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Movies you like that the consensus hates?


Max Field

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Yes to Murder by Death

 

80's John Carpenter has no place on this list, but 90's Carpenter is a gold mine: Vampires, In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars, Memoirs of an Invisible man --- all really great films but unfairly treated in the press

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There's plenty of under-appreciated 80s John Carpenter, mainly because everyone wanted to paint him into the horror genre, pushed just far enough to allow the dystopia of Escape From New York. The Thing was under-appreciated at the time and has since grown to have respect both for its nihilism and the great ensemble performances. When the film tanked Carpenter pointedly showed everyone that he could make other kinds of movies, and came out with a rather lovely road movie, love story: Starman. That's a somewhat forgotten film that I really enjoy, and it shows that Carpenter really knew how to cast and get terrific performances out his actors.

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  • 8 months later...

Necro-threading cause I just watched Mike Myer's The Cat in the Hat and saw it had a 3.8 on IMDB.

 

It struck me as insanely odd because the general feeling of humor felt 20 years ahead of its time, lots of non sequitur transitions could've come right out of the Adult Swim network. Word for word saying "Clowns with hepatitis" in a film for 8 year olds blows my mind.

 

I give it a 5.5.

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French Connection 2 - always loved it, but nobody else did.

Alien 3 - very flawed, but it has a rawness that I like.

Prometheus - I loved it and could see the underlying themes he was going for.

Revenge - one of late Tony Scott's least successful movies, but I always thought it was one of his best. Gorgeous long lens cinematography.

Burn Before Reading - generally panned, but after re-watching it I think it's one of their funniest movies ever.

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I'm a sucker for atmospheric noir thrillers and serial killer police procedurals, no matter how bad:

 

Twisted (2004)

Jade (1995)

Jennifer Eight (1992)

Predator 2 (1990)

 

Also,

Re-Animator (1985)

 

I love introducing people to this movie.

 

Jennifer 8 is fantastic. Good choice.

 

I need to add Showgirls to my list. Really isn't a bad movie at all, but just came at the wrong time.

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Jade (1995)

 

I need to add Showgirls to my list. Really isn't a bad movie at all, but just came at the wrong time.

 

 

I recently read Joe Eszterhas's book, Hollywood Animal, and he claims "Jade" and "Showgirls" coming out the same year is what ended his career as a screenwriter.

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I never understood the controversy about "Showgirls". I mean isn't there more tawdry stuff produced for the so-called "adult video" market? Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but I've never seen the movie, just bits and pieces of it here and there.

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Also it was from the writer and director of "Basic Instinct" which was known at the time for pushing boundaries in a blockbuster thriller. I don't think the actual content of the film brought about the controversy, but all the outside elements.

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I'm guessing the outrage around 'Showgirls' was largely sustained by people who didn't see the film. It's offensively bad to anyone who cares about acting and screenwriting. The other than that, it's just a dull story about dim-witted people doing terrible things to each other. It's not even funny. Kinda hard to believe Paul Verhoven directed it.

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I really enjoy 'Deep Blue Sea' (1999).

 

Although it's an objectively bad movie with a dumb concept, it totally nails the fun atmospheric tone of a great monster movie that a lot of modern films don't seem to capture. Science-y exploration horror movies are an under-appreciated genre.

 

There's a great Japanese horror film from the mid-1990s (I think) that I saw once and can't remember the name of. It's about an actress hired to play the survivor role of an infamous real-life mass murder. She starts experiencing flashbacks to the real woman's life leading up the event, and the story advances along two parallel timelines as the film production progresses and she tries to figure out what's happening to her. I don't think it ever got a Hollywood remake like 'The Ring' or similar titles.

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I really enjoy 'Deep Blue Sea' (1999).

 

 

 

The growling shark movie. :)

 

Revenge - one of late Tony Scott's least successful movies, but I always thought it was one of his best. Gorgeous long lens cinematography.

 

 

Being shocked that there was a 90's Tony Scott movie I've never heard of, I went ahead and rented this based on your recco. Beautiful, long lens, 90's, Tony Scott at his best. Looked great on the projector too. It must have been restored, because it felt really clean and sharp. What a crazy movie. As I was watching it I could totally see why Tony Scott was so excited about "True Romance". Then I found out "Revenge" was one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite films and one of the reasons he was so excited for Tony Scott to direct "True Romance".

 

Anyway, thanks for the heads up. That movie was nuts.

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The growling shark movie. :)

 

You know what I want to see? A Lifetime original shark-puppy movie. A young girl finds a pregnant leopard shark stranded in the shallows and tries to save it by filling her swimming pool with sea water. It dies, but the pups survive. She raises them by hand. Then the EPA finds out and sends agents to shark-nap the pups. So she and her friends have to construct a mobile shark tank on bikes to release the sharks back into the wild. It will be called, 'Shark Puppies: A Tale of Freedom'. I think Richard Boddington should direct it.

 

Re: 'Revenge' - Madeleine Stowe was ridiculously hot in that movie.

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I think the controversy came from it being a wide release "blockbuster" about strippers starring a girl from the cheesiest, squeaky clean, teenager, television show ever made.

That really does sound like it would've been a bigger hit 20 years later from original release.

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