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 Movies you may not have seen.
August 3rd, 2000
I could make a list of all the movies you should see or a list of my favorite movies but I suspect that most of them you've already heard of. Moves like Terminator 2, Aliens , The Matrix or Blade Runner etc. So, this list is a list of movies I suspect many people may have missed.
Enjoy
Many people missed this movie back when it came out in the mid 80s, probably because it is a German movie with English subtitles. This is far and away the best submarine movie ever made. U-571 recently came out and so I had a showing of this movie for my friends. U-571 didn't hold a candle to this movie. If fact, many of the scenes in U-571 were clearly stolen directly out of Das Boot but still were not done as well. If you watch this movie, make sure to watch it at night with the lights off. It will help the movie get you to feel like you are in the submarine. Also a small warning, it's a little long and takes a while to get started but there is a point to the length and the slow start and that is to help you to get an idea of what submarine life was really like. Also, watch it in German with English subtitles. I listened to the English dubbed version a little and it's really really bad.
The Andromeda Strain (VHS) (DVD) This is an old SF movie from 1970. It's always intrigued me with it's huge underground complex and computers and stuff. Of course it's very dated as far as the computers are concerned. The story is not perfect but I still enjoy it It's based on a novel by Michael Crichton
Batman:Mask of the Phatasm (VHS) (DVD) If you've never watched Batman the animated series this is a good introduction. Batman the Animated Series is arguably one of the best animated series ever made in America. Many of the stories have mature themes and the characters are often much deeper than you would expect for a cartoon. Clearly to some degree this was made by adults for adults. Interestingly Mark Hamill plays the voice of the Joker and he's really really good at it. If you want to check out some of the best episodes check these out.
Cemetery Man (VHS) This is a very quirky movie. I'm not going to say it's "good" but it is memorable. Rupert Everett plays a caretaker at a cemetery but when the corps start coming alive he seems to take it all in stride as though it's almost expected. He gets a gun and shoots them in the head like one is supposed to kill zombies but it just keeps getting stranger.
This is the true story of a bunch of disadvantaged students that don't believe in themselves nor does anybody else except for their new math teacher, Jaime Escalante. This is a brilliant movie and that fact that it is a true story makes it all that much more powerful. People can do anything they put their minds to and don't let anybody tell you differently. This movie will prove it to you. I'm getting teary eyed as I write this remembering the movie. This is truly a MUST watch movie. My mom likes to think that I'm special, that I'm more talented than other people but I personally don't buy it. I believe like this movie that people will rise to the level expected of them.
Everybody may know about this movie by now but then again, when I first saw it, me and none of my friends had ever heard of it. We were at the video store and the clerk recommended it. Don't confuse this with the sequels. Highlander 2 has the unique distinction of being the absolute worst sequel ever made in the history of the movies and strangely it has the same cast and the same director. He must of just gotten lucky with the first one but boy did he ever. I'll only tell you two things about this movie. (1) It's an action movie with lots of sword fighting (2) It spans time from hundreds of years ago to the present. That's more than I knew when I first watched it. If you have to know more then you can read about it elsewhere but if you like action movies or fantasy movies I suggest you just watch it without doing too much research before hand.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (INFO) When I first saw this movie I was expecting something really bad. It turned out that it was very funny and very well written. It has some unique twists on the time-travel paradoxes. This is also the first movie I ever saw Keanu Reeves in. It's a role he's never really been able to live down. Every person that saw this movie generally has a hard time taking him serious in anything he's done since. The sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey was also pretty good but not nearly as good as the original.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (VHS) I first saw this movie because in the late 80s early 90s before the internet took off people used to use terminal emulator programs to access things called BBSes (Bulletin Board System) where you could read and post messages and upload and download programs. One of the most popular terminal emulator programs was called QModem and it was written but a guy who ran a BBS he called "The Forbin Project" When I ran across this movie I was curious why he had named his BBS after it. It's a good movie. In the vain of an episode from the twilight zone or something like that. I'm not going to tell you want it's about as part of the coolness of this movie is discovering what happens as it happens. Basically although the ending may not be a surprise (though it was for me) this movie would be ruined by knowing where it's going to go so I suggest you don't research this or even read the back of the box. I'll tell just the first 5 minutes though. Mr. Forbin is the head scientist in charge of a massive computer. We're talking a computer several football fields big. It's purpose is to control the United States nuclear arsenal to remove the chance for human error. You probably think you know the outcome. I'm going to guess though that you're wrong. Personally I found this movie thought provoking on top of being entertaining. Of course you'll have to excuse the 1970's ideas of computers but still it's great.
