Category: Underappreciated Movies

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

setup

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: The Set-Up

There are a few things as satisfying as a simple story that is masterfully told, and The Set-Up is a fine example. Directed by Robert Wise near the beginning of his legendary career, The Set-Up is a trim tale about a past-prime boxer, his concerned wife, and a wager. The film takes place in real time — the story and the film are both 73 minutes long — which is an unusual stunt for 1949.

bringiton

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Bring It On

We know how much I love any kind of dance movie. And this one has Kirsten Dunst and Elisha Dushku! Doing cheerleading routines!

Like Josie and the Pussycats and Lake Placid, this movie is built on a solid foundation of satire and sarcasm. It’s a quieter sort of snark, but it’s there. Also, one of the flirtiest yet realistic scenes put on film – Elisha Dushku flirting by spitting great gobs of toothpaste. Seriously.

Spirit fingers!

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

josieandthepussycats

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Josie and the Pussycats

Another podcast mention that makes the website spotlight, Josie and the Pussycats is brilliant satire masked in bubblegum and bright colors. How do you turn a forgettable Saturday morning cartoon into a smart and clever movie? This is how. (It helps to have a KILLER soundtrack – it’s my go to sunny spring day playlist!) Alan Cumming and Parker Posey are brilliant and Tara Reid gives a startling great performance – the best of her career. This would be an awesome double feature with A Star Is Born.

LiveandDie

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: To Live and Die in L.A.

Okay, I haven’t gotten into this yet on the podcast, but I am a wannabe gearhead, and I’m a sucker for a good car chase. To Live and Die in L.A. has one of the greatest car chase sequences of all time, masterfully directed by William Friedkin at the height of his powers. The movie around the car chase is pretty great, too: it’s a Secret Service vs. master counterfeiter 1980s cop drama that involves the likes of Willem Dafoe, John Turturro, Dean Stockwell, and candy-colored 1980s cinematography. What’s not to love?

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

HARAKIRI

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Harakiri

I spent too many years of my life being unfamiliar with this magnificent Japanese film from the 1960s, so here I am to save you from the same fate. Harakiri is a film that examines — and dissects — the Bushido code of honor, constructing a slow-burn battle of wits that ultimately erupts into the sort of bloodshed modern viewers expect from samurai movies. But Harakiri is so much more than its grueling action scenes. It’s about a ronin who turns up at a manor, asking for permission to perform ritual suicide in their courtyard. The lord of the manor, both impressed and suspicious, tries to ascertain the ronin’s real agenda. It’s a smart, fascinating movie that also has swords

Lake Placid

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Lake Placid

We’ve mentioned this one on the podcast, so it’s time it made the website spotlight. This is the Best Giant Crocodile Film Ever. You didn’t know there was a genre called “giant crocodile films”? Well, don’t worry about it – Lake Placid has already nailed down the top spot. Watch it and you’re golden. This is a film that will have you laughing out loud, and also jumping a foot off the couch. Oliver Platt and Betty White have the diva parts, but don’t overlook the quiet comedy of Bridget Fonda and Brendan Gleeson. Eminently quotable, and a good reason to beg off swimming in any lake.

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

Holiday

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Holiday

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn made a lot of classic movies together. For sheer lunacy, Bringing Up Baby. For more wit and banter, Philadelphia Story. Somewhere in the middle of that continuum falls Holiday, a film about wanting something different from your life than what others expect of you. Directed by George Cukor, with a great supporting cast (Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton), this movie is the perfect antidote to cynicism.

sound-of-noise

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Sound of Noise

This Swedish film is a delicious mix of art and the hilariously absurd. Sound of Noise follows a tone-deaf cop, whose job it is to track down a team of anarchists who cause mayhem by turning everything into musical instruments. The plot goes from musical set piece to musical set piece, where you see everything from hospitals to construction sites turned into guerilla orchestras.

The team that made Sound of Noise also made a short film on the same concept, called “Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers”. It’s definitely worth 9 minutes of your time. Enjoy!

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

johnnyguitar

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Johnny Guitar

Until this film’s recent restoration and release onto glorious Blu-Ray, Johnny Guitar was very difficult to track down. And that’s a pity, because this western is too strange to languish in obscurity for that long. That’s because the sexual politics were incredibly bold for a film of this age and genre. The title is a bit of a misnomer, as Sterling Hayden’s character Johnny really doesn’t have a lot to do with the plot. Instead, the entire film centers around businesswoman Joan Crawford (who spends most of the film in pants and a gun belt) and Mercedes McCambridge (who plays a cattle baron with her own posse). The two women battle each other for control over the town’s future, and gangs of gawking men follow in their wake. How did this get made in 1954?!

burlesque

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Burlesque

This film falls into the category of “better than it had any right to be.” The musical numbers are absolutely top notch, and the cast is almost uniformly charismatic. Christina Aguilera is charming, and the script isn’t nearly as predictable as you might expect – most notable: characters are surprisingly 3-dimensional (e.g. the “bad guy”). With a cast that includes Stanley Tucci and Kristen Bell, headlined by Cher at her sassy best, this movie delivers on its burlesque premise: titillating, energetic, and best with just a bit of alcohol.

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