Underworld USA - 1961
“Goodbye, Lenin.”
“Everything is Illuminated.” Easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Just wonderful.
I’m mystified that more people have not seen “Mongol” and “Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World.” Truly superb films.
The Mrs. votes for Harold and Maude with an honorable mention for Motel Hell.
The quick,and the dead.
Billy Wilder’s “One, Two, Three”, not as well known as his other movies, but IMHO one of the funniest movies ever made, and a brilliant comedic performance from James Cagney.
The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster.
Ladybug, Ladybug.
And then he has a stroke of good fortune . . .
I'd also add Kevin Costner's For Love of the Game to this list. It was a box-office bust and got panned by most critics, but I think a lot of people simply didn't appreciate the subtleties of the movie and extraordinary work that it took to make this film. It takes place during a single baseball game filmed in Yankee Stadium, but is built around a series of flashbacks over the last five years of the career of legendary Detroit Tigers' ace "Billy Chapel" (played by Costner).
Netflix bookmark.
Also second Serial. Just to think that all that stuff from back then is still around today.
Rocket Man!
The Dirty Dozen and Oh brother where art thou. I’ve watched both a hundred times.
One of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen, and a damned fine war picture is “Farewell to the King” which bears echoes of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim—with a lot of filmmaker John Milius’ own Hemingwayesque slant thrown in. During World War II, American POW Learoyd (Nick Nolte) escapes a Japanese firing squad. Hiding himself in the wilds of Borneo, Learoyd is adopted by a head-hunting tribe of Nyaks, who consider him “divine” because of his elaborate tattoos. Before long, Learoyd is the reigning king of the Nyaks. When British soldiers approach him to rejoin the war against the Japanese, Learoyd resists (in language so flowery that it could have been written by Sir Walter Scott). But when his own tribe is threatened by the invaders, the “king” deigns to fight for their rights. Farewell to the King is breathtakingly photographed and quite exciting at times.
I've never seen it offered on DVD.
Think I’ll go with a current movie, Terence Malik’s “The Tree of Life”. It’ll be too slow and artsy for many people but I found it extremely powerful and emotionally rich.
Miracle Mile: A few people in Los Angeles learn of the Soviets launch against the US. Movie shows the chaos as they try to leave LA before the nukes hit.
Almost no one has seen this movie, but I enjoyed it.
The Railway Children
The Cockfighter w/ Warren Oates. Monte Hellman dir.
Apropos. Yesterday, I was googling "underrated rock artists", hoping to find somebody new, but found lists which included Johnny Winter, Procol Harum, Fleetwood Mac and such. I guess "underrated" means what I HEART and think that millions others who buy it is not enough! How about, say, Andy Kim, and Emmitt Rhodes?
Dragonwyck. Lovely B&W film, great atmospheric ghost story, starring the incomparable Vincent Price. Price is often thought to be a British horror star like Peter Cushing or Boris Karloff-nope, he was born and raised in St Louis, MO. Apparently his distinctive accent was the common upper class accent of that time and place. Anyhow, this film was the last attempt of his studio to make the young, handsome Price a matinee idol/sex symbol a la Clark Gable-it’s a transitional role and film, combining the supernatural and romance. It deals with an unusual historical fact : There really was an attempt on the part of the Dutch aristocracy to preserve something very like serfdom or at least sharecropperdom in post revolutionary war upstate New York. And it’s even an early look at drug addiction (opium) ! The film didn’t do too well , and that ended the studio’s attempt to make Price a conventional leading man-from this film he went into the horror genre and pretty much stayed there. But the film is very worth watching, especially for the eerie harpsicord scenes.