Manchurian Candidate (DVD) (VHS) A great movie but it does show it's age. A friend of mine refuses to watch black and white movies because he says they are all over acted and melodramatic. I don't have a problem watching them but he does have a point. Quite a few of them are. My understanding is that this movie was not released when it was finished around 1963 because president Kennedy had just been assassinated and since this movie is about a political assassination it was decided it might not be a good idea to release it. A very interesting movie. Something that is especially interesting is that Angela Lansbury plays the mother of Laurence Harvey even though in real life they are the same age. I guess she's always looked old. She does a great job.
Robert Redford plays a character that is convinced to run for the senate with no chance of winning. He's an idealist and hopes to point out a few of the shoe in's faults but as he gets deeper into the campaign and starts to gain some popularity he is quickly dragged into politics and all it's ickyness. I originally saw this because it was assigned as required watching for BYU general education history class. What a great idea. A very thought provoking movie and is still seems just as relevant today as it was then.
If you like kung-fu action movies then this is one of the best. Like most action stars Jet Li has good movies and bad movies. This is a good one. Jet Li kicks ass. What more could you ask for.
This movie really deserves to be a Twilight Zone episode. The acting is atrocious. The dialog is just awful. It's the basic setup and idea that make this movie interesting. Another movie for which the less you know before you watch it the better. It's Sci-fi and somewhat gory.
The Atomic Bomb Movie (DVD) (VHS) If you want to be truly scared, watch this movie. It's a documentary about the development and testing of the American atomic bomb up through the 50s. All true and very very scary.
The main actor in this movie, Jason Schwartzman, is awesome. I wonder why he hasn't been in more stuff. He plays, Max Fisher, a student at a private high-school who's the type of person that just goes for whatever he wants, always. Can't do it doesn't even seem to cross his mind. It's hard to describe what makes this movie so wonderful. The characters are just completely interesting.
This is one of the most overlooked movies of 1997. It does a great job of transporting you completely to another world. Another movie that fits the Twilight Zone type of story. You won't know what's happening until near the very end of the movie but the journey there is incredible. I hope to see more movies by Alex Proyas. Some people will not get this movie but for those that do this is a real treasure. As detailed as "The Matrix" Easily one of my favorite movies to date. Roget Ebert declared it best movie of the year.
A great animated movie that was not seen by many because it was not by Disney. It's disgusting how much Disney's stamp of approval will bring out the families to a movie when much much better movies come out by other studios and nobody goes because, hey, it's not Disney. That's like saying, Hey, If it's not McDonalds it's crap. Check this movie out.
Prince of Darkness (DVD) (VHS) Yes, it's a horror movie and so it's got standard horror crap like people going places they shouldn't go alone etc but it has a fairly unique idea. A priest who has been guarding a deep dark secret of the church asks a science professor and his students to study it so as to prove what it is and warn the world. Not a great movie but memorable. This is the type of movie you either get or you don't. The story as a whole probably isn't really all that great but the movie, the visuals, the effects, the ideas, the world it creates are all wonderfully interesting. Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowery a good worker who likes to dream he is a flying winged warrior with an angel for a lover. He lives in a 1984 esc world where everything is massively regulated and doing anything requires that the proper forms to be filled out in triplicate. His mother was married to the president of the Ministry of Information Retrieval and can therefore get him promoted into a high ranking job but he will have none of it content with his simple job and his dreams. A fly falls into a printer causing a terrorist acquisition form to be filled out incorrectly and the wrong man apprehended, as Sam tries to sort it all out he meets a girl that looks exactly like the angel in his dreams and as he is involved with the mess of the wrongly acquisitioned terrorist he thinks she is also one and must protect her from the authorities. Terry Gilliam directed this movie. He also directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys and others.
