February 15, 2005

• Of the movies I've seen on the list, I tend to agree, by and large. Although, as with The Princess Bride, I had no idea that Top Secret was underrated. I consider it an amazing Classic.
• Contact? Contact!? CONTACT?! Apparently my definition of underrated is vastly different than everyone elses.
• Nice to know that I'm not the only person who thinks Alien³ isn't all THAT bad. (their comments perfectly sum up my thoughts) They're absolutely right about more than they aren't. (although I believe 'In the Mouth of Madness' was a steaming pile of crap...) And here I thought I was the only person (outside of Harry Knowles) to have discovered the beauty that is Space Truckers...
• Nickdanger - They do use the phrase "deserve more love" - I read that as meaning not necessarily underrated (they also include fun silly movies whose rating they don't disagree with, but like anyways), but deserving of more current love. They actually say it wasn't a sleeper - but it's been overlooked since. I loved it then, and remember a lot of people being luke warm, though I do understand not everyone is as excited by realistic SF astronomy as I am. Scientists, prime numbers, getting little bits of data that form a hazy picture of reality - ooh! (The whole spinning machine thing felt tacked on, but I guess they thought they needed some kind of resolution other than "Wow, aliens exist, but without the fantasy of FTL travel they are impossibly far away and this is as good as we ever get.") Though on the other end of the SF spectrum, I'm off to try to find Space Truckers now - Was Princess Bride on the list? Amazing film, but surely loved and loved and loved?
• One movie that should be on this list: a 1979 film about a neighborhood of Denver kids going nuts, isolated in suburban sprawl, and eventually embracing anarchy... I keep forgetting the name, though.
• I heart Iron Giant, but it's not underrated. Just about everyone who's seen the movie praises it to the heavens.
• Contact was an OK movie, but anyone who's read the book would feel cheated by it.
• Contact is only thought provoking if you're brain-dead.
• Space Truckers was terrible Any movie where the main villain is a flash for a camera is a no-go in my book... Dennis Hopper notwithstanding
• Thanks for calling me brain-dead.* As someone who is not a scientist, but an amateur fan of astronomy, I found it beautiful (cinematically), well-acted, and fascinating in following through with the low-key reality of the search for extra-terrestrial life. The most unrealitic part was, of course, any SETI project getting time on such a large array (I don't remember its acronym). I never read the book (I found the style of the writing difficult to take), so I cannot compare. *Not meant to be totally snarky, but at the same time the sheer dismissal of things that the internet brings out disturbs me at times, especially as it moves (likely unconciously but no less annoyingly) into insults of anyone who likes it. Isn't enough to just put it in the first person and say "I didn't find it very well thought out" or maybe go constructive and say "I thought the movie had the following flaws..."? That would make for a more interesting conversation.
• rolypolyman I think that you are thinking of Over the Edge. And I agree with your sentiments jb, and apparently so does Anil Dash.
• I've seen about a quarter of these movies, and a quarter of that sample firmly suck. The rest range between mediocre and genius. Do, a decent list, I guess. (I think this was posted at Metafilter before. I know that I've seen it a couple times since it was written, in '02). I think the numbering is backwards, however, with the movies getting consistently better toward the higher reaches of the list. A Simple Plan was crap, but Hudsucker Proxy was genius...
• Contact is the only mainstream Hollywood movie that I am aware of that attempts to give a very realistic account of alien contact here on Earth. Surely, that merits something.
• I liked "Contact" just fine. I loved "Kissing Jessica Stein" "L.A. Story" and "She's The One". I even liked "The Peacemaker". But "The Money Pit"? ummmm, not my cup of tea. Too formulaic, and IIRC, Shelley Long came across as whiny and incredibly unsympathetic. (Big surprise.)
• There's a typo in the section for Equilibrium: "Taking cues from Orwell and Bradbury" should read "Shamelessly ripping off Orwell and Bradbury while shoving in some Matrix-style acrobatics to make it look hipper..."
• Anybody else notice that almost every one of these movies would be found in the same section of the video store? A better name for the page might be "90 Action/Adventure Flicks, plus a few others, Which Deserve More Love." Regardless, many of these were decent movies that were overlooked by audiences or the critics.
• Thanks, lilnemo, it always bugs me when I can't remember that film's name. I think I need some replacement neurons.
• The Princess Bride was not on the list, but we recently had a thread on underrated movies, and apparently it was underrated, which surprised me.
• Since when is anything that flows out of Hollywood under-rated? A very few of the choices were sensible, but other than not being blockbusters, many of these films are probably more appreciated than they deserve to be.
• The Princess Bride is #109 in the top 250 on IMDB. The top 250 is fun to play with - (and I'm glad to note that several of the best Studio Ghibli films have made it there, despite being animated and non-American).
• No problem rolypolyman. The only reason I remember the flick is because it features a very young Matt Dillon, and has the song "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps (which was later covered/bastardized by the Jacksons). ..oldies.. ...sweet...
• I'd be a little more likely to put some cult classics on the top like Meet the Feebles, How to get ahead in advertising, and anything by Jan Svankmajer my favorite being Conspirators of Pleasure. But the real reason im commenting is to self-whore my own completely ignored 99 minute animated feature The Meaty McMeat Show also hosted via bittorrent on legaltorrents.com .. n' s'more stuff
• The Devil's Backbone is an excellent film, at least. It was fairly critically acclaimed over here, though, and did pretty well for a foreign language film.
• Nightwatch, though, is shit by any standards. Or do people think its actually even shitter than that?
• Space Truckers was just bad. Nice to see The Misquito Coast, The Edge, Zero Effect, and The Ref in there, though.
• Well, I like Nightwatch. Not just for the reasons they state, although I take their point about the Nolte/semen/ass thing. Also, Gremlins 2 is on this list, which is great. We need Gremlins 3 so bad. Contact is only thought provoking if you're brain-dead. Wouldn't provoking thought in someone who was brain-dead be a good thing?
• I liked Contact, too. There were clunky moments, but the imagery was great. And The Iron Giant gets praised to the heavens, but only by the tiny fraction of people who've actually seen it (who aren't so self-identified with the NRA that they can see past the gun metaphor.) The Edge, Mosquito Coast, To Live and Die In LA, Miami Blues, the utterly lovable Time After Time, Big Night & Jesus' Son.... All movies I have to rent again after seeing this list! Thanks for the post, JB! ps- Breakdown?!!
• I would've added Miracle Mile, too, corny as it is.
• jesus' son is disorganized, mildy entertaining junk. I'm a huge Steve Martin fan, but LA Story is disorganized, somewhat amusing junk. She's the One is just junk.
• FLASHBACK! Sweet -- this was the article I tried to find when that "underrated movies" thread appeared on the Filter a few days back. There are some sucky movies on here, but some brilliant ones, too.
• Dr. Jimmy: I took notes as I read this, and my sole mention of that junk is "She's The One: Blows."
• I forgot how great this list is. My biggest impression, though, is how many movies that have been on my list that I have not yet seen! Inspired movies: Point Break, The Iron Giant, Top Secret, Fright Night, LA Story, In The Line of Fire, Shadow of the Vampire, Jackie Brown, Beautiful Girls... In The Mouth of Madness is pure crap.
• "Breaking Away"
• Breaking Away for sure should have been on this list. Devil's Backbone, absolutely. Iron Giant, Midnight Clear, 13 Days, Mosquito Coast, Perfect World, and Falling Down seem like good selections to me. But Super Troopers? That was one of the worst movies I've ever endured. Am I missing something?
• Point Break was crap too. Except for the line "What if they were... surfing bankrobbers?"
• pfft. can't see past the Swazanu. and never was such a line said.