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Three somewhat obscure movies, everyone should see


Lefty

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Such a variance in taste! Pacman felt that Gravity should have won an Oscar for best picture last year. I like science fiction movies, and thought Gravity was ok, but not an award winning movie. Then we have you and Siam Sam hate this movie. It's a good thing we're all different or it would be a boring world!

 

I guess no one has had the chance to watch the obscure movie I recommended last Dec: The Skin I Live In. It's in Spanish, so you need to check it has English subtitles or you know Spanish. It has quite the twist, so if you have the chance to watch it, let me know what you think.

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Haven't seen it yet, RX but will download it now; and yes,  it's the old 'chocolate and vanilla' deal with pretty much every movie......we can't all like the same stuff!  There are a lot of movies I find entertaining which others find absolutely mind-numbing and vice versa of course, it all depends on a persons tastes.  Never been a sci-fi guy at all and while Gravity wasn't really science fiction {I guess some of that nonsense could really happen} it sure did feel like it.

 

Like Sam I was tempted to turn it off after 15 minutes, I just couldn't believe how phony and amateurish it looked, but I hung with it;  huge mistake  :biggrin:

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Watched "Gravity" two nights ago and completely wasted 90 minutes of my life.....horrible, unbelievable nonsense and frankly the special effects were very amateurish. One of the worst movies I have ever seen, by far.  Probably because I usually refuse to view that kind of crap, but I was watching a friend's house and there was nothing else on.

 

You never wasted your time, you got to decide for yourself what you thought of the film. And I'm fine with someone not agreeing with my opinion. I even enjoy the hyperbole you employ to describe how shocking the movie is.

 

....some people seem to have loved it 

 

You must mean me & I still love it. 

 

Have to agree with you JaiDee. I tried watching "Gravity" months ago and gave up after 15 minutes. It was painfully boring, predictable and an absolute waste of time. Ditto for "Noah" watch I endured a few days ago. What cinema flotsam regardless of the viewing format. 

 

You're welcome Sam, one man's meat is another man's poison. And I also found Noah ridiculous. A waste of talent & resources.

 

Such a variance in taste! Pacman felt that Gravity should have won an Oscar for best picture last year. I like science fiction movies, and thought Gravity was ok, but not an award winning movie. 

 

Yes, I did write that. I must have been in a very good mood because I didn't think that after I saw 12 Years A Slave, the film that did win the Best Picture Oscar. And it deserved the award. Brilliant movie even though I almost talked myself out of going due to reservations about the violence.

 

I guess no one has had the chance to watch the obscure movie I recommended last Dec: The Skin I Live In. It's in Spanish, so you need to check it has English subtitles or you know Spanish. It has quite the twist, so if you have the chance to watch it, let me know what you think.

 

 

I do apologise RX, I did see The Skin I Live In & had every intention of following up your post. A complete oversight on my part, time got away from me. That is an excellent film with a brilliant twist. I have seen all the movies made by Pedro Almodovar & this is up there with his best. As good as Jamon Jamon & Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down IMO.

 

Haven't seen it yet, RX but will download it now; and yes,  it's the old 'chocolate and vanilla' deal with pretty much every movie......we can't all like the same stuff!  There are a lot of movies I find entertaining which others find absolutely mind-numbing and vice versa of course, it all depends on a persons tastes. 

 

I'm sure you'll enjoy The Skin I Live In much more than Gravity. 

 

 Never been a sci-fi guy at all and while Gravity wasn't really science fiction {I guess some of that nonsense could really happen} it sure did feel like it.

 

Like Sam I was tempted to turn it off after 15 minutes, I just couldn't believe how phony and amateurish it looked, but I hung with it;  huge mistake   :biggrin:

 

 

I think it can be categorised as falling under the science fiction umbrella. I thought there were a number of problems with the film mainly centred around the banal dialogue which I commented on when I praised it. I have never been a big fan of space movies since 2001: A Space Odyssey. After that, subsequent space films lacked innovation & any sense of being there. Being in space that is. Gravity changed all that for me.

 

Admittedly I did see it in the perfect environment, a small blacked out theatre with speakers all round & very good 3D effects. From my seat I had the surreal experience of feeling like I was in the shuttle. The first 13 minutes of Gravity is one continuous unbroken sequence & by the end of it I was hooked. 

 

And while it is popular to criticise the practise of watching special effects movies on small screens, I found my second screening of Gravity at one of those huge whiz-bang theatres with the massive screen something of a let-down. The feeling of being in space I had found so exciting the first time was not there the second.

