Harold Lloyd’s “Cat’s Paw.”
Vincenzo Natali’s Cube
I recently saw Spike Lee’s “X” and really enjoyed about 90% of it. Beautifully shot and with a great performance by Denzel Washington.
Otherwise, Fassbinder’s “In a Year with 13 Moons” and Cassavetes’ “Opening Night.”
Also, Altman’s “Popeye.” Robin Williams’ best performance and Shelley Duvall becomes am icon. How can you not love it?
Also, Altman’s “Streamers.” Stagey, but filled with great acting.
Punch-Drunk Love
Sans Soliel
American Pscyho (not by too much)
I may misunderstand “underrated”
I would probabbly say Summer of Sam by Spike Lee…most of the people don’t even know the titel of this movie while it really made me upset. I find it so different in some ways. But of course, there are a lot of underrated movies (all Wenders’ s ones for example or The Times that remains, the new Elia Suleiman movie…)
The Fountain / Darren Aronofsky
Brick / Rian Johnson
My Winnipeg / Guy Maddin
The New World / Terrence Malick
Eureka / Shinji Aoyama
United 93 / Paul Greengrass
Marie Antoinette / Sofia Coppola
1984 / Michael Radford
The Bow / Ki-duk Kim
The Machinist / Brad Anderson
Sugar / Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden
Drag Me to Hell / Sam Raimi
Primer / Shane Carruth
In Bruges / Martin McDonagh
Eyes Wide Shut definitely (better than 98% of films made)
They Live (wonderfully subversive political allegory delivered through an intentionally bad action movie)
La Moustache (Little known french film, truely original and great)
Pretty much any Aronofsky film other than The Wrestler (Pi, The Fountain, even Requim for a Dream is only cult)
Also, Kubrick’s Paths of Glory is little seen but one of the greatest war/courtroom dramas ever made
RYAN’S DAUGHTER/David Lean
MARIE ANTOINETTE/Sofia Coppola
THE NEW WORLD/Terrence Malick
THE RECKLESS MOMENT/Max Ophüls
OH….ROSALINDA!/Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
THE DEVILS/Ken Russell
YOUNG AND INNOCENT/Alfred Hitchcock
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM/Otto Preminger
INNOCENCE/Lucile Hadzihalilovic
MORVERN CALLAR/Lynne Ramsay
THE FOUNTAIN/Darren Aronofsky
…to name a few.
Casino
Completely agree with Pavel on Knowing (except for the part when Nic Cage was looking at the spaceship leave with his son, was overdramatised).
Also, Grave of the Fireflies & Raise The Red Lantern have received positive reviews but no WAY near as enough attention as they deserve.
I second the Grave of the Fireflies. The ending to that film is so powerful that it resonated with you far after you have seen it. I would argue to those that refuse to see some of the art found in Japanese animation to give that title a watch before making judgements about the genre as a whole.
Punch Drunk Love is a great film that has some of the best characters that I have seen on film. The awkwardness of Sandler in that movie is very interesting and makes you feel for the character.
The New World is a film I have come back to. I was working in Blockbuster at the time that it came out on DVD and I loved how artistic the film was. That the film could hold a message without resorting to conforming to a dialogue and action saturated film that it could have been. Rather we get these shots that are averaging to almost five seconds of the most beautiful scenery and emotions. The way the film was advertised really does it shame though because I had to flat out tell customers that they would not like the film, you know the ones that are complaining that we have rented out of Big Momma’s House 2.
I third Ravenous
Calvaire
Cop Land
Day of the dead
Falling Down
Hardcore
The Great Silence
Stand and Deliver
Mulholland Falls
Pale Rider
Sneakers (terribly underrated!)
The Sword and the Sorcerer
Thunderheart
Guillaume Canet’s – Tell No One. I’m stunned that this did not receive more attention.
Ozu’s Floating Weeds and Flavour of Green Tea over Rice; these films always play second fiddle to Late Spring, Early Summer, and The End of Summer, but I personally think that they are better than those.
Mizoguchi’s Gion Bayashi – I really liked this one and I’m glad MoC double billed it with Sansho Dayu – although Sansho is the better film (just), this has less chance of being overlooked.