Directed by Sam Rami (Xena, Darkman, The Quick and the Dead) this horror movie is so over the top in its extremeness that it becomes one big campy joke. Some great stuff in here. The original movie, Evil Dead, has basically exactly the same story but the first one was filmed very low budget and looks like a college project similar in some ways to "the Blair Witch Project" in it's cheap look. On top of that the 1st one is also way too serious and is completely a horror movie. Evil Dead 2 on the other hand went for half horror and half laughs and it really works. It is somewhat gory but the effects are so over the top and it in no way looks real.
This is the sequel to Evil Dead 2 and here director Sam Raimi pretty much goes completely for laughs although in a horror setting. A great film with some truly great lines. It's interesting, the ending is wonderful but the original had a different ending that's not nearly as good. In the original Ash is told to go to a cave, drink a potion and say the magic words. He says them wrong (as he does earlier in the movie) and instead of ending up back in his own time he ends up in yet another time. It really doesn't work that well. The new ending is much better. What's interesting though is that the Japanese release and possibly other foreign releases use the original ending. I'm curious as to why this is. Did other cultures not get the new ending? It would be interesting to know how that decision was made.
I don't think this movie is that well known though it lunched the careers of Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. Mr. Farvreau stars in this movie and also wrote it. He later appeared in Deep Impact as one of the astronauts. It's a great movie about a guy that can't get over the girlfriend he left when I moved from New York to L.A. and how his friends help him through it. I'm going to label this an "art flick" An "Art Flick" is a movie that is usually different from the mainstream movies. Something the "Hollywood" would generally not do but also something that probably not everybody will get. The words "quirky" comes to mind for an "art flick". The plus to "art flicks" is that they are different. They are something you would not generally expect to see. This movie is loosely about a woman trying to start a Ramen shop but she isn't very good at it and so she asks the help of a trucker that happens into her store. That's the main storyline but there are a few others. The thread that ties them all together appears to be food. One interesting thing is that this story about the creation of this Ramen shop is filmed loosly in the style of an old western. It also has some of the most interesting sensual food scenes. Scenes which you'll never forget. Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no takkyuubin) (VHS) These next 5 movies are all by a group in Japan called Studio Gibuli (Jee Bu Lee) They can easily be described as the Disney of Japan though arguably less commercial than Disney. One of the their movies, Mononoke Hime was the number one movie of all time in Japan until Titanic came out. These movies have a special attention to detail that you don't generally find in animation. They are not as straight forward as Disney movies and although I would recommend some of them for kids only Kiki's and Totoro appear to be made for children. Kiki's Delivery Service is about a young witch who is turning 13. Like her mother before her it is the time in a witch's life when she must live on her own for a year in a city of her choosing. In the story it is clear that regular humans look at witches just as humans with special powers. Like your neighbor who knows how to use a computer better than you a witch might be able to make a potion to help your bad back for example. It's a wonderful story and of all the Gibuli studio's movies is easily one of my two favorites. Disney picked up the rights to release all the Gibuli studio movies here in America. My understanding is that they are not allowed to add or remove a single frame from the movie but they are allowed to change the soundtrack. For one at least to dub them in English. Before Disney got this permission some group had previously dubbed this movie into English for the art theatre circuit. That dub is the better of the two dubs. I have not seen the Disney dub but I have read several reviews and it appears it's not bad but all the music has been changed from the original. If you can find it I suggest you seek the original dub. One other thing I love about this movie is that as someone studying Japanese it is probably the easiest of all the Gibili movies to understand. I own the Japanese version and it's been interesting to see how my Japanese has improved each time I watch it. The first time I watched it I didn't understand a word. The second time I might have been able to pick out a word here or there like "Hai" (yes) and "Ohayo gozaimasu" (good morning) but not much else. The next time was not much better but I could start to recognize the beginning and ending of each sentence. The next time I could separate each word even if I didn't know what each word meant. And so on, at this point I can understand about 70 percent. Hopefully someday it will be 100%.
