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What's The Best Film Most People Have Never Seen?

I watched William Friedkin's Sorcerer yesterday. Previously I'd only read about it, in Peter Biskind's 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'.

It's about four foreigners stranded in a hellhole of a Latin American town, escaping from their pasts. A fire at the oil well which provides the only employment in the region sends them off on what is essentially a suicide mission - driving trucks laden with unstable dynamite 200 miles through the jungle to the well in order to cap it with explosives. It is based on the book 'Le Salaire de la Peur', which also inspired a 1953 French film of the same name, also known as Wages Of Fear.

A very tense and gripping film. The prologue sequence, establishing the characters and explaining why and from what they are running away, works very well. These are not necessarily nice people, but we still feel connected to them and their plight.
 
Sunspots said:
And speaking of obscure films involving face-bandaged men... (!)...

I remember seeing a Belgian film called Crazy Love at the cinema in the late eighties. In three parts, set on three different nights, at various points in a man's life, and (partly) based on stories by Bukowski.

I've never seen it again, nor do I seem to have ever met anyone else who saw it!...
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I've seen it - best Bukowski movie out there.
 
baldrick said:
love that one too.... robert carlyle :oops: plus the raid of the police station is one of the best scenes of any film ever made ever. Antonia Bird ftw :cool:
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That films sounds a bit like a 60s Italian crime flick starring Gian Maria Volonte called Bandits in Milan. Again an ex leftist starts robbing banks, on a couple of occasions two or three in a day. Based on a true story apparently. Kind of ahead of it's time as well really in that it's told in a standard narrative as well as faux documentary style.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062707/
 
Sabu said:
That films sounds a bit like a 60s Italian crime flick starring Gian Maria Volonte called Bandits in Milan. Again an ex leftist starts robbing banks, on a couple of occasions two or three in a day...
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That in turn reminds me of..
DaveCinzano said:
Stander
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...in which a policeman in Apartheid-era South Africa snaps, and starts robbing banks in his lunch breaks; again, based on a true story.
 
Nanker Phelge said:
I've seen it - best Bukowski movie out there.
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Maybe... I reckon I'd need to see it again to decide. (-It's been twenty years!...)

I've never seen Ben Gazzara's portrayal in Tales Of Ordinary Madness. (-Any good, anyone?)

I thought Factotum was pretty good. (-Have you seen it?) I thought Matt Dillon really captured Bukowski's physical swagger. And the alcoholic complexion.

:)
 
DaveCinzano said:
That in turn reminds me of Stander, in which a policeman in Apartheid-era South Africa snaps, and starts robbing banks in his lunch breaks; again, based on a true story.
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I didn't think it was brilliant or anything, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed that film. (-Low expectations, probably... For ages, I always used to look right past it as I scanned the shelves of the hire shop. I don't know whether it's intentional, but the sleeve design convinced me it was some straight-to-video eighties fare. -My mistake!). Anyway, the film itself managed to successfully juggle action, drama, and politics, plus some comedy moments too.

Good cast as well. I'd never seen Thomas Jane in a lead role before (-although I later found out I'd previously seen him in a supporting role in Boogie Nights). It also took me a while to realise that his partner in crime in Stander was played by Dexter Fletcher. :oops: :D

:)
 
I caught it late one night on ITV4; I'd never previously heard of it. For such a little known film, it struck me as very well made - that swooping opening shot over South Africa, the Soweto riot sequence, the recreation of the era. And the performances were very enjoyable. I think Dexter Fletcher is a secret pleasure for me, I even enjoyed The Rachel Papers. The heist scenes are exhilarating. David O' Hara is excellent as the third member of the Stander gang. And I really like the soundtrack - the iZulu Li Ya Duma song got me to buy the Temple of Sound album.
 
Yeah I was impressed with Stander. Hadn't heard a thing about it until a mate forced me to watch it. :cool:
 
I watched Harsh Times the other day; it was a lot better than I anticipated. It is written and directed by David Ayer, the Training Day screenwriter, and is based on his life in South Central Los Angeles.

It features Christian Bale (awkward accent, but what can you do?) as an army veteran, and Freddy Rodriguez as his best friend. They are out of work and looking for jobs, to differing extents. Bale keeps having nasty combat flashbacks, and just wants to get high and drunk and fool around, and maybe settle down with his Mexican girlfriend. Rodriguez feels guilty that his higher-flying lawyer wife (Eve Langoria) is supporting him, but is easily swayed by the borderline sociopath Bale. They get into scrapes.