 

But that isn't an attempt to excuse myself, I stand by my opinion. The space effect achieved by Gravity is now the yardstick by which all future outer space films will be measured. And that line was taken from a movie reviewer here in Oz. Not bad for something that's "phony" & "amateurish"....     :hi: .      

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As a few have mentioned downloading movies... I'm sure "legally" :good:

you may find this of interest

Details at the link:

BitTorrent not to blame for movie revenues, says economist

Movie futures traders provide better data than Hollywood sockpuppets

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/15/bittorrent_not_to_blame_for_movie_revenues_says_economist/

By Richard Chirgwin, 15 Jul 2014

"An interesting observation in the paper is that “one consistent result is that file sharing arrivals shortly before the theatrical opening have a modest positive effect on box office revenue”, suggesting that “free and potentially degraded goods such as the lower quality movies available on file sharing networks can have some beneficial effects on intellectual property”.

Overall, however, “The estimates indicate that the displacement effect is quite small, both on a movie-level and in aggregate” – in other words, no, BitTorrent isn't what's destroying Hollywood.

The study was presented to the National Bureau of Economic Research. ®"

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Future traders will always provide better info than so called pundits in a variety of areas for sure.

 

I don't think torrent downloading affects the box office too much or as the article suggests it might help.  But I reckon it must hurt DVD sales though.

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I do apologise RX, I did see The Skin I Live In & had every intention of following up your post. A complete oversight on my part, time got away from me. That is an excellent film with a brilliant twist. I have seen all the movies made by Pedro Almodovar & this is up there with his best. As good as Jamon Jamon & Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down IMO

 

 

Great to hear at least one person saw the movie! Thanks for reporting pacman. Hopefully a few others will watch and post their thoughts about it as well.

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  • 1 month later...

The Earth has frozen over thanks to a failed experiment to stop global warming. The survivors live aboard the Snowpiercer, a train powered by a perpetual motion engine that has only one rail track, a course that goes around the globe while those inside wait for temperatures to start to rise. This is a hell of a train, the elites live in the front part with every luxury they could wish for while the underclass occupy the rear of the train & survive on protein blocks & not much else.

 

This is the premise of Snowpiercer, a Korean film based on a French book. After 17 years & several failed attempts to break out of the back of the train, a new protagonist (Chris Evans) emerges who is urged by a very ragged looking John Hurt to try again. Evans is a reluctant hero until a random comment alerts him to the possibility the rifles carried by the guards may be out of bullets. 

 

As is typical of a Korean director, the fight scenes are violent & bloody & are not for the faint hearted. This is not a date film. The CGI is first class, scenes of the train crashing through avalanches (snow piercer - geddit?) & the look of a post apocalyptic world are well done. The train is utterly implausible yet what action film made today doesn't involve scenarios that aren't straight out of somebody's fertile imagination?

 

The entire film is a metaphor for life comparing the lot of the haves with the have-nots & the eternal fight for social equity. It moves along with great purpose yet when the film gets towards its climax, the hero's desire for justice does over-ride his common sense. It may not matter to many of the audience but it was pivotal to me as to whether I could recommend it or not. 

 

The film starts off so well & has the potential to be great but just when I was considering it to be worthy of a nine out of ten, it falls to a seven. Reviews here reveal an either love it or hate it reaction but despite playing at one small art cinema, it has been going for weeks on the strength of a word-of-mouth campaign that has more arriving to see it each week.  The caste is impressive - John Hurt, Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris & a bunch of Korean stars who I have never heard of. This is not a cut price copy of a Marvel movie, it has all the hallmarks of a film that has had a ton of money thrown at it. 

 

So despite my misgivings I suggest Snowpiercer as an alternative to some of the action films currently on release.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm resurrecting this old thread because I just thought of an amazing movie I saw a few years ago that made a huge impression on me.

 

It is a documentary, which by definition are almost always obscure.... and it's subject is particularly unpleasant which will add to its obscurity, but since I know there are a few openminded cinephiles on here I am throwing it on the list: "Zoo" 

 

What elevates this above most docs I have seen is the skill of the filmmakers in a recreation & reimagining events & the revelation of characters & situations through superb filming & editing that exposes us to a hidden group existing among us. While the subject, zoophilia, is unpleasant & disturbing & nothing I wanted to know about, I remember the film being non-sensational & artful which was quite a feat. 

