Discuss: The Movies That Never Catch On
Filed under: Fandom
How many times do you see a film, simply adore it, and find you can't stop thinking about it, find the scenes/actors/dialog resonating days later, gush about it to everyone you meet, start to re-evaluate past favorites -- and yet no one else seems to be on the same page?The blockbuster fiends usually don't have this problem as they buy their popcorn, jump at the chills and spills, and then go on their merry way. But those who dip beyond the surface usually find an entire new world to adore, one where camaraderie can be as elusive as the basselope. Sometimes this is due to strange quirks and taste. We've all got at least a film or two we love in spite of a sea of haters. But what about the good ones?
I fell in love with Ghosts of Cite Soliel the day it screened at TIFF. I was sure that Asger Leth's stunning documentary would set the world on fire, or at the very least, foster an undercurrent of appreciation. Perhaps the lack of context and a stance turned many off, but the utter closeness and intimacy of the brothers' story offered so much more than a removed account.
A close second for me is Conversations with Other Women. I can only guess the masses didn't like a movie-long split screen, but the chance to view the film in innumerable ways, focused on different responses within the perfect rapport between Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart, was something that captivated me right away. Yet while the film has an eye-popping number of reviews listed over at IMDb, it's rarely on the tongues of film geeks, rarely shared in conversations about film romance, or chemistry...
What films do you love that never seem to catch on like you think they should?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
7-13-2009 @ 12:12PM
David H said...
The Italian. A Russian film about a boy living in an orphanage who goes on a search for his mother. I Netflixed it on a whim and loved it.
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7-13-2009 @ 12:32PM
Wayne said...
I am still surprised at the poor box office take for "Gone, Baby, Gone".
I couldn't tell enough people about "Memento" when it was still a small indie release and was pleasantly surprised as it gained momentum and a wider release over the summer.
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7-13-2009 @ 1:13PM
Tom said...
This describes much of my top 100 list. My top three favorites are Vanilla Sky, Alexander and Bamboozled.
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7-14-2009 @ 2:07AM
Epizia said...
Oh, my, so many!
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
The Education of Charlie Banks
I Croupier
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7-13-2009 @ 1:54PM
Eric said...
The Hudsucker Proxy. I don't think I've ever talked face to face to a person that's seen it, but personally it's one of my favorite "I knew nothing about it going into it" films of all time. And on the Sci-Fi front I'd say Dark City, which kicks Matrix around as much as Neo kicked Agent Smith around (and don't get me wrong, I loved The Matrix).
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7-14-2009 @ 8:06AM
matt d. said...
hey i love ghosts of cite soliel! so you can count that as one at least... the only thing i didnt like was that fake slutty white journalist or documentary filmmaker that sucked dick just too make a movie....
but i have to say city of god is one of the greatest movies ever made and it tells a similiar story... people must watch...
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7-13-2009 @ 2:22PM
cromag said...
For me its "Children of Men" I thought it was fantastic, but all anyone could talk about was Pan's Labyrinth or Babel
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7-13-2009 @ 10:23PM
Rhys said...
As ive read above. Children of Men and Last action hero are ones i can agree on, ive seen bother of them many times, great films. My main one will probably be Man on Fire. I never heard anything about it really, i just found it in my cousins dvd cabinet and was just blown away. Denzel for the win!
7-17-2009 @ 2:15PM
Anthony said...
cromag,
I just need to ask what it is you find so great about "Children of Men". I found it to be so preachy and "on the nose", I really felt it uninteresting.
For example the girl's name is Key and the ship is named Tomorrow. I starting laughing at the end when I realized she is "the Key to Tomorrow". Actually what really got me about the movie is the baby stops the war. It is one of those things that probably sounds great on the page, but for me, seemed so odd on screen.
I don't really want to rant (too late); I really want to know what you liked about the movie.
7-19-2009 @ 7:08PM
cromag said...
The Film making itself. The scene in the begining when the bomb blows up the coffee shop, you can tell that Clive Owen had no idea when the explosion was going to happen. little things like that. But the most amazing thing is the cinematography. In this world of McG, MTV and Michael Bay quick jump cuts, you owe it to yourself to go back and watch it on dvd. The entire scene when she gives birth is one shot, no cuts.
The entire battle sequence when the police storm the refugee camp is one shot. One camera, no cuts, with pyrotechnics, stunts, battle choreography, one freaking shot! If some of the details of the script were a little wonky, to me they were overshadowed by the sheer tour de force direction and cinematography.
7-13-2009 @ 2:27PM
NP said...
Cronenberg's Spider was/is way underappreciated.
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7-13-2009 @ 2:41PM
vegimorph said...
one of my absolute favorite films is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I was totally blown away by it. It did well when it first opened by being number one at the box office the first week but then it faultered. Still i was so pumped and excited by it that I couldn't wait to talk to someone about it. But the thing was that pretty much nobody had seen it and my friend didn't want to see it. This made me mad because the film was and still is underappreciated but its really great and reminisicent of Indiana Jones a little bit and the technology used to shoot the movie was stolen by Sin City.
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7-13-2009 @ 4:45PM
Eric H said...
Stole the effects, no way, Sky Captain wasn't the first, just the worst. Hey that rhymes.
7-13-2009 @ 10:11PM
vegimorph said...
ok ok, the Sin City comment was uncalled for but still I think Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a great underappreciated movie
7-13-2009 @ 2:38PM
Astin said...
Last Action Hero. An excellent satire of the action movie genre that was marketed as an actual action movie, and hence failed miserably. So much so that it was hallmark for bad, over-the-top failures of action movies among those who didn't realize what it actually was.
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8-28-2009 @ 1:34AM
Holly said...
Yep, you're so right
7-13-2009 @ 3:08PM
Cole said...
"Zodiac" and "Gone Baby Gone" were 2 of my favorite movies of the past decade, yet no one saw them in theaters. Everytime a friend asks me to suggests a movie to rent, i automatically say one of those two.
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7-14-2009 @ 2:51PM
ames said...
Zodiac for sure. My mom and I watched it on pay-per-view (it was free) and we were just completely blown away by it. I started asking friends if they'd seen it, and I got vapid responses. Ad also, Husucker Proxy, like other posters have said; definitely a little gem even though it has some bad rep.
7-13-2009 @ 3:22PM
ML said...
Dark City, exactly. Also Resurrection (Ellen Burstyn). I thought that would become a cult classic. My husband and I both really liked it. Although I'm not as in love with it, I thought Renaissance was quite good and I hardly heard of it.
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7-13-2009 @ 4:40PM
Shannon said...
Stranger than Fiction. I try to get so many friends into this one and I only know one person who gets it like me...
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