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. At the beginning of the film it seems to portray a good vs. evil plot, but by the end, you realize that it's not making judgments on their behavior, but instead, is diving deeply into a study of their unique driving forces for motivation.

The dialogue is incredible, and can best be described as Coenesque. (Like the dean of the college snidely remarking after the Jewish man wins a race, "Perhaps they really are god's chosen people.")



Who's got the next one?

Cube



This is a sweet sci-fi movie I saw on IFC

Premise: 4 people wake up in a room shaped as a cube. There are 4 exits into another cube room. The exits are left, right, up, or down. The catch is only one of the exits is the correct exit. Go through the wrong exit and you're dead. Each person in the cube find out that they are each there for a reason, and everyone has a skill that will contribute in finding a way out.

i tried to watch this as it seemed like an interesting idea but it was tough going.

give it a chance... first 15 minutes are weird but then it picks up.

That's because it's one of those movies that just makes you happy.


Another feel good movie: The World's Fastest Indian. It's about an Indian Scout motorcycle, not an actual Indian.


The Station Agent

-Ron Mexico


The Wages of Fear

-Lady Grey


This movie was mentioned in the top 20 movies of the decade, but I didn't see anybody else say anything about it, so: Once.


Some other movies I've seen fairly recently that I liked: Nine Queens and Tell No One.

I really enjoyed the World's Fastest Indian. What a TERRIBLE title for that movie. It totally did it a major disservice to the movie, as it's very misleading.


Also the bolded was in my top 20, as was Once. Once is fantastic.


I've never even heard of Nine Queens, Tell No One, or The Wages of Fear. What are they about?

Ha, how did you know I would say that? Did you actually watch it in the end?

Re: Once, it's pretty damn sappy but has some good songs. Worth watching once but not again for me.

I just watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the other day, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Fantastic performances, great script, excellent screen adaptation of the play. B&W, serious and unsettling at times, yet strangely amusing at the same time.

Yesterday I watched To Die For, a Gus Van Sant satire about an ambitious, beautiful woman (young, gorgeous Nicole Kidman) who wants to make it on TV. Great cast including Matt Dillon, a young Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck. Good watch, entertaining especially if you enjoy black humour.

I've heard good things about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I'll netflix it. thanks.

Sleeping Dogs Lie

Randomly saw it on Sundance OnDemand.

It starts out with a college girl blowing (yes blowing) her dog. She then finds a bf and always has what she did on her mind.
She goes back and forth on whether or not to tell her bf/family. Very strange, somewhat comical.

12 Angry Men



A must see for the true film snob.

The remake was also watchable, especially since they basically didn't change anything but the actors.

I did not like Cube all that much, beyond liking the concept itself.

I am going to go obscure here, and pull out Satyajit Ray, who was a Bengali filmmaker.



I like this film from 1958:

Jalsaghar

partially because Vilayat Khan did the soundtrack.

I agree with this.



This too.

I agree with this. Great movie.

(edit) adding more as per request of LadyGrey. Although it was more of a mainstream movie, House of Flying Daggers had some amazing visuals.

I just watched White Water Summer. Fun 80's movie about a group of kids who go on a wilderness trip with a guide. Sean Astin plays nerdy kid from the city. Kevin Bacon plays psycho guide. And as you expected, there is a scene with a rickety rope bridge going over a river.

I've had Charaluta for a while but haven't got round to it yet. Have you seen it? Worth bumping to the top of my "to watch" list?

Also: this thread is going to get really lame if people keep posting "I agree with this". I propose that if you just want to approve of someone elses pick, you should either add some additional information or offer a pick of your own at the same time. That way the thread won't fill up with junk. Just a suggestion to keep it fresh, obviously no one has to do what I say.

Nine Queens - it's one of those twisty, David Mamet type movies. Con men doing cons.

Tell No One - a murder mystery with a The Fugitive feel to it.

The Wages of Fear - An oil company enlists four destitute drifters for a dangerous mission transporting volatile explosives across Central America's treacherous terrain. Packed with nerve-racking tension that never lets up, director Henri-Georges Clouzot's gritty masterpiece took home the Grand Prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.

They're all foreign films.


Here's a fun game: guess which of the above reviews I didn't write.

yeah, sure. randomly.


i agree with this.


(first?)

I've got that one on my Netflix queue, but haven't seen it yet. Supposed to be one his best though. If you watch it before I do, let us know what you think.

VB's mention of Satayajiy Ray reminded me of this film:

Salaam Bombay (1988)

Long before Slumdog and Monsoon Wedding, this film set the bar extremely high for Western style Indian cinema. Directed ably by Mira Nair, her first production, the story portrays the complicated socio-economic structure of India in the claustrophobic confines of a sprawling Bombay (Mumbai for the truly snotty).

Nair recruited real street people and had to give them acting classes to remove any trace of Bollywood-style acting. The performances, as a result, are natural and heart-felt.

This is a truly great movie and one of the finest debuts in directing history.

I think the title of the thread should include the word 'foreign'.

Oh and I highly recommend

The Lives of Others: Set in 1980s East Berlin, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film) provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the state police. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi's secret surveillance program, their friends, family -- and even those doing the watching -- find their lives forever changed.



This was one of the best foreign films I've ever seen.

Overrated: Gone with the Wind


Underrated: Blazing Saddles

That's like the foreign film that everyone has seen, including people who don't watch foreign films normally. It's awesome, I just don't feel snobby about it because it's very wellknown.