It is very well photographed, and quite imaginatively realised, for what is essentially a very stagey film. I had never heard of it until I was seeing what Bale had been up to recently, and I was pleasantly surprised. Worth watching.
 
Sabu said:
That films sounds a bit like a 60s Italian crime flick starring Gian Maria Volonte called Bandits in Milan. Again an ex leftist starts robbing banks, on a couple of occasions two or three in a day. Based on a true story apparently. Kind of ahead of it's time as well really in that it's told in a standard narrative as well as faux documentary style.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062707/
Click to expand...

I watched that this week, it turned out to be bizzarely crap and the first Gina Maria Volonte film i didn't like. The style i think was copied with much better results by Fukasaku for this early 70s Jap gangster series'.
 
Vampires Kiss - Like a better more mental american psycho
The Station Agent - I love it but it seems to have vanished off the radar
The i Inside - Not amazing but better than a lot of stuff like it.
Dead End - Good for one watch, ruined if you know what it is about.
The Hard Word - Nice Australian caper with (Mike from neighbors) that is better than it's hollywood equals
Cypher - I think more people have seen this now that it has been on C4 but I think it's underrated.
Death to Smoochy - Not amazing but not shit, and surprising that nobody has seen it considering it stars Robin Williams (doing one of his best evil turns) and Ed Norton.
Sayonara - My favorite Brando movie (probably quite provocative at the time) but nobody seems to have heard of it.
 
ATOMIC SUPLEX said:
The Hard Word - Nice Australian caper with (Mike from neighbors) that is better than it's hollywood equals
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Brings me to mind of Frauds, an Australian film with crooked insurance investigator Phil Collins (yes, that Phil Collins) dogging basically honest couple Hugo Weaving and Josephine Byrnes. A most odd sequence in his lair. Very watchable.
 
Creation Of The Humanoids (1962)
"Creation of the Humanoids" is unique among the low-budget science fiction cinema of the early 60s. Its shoddily made with equally wooden direction and performances. Ed Wood is a more aesthetically pleasing director than Wesley Barry. The acting is similar to the performances in Wood's work (and thats at its finer moments). There's little action to be seen and most of the film is compromised of talk.

You'd think I'd hate this film judging so far. However, while the films mostly dialog, its fascinating dialog, crammed pack with ideas and social commentary. Its full of blows against militarism and racism, and questions identity and what it actually means to be human (is it flesh and blood or just a state of mind?). Its constantly engrossing and always thought-provoking. Screenwriter Jay Simms managed to include more attacks on social mores than just about any mainstream film of the period.
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Alert - Turtles Can Fly, which I've regularly tried plugging on this and the 'what's the bleakest film you've ever seen?' thread, is on bbc2 tonight (saturday) at 2.25am ... it's got rubbish write-ups in most of the press, ignore them completely and PLEASE watch/record/dl this film. I honestly think it is a true masterpiece - not nearly as depressing as it might sound and seriously one of the Best Films Millions More People SHOULD Have Seen.

My curiosity about Stander has been reignited by this thread - I'll go and find it. Personally I thought Harsh Times was wallowing miserabilist fake-hard-man-testosteroine-poisoned bunk though. :p
 
trabuquera said:
Personally I thought Harsh Times was wallowing miserabilist fake-hard-man-testosteroine-poisoned bunk though. :p
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I can see what you're saying, but it was very pretty, it's an interesting companion piece to Training Day, and I would say that along with The Machinist it returns Bale to the giddy heights of Metroland.
 
trabuquera said:
Alert - Turtles Can Fly, which I've regularly tried plugging on this and the 'what's the bleakest film you've ever seen?' thread, is on bbc2 tonight (saturday) at 2.25am ... it's got rubbish write-ups in most of the press, ignore them completely and PLEASE watch/record/dl this film. I honestly think it is a true masterpiece - not nearly as depressing as it might sound and seriously one of the Best Films Millions More People SHOULD Have Seen.

My curiosity about Stander has been reignited by this thread - I'll go and find it. Personally I thought Harsh Times was wallowing miserabilist fake-hard-man-testosteroine-poisoned bunk though. :p
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Made by the same bloke who did A Time for Drunken Horses which is an exceptional film.
 
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