Obscure movie recommendations

[tklivory]

I love a good movie, but (of course) it's hard to watch a movie I don't know about. I thought of this topic because of the discussion of 'Brazil' in another thread, and realized that there are a lot of movies we could all help each other discover without having to trawl through a lot of 'Amazon recommends' lists.

Please list the movie title, and a quick reason why you recommend it!

So, my first contributions:

1) 'This Quiet Earth', indie New Zealand hard sci-fi flick that tackles the whole 'last human left on Earth' concept extraordinarily well (loooong before 'I am Legend')

2) 'Buckaroo Banzai', quirky 80's sci-fi movie that may need more than one viewing, but really is a good comedy sci-fi (with early Jeff Goldblum and Peter Wellers). Remember, all the aliens are called 'John'

3) 'Oscar', 80's comedy starring (of all people) Sylvester Stallone, but it is _really_ worth watching. It is an ensemble comedy about gangsters in the '20s. Also stars Tim Curry, Marisa Tomei, Kurtwood Smith, and Chazz Palmintieri (did i mention it has a great cast?)

Looking forward to some great recommendations! No genre limitations!

 

[rossatdi]

[a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082622/"] Knightriders[/a]

George A Romero (Night of the Living Dead etc)

It is a story about a group of renaissance fair jousters. Who use motorbikes.

And yet it's not a novelty film.

At once it is a comment on the collapse of 60s idealism. It is an allegory of the King Arthur story. And it has bike jousting.

What more could you want?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I rather liked
1 - MirrorMask. It's sort of like the olde fantasy movie Labyrinth that had David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, but it's all styled after hand drawn artwork.
2 - Renaissance. It's a sci-fi cartoon-Sin-City type thriller movie and is surprisingly good and has Daniel Craig doing the voice of the main character.
3 - Immortal (Ad Vitam). A sci-fi, part-cgi, pert real people, Stargate meets X-Men meets Fifth Element with Thomas Kretschmann in it.

 

[MrGFunk]

Primer [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/]

Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention.

It's a film about space/time travel with a massive brain. Might need more than one watch.

 

[Double-O]

Attack of the Killer Tomatos. The title speaks for itself.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I liked 'Brazil', I want to see it again now.

Another good but fairly unknown (I think) movie directed by Terry Gilliam is 'Twelve Monkeys'. I'd recommend it.

 

[xxnightlawxx]

Quarantine..oh wait dont wacth that i will tell you the entire movie here in one sentence.
Rabies...running...everyone dies.

 

[Aedwynn]

Videodrome - cult movie about a man who starts receiving a very strange TV channel which has a profound effect on his behaviour.

In the Mouth of Madness - Sam Neill is a private investigator hired to find out what happened to a cult horror author who disappeared. The author's books are known to drive people violently insane.

Pi - Odd film about a troubled mathematical genius trying to unlock a mathematical code for the stock market - but who discovers something more important.

 

[Specter_]

No Man's Land [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283509/]

A sick and disturbing movie about the war in Bosnia. It's not graphically disturbing, you see almost no blood etc, but the end is a mindfucker...

 

[Brotherofwill]

I'd recommend people to watch old classic expressionist German horror movies:

1) Nosferatu

2)The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari

3)Golem

Also check out Metropolis, all these movies can be hard to get into, but they are beyond awesome. Scary as shit, aswell.

 

[Flour]

Here's a movie I don't think many people will have heard of:

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462485/]

Standard Troma movie, filled with gore, nudity, humour, violence and bad acting.
Troma movies are made with relatively unknown actors, usually starring minor roles in tv shows or other low budged movies(or no acting experience at all), the exceptions in Poultrygeist are Lloyd Kaufman and Ron Jeremy.

It's very difficult to recommend this movie to anyone. I could say that if you enjoy Troma movies, you'll enjoy this one too. But the problem is that if you enjoy Troma movies, you already know about this movie. I can't recommend it as a good introduction for Troma movies either because this is one of the better movies they've released and it could set the standard by which you judge other Troma releases a bit too high.
*sigh*
Just watch the trailer I guess. I picked the 'censored' trailer, it has some advertising for the movie and it's poorly censored. I'll edit this post if it's still too offensive.

Spoiler

 

[Baby Tea]

'A Guide to Recognizing your Saints' - Great movie.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

1. Gattaca
2. Collateral
3. Mafioso/Once Upon a Time In America (tied)

Some of these might not be as obscure as I'm thinking they are, which is why I included Mafioso in there, which I'm positive very few people have seen.

I'd give reasons why they're good, but I don't have the time. Suffice it to say the casting is superb in all three/four movies. Gattaca is the best movie you've never seen.

 

[Ago Iterum]

City of God is a subtitled Brazilian film about gang culture throughout the 50's 60's and 70's in the slums of Rio De Janeiro. It follows a group of (they start as kids, and grow through the decades) guys, some who join the gang culture, and some who try to avoid it.

My favourite film ever.

 

[Captain Spectacular]

Always at the top of my list is 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you you don't mind slow movies then definitely check this one out. It's a great portrayal of Man's quest of knowledge and the evolution of intelligence.

Also Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is another epic movie (if you don't mind watching something for almost 4 hours)

 

[Dirty Apple]

My addition would have to be "Swimming with Sharks." It stars Kevin Spacey, Frank Whalley, and Michelle Forbes. It's some of the most vicious black comedy I've ever seen. It may take an extra viewing to catch all the foreshadowing moments, but when you do catch them it's like a puzzle snapping together.

 

[Vortigar]

Kudos to people with:
Mirrormask
Gattaca
Collateral
Pi (nice avatar too, have you seen A Beautiful Mind?)
City of God

Now let's get Asian:
- Bin Jip (about a guy who breaks into houses of people who are on vacation and cleans and fixes them up while living in them until they get home. Naturally he comes across a girl...)
- Mongolian Ping Pong (about a boy on the Mongolian steppes who finds a ping pong ball and has no clue what it is. After finding out it belongs with the Chinese natural sport he decides to return this precious treasure to China...)
- Avalon (Polish production from Japanese mastermind Oshii (Ghost in the Shell movies) about a game that has taken over the world by storm where people act out war scenarios in virtual reality. Some of these people's minds get frazzled by the game. And what is this story about a secret level somewhere?)

And French:
- Thomas In Love (about the extremely agoraphobic Thomas Thomas who can't leave his apartment without going comatose and how his life works. Naturally a girl becomes involved. Prepare to get a little freaked out by the the opening scene btw.)

Yugoslavia:
- Black Cat, White Cat (go see it.)

South Africa:
- Tsotsi (incredibly raw flick about SA low-life Tsotsi. How raw? 'How many kicks does it take to kill a dog?' That's how.)

 

[Doomhammer828]

Ma Vie En Rose: French, film about a guy who wants to be a girl true classic.

 

[Calobi]

'This Quiet Earth', indie New Zealand hard sci-fi flick that tackles the whole 'last human left on Earth' concept extraordinarily well (loooong before 'I am Legend')

Is it before the first incarnation of 'I Am Legend'? Or the new one, with Will Smith?

As for recommendations, Serenity. It a futuristic Western in space about the crew of a ship called Serenity going against a central government. I suck at explaining things, so imagine it being awesome.

 

[Sewblon]

We are the Strange, it is an independent animated film.