Porco Rosso (Kurenai no buta) (INFO) This is my the other Gibili Studio's movie that ties for my favorite. It's about a pilot who through some curse has the face of a pig. It appears to be set between world war 1 and 2 somewhere in the Mediterranean. Porco Rosso is his name. "Kurenai no buta", the Japanese title, means "the crimson pig". One theme that stands out in most Gibili movies is the presence of very strong females. This one is no exception with on of the main female characters being an aircraft engineer. Disney has not yet released this movie. If you search around at a comic or anime convention you can find subtitled versions. Also See Kiki's Delivery Service
Laputa: (Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta) (INFO) Another Gibuli movie. This one loosly based on "Luputa" from the book Gullivers Travels. "Luputa" was the name of a city that floated in the sky. The movie begins with a blimp (airship) being attacked by pirates. They are trying to kidnap a girl. She climbs out the window only to fall from the blimp. As she is falling and becomes unconscious from being so terrified. The stone in a pendant around her neck glows bright and suddenly she is floating slowly down to earth. And so it begins as the pirates and the government are seeking to capture her in the hope that she or her stone will be able to lead them to the famed floating city of Laputa filled with treasure. Disney has not yet released this movie. There is an English dub of this movie from when it made the art theater circuit. You should be able to find it at a comic or anime convention. Also See Kiki's Delivery Service
Naussica (INFO) From my informal survey, this movie is the most popular movie ever made in Japan. Although Mononke Hime set all the records, whenever I ask someone in Japan about their favorite Anime this movie comes out 9 times out of 10. It's hard to say why. Although it's a wonderful movie maybe something gets lost in the translation because the climax is a little bit lucky and unexplained. Never the less it is one of the most awe inspiring movies with the toxic jungle, enormous creatures, a princess that rides on a get powered flying jetski like wing and all kinds of other stuff. There is a very bad English dub of this movie called "Warriors of the Wind". About 20 minutes have been cut out of the original Japanese movie. Why is anybody's guess but some of the cuts seriously change the movie. For example at one point in the Japanese version you find out that the Princess had what you might consider a pet baby Ohm (one of the giant creatures in the movie). Her father tells her it has to be taken back to the jungle to which she cries and cries. This possibly explains the start of her relationship with the creatures of the toxic jungle. There are other scenes like that all of which have been cut from "Warriors of the Wind" One can only assume that they thought running longer that 90 minutes would be a bad thing and so they trimmed it. Hopefully Disney will be releasing a better version. Also See Kiki's Delivery Service Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) (DVD) This movie broke all box office records in Japan. At least until Titanic. Disney has done a reasonable job of dubbing it in English. They voice talent is not all perfect though. Gillian Anderson is horrid as Moro the wolf god as is Billy Bob Thorton as Jigo. But Disney at least tried to stay close to the original and they didn't change the music like they did on Kiki's. The movie is about Ashitika (correctly pronounced "Ah-Shtick-Ah" and not "Ah Shi Ta Ka" as it's pronounced in the Disney version) who while on watch for his village is attacked by one of the boar gods that has gone crazy and evil. During the attack Ashitika's arm is grabbed by the creature and though Ashitika ultimately wins his arm is now rotting with some evil disease. The old wise woman of the village tells him he will die and that all he can do is try to find the forest god and ask him to heal it. Thus starts his adventure. Many people will find the ending to this movie very bizarre and possibly not satisfying but the journey is pretty cool. Also there are some extremely violent scenes. Also See Kiki's Delivery Service My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) (DVD) (VHS) Of all the Gibili movies mentioned here this one is probably the most geared toward children. Mei and Satsuki have just moved to a new house with their father while their mother is in the hospital. Mei discovers that a very large Totoro, spirit of the forest is leaving in a large tree nearby. This is a wonderful movie and you'll be singing the Totoro song forever once you've seen it. The English dub is nearly perfect so don't worry that you will miss something by not seeing it subtitled. Also See Kiki's Delivery Service
Another horror movie so far over the top you just have to bust up laughing. Billed as the grossest movie ever. Though it is gross it's gross to the point of ridiculousness. Very fun. Directed by Peter Jackson who also directed "The Frighteners" with Michael J. Fox and is currently directing the Lord of the Rings movies.