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Yes seven,  I pulled the link after watching it again for 5 minutes... maybe I drank too much coffee, but it really bugged me.  It's a real life David Lynch scenario & the small laptop screen didn't help, trivialized the visuals....  I have to watch it again to see if it transitions from big screen as well I remembered. 

Sorry, I should rewatch something so dark before recommending....  :huh:

 

Mea culpa guys...

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Yes seven,  I pulled the link after watching it again for 5 minutes... maybe I drank too much coffee, but it really bugged me.  It's a real life David Lynch scenario & the small laptop screen didn't help, trivialized the visuals....  I have to watch it again to see if it transitions from big screen as well I remembered. 

Sorry, I should rewatch something so dark before recommending....  :huh:

 

Mea culpa guys...

 

Not at all, Hefe. Just saying. Anything goes, imo.

I try to stay open-minded  and not judge people.

 

re:  dark stuff; i i recommended von Triers latest two and dixon will probably never forgive me after making him watch Melancolia. :biggrin:

 

Re: Lynch. Blue Velvet was on the other night, I've seen it countless times,and i still find it  fantastic.

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I just rewatched for the umpteenth time my favorite WW2 movie, and to most folks here I would guess it is pretty obscure. The Great Raid  

This movie is based on true events and follows the truth pretty well, especially when it comes to the raid itself. The raid took place on Luzon, Philippines in late January 1945. As the US was invading the islands to take the country back from those heathen Jap bastards, the Jap war ministry had issued an order, that no prisoners be left alive when push came to shove, and US intelligence had intercepted the message. 30 miles behind Jap lines, about 4-5 miles from Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija province, was a POW camp with about 500 survivors of the Bataan Death March. There was great concern that as the front of the rapidly advancing US Army got close to the camp that the Japs would execute the prisoners. The govt felt these men were owed a great debt because of our basically abandoning them at the start of the war, and while from a strategic standpoint it wasn't a huge concern, from a moral standpoint it definitely was. So 115 men from the 6th Rangers Battalion with the aid of about 250 Filipino Guerrilla fighters, sneaked totally undetected 30 miles behind Jap lines, assaulted the camp, freed 512 POWs, killed between 500-1000 heathen Jap sons of bitches in the process and only 2 Rangers KIA with several wounded along with about 21 Filipinos wounded. The movie portrayed the actual raid with pretty good accuracy. There was a side story about a nurse in Manila who had been smuggling quinine into the camp for a couple of years, which also actually happened although some of that part of the movie was embellished a little. The end of the movie after the rescue, included authentic footage of the real POWs after the rescue and to me that was pretty cool. To think of the conditions those poor men had to endure for almost 3 years at the hands of their brutal and ruthless captors, when I see how happy the are afterwards, the footage literally chokes me up every time I see it. 

The premise of the movie, what the Rangers and their guerrilla allies actually accomplished seems unbelievable and more like something a Hollywood script writer would dream up. To think that what we see in the movie really did happen, makes it pretty damned cool to me. 

The movie stars Benjamin Bratt as Henry Mucci, CO of the 6th Rangers, and James Franco as Capt Robert Prince who planned and led the actual raid, The director John Dahl consulted with the real Robert Prince who was still alive at the time it was filmed, early 2000s, and I think that added to the accuracy. Bratt and Franco both bear some resemblance to the real Mucci and Prince, which adds to the quality of the movie for me.  I am used to seeing Franco playing stoners in comedies like the TV show Freaks and Geeks, and the movie Pineapple Express, so it was good to see him handle pure drama very well. He also narrates the movie. 

My father was in the US Army on Luzon, same area and time, which is another aspect that makes me love this movie. I wish he'd been able to see this movie before he passed away, so we could have enjoyed it together and talked about it. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Raid

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0326905/

 

The raid was and still remains the most successful rescue mission in US military history. 

 

One of my best Pinay friends lives in Cabanatuan City, and I was talking to her about it. She is smart as a whip in many regards, such as being able to solve a Rubic's Cube in 60 seconds, etc, but she had never heard of the raid or knew there had been a POW camp so nearby. There is a memorial on the site of the camp even today. I have come to realize that most young Filipinos know very little about their country's history as it pertains to WW2. I think perhaps they do  not push it in schools. Seems to me like the country as a whole these days wants to kowtow to the Japs because of tourism and Jap business investments. The atrocities committed 70-75 yrs ago are for the most part disregarded now. As we discussed in another thread, the Celestial Empire aka China damned sure has not forgotten about The Rape of Nanking. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIEn0x3r-N0

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The Earth has frozen over thanks to a failed experiment to stop global warming. The survivors live aboard the Snowpiercer, a train powered by a perpetual motion engine that has only one rail track, a course that goes around the globe while those inside wait for temperatures to start to rise. This is a hell of a train, the elites live in the front part with every luxury they could wish for while the underclass occupy the rear of the train & survive on protein blocks & not much else.