Some more recs:

Black Narcissus - 1947 - Fantastically atmospheric thriller starring the wonderful Deborah Kerr, this film tells the story of nuns who attempt to establish a convent in a derelict palace in the Himalayas. However, the persistent wind and the isolation create a tense situation, and the nerves of the nuns begin to fray....

In A Lonely Place - 1950 - If you like film noir, give this one a try. You get Bogart on form along with the charming Gloria Grahame. The story is gripping and unpredictable, but best of all, it's pretty realistic. It all starts when a jaded scriptwriter is suspected of murdering a young girl who was last seen with him. His alibi rests with his beautiful neighbour, but things get complicated.

Welcome to the Dollhouse - 1995 - This is a really weird comedy based around an eccentric young girl who is unpopular not only with her classmates but with her own family. It's always funny, occasionally touching, and it frequently makes you feel really uncomfortable. Basically it's an excellent oddball comedy. If you're interested in Todd Solondz films, start with this one, they only get weirder and more provocative.

Well, I've been posting about some film snobby movies here and there. Just for clarification: I don't think the films are snobby, but the action can be slower, or the story telling nonlinear.

The more movies I see--and boy howdy! Do I see a lot of movies!!--the more movies I see, the less I want them to be uniformly good. When it happens, I'm thrilled beyond measure, but really, all I want is a couple of good ideas explored.

To this end I humbly nominate

After Life (Japanese title in English Wonderful Life) It's a film set in a waystation to heaven, with the recently passed people taking one memory of their former lives into the next. They get to decide which memory to take, and stage a reenactment of it. Yeah, it's a little odd, but it's stuck with me for years.

They Came Back (French) In a village in France, people start to come back from the dead. I know it sounds like a zombie movie, and that's because it is a little. I mean, they come back from the dead--that's a zombie--right? But the film really talks about the integration of living and dead. If your loved one came back to life after three years, how would he or she fit into your life now? Again, this is not a perfect movie, but it looks beautiful, and the art direction was totally and maliciously ripped off by a crappy Nicole Kidman movie whose name escapes me. This is a zombie movie, but not a horror film. If you're looking for big scares and violence, you'll be disappointed. If you like a feeling of unease, and a social problem you really haven't seen explored in a movie, then this is for you.

And now, for something completely different...

In the next month or so, I'm probably going to be seeing a lot of indie movies. I see a lot of movies before they come out, and don't post much. Reasons why--I'm a spoiler phobe, the film might get changed, and I don't want to get anyone in trouble, and posting about something most other people won't be able to see feels douchey. If there are no media embargoes, is anyone interested in these indies? Or should I keep it to myself unless I see something spectacular?

Further--if there's something you've been dying to see, pm me, and I can let you know if I've seen it.

OK I need some clarification. Are we trying to find unique movies that were under appreciated but cinematic accomplishments or are we just letting people know about movie we like that they probably have not seen?


For instance a movie like Intacto about an underground ring of gambling on other people lives would be in the first category.


But movies like Uncommon Valor would be in the next.



Or is it both?

Your confusion is understandable, since the OP contains a huge contradiction:


Statement 1 and Statement 2 are not consistent with each other, as if very few people have seen a movie it does not follow that one would have heard a lot of praise about it.

I took the title "film snob" thread to refer to the latter category in your post, ElG. Since there are plenty of threads for great films, favourite films, new films etc, the clear niche is for films that aren't significantly lauded and popular, i.e. films which are excellent/enjoyable but are not widely known.

Everyone else: correct me if I'm wrong.

Saw this with my church's youth group as a teen.

Good flick

I know everyone will think I am joking but I really think Starship Troopers was an underrated film.

It had the entire Orwellian fascist state undertone, mixed in the duplicity of woman, and there were bugs and machine guns that almost never ran out of bullets.

It was awesome.

It is awesome, and after all of these years the effects still look great. I think this is more of a "Great B Movie" or "Movie I Will Defend Until the End of Time" thread.

Some people aren't getting it. 'It' being my decisions about the nature of this thread.

I just really wanted to post so I could say "Boy howdy!". And there it is.

YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME, JJJ!

Many of the movies already memtonedd aren't foreign films.

Wonderland.

Amazing and pretty much unbelievable, yet true story. good cast. really well done but under the radar.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335563/

That is without a doubt the most intriguing synopsis I've ever read.

Klendathu is so far the MOST foreign location of all the films listed.

Intacto - Was pretty good. I recommend it.

Black Narcissus - One of those films I keep hearing about but haven't seen. Deborah Kerr is underrated, imo. Even her best known performance (From Here to Eternity) was honest, but complicated, and nuanced. Terrific actress.

Lives of Others - On my list as well...

Starship Troopers - I haven't seen it, but I will. Verhoeven puts a lot of subversive elements in his films (hello, ROBOCOP!!!), so I think this will be well worth watching

I feel bad because the Palm Springs International Film Festival is underway here and I never seem to go to any movies.

Although I did see a great Irish film 6 years ago that I cant remember the name, but if I did I would list it

Here

I highly recommend it. It has gambling and murder, combined. What person on this site won't be into that??


Also, I shot around for the first in months day before yesterday. It was not good. More airballs than I would like to admit. But I also hit a few 25 footers. I have not played even recreationally in almost 5 years, but now that I am living back by the gym I used to play at all the time I am itching to get back on the court. I just have to lose some weight so I won't seriously injure myself. Getting old sucks.

[sitting with legs crossed (in the girl way, not the man way)]
[looks down nose and just over glasses]


Let's keep the sports talk out of here, m'kay.


[looks at friends and chuckles]
[sips wine]

Well, going on a Couples Retreat isn't going to help that jumper.