Buckaroo Banzai (INFO) This movie is so strange and has so many memorable moments it's hard to count it all. I think nearly everybody who's seen it wishes there were sequels. One of Ellen Barkin's first movies. If you don't like strange don't watch this but if you want to see a crazy comic book of a movie watch this movie. Backaroo Banzai is a brain surgeon, a test pilot, a brilliant scientist and a rock star just for a start.
For a long time this was my favorite romantic movie. Possibly it still is. Lloyd Dobler is the nicest guy at his high school and all he wants to do is date Diane Court, the smartest and one of the most beautiful women from his school. Most of the people I've recommended this movie to loved it but one person thought it was a high school romance movie that only high school kids would like. That might be true. On the other hand this same person loved Titanic. At least the romance in Say Anything is believable.
Delicatessen (VHS) I originally saw this movie because it was endorsed by Terry Gilliam, director of Brazil, Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys. It's in many ways just as strange. It's a French movie with English subtitles. You may recognize the main character from Alien Resurrection (Alien 4). That movie was also directed by one of the two guys that directed this and so like many directors he cast his favorite actors in his movies.
With a name like Tremors and a picture of a monster on the cover you'd probably expect this movie to be your standard cheap horror fair like Critters or Meenies or Chud. You would be wrong. This is an very well written movie, very believable story and with some very memorable performances. Especially Michael Gross as a super survivalist. Watch it!
Tremors 2 - Aftershocks (DVD) (VHS) This one is not quite as good as the first but it is still surprisingly well done. This biggest problem is probably the acting but they story is still well written and it's a fun watch.
Love Potion #9 (VHS) As far as I know this is Sandra Bullock's first movie. At least it's the first movie I saw her in before she became famous. It's about a couple of scientists that discover Love Potion #9 from a local gypsy palm reader. They do some tests on it with monkeys and find out it actually works and they both use it in some very interesting ways. Of course they both start as fairly frumpy looking and then clean up later. Sandra Bullock of course cleans up very well. On top of this being a good movie one reason I probably like it is that the female lead is super intelligent and nice.
Real Genius (VHS) I believe this is Val Kilmar's first movie. It's about a group of over achieving students that are trying to build a really powerful laser as part of their professor's projects. I guess one reason I like this movie is it seems like the crowd I hung around with. In fact the crowd I still hang around with. When I was in college my friends and I built a dance lighting system. One friend made the circuit board that could read the "beat" of a song and give that information to a computer. Then it would take signals from the computer that would tell it which of 18 flood lights to turn on or off. I wrote all the software to control the lights and give them different patterns. The other friend had the stereo and the records and we DJed several dances. I don't think you have to be a nerd to like this movie but it might help.
I'm not sure how to describe this movie. It's basically a b/w movie about two guys that work at a convenience store and the adjacent video rental store and the conversations they have while they are working. What makes it good is the conversations are very interesting or funny. Warning: lots of foul language and conversation not suitable for kids and/or people that find that kind of stuff offensive
This movie won 3 academy awards but it seems like nobody remembers it. It's a wonderful little romantic comedy. Cher plays a middle aged woman who wishes she was married and when a friend of hers asks her to marry him so he can make his dying mother happy she agrees out of convenience. He goes to Italy to see his dying mother and asks Cher to lookup his brother whom he hasn't talked to in years because of some bad blood between them. Nicholas Cage plays the brother and he's wonderful as usual.
