Category: Underappreciated Movies

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Timecrimes

This Spanish film is an amazing example of great sci-fi made on a minuscule budget. This movie squeezes everything it can out of a tiny cast, three locations, and a deft script. Eerie, tense, and bizarre, Timecrimes is one of my very favorite time-travel films. To describe it in more detail would be a disservice. Seriously, just look it up on Netflix Streaming and watch it.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Push

Chris Evans stars in this quasi-future-dystopian movie where some people have developed extra-sensory powers. Needless to say, shadowy government-run agencies seek to recruit, exploit, and control them. Lots of plot twists based on just how far a clairvoyant’s power can go, and just how much a brain can be reprogrammed. Chris Evans is extremely likeable onscreen, and he’s supported by a Dakota Fanning that is bitter and brittle – and very enjoyable.

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Angel and the Badman

Early John Wayne in a more romantic cowboy turn. Wayne plays Quirt Evans, the most badass sharp shooter around. While running from a gang intent on finishing him off, he wanders injured into the homestead of a family of Quakers. And into the loving arms of Gail Russell (a favorite in The Uninvited too – gorgeous, and such a lovely speaking voice!). A story about redemption and re-inventing yourself. And how a passive offense can be very successful!

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Norwegian Ninja

If you’re really up on your Norwegian history, you’ll know that Arne Treholt was a real politician who was convicted of high treason during the Cold War for supposedly selling secrets to the Soviet Union. He was pardoned under strange circumstances in 1992, and now lives in Cyprus.

Well, some Norwegian filmmakers decided to make a film about the guy. And they said, “Let’s fill in everything we don’t know with NINJAS.”

So, here’s a very fictional account of the life of Arne Treholt, Norwegian patriot and head of a ninja compound off the coast of Norway. It’s like a Shaw Brothers movie mashed up with fjords and model Russky subs. Norwegian Ninja is delightfully weird and can be easily found on Netflix Streaming.

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Bernie

Regardless of what you think of Jack Black as an actor, I strongly recommend Richard Linklater’s film, Bernie. The film is a dark comedy based on a true story, wherein a sweet, well-loved mortician in small town Texas befriends a wealthy, surly widow (played with panache by Shirley MacLaine). Eventually, the widow’s behavior becomes so controlling that even the gentle mortician meets his limit. The film flourishes under Richard Linklater’s deft touch, which enables the film to both be delightful and horrifying.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: The Uninvited

This is one of my two favorite classic ghost movies (along with Robert Wise’s The Haunting). Far less well known, and much more witty and light-hearted, The Uninvited features Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey playing a brother and sister who unknowingly buy a haunted house. The dialogue is decidedly dry, the dread is satisfyingly creepy, and the special effects are quite effective. (Hah! See what I did there?)

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: The Gift

The Gift is one of those movies that makes you say (again), “Wait – Keanu Reeves can act??”

It’s a creepy little movie that feels like Sam Raimi just having a good time with actors he clearly enjoys working with. Cate Blanchett is always a favorite of mine, and heaven knows I like a good supernatural horror story. But the scariest part of the movie isn’t Cate’s visions – it’s Keanu Reeves, who smolders with barely-contained rage every second he’s on screen.

Oh – and you get to see Giovanni Ribisi doing his usual thing, and Katie Holmes boobs for about 2 seconds.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Grand Piano

In Grand Piano, Elijah Wood plays an anxiety-filled pianist, who, during a high-profile concert, finds an ominous note on his sheet music. Eventually, the musician finds himself onstage, wearing a concealed earpiece, through which he is told that he must continue to play or else he will be shot. (It’s kind of like Speed with a piano instead of a bus.)

That’s quite the setup, but the truly marvelous thing about Grand Piano is that it feels like something Hitchcock might have directed. Spanish director Eugenio Mira, who also wrote the amazing piano score (!), creates a tense atmosphere while choreographing every dazzling piece of cinematography to both music and a plot that seems to play out almost in real time.

Beyond that, it’s always a joy to see John Cusack play a not-very-nice person.

Grand Piano is one of the best recent movies that pretty much nobody has heard of. The movie flickered to life on the film festival circuit last year, and then got a very limited release in the United States, and then went straight to home video. You can currently find it streaming on iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu, among other places.

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: The Matador

The Matador asks the cinematic question, “What would James Bond really be like if an ordinary person just ran into him in a bar in Mexico City?” Even better than that: Greg Kinnear stars as The Ordinary Guy, and the enigmatic (and drunk) hit man he encounters is played by none other than Pierce Brosnan. Soon, the two men form an unlikely friendship, and hijinks ensue.

The Matador came out one year before the Bond franchise reboot, Casino Royale, and as such, it may be the best Bond farewell that Brosnan could have ever had. Even though The Matador really doesn’t really have anything at all to do with James Bond except for Brosnan, it gives Brosnan a delicious chance to self-parody and that is exactly what he does. This film lives and breathes under Brosnan’s presence; it’s a great tribute to his sly comic timing.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Return to Me

This is a “comedy” whose central conflict centers around the death and organ donation of a beautiful young woman.  Her husband (David Duchovny) struggles to limp along after her death, but it isn’t until he meets waitress Minnie Driver that he comes back to life.  The complication?  Minnie is only alive because of a heart transplant… oh yeah, you know where she got that heart, right?

It’s a pretty tortured plot device, but that doesn’t take away from the great chemistry between Duchovny and Driver, or the delightful patter of the script.  There’s a screwball comedy sensibility to the dialogue, with a bit of slapstick thrown in for good measure.  It helps that you have Carol O’Connor, Robert Loggia, David Alan Grier, and Jim Belushi along for the ride.  Along with Bonnie Hunt – who wrote and directed as well!  I like my romantic comedies as light and fresh as a wedding butter-mint patty.