Underrated movies

[Red Hood]

Yeah, but this movie has Robin Wright Penn flinging off her bra and Robin Williams moaning erotically while Jamie Foxx looks on and sighs erotically.

Fair. Gotta admit those are three people I don't want to imagine fucking.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Fair. Gotta admit those are three people I don't want to imagine fucking.

Robin Wright Penn is really beautiful in the movie though.

 

[Red Hood]

Robin Wright Penn is really beautiful in the movie though.

She just has a weird face to me and I've never found her attractive.

 

[le fishe]

birth of a nation

 

[Dom Cruise]

She just has a weird face to me and I've never found her attractive.

She gave me funny feelings I didn't quite understand when I saw her in both Toys and Forrest Gump as a little kid.

 

[The Fool]

Gehenna: Where Death Lives

Not gonna post a trailer because it's not really a "trailer movie", it's an American-Japanese production, so it's a beautiful mix of traditional Japanese horror with the skills of American acting and cinematography.

 

[Red Hood]

She gave me funny feelings I didn't quite understand when I saw her in both Toys and Forrest Gump as a little kid.

I feel this way but about Jennifer Connely and Michelle Pfeiffer

 

[Dom Cruise]

I feel this way but about Jennifer Connely and Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman? Because that's me as well, also Geena Davis in Beetlejuice, Cutthroat Island and The Fly.

 

[Red Hood]

Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman? Because that's me as well, also Geena Davis in Beetlejuice, Cutthroat Island and The Fly.

Yes. Geena Davis is all right. Never did much for me though I do love Beetlejuice.

Madchen Amick and Sherilynn Fenn are probably on that list too. Damn Twin Peaks.

 

[Reverend]

They Live because it's as poignant today as it was when it was first released.

 

[The Fool]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gEnRNIvEKu8It's not so much underrated, but apparently nobody saw it.

Just saw it because of that trailer. It was amazing.

Spoiler

It reminded me of I Am Mother, just the whole premise of "the friendly AI turned out to be the instigator of all the trauma in the entire film just to achieve it's own goals". Really good film, and fantastic camera work, and I loved the fakeout in the end. I totally thought that guy instigated everything just to test his tech. Boy was I wrong.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Going back to my childhood, Dick Tracy (1990) was one I had a lot of fondness for.

With its all star cast (Warren Beatty as Tracy, Madonna in her prime, and Al Pacino hamming it up like nobody's business), unique aesthetic that made it look like a comic that literally leapt off the page, amazing makeup for the deformed criminals that inhabit the world, fun music and characters, and charming noir-ish feel, this movie was a blast for me as a kid.

It had a huge marketing campaign leading into its release, which was obviously an attempt to match the success of 89 Batman, and to my understanding, it did solid-ish at the box office and was generally liked at the time, but nobody seems to remember it all that much.

Oh well, I always liked it and seeing it at 5 years old, I guess you could say it was my first crime drama.

 

[janedoe]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gEnRNIvEKu8It's not so much underrated, but apparently nobody saw it.

i only saw this recently, i was surprised i didn't hear about it before. i love the way the action scenes were shot, how the camera was fixated on his body and movements. it really captured the feeling of not being in control.

 

[Overly Serious]

They Live because it's as poignant today as it was when it was first released.

Is that really underrated, though? It's a Cult Classic that I'd bet most of us here have seen and really like.

Well anyway, a few from me. Underrated may be a slight synonym for 'lesser known' in this topic because there's always going to be people who rate them highly.

Destination Wedding

Like many low-key, unpretentious movies, it's hard to quote and the trailer does little other than spoil the movie. Honestly, I think trailer creators are lost when the film isn't a series of quips and explosions - avoid it. The setup, such as it is, is that Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder are two guests at a wedding who don't really know anybody else there and get dumped on a table together at the wedding. They are both unbelievably bitchy people. The film is 100% character interaction. I enjoyed it lots. If porcupines were people, they would be these two.