Bertrand Tavernier’s L.627 and Laissez Passer- I love the attention to detail and I find them endlessly rewatchable.
Tony Scott’s Spy Game – I was totally amazed at how the critics missed this one. Robert Redford is amazing around the conference table in this, extracting information and giving little away. Soundtrack is beautiful.
Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way – When this first came out, it scored good to very good reviews. I think over time that its reputation has increased, but nowhere near enough to be premier division of crime/gangster movies, where it truly belongs.
Pasolini’s Arabian Nights – beautiful, mystical and erotic. Because it’s part of the trilogy of life, there’s a danger that it’s own merits will be missed, but for me it manages to be the perfect film that the other two could not.
Corbucci’s Django – need to watch this again, but for me the definitive story of one man playing one side against the other. Better than Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo
Dinner Rush
Fat City
Red Belt
The Fall
Joe Vs The Volcano
Eyes Wide Shut
Midnight Run
In The Mouth Of Madness
Brain Storm
O Lucky Man
The Hit
Blue Collar
i agree with punch drunk love & dark city. both great films.
I second “Dinner Rush” and “Midnight Run” — both mentioned last month by Marvel
All shamefully underrated imo!
Charley Varrick (1973)
Revolver (1973)
Night Moves (1975)
Je t’aime moi non plus (1976)
Rolling Thunder (1977)
Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978)
Blue Collar (1978)
The Fury (1978)
The Brood (1979)
American Gigolo (1980)
Cutter’s Way (1981)
Prince of the City (1981)
Blow Out (1981)
Rumble Fish (1983)
Breathless (1983)
Star 80 (1983)
Baby It’s You (1983)
Streets of Fire (1984)
Reckless (1984)
Choose Me (1984)
Trouble in Mind (1985)
Smooth Talk (1985)
High Tide (1987)
House of Games (1987)
Another Woman (1988)
Sweetie (1989)
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
The Adjuster (1991)
Simple Men (1992)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Ruby in Paradise (1993)
Exotica (1994)
Amateur (1994)
Georgia (1995)
Dolores Claiborne (1995)
Safe (1995)
The Addiction (1995)
Crash (1996)
Affliction (1997)
Limbo (1999)
Summer of Sam (1999)
Trouble Every Day (2001)
Under the Sand (2001)
All the Real Girls (2003)
Fear X (2003)
Birth (2004)
Last Days (2005)
The Mist (2007)
Two Lovers (2008)
I absolutely love Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen and Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear, both of which are much maligned and held as minor works in their filmographies.
I am still thinking of a few to add to the list. But in the meantime i’ll reiterate a few that have already been mentioned.
Dark City: Holy crap. Waaay underrated. Extremely original, deep, creative, and just a all around great sci-fi/noir story. In a interview with Richard O’brien on the Dark City director’s cut he said in reference to his work on the film, “Isn’t it great to be part of something really groovy.”. Hell yes it is.
Rolling Thunder. Another holy crap. This movie is so underrated that it’s out of print! That fact is simply amazing to me since Paul Schrader is so renowned and Tarantino cites this film as one of his favorites (remember Rolling Thunder Releasing?). It is too bad QT didn’t get around to saving this one.
Falling Down: Grapples with a whole host of societal and personal issues we would like to ignore. Probably one of Michael Douglas’ best performances in my opinion, mostly because it violently deviates from all those sexual thriller characters we associate him with.
Jacob’s Ladder: Such of a underrated horror flick, be it the actual horror or the silent influence it seemed to have. I might be wrong about this, but the effects and camera techniques seem quite groundbreaking and innovative for their time.
They Live/Big Trouble in Little China: Neither of these films never get enough credit despite they are both cult hits now. I would disagreed with a few of you over the action and acting of Roddy Piper, I think his acting was dead on for the character and made for a interesting interplay between him and Keith David, especially when it came to the film’s political commentary. Little China, in my opinion, can easily be read as an allegory of the bourgeois revolution against feudalism when you notice what sorts of occupations the good guys have (Jack Burton is a independent truck driver, Egg Shen a small business owner) versus those of the villains (Lo Pan the 2,000 year old feudal lord and the three storms which could be read as feudal knights or gendarmes) who tend to be more “mystical” overall. And finally, and just like in typical Carpenter fashion, both these films have AWESOME one-liners.
