Tele's List of 100 Lesser-Known or Under-Appreciated Films Everyone Should See (THE LIST IS COMPLETE! p26)

[baumer]

Big Wednesday is obviously a made up movie.  Tele is good at editing and such and probably made that trailer himself.  I've never heard of it.

[The Stingray]

6 minutes ago, Baumer said:

Big Wednesday is obviously a made up movie.  Tele is good at editing and such and probably made that trailer himself.  I've never heard of it.

 

C'mon, it stars '80s heartthrob Stringfellow Hawke.
 

[baumer]

1 minute ago, The Stingray said:

 

C'mon, it stars '80s heartthrob Stringfellow Hawke.
 

 

Are you both working together to make these things up?

[Dementeleus]

9 minutes ago, Baumer said:

Big Wednesday is obviously a made up movie.  Tele is good at editing and such and probably made that trailer himself.  I've never heard of it.

 

Could this be a pic of the elusive Tele in the 1970s?

 

[RobinHood26]

I've actually seen Big Wednesday! 

 

 

[Dementeleus]

59. The In-Laws (1979)

written by: Andrew Bergman

directed by: Arthur Hiller

starring: Peter Falk, Alan Arkin

 

Synopsis: 

In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father. Vince, a manic fellow who claims to be a government agent, then proceeds to drag Sheldon into a series of chases and misadventures from New York to Central America.

 

This was a solid hit back in ’79, and even got remade about ten years ago, but I feel at this point the original is in danger of being forgotten, unless its attributes are shouted to the heavens. This is a damn funny movie. Alan Arkin is Sheldon, the quiet everyman, who wants nothing but a nice simple life. And Peter Falk is the man of danger, who lives on the edge, and who may (or may not) be working for the CIA. Poor Sheldon is dragged into a series of escalating dangers simply because his daughter is about to get married to Peter Falk’s son. 

 

If you haven’t seen it before, you’re missing out on a comedy gem.

 

 

 

[Dementeleus]

Something I didn't think about doing until just now is comparing total IMDB votes for movies across a span of contemporary years, to get a sense of how known and popular they are. 

 

In retrospect, there are a few movies that're really probably a bit too famous to be on the list. Oh well, probably just us greybeards have seen 'em. 

[Fancyarcher]

2 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

Something I didn't think about doing until just now is comparing total IMDB votes for movies across a span of contemporary years, to get a sense of how known and popular they are. 

 

In retrospect, there are a few movies that're really probably a bit too famous to be on the list. Oh well, probably just us greybeards have seen 'em. 

 

Everyone's definition of lesser-know is a little bit different. Although I know all of the films listed so far, they're probably not popular among the general public nowadays.

[John Marston]

I have seen the first three movies on this list and Forbidden Planet. 

[RandomCat]

Everyone needs more Peter Falk in their life.

 

and as far as popularity goes, I could put this list in front of my friends/peers and they probably wouldn't know any of them.

[4815162342]

38 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

59. The In-Laws (1979)

written by: Andrew Bergman

directed by: Arthur Hiller

starring: Peter Falk, Alan Arkin

 

Synopsis: 

In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father. Vince, a manic fellow who claims to be a government agent, then proceeds to drag Sheldon into a series of chases and misadventures from New York to Central America.

 

This was a solid hit back in ’79, and even got remade about ten years ago, but I feel at this point the original is in danger of being forgotten, unless its attributes are shouted to the heavens. This is a damn funny movie. Alan Arkin is Sheldon, the quiet everyman, who wants nothing but a nice simple life. And Peter Falk is the man of danger, who lives on the edge, and who may (or may not) be working for the CIA. Poor Sheldon is dragged into a series of escalating dangers simply because his daughter is about to get married to Peter Falk’s son. 

 

If you haven’t seen it before, you’re missing out on a comedy gem.

 

 

 

 

Keep the bonafide greats coming 

[4815162342]

Speaking of Alan Arkin @Telemachos I hope you throw some love to The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!

[DAR]

The reason I heard of Big Wednesday was because of the Millius documentary I watched a few years ago.

[DAR]

And Breaking Away was on TCM last week.  I actually recorded it because it's been years since I saw it but I remember it being really damn good.