Okja

It's about a genetically engineered super-pig. Korean. By the director who did Snowpiercer and Parasite, neither of which I've seen. I expect a bit of a negative reaction from the Farms based on that since I believe Parasite was the darling of the Oscars last year and you know, Hollywood and all that. Plus there's an animal rights theme to the movie. But if reactionary feelings can be put aside I found it a well-done movie that got a tight-hold of the heart-strings. Yes, I'm a sentimental sort of person - fuck off.


Ginger Snaps

Probably stretching things to call this underrated, but it had the budget of a school fete and still managed to turn out some killer performances from the whole cast. It's one of my favourite Horror films. Two sisters, Ginger and Bridgette, close until one of them gets bitten by something on a full moon and the other starts believing her sister is turning into a werewolf. It's got a mastery of dark humour including a Hell-spawned mother played by Mimi Rogers. Her waspish, feminist contempt for men is terrifyingly believable. I've met people just like that. Mimi Rogers plays her with so much relish!

Anyway, this is one for people who don't need modern, expensive special effects but fun if you've never seen it. A little old now, I still love it.

Night of the Eagle

Another of my favourite Horrors. Though it's from the same era as The Haunting so Horror back then mainly just means close-ups and scary music. Still, it's a great little movie with some innovative special effects. A psychology professor whose specialism is primitive beliefs and superstition freaks out when he finds his wife is practising witchcraft and believes "dark forces" are conspiring against him. Deeply, deeply unimpressed to find her involved with such nonsense, he puts his foot down. Based on a story by Whitley Strieber called "Conjure Wife" which I've never read. But this is a great film for lovers of old Black and White movies. I don't know why it's not more famous like The Haunting, House on the Hill, et al.

Les Enfants du Paradis

Okay, this is definitely underrated only in the sense of being unknown since it has a lot of critical acclaim and is an influential movie. But I don't know many people who have seen it and it's way outside what people would normally stumble across. It's post the addition of sound to movies, but still pretty early cinema. It's an epic, very long, and revolves around the lives of people involved with a theatre in Paris. Their loves, losses, all that deeply emotional, character drama stuff that you will either love or hate. It's a brilliant film. I still remember the end vividly. Also a good date movie if your date is a romantic intellectual sort.

The Limehouse Golem

I don't know if this was a commercial success or not. It's nothing profound but it's good. I think in the era of Social Media a lot of films are trying to be cleverer than they're able to be. Everything has to be about staying one step ahead of the hyper genre-savvy viewers. Too many films ruin themselves this way. The Limehouse Golem is a straight-forward Holmsian mystery, but what makes the film are the understated commentaries on childhood abuse, political grandstanding, sexism and privilege. I know, I know - sounds like a checklist of SJW talking points but shouldn't let such people devalue the real significance of these things. It's a very interesting portrait of Victorian London and based on a novel by the historian Peter Ackroyd so is well-researched. One of the things I love most about the film is the way it brings to life the simple entertainments of the Victorian public. Dan Leno's (a real historical figure) comedy sketches about domestic abuse; Lizzie singing "What did she know about railways", a comic song about gang rape, to a packed theatre of laughing men and women - and making you laugh along with them! I love films that give a genuine (i.e. not revisionist) insight into the mindset of people in a different era. And I think this film does that well.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

I second the Dick Tracy movie, because of the art direction (it's about as close as a movie can come to looking like a 4-color comic book, without the art style looking too intrusive or gimmicky.) It also had a lot of great cameo/character actor performances. Al Pacino seemed to be having lots of fun as Big Boy Caprice, an over the top version of the more serious gangsters he usually plays.

I also liked the Rocketeer (which I saw after RLM's review of it.) I thought it would be just another comic book movie, but I hadn't realized how well-researched and immersive the setting would be. Also, the look of the film is gorgeous. I wouldn't mind living in California if it looked anything like it does in this film. This film is better watching when you're older, as you can appreciate the myriad of little period details and references to old Hollywood that it contains.

Young Sherlock Holmes. Yes, it's a fanfic "what if?" story of Sherlock meeting Watson as kids, but it has a magical boarding school mystery adventure feel to it. It's like Harry Potter, but without the cancerous fandoms and shipping wars. It also had a lot of innovative special effects for the time (like some impressive early CG.)

