The best movie(s) I'd never heard about

[03]

when i was very young, i used to just watch entire filmographies of certain directors, so i've known this movie for a long time, as some others here might but i saw 'To Die For' tonight and i realized i forgot how amazing this film is. does anyone else feel this way or am i crazy?

[jenkins]

wilder,

[Axolotl]

LSD: Love, Sex, aur Dhoka

Gangs of Wasseypur

The filmographies of Guru Dutt and Mrinal Sen.

[tpfkabi]

I really enjoyed The Rain People, the film FCC made before The Godfather.

Also saw this film called Absolute Beginners. British musical from the 80's with David Bowie. 2/3rds through it switches gears. I was really surprised by a long camera take that introduces a lot of the leads. There are places were it looks like it might cut though. Not necessarily 'best,' but there were some cool things about it.

On the opposite side of things - I finally saw Hudson Hawk.
I wonder if a Notoriously Worst Movies of All Time thread would be fun.
Hudson Hawk is so weird. The only thing making it an R is the use of a lot of F-bombs.
If they cut it down to 1, it could have easily been PG-13, or all it could probably be PG.
It has Looney Tunes type sound fx and really bizarre scene transitions.
There's very little adult about it, but that little bit cut kids away from the box office.

[jenkins]

wilder i'm going to leave my older post up there because i want to remember that i didn't realize this will basically be our symbolic wedding ceremony kinda



that's ridiculously good. oh that's next level good. that punctures the stratosphere of my emotions, and i won't be able to go. dangit

[03]

because i'm not good at writing reviews, and i was simply trying to provide a little information for each recommendation.
edited since for some reason i'm being accused of 'trollery' and 'presenting amazon reviews like my own' in the shoutbox. i tried to make my return pleasant, polite and interesting and bring some cool cinema and music related posts to everyone, but i guess you guys just want to keep hating on me, no matter what. thanks.

[wilder]

Modern Love Is Automatic (2009)



About an apathetic nurse who moonlights as a dominatrix, her aspiring model roommate, and the sad, strange world they live in.

Zach Clark's microbudget feature, available to watch for free on vimeo. Sort of a Ghost world vibe + Solondz/Waters style humor. Start this bitch at 1:30 to skip the opening advertisment.


Trailer (NSFW)

[wilder]

Dennis Hopper's Out of the Blue (1980)



A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.

[jenkins]

what super impressed me about the movie is how terrible of an alcoholic father dennis hopper plays. straight up rotten guy. and hopper directed the movie, starred in it, somewhat wrote it. i don't think a lot of artists have that kind of bravery. like imagine gone girl, but david fincher played the rosamund pike part

[ono]

I watched Modern Love Is Automatic this afternoon.  If this weren't a microbudget feature, I can't see it getting made.  Kudos to the director for making it, but he seemed to throw all the rules of story structure out for no reason.  The protagonist was obnoxiously mute and withdrawn.  The framework of the interview felt shoehorned in and there didn't seem to be a reason for it.  We're giving very little motivation for the protagonist's actions.  She changes, falls deep into this lifestyle, and then snaps out of it after getting attacked and then learning that her attacker has died in a deus ex machina of a car accident.  Her roommate undergoes a similar arc, modeling and then stumbling into a sleazy gonzo porn shoot before squirming her way out.  I think the concept was somewhat interesting but the execution was lacking, which is frustrating for a director with so much talent. That I'm writing about this at all shows I'm not indifferent, and it's not bad by any means.  The script just needed much better writing.  A few more polishes would've done it wonders.

[matt35mm]

Dennis Hopper's Out of the Blue (1980)



A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.

I loved this movie! We got to see it here in Austin last year on 35mm as part of Richard Linklater's series of under-rated 80s gems. Linklater would screen these movies and then talk about them for 30 minute afterward, in addition to a 10 minute intro. He told a great, great true story about being there the night that Hopper basically suicide-bombed himself.

I recorded the intro and after-screening discussion, which is here:



If you just want to hear the crazy Dennis Hopper story, that's here:



And if you want to SEE this Dennis Hopper blowing himself up thing, that's here:

[BB]

Oh man, so good! Ballsy as hell too! I could've sworn I had posted about it a few years ago when I joined the board, but doesn't look like it (apologies for my former opinions by the way  ). This makes me wanna check out Hopper's kinda shitty-looking 90s output (Catchfire, The Hot Spot, and Chasers) which I don't think I've seen.

Also, that Linklater 80s series looks great! I've been binging on 80s movies for the past couple months after realizing how badly I'd ignored them my whole life. I've just seen almost everything he screened, and those I haven't are on the list.

[jenkins]

a+

[jenkins]

why the above got overlooked is beyond me. it's old or something? that's a great short

i don't think it's as impressive as this one. if i made this and i knew people'd seen it without sharing it i'm overexplaining why i'm sharing this. you feel me? it's definitely old and i have no idea how/where/etc people watch online shorts but i'm recommending:

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2014/10/31/melon-head/

[wilder]

Luigi Bazzoni's Le Orme (1975) aka Footprints on the Moon is playing in 35mm at Anthology Film Archives in NY tonight. This movie isn't "good", but has eerily beautiful cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. I'm not going to say it's not weird. This is probably something 03 and jenk would be into.



The full movie is on . A DVD edition is available from Shameless in the UK (review here).

Alice Cespi (Florinda Bolkan) begins to see her life fall apart due to strange memories from childhood when she was forced to watch a film called "Footprints on the Moon" involving an unethical experiment in leaving astronauts stranded on the moon's surface. Alice has terrible dreams and begins to become addicted to tranquilizers. The drugs and her deteriorating mental condition cause her to miss work and she is eventually fired, whereupon she travels to a dilapidated former tourist area called Garma after receiving a mysterious postcard. There, she runs into a girl named Paula Burton (Nicoletta Elmi), who tells her that she looks exactly like another woman, Nicole, currently staying at the faded resort. Alice then encounters a series of strange people and circumstances, all leading her closer to unlocking the possibly deadly mystery.

Some screencaps of varying quality: