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Fud

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GhostOfTomJoad

GhostOfTomJoad 9,324

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The Indian Runner. Sean Penn wrote & directed this movie which is essentially the film version of Springsteen's song "Highway Patrolman."

It's got some of the hiccups you'd expect from a first time director, but the cast is outstanding: David Morse, Viggo Mortensen, Patricia Arquette and Dennis Hopper. And Charles Bronson gives a performance that I quite frankly didn't know he had in him.

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3,482

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Bad Company -- early 70's revisionist Western directed by Robert Benton.  It's languid, so don't expect a lot of action, but that's the way the frontier was -- a lot of drudgery occasionally interrupted with hair-raising danger.  Great chemistry between a young Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown (RIP).

Running Scared -- not the Paul Walker movie; rather, the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy cop film.

Miami Blues -- Alec Baldwin is great in this -- a black comedy crime film.  Probably more underappreciated than underrated, because critics generally liked it when it came out.

Semi-Pro -- the Will Farrell homage to the ABA and mid-70's pop culture; better than its reviews.  

Kingpin -- critics mostly panned it.  Parts of it are hilarious.

The Skeleton Key -- voodoo supernatural in Louisiana with Kate Hudson

Angel Heart -- voodoo supernatural in Louisiana with Mickey Rourke

1941 -- I laughed my ass off when I saw this for the first time.  It still amuses me.

Paint Your Wagon -- What can I say?  I like Clint, Lee Marvin, and Jean Seberg's cleavage.  I can overlook the singing by Clint and Lee.

The New World -- Not as bad as the critics said.

  

Agree with many others already mentioned, e.g., Wonderland, Jackie Brown, etc.  Love many of the others as well, e.g., Alpha Dog, Flirting with Disaster, and Breaker Morant, but they were more underappreciated as opposed to underrated. 

More underappreciated (but not underrated) movies:  The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Devil in a Blue Dress; Used Cars; Hard Eight; Ghost Dog. 

 

 

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3,482

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4 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I don't think you really dig PTA "a lot" then. 

Well, I've seen all of his other films save Phantom Thread, and I enjoyed each one to varying degrees.  (Boogie Nights is a goddam classic, There Will Be Blood is high up there as well, and Hard Eight is one of the best feature directorial debuts I've seen.)  But The Master underwhelmed me to say the least.  Maybe it was the exceedingly high expectations that I had.  

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ztejas

ztejas 43,425

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1 minute ago, Carl Spackler said:

Well, I've seen all of his other films save Phantom Thread, and I enjoyed each one to varying degrees.  (Boogie Nights is a goddam classic, There Will Be Blood is high up there as well, and Hard Eight is one of the best feature directorial debuts I've seen.)  But The Master underwhelmed me to say the least.  Maybe it was the exceedingly high expectations that I had.  

It's definitely tough for some people to get into. It's very dialouge driven and edited at a crawling pace, so I get it I guess. 

You should watch Phantom Thread. I think it's my 2nd favorite film of his and might be his 2nd best. 

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3,482

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1 minute ago, ztejas said:

It's definitely tough for some people to get into. It's very dialouge driven and edited at a crawling pace, so I get it I guess. 

You should watch Phantom Thread. I think it's my 2nd favorite film of his and might be his 2nd best. 

The pacing is/was one of the big issues I had with The Master.  The relative lack of character development was another.  It's not that the movie is without its attributes.  I thought Phoenix was very good in his role, and Amy Adams surprised me with her intensity.  I didn't really have any issues with the acting.  Rather, it was the meandering storytelling that never really got anywhere, the languid pacing, and the absence of character development that made me repeatedly check my wristwatch when I saw it in the theater.  Maybe I'll give it another shot (along with Phantom Thread) at some point.  Wouldn't be the first time that my opinion changed after a rewatch.  

     

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CurlyDumps

CurlyDumps 4,471

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5 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

A Very Long Engagement.  Yeah, it's billed as a romance but it is so much more.

 

Fuckin movie made me cry.  I think I was alone when I saw it, too. Haven't seen this since it was in theaters, but still remember it well.

Your suggestion reminds me of "JSA." Was a huge hit in Korea, but don't think it's very well known in the states.  Made by Park Chan-wook, the guy who directed Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, etc. Great movie that really moved me.

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Bateshorn

Bateshorn 9,927

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13 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

poor career management, in my opinion.  was very cool as a bourne bad guy after a fine showing in the LotR movies, which probably led to him getting to pick a lot of roles after that.  seemed to consistently choose mindless nonsense. 

I’ve always thought he was criminally underused. And The Boys is proving me right. 

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idigTexas

idigTexas 2,288

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On 9/19/2020 at 12:52 AM, Fud said:

In an effort to help me (and others on the board) build a watchlist, what are some of your favorite lesser known movies? The more you can post, the better

Here are some of mine:

HBO Max:
Hanna: A young Saoirse Ronan plays a young assassin on the run
The American: George Clooney plays a retired assassin hanging around in Tuscany to do one last job. Slow burn, so don't watch if you can't handle that


What do you guys got?

I made the mistake of watching the Amazon Prime series first, which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially season 1.  Subsequently, I found the film to be almost unwatchable.  A series is almost always going to have more depth, but in this instance, I found the acting and minor plot differences be be superior as well.  One of the biggest disappointments in the film was Cate Blanchett.  Her portrayal of Wiegler pales in comparison to that of Mirelle Enos.

Advice to those who have not seen either, start with the film, then progress to the series.  

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tantric superman

tantric superman 4,667

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3 hours ago, Carl Spackler said:

Well, I've seen all of his other films save Phantom Thread, and I enjoyed each one to varying degrees.  (Boogie Nights is a goddam classic, There Will Be Blood is high up there as well, and Hard Eight is one of the best feature directorial debuts I've seen.)  But The Master underwhelmed me to say the least.  Maybe it was the exceedingly high expectations that I had.  

Yes, the Master was his sixth major film and that's about where it ranks.  

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futureman

futureman 22,457

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two of my all-time favorite movies are australian and few people have seen them over here.

the castle is a comedy and it is absolutely hilarious but also sweet and optimistic.  animal kingdom is a dark crime thriller.  I would call it ben mendelsohn’s best role, a cold-blooded murderer that will creep you the fuck out.  both movies are outstanding. 

F79A4964-CB5B-443A-AA39-97AC8C89CFBB.jpeg

83E9749A-5FF0-4394-BADD-D70EC6BE954A.jpeg

Edited by futureman
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ztejas

ztejas 43,425

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6 minutes ago, futureman said:

two of my all-time favorite movies are australian and few people have seen them over here.

the castle is a comedy and it is absolutely hilarious but also sweet and optimistic.  animal kingdom is a dark crime thriller.  I would call it ben mendelsohn’s best role, a cold-blooded murderer that will creep you the fuck out.  both movies are outstanding. 

F79A4964-CB5B-443A-AA39-97AC8C89CFBB.jpeg

83E9749A-5FF0-4394-BADD-D70EC6BE954A.jpeg

I've heard good things about The Castle. Not sure I've ever seen it though.

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dogbreath

dogbreath 434

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59 minutes ago, tantric superman said:

Okay, I don't what this means.  Although it did teach us that the veldt really holds the southern part of Africa together.

Breaker Morant was old fashioned greatness. 

The last paragraph of Criterion's review sums it up pretty well.  https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3713-breaker-morant-scapegoats-of-empire

Breaker Morant’s stature has grown over the years. In a varied and distinguished career, Beresford has done nothing finer. It belongs with Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) and Joseph Losey’s King & Country (1964) among the cinema’s most scathing indictments of military (in)justice; and its interrogation of atrocities committed under the heading of “standard operating procedure” looks more relevant and prescient than ever. One need not look very far in our own century for parallels, including, when such procedures are deemed politically unacceptable, the speed with which scapegoats are found and soldiers on the ground become victims of the hypocrisies of government and high command.

 

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Horn80

Horn80 6,119

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1 hour ago, tantric superman said:

Okay, I don't what this means.  Although it did teach us that the veldt really holds the southern part of Africa together.

Breaker Morant was old fashioned greatness. 

The issue of having military men required to defeat an enemy engaged in gorilla warfare then holding them accountable as though they were involved in police action.

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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1 hour ago, futureman said:

are they, though?

Yes, absolutely.  They are over-glamorized in cinema and Quentin knows it.  So he puts them back in their rightful place---incompetent dipshits that literally can't figure their way out a 15' trailer.  Hollywood tends to treat the Mafia as these cleve guys that are one step ahead of law enforcement when they are in fact, barely capable of doing the math on their own vig.  It doesn't make for good cinema though, watching these guys struggle with the math behind a good bookmaking scheme, so they gotta bring in Jews.  Quentin knew this.  That it's the saddest thing watching two Italians do math.  But it makes for great scripts.  I know, I know...Fibonacci.  Great run, they had...500 years ago.  True Romance literally tells us what he thinks about these dumbasses.  

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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21 minutes ago, Horn80 said:

The issue of having military men required to defeat an enemy engaged in gorilla warfare then holding them accountable as though they were involved in police action.

How are the gorillas doing by the way?  

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Ignatius

Ignatius 4,017

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On 9/19/2020 at 11:11 PM, Neonmoon said:

Way of the Gun

This movie got largely panned by critics and didn’t do great at the box office, but I love it. I think the dude that wrote The Usual Suspects wrote and directed this.

One of my favorite lines ever:

”So are you the brains of this operation?”

”Tell you the truth, I’m starting to think this isn’t a brains-type operation”

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futureman

futureman 22,457

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1 hour ago, BrickHorn said:

Some that haven’t been mentioned yet:

Checkmate

Prognosis Negative

Death Blow

Mountain High

The Pain and the Yearning

Cry, Cry Again

you forgot blame it on the rain, chunnel, and sack lunch.

and means to an end.  and I’m sure others. 

Edited by futureman
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HornPhD

HornPhD 1,368

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On 9/21/2020 at 5:57 PM, mchookem said:

lol yeah, Whiplash is pretty good 😄

others:

Unlawful Entry - angry Kurt Russell is the best Kurt Russell 

Savages - first post-FNL movie with Taylor Kitsch that was worth watching, Oliver Stone directs

Nocturnal Animals

Skin Deep - 80s John Ritter comedy 

Fright Night - both the original and surprisingly the remake - headed into Halloween season, it's a fun watch 

 

Skin Deep was awesome

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