 

This is the premise of Snowpiercer, a Korean film

 

Seeing that Paccy brought up Korean films, of which i'm a huge fan...

 

Give these a go... you may enjoy but the subject matter is brutal!!

 

I saw the Devil

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588170/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

 

The chaser

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190539/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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  • 8 years later...

I'd kind of forgotten about this thread, so good to see my main man PDoggg bump it. 

Recent movies I've watched that really piqued my interest include Hell or High Water, though I doubt Tom Selleck likes it because it shows the conniving crookedness of reverse mortgages. Jeff Bridges is one of the stars and does his usual exceptional job. An early Bridges movie that it seems fans of his seldom mention when naming their favorites by him, is Rancho Deluxe. It is also well worth checking out especially if you like Jeff Bridges.

Also, a fairly recent western that I now include in the Official Lefty Top Ten Westerns, which is Old  Henry. As the genre goes I cannot express enough how much I liked it. I never really thought of Tim Blake Duncan as a serious drama type of actor but he pulls off the lead role very well.

As a Sam Peckinpah fan, I am pretty familiar with the names of many of the crew that worked for him over various projects. One of them was Gordon Dawson who 2nd unit directed, co-produced, etc, for Sam, but on The Wild Bunch was Wardrobe and Costume Design. Anyway, whenever I see his name attached to something, I'll check it out. He wrote and co-produced an obscure revisionist western around 1999, called Purgatory. It is free on Youtube and for fans of the genre, I suggest checking it out. Strong cast, including Sam Shepard, Eric Roberts, Peter Stormare, Donnie Wahlberg, et al. 

One writer/director/producer whose works I find myself often liking,  through no effort to do so, is Walter Hill. He wrote the screenplay for and directed The Warriors, back in 1979, and over the years it has become a cult classic. More popular now than it was 43 years ago. Anyway for some reason I find this movie very enjoyable, and will watch it a few times a year.

He has a new western that came out this year, Dead for a Dollar. One of the stars happens to be Christoph Waltz, so I have two reasons to watch it now. 

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3 low budget movies I enjoyed where, The Drop (Tom Hardy), at the every end its so cool, he whispers in his ear, "no ever see's you come, do they Bob", it's classic. Crown Vic, with Thomas Jane.  I think it's Jane's best acting job.  Finally, the sleeper of them all is Sleepers.  Very intense, pure street with great actors, but no star.

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On 11/6/2022 at 2:15 AM, Pdoggg said:

I quite like it, maybe because it is a New York movie, but am reluctant to recommend it to others.

I guess there was a lot of trouble for the crew while they were filming. Sometimes from real gang members. They had to hire extra security. Someone urinated on them from rooftops while filming. Hopefully you were not involved in any of those shenanigans.  :character00292:   :biggrin:

I read much of it was filmed in Brooklyn, even when it was supposed to be happening in the Bronx. Some ambitious fan made a series of Youtube videos showing all the places in NYC where scenes were shot. 

Even though I've never spent any time in NYC other than JFK airport, and it's surrounds, something about the movie really intrigues me.  

Why don't you like to recommend it?

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2 hours ago, Lefty said:

Where may we watch this?

Its on my private platform

http://Www.subscribestar.com/cinederose

Its called " meet the ladyboy lizzies " about 35 videos ago , its about the vip high end ladyboys who go to the clubs in packs at the weekend in Bangkok , i have many many videos if you scrowl down at the bottom of the page it will say how many posts , ok not promoting you asked :)

Pinkpinkpinkish.jpg

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  • 2 months later...
On 7/16/2012 at 11:39 PM, Lefty said:

The Godfather II I guess is the only one. But, I am not a huge fan, surprisingly, of The Godfather movies. If you asked me what the best mob/gangster movies are, I'd say Miller's Crossing and A Bronx Tale. I do not expect anyone would agree with me, but that's ok.

I would not say the best, but classic's, oh yeah.........

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