Interesting, underrated movies you'd like to share

[Dantheman]

Basically, the polar opposite of my "Movies you regret watching" thread, but for films that most people maybe haven't heard of.

To start off, I got:

American Mary- a struggling medical school student (Katherine Isabelle) ends up doing an underground emergency surgery for a criminal, which helps with her money problems. She soon gets into body modification work, and becomes a big name in the body-mod community. When her medical school professor notices her lifestyle suddenly going up, he takes advantage of her at a party. She gets her revenge on him in the most awesome way, I'm not going to spoil it, but let's just say it ties in with the body-mod thing and "practice makes perfect".

If you've been wanting to see something unconventional, this movie is for you. Although, I have to warn you about the SA scene, it's kinda rough, but it's an important character-building moment.

Also, it's available free on Tubi TV, so what have you got to lose?

 

[Fone Bone]

The Snapper. I loved this Irish film starring Colm Meaney. Saw it twice in the theater back in the 1990's. Can't find it on DVD.

 

[Classic Speedy]

The Godfather of Green Bay. It's an obscure indie comedy that mixes the stand-up world with mobsters (only not nearly as violent as Goodfellas). It was filmed in Wisconsin and has an authentic feel for that region, sorta like how Fargo appropriately feels very Minnesota.

 

[Pooky]

I haven't seen this since my mid-teens, so I might not stand by a recommendation (I also think you'd have to have a taste for mid-low budget 80s/90s genre films), but I think this is a good idea for a thread that I'd like to support, and this popped into my head recently so I'll mention it.


Brain Dead, from 1990; I remember seeing this trailer on the VHS for, of all things, Weekend at Bernie's, but I wasn't able to find it until it was released as a budget DVD title in the UK around 2003 or so. It's sort of like a feature length Twilight Zone or Tales From the Darkside. It only got a limited release in theatres, and I think it was overshadowed further only a couple of year later by the better known film Dead Alive being released under the title of Brain Dead in many markets. However, it may have had one notable cultural legacy. You know how, for some reason (never understood myself), people used to get Bill Paxton and Bill Pulman mixed up? Well this is the one film they made together.

The writer/director, Adam SImon, had a funny in-joke cameo at the start of The Player, and also went on to make the better known, somewhat infamous Jurassic Park cash-in (not quite a rip-off) Carnosaur, which, to be honest, I also kind of liked (me and Gene Siskel!)

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

For me, it has to be Mystery Men. It's a shame that the film came out on the same day as The Sixth Sense but it gave us Smash Mouth's "All Star".

 

[MC_Lovecraft]

One of my favorite films of all time is Roar (1981). Roar was an insane passion project by Tippi Hedren (of Hitchcock's The Birds) and her husband Noel Marshall, in which they filmed themselves and their children being mauled by approximately a billion real, live lions. It is a completely insane film, and even manages to be bizarrely heartwarming. Nobody I tell about this film has ever heard of it before, and getting to show it to someone for the first time is one of the best experiences in life.

 

[Dantheman]

Another one I'd like to mention:

Over the Edge (1979)- About the conflict between parents and their children in a small, planned California community. There's nothing there for the kids except a recreation center and to cause trouble, The parents want what's best for their kids, but don't know how to express it. The town's top cop, Sgt. Doberman, or "Deputy Dawg" as the kids call him, is a hard authoritarian on the delinquent kids, whose leader is played by Matt Dillon.

When the Matt Dillon character and his friend ditch school one day and steal a car, Sgt. Doberman chases them, and shoots Matt Dillon's character dead. This, and the rec center closing down because pot was found there, cause things between the parents and the children to escalate and reach an explosive boiling point.

If's just a great movie that "gets" what teenagers go through., without talking down or patronizing them.