Mystery Men and The Three Amigos: Two favorite comedies of mine that got dumped on, I think, because audiences expected them to be edgier in their subject matter. Turns out, both movies were loving homages to their source material (comics and vintage silent movies) and were thus, a little sillier than their target audiences might have wanted. Neither movie was a masterpiece, but they had enough likeable comedy to be watchable.

Doctor Mordrid: An attempt to make a Marvel Dr. Strange movie in the early 90's that got sidetracked when the rights to the film were lost. The filmmakers retooled it into an R-rated movie (and had it star Jeffrey Combs, the ReAnimator Guy.) The result? A bizarre amalgamation of a family superhero movie with a cheesy horror movie (complete with titty sacrifice scene.) There's a great stop motion monster fight at the end, although the ending itself just kinds of falls apart after awhile. If they had taken out the less family friendly elements of this movie, it could have been a franchise-able superhero film or TV series. It could definitely use a reboot or sequel.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Some are better known than others. I'll do a couple of categories.


So bad it's good again 1:

Miami Connection
(1987)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092549/

So bad it's good again 2:

Big Trouble in Little China
(1986)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/

The ridiculously cinematic 1:

The Fall
(2006)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791

The ridiculously cinematic 2:

American gods
(2017 series)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/


Better each time you see them 1:
(not really underrated but watch them if you haven't)

Eyes Wide Shut
(1999)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120663/

Better each time you see them 2:

The Prestige
(2006)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/


Just want some action and don't care about the plot:

Banlieue 13
(2004)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414852/




I have no idea why this isn't a hit:

The Nice Guys
(2016)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3799694/


The criminally insane 1:

Survive Style 5+
(2004)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430651/

The criminally insane 2:
Taste of Tea
(2004)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430651/

 

[Raging Capybara]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058557/

Seance on a Wet Afternoon

One of those "Hitchcock" movies that were not made by Hitchcock. The acting is just fantastic. Sadly, the actress never made a lot of movies later.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gEnRNIvEKu8It's not so much underrated, but apparently nobody saw it.

It’s honestly one of my favorite movies.
From start to finish, there’s nothing about it I don’t love or highly recommend.
The camera work during the fights is just magnificent, the story is exactly what the premise was made for, and it ends perfectly.

 

[Lemmingwise]

It’s honestly one of my favorite movies.
From start to finish, there’s nothing about it I don’t love or highly recommend.
The camera work during the fights is just magnificent, the story is exactly what the premise was made for, and it ends perfectly.

I like that the movie has no fat. Pretty much every line from the introductory bit has relevance later.

You're right that the camera work is good, but the audio/editing and the acting really makes it pop. It's just such a good collaborative result where all the parts come together seamlessly.

 

[Dysnomia]

Last Action Hero

The soundtrack is awesome too.

This movie came out when I was a kid so it was appealing to me. Adults were probably expecting something else. I like the movie world in a movie thing where the characters other than the kid just go along with tropes like it's totally normal.

I think I first saw that kind of thing in Shocker, a Wes Craven film about a criminal who becomes an electric ghost after riding the lightning. It's not a well loved film but I like it. I think there was a movie with... I'm gonna say John Ritter where he can go into the TV channels.

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The first one because of how the soundtrack actually blends in so well
The second one because Richard Pryor could have been a family-friendly actor if he had wanted to

I saw The Toy a thousand times as a kid. Couldn't get away with that today.

He does play hapless dad in Moving. Stacy Dash is a bit foul mouthed in it. But I don't blame her. What teen wants to moved to Idaho?

Macario. It's a Mexican parable film from 1960. I saw it years ago on one of those local UHF channels you could only get in at 2am. Remember those?

It's about this really poor man with a bunch of kids. He has never had a full meal to himself. So his wife steals a turkey from her employer. Macario goes into the wilderness to eat it but keeps getting harassed by mystery people who want him to share his food. They are actually the Devil, God and Death. He shares the turkey with Death and gets the power to heal the sick with magical water as long as Death doesn't appear at the foot of the bed. Needless to say it eventually gets him into a lot of trouble because death can't be beaten at his own game.