The Milagro Bean Field War (VHS) I believe this is Robert Redford's directorial début. It flopped at the box office but I think it was a limited release and the title really hurt it. When I've recommended it to people the name made them think it was a movie about war in central America. It's a charming movie with some magic in it. About a small town in New Mexico where the people of the town of Milagro are in an area that is scheduled to be heavily upgraded and as such, most of the townsfolk will probably have to end up moving because the taxes in the area will get too high. One of the towns people plants a bean field and uses water that does not belong to him and thus starts the "war". It's not a violent movie. One of the main characters is a very old man and his pet pig. He can see an angel that he talks to regularly. You should definitely check out this movie. I think you'll be glad you did.
Bagdad Cafe (VHS) I really enjoyed this movie. It has very interesting characters. It starts off with a German couple apparently on vacation and somewhere north of Barstow California they get in an argument and the woman gets out of the car, grabs her luggage and takes off in the middle of the desert. She ends up at the Bagdad Cafe, a run down cafe and motel basically in the middle of nowhere where the owner and her husband have some major arguments and the owner is generally a very grumpy person. The German lady, even though she can't really speak English well, because she has nothing else to do, takes it upon her self to fix the place up and ends up transforming the whole place. The movie will probably seem a little slow but the characters are extremely interesting and by the end it all comes together nicely.
Leon (The Professional) (INFO) (ORDER) JDF-10 Victor JVC 133mins Note: There are two version of this movie. The one released in the states (and maybe other places) and the one here. The one released in the states was called "The Professional" Notice this one, "Leon", is 133 minutes. The other versions are 110 or less. Even though the movie is wonderful and is still one of my favorite movies without the missing 23 minutes, it's sooo much better with them. If you can find the "Integral Version" then get it. I got my copy at Tower Records in Japan. Of course on DVD you must have a DVD player that will play Japanese DVDs. It's also available on tape. The movie involves a young girl, maybe 12 or 13 named Matilda and when her parents get killed by a drug dealer she asks a neighbor for help. He happens to be a hitman for the mob. She wants to learn to become one too so she can avenge her family and he is reluctant at first but she wears him down. I think the reason the movie was shortened was two fold. One, the "romance" between a 13 year old and the hitman, probably in his late 30s was probably considered politically incorrect. If you watch the movie though it's not. The other missing scenes are her being taught to be a hitman. I can only guess those were cut for similar reasons but in my opinion it's a better movie with them. If you haven't seen this you MUST see it. It's an unforgettable movie.
The first time I saw this movie I was a little kid and I remember loving it then. I'm sure it has a different meaning for me now but I still love it. It's about twins that were separated at birth because their parents got divorced. By random luck they end up at the same summer camp and neither one knows the other exists. The eventually find out they are twins and scheme to get their parents back together. Recently Disney made a remake. It seemed to me that they should have left it alone. The first was great, why risk making a crappy movie. But, according to the reviews at Amazon.com people say the remake is very good. I'll have to check it out even if I find it hard to believe.
