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

[Dementeleus]

I bet that no one will have ever heard of the next title coming, let alone seen it.

 

No one.

 

@75live @Porthos @Daniel Dylan Davis @4815162342 @TalismanRing @Baumer

[Fancyarcher]

4 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

I bet that no one will have ever heard of the next title coming, let alone seen it.

 

No one.

 

@75live @Porthos @Daniel Dylan Davis @4815162342 @TalismanRing @Baumer

 

Count me in as intrigued.

[RandomCat]

 I'm happy to see a Kurosawa film on here, even if it is one I haven't seen. I'll add it with Ran, if I can remember why I had Ran on the list in the first place.

[Dementeleus]

17 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

 I'm happy to see a Kurosawa film on here, even if it is one I haven't seen. I'll add it with Ran, if I can remember why I had Ran on the list in the first place.

 

You had RAN on the list because it's a goddamn masterpiece, that's why.

[Dementeleus]

56. The Wizard of Speed and Time (1989)

written and directed by: Mike Jittlov

starring: Mike Jittlov, Richard Kaye, Paige Moore

 

Synopsis: 

A Hollywood filmmaker makes a short for an evil film studio. Unbeknownest to him, the producer has made a $25,000 bet that he won't come up with anything usable. Luckily, our film creator has some friends to help him out.

 

Mike Jittlov is a animator and cult figure who — based on the underground success of his short film “Wizard of Speed and Time” — very briefly worked for Disney on one of their “Wonderful World of Disney” specials. A couple of years later, he was able to get some funding to expand WOSAT into a feature film, and the result is a very loose autobiographical story about an enthusiastic and talented amateur filmmaker who finds his efforts continually frustrated by a hostile and corporate Hollywood.

 

How to describe this movie? “Underground cult favorite” is a start. The acting is decidedly amateurish; Jittlov plays himself (or, more accurately, a fictionalized version of himself), and if I’m charitable, all the performances are along the lines of a Pee-Wee Herman movie: extremely, extremely broad. The cinematography is functional at best. The VFX are handcrafted (and actually pretty damn good, actually). The movie has are all sorts of surreal mocking touches: the IRS is referred to (by official signs) as the Infernal Revenue Service, all the Hollywood unions are depicted as being vile corporate machines all contained within one building, it’s heavily hinted that Jittlov’s character has some sort of superpowers (glowing eyes, etc) and in fact might be the very “Wizard of Speed and Time” that he’s making a movie about. And the plot is so thin it’s anorexic.

 

And yet, the movie itself is an odd delight, a wonderful tribute to analog filmmaking, and a defiant shout against the increasingly computerized and corporatized studio products of the ‘80s and ‘90s. This is the only movie Jittlov ever made, and it’s actually available on YouTube.

 

A couple minor trivia tidbits: somehow, the producers were able to land Philip Michael Thomas (“Miami Vice”) in a cameo role, and the movie was shot by cinematographer Russell Carpenter, who’s gone on to have a very successful career — among other things, he shot TRUE LIES for Cameron and won an Oscar for TITANIC.  

 

 

 

[Fancyarcher]

I think I might have heard this title while roaming through a moviebook once, but I'm not really familiar with the actual film itself. Yeah, you kinda got me there, Tele, I'll admit.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Daniel Dylan Davis

[RandomCat]

5 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

You had RAN on the list because it's a goddamn masterpiece, that's why.

 

Good enough reason for me.  

[Dementeleus]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Dylan Davis said:

I think I might have heard this title while roaming through a moviebook once, but I'm not really familiar with the actual film itself. Yeah, you kinda got me there, Tele, I'll admit.

 

I give you credit for even maybe hearing of it.  

[Fancyarcher]

1 minute ago, Telemachos said:

 

I give you credit for even maybe hearing of it.  

 

Every small victory counts.

[4815162342]

45 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

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).

 

 

 

 

 

YES YES YES YES YES YES

[Dementeleus]

55. Dillinger (1973)

written and directed by: John Milius

starring: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips

 

Synopsis: 

John Dillinger and his gang go on a bank robbing spree across the midwest, but one G-Man is determined to bring him down.

 

John Dillinger has always been an appealing figure for filmmakers — he skirts that line of danger and sexiness. Michael Mann tackled his story recently, but (IMO) came up short, his and Depp’s Dillinger never felt like a fully formed person, it was too “movie-star”-ish, and the film itself too glamorous and too self-aware (putting aside any artistic quibbles with Mann’s decision to shoot it digitally). Milius’ 1973 effort feels like the real deal; the fantastic character actor Warren Oates presents a wonderful portrait of Dillinger: magnetic, but unglamorous. And the movie itself feels like a true depiction of the Midwest in the middle of the Great Depression. The story itself is basically the American Dream turned criminal, and Milius is the perfect sort of filmmaker to show the excitement and ambiguity of all that entails: the glorification of the violence and then the brutality of it as well.

 

 

 

[Jake Gittes]

John Milius, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, AND Harry Dean Stanton? That's not quite The Wild Bunch but still enough rugged masculinity for a dozen films

[RobinHood26]

1 hour ago, Telemachos said:

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?)