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

The In-Laws is great. One of my Dad's favorite movies. I think I saw it for the first time when I was 8.

[Dementeleus]

While I work on the write-ups for the next few upcoming titles, here are a few that didn't quite make the list (for a variety of reasons, mostly because I felt they were too recent or a little too well-known). In a few cases, it's because I didn't like them quite as much as others that made the list, or in some cases I already had some good representative samples from their respective filmmakers, but they're all recommended and well-worth seeking out.

 

In no particular order:

 

• Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) - hilarious send-up of film noir classics starring Steve Martin. They "forrest-gump" him into many classic clips.
• The Proposition (2005) - awesome Aussie western.
• The Sweet Hereafter (1997) - beautiful elegiac movie about family and loss.
• Where Eagles Dare (1968) - Clint Eastwood and James Mason take on the Nazis in this WWII action thriller.
• Stalker (1979) - one of my favorite films of all time, but it's just too well-known (famous in cinephile circles and most others have at least heard of it). Tarkovsky's mysterious and ambiguous take on three men venturing into a forbidden zone.
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) - the movie that really put Peter Weir on the map, another mysterious and ambiguous story of a group of young Australian women who disappear at the turn of the 20th century.
• Chimes at Midnight (1965) - Orson Welles' magnificent take on Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and "Henry V".

[Jake Gittes]

Chimes at Midnight on blu-ray is my most anticipated movie of the year. I already watched it last year and loved it... but I still don't believe I've truly *seen* it.

[RandomCat]

If anyone is interested, The In-Laws is getting a Criterion Blu-ray release on July 5th.

 

Getting a kick out of the 1 star reviews on amazon now.

[Dementeleus]

58. Von Ryan’s Express (1965)

written by: Wendell Mayes, Joseph Landon (from a novel by David Wertheimer)

directed by: Mark Robson

starring: Frank Sinatra, Trevor Howard

 

Synopsis: 

An American POW leads a group of mainly British prisoners to escape from the Germans in WWII.

 

There are many films in the WWII prison escape genre, and this is another one that gets less recognition and credit than movies like THE GREAT ESCAPE or BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (to name but two). What’s interesting about VON RYAN’S EXPRESS is that it doesn’t present the Allies as a united front.

 

Frank Sinatra stars as Colonel Ryan, who’s shot down over Italy and sent to a prison camp. Upon arrival, he assumes command over the rest of the POWs (who’re primarily British), since he’s the senior officer. Ryan promptly starts issuing orders directly opposing how the former British officer was commanding the situation, earning the enmity of many of the prisoners (enmity which only grows over time). Meanwhile, the war is winding down as Italy is on the brink of surrender, but that actually increases the danger, since the Germans now begin to take control of Italian positions. Ryan then hatches an audacious plan to escape.

 

(Is that a bad-ass poster or what?)

 

 

 

[Dementeleus]

57. High and Low (1963)

written by: Hideo Oguni & Ryuzo Kikushima & Eijiro Hisaita & Akira Kurosawa

directed by: Akira Kurosawa

starring: Toshiba Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai

 

Synopsis: 

An executive of a shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped and held for ransom.

 

To the extent that most casual cinephiles have seen Kurosawa movies, they’ve watched his samurai classics: RASHOMAN, SEVEN SAMURAI, RAN, and the like. But he made a ton of films set in contemporary times, and one of the best is HIGH AND LOW. When I first saw this, what astonished me was how clearly it was the blueprint for basically every modern police procedural, especially with American TV series like LAW & ORDER or CSI.

 

Toshiro Mifune’s son is kidnapped and he’s in a difficult situation in terms of paying the ransom, since he just leveraged all his assets in a takeover bit for the company he works for. What starts out as a bit of corporate drama slowly transitions to a careful police procedural as the full weight of the Yokohama police department becomes involved in the investigation, to ultimately a meditation on what drives people to commit appalling acts of violence and crime. The literal translation of the actual Japanese title is “Heaven and Hell”, and the movie is a vivid comparison between the wealthy upper-class (as embodied by Mifune and his mansion on a hill overlooking the sprawling city) and the desperate under-class (as the film delves more and more into the alleys and shanty-towns of Yokohama).