Tuesday
Dec082020
Comment Party: What's a movie that's famous but you (still) think vastly undervalued?
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 4:33PM Just a question I've been thinking of today for no apparent reason. What's a movie you think is vastly underrated that also happens to be respected / famous? Usually respected and famous things aren't exactly "underappreciated", you know? I'll give you four examples off the top of my head that I would use to answer this question in that I think they're genuinely great movies, in addition to being whatever else they happen to be.
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969)
• Silkwood (Mike Nichols, 1983)
• Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
• Magic Mike (Steven Sodebergh, 2012)
What's your answer?
Reader Comments (73)
A history of violence
The goonies
Amadeus
Lethal weapon
Godzilla 1985
King Kong 2005
The insider
Wall-e
The hobbit: battle of the five armies
Jurassic park
The Ice Storm or My Best Friend's Wedding.
So many good movies in these comments!
Shoot the Moon (1982)
Shoot the Moon (1982)
Shoot the Moon (1982)
Shoot the Moon (1982)
It got so overlooked in awards season and despite being aired regularly on local stations in the 80s is more or less forgotten. Diane Keaton, Albert Finney and Dana Hill are all magnificent and its such a portrait of such a place and time. Even its director Alan Parker's death and the release last year of the similar "Marriage Story" barely stirred any interest in it. Can "The Film Experience" please try to rehab it? What I would give for a Criterion Collection release of this masterpiece.
ORDINARY PEOPLE
Halloween. The original. The sequels and the bad slasher flicks it spawned obscure the fact that for it's time it was a great horror film.
Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs.
Moonlight - took me awhile to get it but love it now
Requiem for a Dream (Aronofsky/2000)
The Pillow Book (Greenaway/1996)
Liquid Sky (Tsukerman/1982)
My Favorite Wife (Kanin/1940)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks/1953)
Summer of ‘42 (Mulligan/1971)
3 Women (Altman/1977)
Mysterious Skin (Araki/2004)
I'm always late to these but three movies leapt to mind immediately.
Last Of The Mohicans - This movie is probably my favorite romance ever, plus my favorite war movie, AND my favorite western, all rolled in to one. Why this never caught on at the time nor is now considered even "great" is a total mystery to me. You'd think just Daniel Day-Lewis in his shirtless prime would be enough to keep people intrigued, but no.
Two For The Road - They often talk about remaking this (probably a disaster) because those few people who stumble across it and actually pay attention seem to "get it." Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney were never better, but it's the screenplay, structure, and direction that really stand out. Too square at the time for the hip crowd, and too "zany" for the squares, it fell through the cracks.
New York, New York - Okay, this movie isn't really any good as is, but more than any movie I can think of, this deserves the Godfather Part 3 redo it deserves. The editing on this thing is currently all wrong. The slavish devotion to a "proper" timeline robs the film of a well paced musical structure. Blow the thing up and place Liza's numbers every 30 minutes or so and you've really got something.
@ Dave in Hollywood
I didn’t include New York, New York on my list, although it was the first film that came to mind because it is criminally underappreciated and famously disrespected. I‘ve seen three different cuts and the full-length one (including “Happy Endings”) is my favorite. I don’t care what anyone says, the film is a masterpiece, and Liza is better in it than she is in Cabaret. #degreeofdifficulty
Oooh I like the love for New York New York! I got to see it in 35mm earlier this year and it's so gorgeous. I'm pretty sure it was the full length one - it included all of Happy Endings. It doesn't fully work for me (partially due to Robert DeNiro) but a lot of it is brilliant and Liza is fabulous.
Lillies
Boys In The Band
A Taste Of Honey
dave & working stiff -- i totally get why NEW YORK NEW YORK has never quite been canonized. it's incredibly uneven. There's some masterpiece level stuff in it (and Liza, is yes, very special in it) but it also doesnt seem to have an editor and some scenes go on for what feel like hours and at least for me i'm like GET BACK TO THE MOVIE'S STORY AND THE CHARACTER ARCS.
@ Nathaniel & chasm301
It's not a perfect film for sure but I think that's part of its charm and brilliance. The MGM musicals it celebrates were these clean little jewels and New York, New York explodes their wholesome mythos in a very messy way. (Although you could also say that an abundance of cocaine and a lack of Thelma Schoonmaker contributed to the film's jagged edges.)