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (DVD) (VHS) I find this movie extremely inspiring. I'm not sure how true it is but I believe it is somewhat accurate. Bruce Lee comes to America and at some point he decids to teach chinese kung-fu. The Chinese elders in Chinatown San Fransisco tell him to stop. He refuses and instead declares some challenge. He wins the challenge but then the elders cheat and break his back. He is nearly paralyzed. With the help and determination of his very strong wife he rebuilds his life. I'm sure it's kind of fairy tale like and kind of melodramatic but still it gets to me every time. The fighting is often silly but it's at least entertaining. This movie is just a visual feast for the mind. Battling a minator, a giant that wears a boat for a hat, midgets, what more could you ask for. It doesn't have a particularly satisfying ending but getting there is fun. Another Terry Gilliam movie like Brazil above. The story is about a bunch of shrubbery designers that worked for God but got sick of it. They have stolen a map of "holes" in the universe that they can use to time travel and they are using it to steal. Consider this an adventure comedy. It's not strictly an adventure movie and it's not just played for laughs. It's somewhere in between. This is one of my favorite movies. The funny thing is, the first time I saw it I hated it. In some ways it's a black comedy and the first time I saw it I had just broken up with my girlfriend and I couldn't laugh at it but the second time I saw it I just couldn't stop laughing. Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter are in it as well as John Goodman long before any of them were famous. Nicholas Cage plays, Hy, a convenience store thief, and Holly Hunter plays Ed, a police officer. They end up getting married but find out that she is unable to have children. When the Arizona family has quintuplets, 5 kids, Hy and Ed decide maybe that's one too many and they should kidnap one of them. This is one of the first movies by the Cohen Brothers. The same people that made The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and others.
I think this must have been a limited release movie since most of my friends missed it back when it came out. It's a sci-fi movie in the same vain as X-Files. One time I showed it to some friends and one of them was in an argumentative mood. He was finding all kind of things unbelievable. What he didn't know was that all would be explained later. If he would just have shut up and watched instead of just trying to pick it apart he I think he would have enjoyed it much better. The funny thing is this same guy, if the story was shown on X-Files, would have excepted it all. I guess it's about the attitude he went in with. The Hudsucker Proxy (DVD) (VHS) I can't say this was a totally satisfying movie but it did leave it's mark. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a woman out of one of the 1940/1950 era movies and she has it down perfectly. Tim Robbins plays some schmo that comes to the big city to realize his dreams and ends up doing it through no fault of his own when the big boss gambles that this guy will run the company into the ground which is just what he needs to happen. Made by the Cohen Brothers. See Raising Arizona
Miracle Mile (INFO) You might be able to find this movie on EBay. I think it might have been more interesting back when I saw it which was before the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall etc. This is also movie where you probably have to be in the right mood. It is not a light hearted movie in anyway shape or form. It's also interesting that either you love this movie or you think it's the worst piece of trash ever. If you read the user comments on the Internet Movie Database you'll see what I mean. This is also the only movie I've seen where I almost punched somebody. I saw it in Westwood and the guy sitting directly behind me didn't like it and was complaining during the entire movie. We got him to shut up until the final climax at which point he again started complaining out loud and basically ruined the atmosphere etc. I gave him a huge shove and then got my money back from the theater for not taking care of him earlier.
I think this is the first movie I saw Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. It's about the "in" club at a high school which consists of 3 uber-bitches named Heather and Winona Ryder's character, Veronica. She hooks up with Jason (Christian Slater) and they accidentally end up killing Heather #1. Veronica is appalled but Jason couldn't be more pleased and starts thinking up ways to do the others Lots of profanity so if that bugs you don't watch. There are lots of unforgettable lines though that many of my friends still repeat.
Saber Marionette J (VHS) This Japanese Anime series is probably best for men or open minded women but it's basically about a guy, Otaru, who lives on a planet that a group of space travelers crash landed on long ago. Only the men survived so they built robotic women or Marionettes which have no emotions. They have developed emotion chips but they need nurturing, a task that is given to unknowingly given to Otaru as he takes care of 3 Marionettes with these emotion chips. It's a TV series and there are 20 or more episodes. It may take 3 or 4 episodes but once you get hooked you won't be able to stop watching.
Ranma 1/2 (VHS) This is another Japanese Anime series. There are probably over 100 episodes. It's about a guy, Ranma, who's father had been training him in the martial arts. His father takes him to China to practice and they fight near some small ponds. Little do they know that these ponds are cursed. The father falls in one pond and his curse is that whenever he gets wet by cold water he turns into a panda. Ranma falls into another pond and his curse turns him into a girl whenever he is splashed with cold water. You can probably imagine the hilarious situations that could be thought up from this particular setup. Again if you watch 3 or 4 episodes you will probably get addicted.
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