Dear TWW,

What are some really good lesser-known films?

I just watched OldBoy and Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall... and Spring, as was rec'd. I loved them. The trouble with good movies is it's hard to know they're good before watching them.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 7:24 AM. Reason : .]

3/21/2006 7:22:54 AM

DONALD DARKO

3/21/2006 9:07:41 AM

The Big Hit

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 9:08 AM. Reason : piece of shit code]

3/21/2006 9:08:30 AM

The Way of the Gun

3/21/2006 9:15:09 AM

Anchorman or Napoleon Dynamite

3/21/2006 9:45:44 AM

The two films you listed were both Korean. Are you looking for more Korean or Asian films?

3/21/2006 9:47:30 AM

Gigli

3/21/2006 9:51:14 AM

Pecker

3/21/2006 9:52:34 AM

GG on Pecker. I watched that in HS, our percussion sintructor brought it in for me and a few buddies to watch on a slow day.

3/21/2006 10:09:25 AM

Secondhand Lions

3/21/2006 10:32:58 AM

Sneakers, Infernal Affairs Triology

3/21/2006 10:38:52 AM

Duck Soup

3/21/2006 10:43:29 AM

Highway. I don't know why I like it, but I do.

Has Jake Gyllenhaal and Jared Leto running from Vegas mobsters to Seattle around the time of kurt Cobain's suicide.

Has a hilarious monologue from Jeremy Piven and John C. McGinley as some old ass hippy.

3/21/2006 10:44:41 AM

Don't know how lesser known this is but PCU was pretty good.
Jeremy Piven, David Spade and Jon Favreau as "Gutter" haha

3/21/2006 10:52:03 AM

Secondhand Lions

3/21/2006 10:59:37 AM

^ I'll 3rd that.

3/21/2006 11:00:38 AM

Watership Down

3/21/2006 11:40:25 AM

in serious

junebug

especially if you are from western nc or know people from the western part of the state

its an eeeeeerie portrait

3/21/2006 11:42:52 AM

hooligans

3/21/2006 11:47:20 AM

bottle rocket. best wes anderson film and the least known.

3/21/2006 11:52:33 AM

...i just made a thread about 'The Girl in the Cafe'

there's also 'A Fond Kiss'

they sound like chick flicks, but have broader themes

there's an old Lawrence Fisburne movie called 'Always Outnumbered'

'Kicking and Screaming'

'Mr. Jealousy'

'Kolya' (Russian, Czech)

'Malena' (Italian)

...too many to list, but that's good enough for now

3/21/2006 11:53:52 AM

I recommend Ciudad de Dios. It is a great Argentina flick. One of my favorite movies.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 11:58 AM. Reason : blah]

3/21/2006 11:57:46 AM

hit up the ethan hawke version of Hamlet

and lemme know how it is

i've always wanted to see that shit

3/21/2006 11:59:16 AM

^^ I'll second City of God. Great movie!

3/21/2006 12:03:34 PM

3/21/2006 12:10:00 PM

Death to Smoochy

and I will 3rd City of God

3/21/2006 12:12:29 PM

FreeWay

Magnolia

Flatliners

3/21/2006 12:32:38 PM

Quote :

"I recommend Ciudad de Dios. It is a great Argentina flick."

Not quite.

3/21/2006 12:34:57 PM

Primer

3/21/2006 12:36:16 PM

Paper Moon
Rock 'n' Roll High School
Junebug
Monkey Business (1931)
DiG!

We watched the Ethan Hawke Hamlet in film class yesterday. Some things were good (Julia Stiles as Ophelia in particular) but it was mostly shit. Poor Bill Murray had no idea what to do with Polonius. He really tried, but it didn't work. I could go on and on about what's wrong with that film. For instance, it's set in NYC in 2000, and everything is transposed as such (the castle is Hotel Elsinore, "The Mouse Trap" is now a film instead of a play, with the players being omitted entirely, etc.), yet the swordfight at the end is...a swordfight, referreed by Paul Bartel of all people.

It's pretty much a clusterfuck.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 12:47 PM. Reason : dd]

3/21/2006 12:46:26 PM

I'll third Junebug. I would also recommend almost any Terry Gilliam film (Brazil, Fear & Loathing, and 12 Monkeys are probably my favorites) or any Coen Brothers film (Big Lebowski, Miller's Crossing, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Hudsucker Proxy).

3/21/2006 1:01:08 PM

^^that makes me sad

i like ethan hawke

i've even read a couple of his books

3/21/2006 1:03:22 PM

^^^^ Seconded.

If you liked Spring Summer, Winter, Fall...and Spring, check out 3 Iron by the same director. Also, although not nearly as critically acclaimed as Oldboy, [/i]Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance[/i] preceeded it in the director's revenge trilogy.

If you like Ki-Duk Kim's work, I would recommend Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy. They have a very similar focus on color and tone with relatively little dialogue.

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 1:04 PM. Reason : mmmmmmmm carrots]

3/21/2006 1:04:00 PM

Quote :

"Highway"

I'll back this one up too. great movie.

3/21/2006 1:27:44 PM

i enjoyed Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (Last Life in the Universe) if you're looking for more asian stuff...

3/21/2006 1:45:41 PM

good flick that no one really knows about

3/21/2006 1:49:08 PM

A lot of these are hardly "lesser-known films."

3/21/2006 1:54:40 PM

Actually, ive never heard of most of them

so a lot of them are lesser known to somebody

3/21/2006 1:56:19 PM

You're confusing "lesser-known" with "distributed in wide-release but sucked so no one went to see it."

The two best examples of this would be "Secondhand Lions" and "The Way of the Gun."

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 1:59 PM. Reason : ]

3/21/2006 1:58:24 PM

saints and soldiers is a pretty good low budget war movie, also check out just cause with laurence fishburne, sean connery, and ed harris.

3/21/2006 3:01:26 PM

pumpkin

3/21/2006 3:02:58 PM

Dark City

3/21/2006 3:19:30 PM

yeah, Fresh is definitely a great flick

3/21/2006 3:22:26 PM

I'll also third Primer. It's amazing to me that they did it on a $7,000 budget.

3/21/2006 3:27:34 PM

Ah Dark City! that is a good one too

3/21/2006 3:28:26 PM

Quote :

"You're confusing "lesser-known" with "distributed in wide-release but sucked so no one went to see it." The two best examples of this would be "Secondhand Lions" and "The Way of the Gun."""

Secondhand Lion is presently the 56th most popular dvd at netflix and has a average 4.5 star (out of 5) rating.

evidently the movie watching public doesn't agree with your assessment.

this isn't chitchat, go troll somewhere else. thx

[Edited on March 21, 2006 at 3:35 PM. Reason : ]

3/21/2006 3:35:29 PM

Indiana Jones

Independence Day

Star Wars

Jurrasic Park

3/21/2006 3:36:22 PM

omg look everyone, a comedian

3/21/2006 3:36:53 PM

Dude, Where's My Car

3/21/2006 3:53:51 PM

lol

3/21/2006 3:54:26 PM