Take Shelter
Enemy
Jennifer's Body
Margin Call
The Life Aquatic
Miller's Crossing
The Ice Storm
Martin (1977)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Fat City
Three Days of the Condor
Klute
Born to Kill (anything with Claire Trevor really)
The Star
In a Lonely Place
Further on New York, New York. We've gotten so good as viewers these days of dealing with a timeline that is all out of order. Sometimes it's with narration, sometimes it's just with dates and times If people can follow Pulp Fiction, or the mentioned here many times Go, they should be able to follow a storyline that isn't strictly linear.
Those "go on forever" scenes that Nathaniel references? Chop them up, or throw them out, or drop them in the middle of something else. My fantasy would be to take 10 editing film students, give them all the pieces to NY, NY and tell them to come up with something else. The crazier the better. Someone needs to Fosse it up, it's all there.
"Atonement". I know this site loves it, but I still think it's supremely underrated by the public. Such a beautiful, piercing and heartbreaking movie. The cast is sublime too.
"Winter Light". Ingmar Bergman is obviously widely praised, but most people refer to "Wild Strawberries", "Persona", and "The Seventh Seal" as his masterpieces. All very good (and Persona is A++), but Winter Light is one of the most insightful films ever made about faith and doubt.
And 100% agree on "Marie Antoinette". I thought it was a masterpiece when I first saw it in 2006 and still do now. Sofia Coppola has never made a bad movie, in my opinion. But this one is my favorite.
Ettore Scola and the Taviani brothers have given us many Italian film classics, but I think Scola's A Special Day and the Tavianis' Night of Shooting Stars remain underappreciated. The former is a showcase for Mastroianni and Loren, both playing sublimely against type but with all of their chemistry intact; the latter is a touching, intimate portrait of a community caught up in the horrors of war that seems more real precisely because it is everything but epic in scale.
Von Trier's Breaking the Waves features a performance as searing as Falconetti's in Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. Emily Watson was robbed and remains as underappreciated as the film.
Barbra Streisand's Yentl deserves more acclaim and recognition than it has had. As a musical, it is immensely innovative in its use of interior songologues. And with a score by one of the 20th century's most accomplished film composers, Michel Legrand, performed by one of the greatest vocalists of the recorded era, it deserves so much more acclaim than it has received.
John Frankenheimer's SECONDS, an underappreciated vehicle for Rock Hudson that was eerily ahead of it's time.
And because the winter holidays are upon us, Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, still unacclaimed as one of cinema's greatest Christmas classics.
Recently. STRANGE DAYS, which holds up beautifully, and Bassett's performance is so electric. SILVERLAKE LIFE, the beautiful AIDS documentary, haunted me so much and watched it on World Aids Day. Felt incredibly poignant. JACKIE BROWN, which I think is Tarantino's best and has one of the best ensembles. Everyone is doing such top work in that one. LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN as well for it's glorious technicolor and Tierney's stunning performance.
I was at Target last night and there was one of those cheap three DVD combos available that consisted of MEAN GIRLS, CLUELESS, and SHE’S THE MAN. The first two are regularly celebrated but the third isn’t, and I think it’s one of the most hilarious and surprising teen comedies of that decade (and Channing Tatum at peak shirtless didn’t hurt). Speaking of Channing, you are right to include MAGIC MIKE. I remember Bret Easton Ellis saying that it was really a movie about the economy.
I will have to rewatch MARIE ANTOINETTE. I saw it in the theater and it was one of those movies that I felt I didn’t “get”.
I got Disney + and I still cry so hard at LILO & STITCH that I think my lung will fall out.
Gone Girl
The Hours
Weekend
The Master
Arrival
I'll echo the SHOOT THE MOON praise above by Seth. It got an absolute rave from Pauline Kael when it came out. Apparently it was moved out of 1981 so that Diane Keaton wouldn't be competing against herself at the Oscars (and REDS was more of a heavyweight and wasn't about to budge.) Still, they should have delayed it even more (it opened in January, why not push it to September?) It was competing for attention with December's Oscar bigwigs, most of which were still in the theaters and getting the free publicity that comes from ten best lists and awards shows.
It's really sad. And yes, Criterion should really be using its power as tastemaker to get this film put on the map.