@ DANIEL A and MIKE PLAID
Falling Down is a travesty. What you call underrated I call justice. Michael Douglas twangs one string on the old white-populist banjo while we watch his reactions to controversial societal issues like old nazis and poor fast food service. It has potential but it’s purely exploitation.
I’d like to add:
The Paper Chase
Barton Fink
Dersu Uzala
@Brock Carldon Synder
Hence my whole point about the movie. Much like I Stand Alone and Taxi Driver, Falling Down addresses the psychology surrounding a certain layer of the white working class/middle class experience. Ambivalent as it may be, his white-populism is juxtaposed against his blatant racism towards the Korean shop keeper and the street gang (much in the same manner as the Death Wish and Dirty Harry films – not to mention the film’s opening scene in the traffic jam as a nod to 8 1/2). His reaction to, and the eventual murder of, the Nazi store owner is important because it provides us, and himself with his mirror image, or specifically his character carried out to his logical conclusion.
In other words, it’s not that this film is a travesty, it’s that you’re analysis pretentious and simple minded.
My analysis is dead on. So is yours. The problem is that you’re dropping movies that expressed similar themes so much better without sacrificing maturity. Nothing you said is new to me, nor does it make this movie any good.
I thought the question here was if a movie was underrated. I think Falling Down is underrated both for it’s content and Michael Douglas deviating from his typical womanizer/sexual thriller roles. Considering the political climate that this film emerged from (the early nineties neo-liberal onslaught, the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc) it should be talked about much much more.
“Nothing you said is new to me, nor dies it make this movie any good.”
That sounds pretty relativistic and outright smug to me. I don’t really see the point of me trying to fit this movie into whatever criteria you have for a it being “good”, since apparently it’s ok to both bring a deep analysis and at the same time reduce the film to “white populism”. In other words, I think this movie is both “good” and “underrated” for the reasons I explained above.
Since you think it’s underrated I assume you think it’s good. Am I wrong? I didn’t realize that I needed to list all the reasons I disagree just to avoid insults.
The movie lacks subtlety. Douglas’ character exists solely in his overreactions to various exaggerated social issues that are not-so-cleverly set up around every corner. Rather than actually exploring these issues, the director gives us more of Douglas’ insanity but can’t decide whether to glorify or condemn it. We go to the army surplus where we indulge in some political correctness and assure ourselves that we aren’t sympathizing with a racist by pitting him against a Neo-Nazi. However, this only serves to blur the line between good guys and bad guys even more while he’s shooting up occupied phone booths. It’s overwritten with plenty of action movie cliches. Robert Duvall is given a much more interesting character but a small amount of room to expand upon it. It’s simplistic and unconvincing. But it doesn’t matter, because this is an exploitation movie with a simple formula; give violence a face (fabricated conservatism) and straddle the line between morality tale and caricature study.
I didn’t reduce the movie to any less than it already is and I don’t really see the point in debating if I’m not allowed to treat my arguments as truth.
No one ever talks about Orson Welles’ “The Immortal Story”.
“I didn’t reduce the movie to any less than it already is and I don’t really see the point in debating if I’m not allowed to treat my arguments as truth.”
This has been my point from the get-go. Honestly, it looks like you didn’t even read my post. Especially when you say stuff like,
“Since you think it’s underrated I assume you think it’s good.”
Yes, I have already said I think this movie is good/underrated and given the reasons why, I don’t get how you missed that. I treat my arguments as truth also, doesn’t everybody? If I didn’t think what I thought was truthful and sincere, why would I waste my time arguing with you?
“I didn’t reduce the movie to any less than it already is and I don’t really see the point in debating if I’m not allowed to treat my arguments as truth.”
This has been my point from the get-go. Honestly, it looks like you didn’t even read my post. Especially when you say stuff like,
“Since you think it’s underrated I assume you think it’s good.”
Yes, I have already said I think this movie is good/underrated and given the reasons why, I don’t get how you missed that. I treat my arguments as truth also, doesn’t everybody? If I didn’t think what I thought was truthful and sincere, why would I waste my time arguing with you?
I’ve addressed everything you’ve said, what do you want from me?
Pavel
L0L KNOWING!!! and DARK CITY!!!