Category: Underappreciated Movies

Dec 22 2014

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

jumpinjack

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Jumpin’ Jack Flash

We all know that Whoopi Goldberg used to do movies, right? Like silly comedies, right? Before she went all legit with Ghost and The Color Purple. Jumpin’ Jack Flash is the story of bank computer technician Terry – the type of computer guru everybody depends on. One day, Terry gets an odd message on her servers and quickly becomes embroiled in an espionage ring as she works to assist her mysterious message sender – a spy in danger, and only Terry can save him! Whoopi shows why she became a star (she’s so charmingly energetic), and the spy caper plot is always a fun trope.

stonetape

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: The Stone Tape

The Stone Tape is a 1972 made-for-the-BBC film, and thus may take a little homework to find. However, it’s worth the work, because it’s written by Nigel Kneale, who brought us things like the Quatermass films.

The plot details the story of a research team who takes over an old mansion to revamp as a data center. Imagine their surprise when they find out that the server room is haunted! Well, what does a group of scientists and programmers do upon finding a bona fide ghost? Well, they throw science at it, of course!

The Stone Tape is full of Grade A technobabble, but it has a truly unique angle on haunted house stories, and it is an interesting time capsule of the brief period of computer technology where programmers were usually women. As I said, it’s worth tracking down.

Dec 15 2014

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

nightmare_alley

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Nightmare Alley

This astoundingly strange film noir can be hard to find, but it’s worth the work. Tyrone Power plays an ambitious carney who steals the mentalist sideshow act of Joan Blondell and begins his own career as a psychic. Along the way, there is alcoholism, scheming, psychologists, and a certain outmoded definition of “geek”. Nightmare Alley is also a great example of women’s roles in classic film noir: the ladies are just as dangerous as the men. The whole thing is a dark carnival of deceit, and it never quite goes where you expect. Great stuff.

MSDMURO EC005

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Murphy’s Romance

This 80s comedy stars Sally Field in the central role of a recently divorced woman with teenage son moving to a small town to make a go of running a horse ranch. Shortly after arriving she meets the cranky (and much older) town pharmacist played by James Garner. Garner’s character clearly takes a liking to this spunky woman and quietly starts sending business her way. Things have reached the point of interesting when the ex-husband (Brian Kerwin) shows up needing a place to stay. A fairly typical romantic comedy that actually has a bit of comedy, along with some delightful chemistry between Field and Garner.

Dec 08 2014

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

OnAClearDay

Windy’s Pick of the Week: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

This is a bizarre movie musical about reincarnation. Yes, reincarnation. Starring Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand – I know, right?? Barbra plays Daisy, a flibbertyjibbet who wishes to stop smoking before marrying her staid and upright fiance, Warren. She seeks out a psychologist who specializes in hypnosis therapy – and Daisy (who can hear phones before they ring) proves remarkably susceptible. While under hypnosis, Daisy reveals not just her own past, but past lives lived. And Dr. Marc finds himself irresistibly drawn to past-Daisy even as he finds current-Daisy to be a useless fool. Jack Nicholson shows up briefly as Daisy’s brother, too. An unconventional love story, with an unconventional ending – but the star power of Barbra (in her manic comic days), her glorious voice, and a surprising and entertaining script make this one too interesting to pass up.

wadjda

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Wadjda

It’s a wonder that Wadjda exists. The first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia, Haifaa Al-Mansour, had to direct this film from inside a van, because she could not be seen giving direction to her male film crew lest they be arrested for breaking the law. They also had to dodge the law because of the plot, wherein a headstrong 10-year-old Saudi girl desperately wants her own bike, a thing that is forbidden to women. For as depressing as all that sounds, Wadjda is a charming, smart, often hilarious film, starring a fantastic child actor (Waad Mohammed). It’s a movie about the cleverness and unwavering determination of childhood, which is truly universal.

Dec 01 2014

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

playtime

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Playtime

Playtime is one of those movies that seems to only have been seen by a few art film nerds, and nobody else. That’s a shame, because there is truly no film quite like it. Director and star Jacques Tati only made a few films during his life; all were great, and this was his best. It is the third film in a quadrilogy, but don’t worry about that, because the four films share a character, but not plot. That character is Monsieur Hulot (played by Tati), a tall, gawky man who bumbles from scene to scene with the charm of your favorite clueless uncle. Playtime takes Hulot and drops him into an ultra-modern 1960s glass canyon of a city. Playtime is somewhere between a sprawling epic and a Charlie Chaplin short. It’s the sort of a movie that literally built five blocks of a city as a set, but plays out almost entirely with dialogue-free character bits. It’s a comedy that doesn’t make you guffaw as much as it lifts you with charm. It’s the sort of film that makes a shot magical simply by angling a window at the right moment. It’s one of my favorite films of all time. Every time I see it, I want to cuddle it like a puppy.

I recommend seeing Playtime in the highest-definition format you can obtain. It’s gorgeous and worth the effort.

modernmillie

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Thoroughly Modern Millie

This has been mentioned on the podcast, so here I am reminding you and recommending to you. This is a true WTF movie – delightful in many respects, and then absolutely horrifying in its racial insensitivities. Made in 1967, the movie has a slight bite of satire in the idea that a woman needs to be dependent on a man – Millie is determined to be “modern” – but reassuringly ends with everybody happily married. Set in the Roaring 20s, Millie moves to the big city to find her future – and the movie even apes the dialog cards of the silent movies of the period. (The racial problems come from the Chinese helpers and the mock Chinese language used by them and the hotel manager Mrs. Meers, as well as the white slavery sub-plot, which have to be seen to be believed.) The humor is broad, the musical numbers are stylish, and Carol Channing is delightfully over-the-top. Julie Andrews shows her formidable comedic talents (we often forget just how funny she is underneath all that British respectability), and Mary Tyler Moore displays her rarely used dance talents.

Nov 24 2014

This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

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

scarletpimpernel

Windy’s Pick of the Week: The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

This is one of my favorite romantic superhero movies. (The original novel is also very effective for all that it is undoubtedly a period novel.) The 1934 version stars Leslie Howard (from Gone With the Wind) as our sly and secretive super-hero spy, and the amazingly exotic and sexy Merle Oberon as his clever, passionate wife. Percy Blakeney is unabashedly heroic, and dashingly romantic – a man who is sacrificing his own marriage to his personal code of honor amid the Reign of Terror in Paris. His unknowing wife is caught in a web of intrigue, inadvertently betraying her own husband to the vile Chavelin (played by the wonderful Raymond Massey). As the net tightens around them both, whatever shall our daring hero do?

Lagaan

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Sure, this film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2001, but I still don’t think it gets enough love. Set in Victorian era British-occupied India, Lagaan tells the story of a poor rural town who bets its taxes that it can form a cricket team and beat the expert team formed by the cruel British rulers. The ever-charismatic Aamir Khan leads the ragtag band of farmers through cricket training. It’s Bollywood, it’s a musical, it’s epic, and it’s an underdog sports movie. What’s not to love?

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