 

 

 

 

The last 2 shots of this movie are EPICCCC

Edited June 14, 2016 by Jay Hollywood

[Porthos]

50 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

56. The Wizard of Speed and Time (1989)

 

 

Ah yes, The Wizard of Speed and Time.  Yes.  Quite familiar with it.  Yes, indeed.

 

Spoiler

I am also a rotten liar. 

 

Spoiler

Seriously thou:

 

Spoiler

Sounds fun though.

 

 

 

[baumer]

I feel like hen shit on a pump handle....useless....I don't know any of these films you have listed on the last two pages, Tele.

[Dementeleus]

54. The Tin Drum (1979)

written by: Jean-Claude Karriere, Volker Schlöndorff, Franz Seitz (based on the novel by Gunter Grass)

directed by: Volker Schlöndorff

starring: David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Daniel Olbrychski

 

Synopsis: 

Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II.

 

This is a hard movie to categorize. I suppose it be might called an absurdist black comedy that veers strongly into drama. There’s a lot of very obvious symbolism going on, and really it’s about how a society just tears itself apart in the midst of fascism. Oskar, born with an adult’s intellect from the moment of birth (he vividly remembers traveling down the birth canal), sees the hypocrisy going on around him between all the adults in his adult. So he decides he won’t grow up, and — ta da! magical realism! — from that moment on he stays the same physical size, though technically by the end of the movie he’s in his late teens.

 

This is — at times — a very funny movie, sometimes a really disturbing one, and ultimately a very sad one as well, as slowly but surely, the occasionally stupid and silly but overall decent people are destroyed by the war, either through their own efforts or not.

 

 

 

[Dementeleus]

This one might be more your tempo, @Baumer.

 

53. The Hidden (1987)

written by: Jim Kouf

directed by: Jack Sholder

starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri, Claudia Christian

 

Synopsis: 

An alien parasite with the ability to possess human bodies goes on a violent crime spree in LA, pursued by a cop and a mysterious FBI agent.

 

Ah yes, genre movies in the 80s. A golden era. Lots of production companies and low- to mid-tier distributors. As long as you kept the budgets low, there was always companies willing to finance, knowing they’d turn a profit with foreign presales or through video. The movie itself could be about practically anything (as long as it wasn’t rated X… and sometimes even that was okay, in the right situation), and execs would usually stay clear of creative control. It was schlock, why should they be bothered to get involved? But all of these variables made for a low-budget creative wonderland, where many talented people cut their teeth and learned their chops before moving on to bigger and better things: Joss Whedon, James Cameron, Stuart Gordon, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Gale Anne Hurd, Ron Howard, Joe Dante… the list goes on.

 

THE HIDDEN is a classic of this era: low-budget shlock done with a lot of fun and flair, and ending up more than the sum of its parts. Cheesy as shit sometimes, but the movie knows what it is. I mean, when you’ve got an alien possessing the body of a stripper while she blasts away with an assault rifle, you’ve got your tongue firmly in cheek.

 

 

[TalismanRing]

I was wondering if The Hidden was going to show up when I saw The Warlock made an appearance.   It's top tier 80's sci-fi "B" movie and that ending...

[Dementeleus]

52. Map of the Human Heart (1992)

written by: Louis Nowra (story by Vincent Ward)

directed by: Vincent Ward

starring: Jason Scott Lee, Anne Parillaud, Patrick Bergin

 

Synopsis: 

Fantastic improbabilities, happenstance and the undying bridge of love are part of this romantic fantasy about an Inuit who crosses years, oceans and the ravages of WWII to find his childhood love, a Metis girl, but finds that their cultures are the most difficult spaces to gap.

 

This is a beautiful and old-fashioned epic love story. It begins in the early 1930s when a young Inuit boy is taken from the Arctic by an explorer who becomes his mentor. He falls for a young French half-breed girl, and they slowly fall in love against the backdrop of WWII. 

 

Beautifully shot, with wonderful performances and an unusual setting, this is a must-see if you enjoy these sorts of movies.

 

 

 

[Dementeleus]

51. Mumford (1999)

written and directed by: Lawrence Kasdan

starring: Loren Dean, Hope Davis, Mary McDonnell, Martin Short, Alfre Woddard, Jason Lee

 

Synopsis: 

In the small town of Mumford, a psychologist of the same name moves in and quickly becomes very popular, despite a questionable past.

 

Legendary Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, Silverado) had a complete whiff at the box-office with MUMFORD. It grossed a whopping $4.5m theatrically, despite having an all-star cast. Too bad, because the movie itself is a very charming and entertaining story. It’s laid back and relaxed, as befits the small town vibe within the movie itself. Zooey Deschanel and Elisabeth Moss have small parts — this is another one of those movies where practically every speaking role is a face you’ve seen before.

 

As a minor trivia note, this was filmed in a small town very close to where I lived at the time. Northern California has a wide variety of beautiful locations, and used to be regularly featured in movies, but that died in the early 2000s.