Underrated Movies
 

I was talking about this with one of my friends this evening and thought it might make an interesting thread. Which movies have you seen that were dismissed as crap, but you actually found to be quite brilliant? When we were talking, the two movies that came to my mind first were Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence" and Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut".

I didn't bother with A.I. when it was in theaters because I don't have much of a tolerance for Spielberg (see one of his movies and you've seen them all, except that they get progressively duller and less interesting as the years wear on), and while I found the last half hour to be heinous and unwatchable, the rest of it was quite good. He couldn't keep his emotional masturbation in check, but that's to be expected. The "heart" that every hack critic finds at the center of it (while simultaneously bashing it) is nothing of the sort, it's incredibly fake and hollow as only Spielberg can do because he's the ultimate anti-intellectual, but the scenes involving David and the wide-eyed look of shock, terror, and excitement on his face as he wanders throughout the movie make it worth watching. The fact that Speilberg doesn't have the mental capacity to get a good grasp on the material was what I found most interesting, because he glossed over the perverse nature of it so much that you couldn't help but notice how twisted the proceedings were. It was as if he didn't quite understand the movie or what he was doing, so you were actually viewing it from a child's point of view. It worked magnificently, albeit unintentionally, until the last act.

I find Kubrick maddening. Watching his movies is like being hog tied and then being repeatedly bashed in the skull with a brick. He's either too naive in the treatment of his themes, or he's too cynical and downright vicious to the point where you find yourself watching the work of a man who believes his audiences are masochists. But "Eyes Wide Shut" was fantastic. I think I was the only person to walk out of the theater satisfied. :laugh: I could go on and on about it, but I won't. Probably his best movie (which, considering how I can't stand him, isn't exactly saying much, but it was still fantastic).

A few off the top of my head (I'm not sure how 'underrated' these are)

The Human Stain
College
The Awful Truth
Cape Fear
Badlands
Before Night Falls

I'll think of more I'm sure......

I liked Eyes Wide Shut ok. :shrug:
um, I can't really think of any big underrated movies. Most indie movies are underrated, so wouldn't it be futile to name them here? Did anyone see "When Night is Falling"? I thought it was beautiful... :shrug:

Good one. :nod: Hopkins was woefully miscast, but I still found it great. It must have been maddening to try to adapt the masterpiece that is the book, so they get kudos for pulling it off as well as they did. The scenes in bed with Kidman are magic.

Yeah, Hopkins was definitely miscast, but I love him so I overlooked it. :D Plus, I love Nicole Kidman in about anything she's in. I'll be skipping 'Bewitched' though.

Dissention, I'm with you on AI - except I give Speilberg any and all kudos for it. First, like you, I don'twant to imagine how retarded and unwatchable Kubrick would have made it by himself. It owes a lot to Hayley Joel Osmont's awesome acting - and I think that can also be attributed to Speilberg being such a good director of children.

My choice would be Being There, but I'd say that it is unknown as opposed to underrated. Anyone who's actually seen it applauds it!

Do you mean the remake by Scorcese with DeNiro and whatshisname? It is great.

Au contraire, Lantana is one of my favorites. Some of the best acting I've ever seen is in that movie, they hit the jackpot with that cast. LaPaglia, Armstrong, and Hershey were especially fantastic. They ****ed up pretty badly when they marketed it as a cop thriller here, though, because it's anything but. I found it pretty disarming from the start because you weren't watching movie stars like you are when you watch most American movies, you were watching actors who looked and acted like real people, which made it all the more affecting. And you have to love the use of the title.

Eh, Spielberg will never get my praises. :laugh: He's too showy, he doesn't let the audience think about anything; everything is up front, in your face, and pushed to such extremes with his heavy hand that it makes me want to ralph. I think we got a rather diluted version of A.I. because he committed the ultimate sin and not only rewrote Kubrick's original screenplay, but he took unfilmed scenes from Close Encounters and used them for the ending. I still think A.I. is ten times better than most people give it credit for, but as much as I can't stand Kubrick, he wouldn't have fecked it up so badly by inserting maudlin scene after maudlin scene, IMO.

I'm skipping Bewitched simply because of Will Ferrell. ;) Gawd, he's annoying. Kidman is one of my favorites, but I can't brave two hours of Ferrell for her.

I think The Interpreter looks like a good popcorn flick, though. Can't wait to see that one, even though *shudder* Sydney Pollack directed it.

Oh I have one!

Bicentennial Man. It seems to have been dismissed as a kids movie, but it was great - very AI but much more moving.

I didn't like A.I. actually. I sat through it once...and it was ok...but it wasn't great IMO - and the Bear!?! My sister and I died laughing everytime that bear came around....:shrug:

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Underrated movies....um....lol...I have none to contribute....

I can think of any number of overrated movies, but underrated? I'm not so sure. Of the movies listed so far, "A.I." and "Before Night Falls" (despite Johnny Depp playing two characters and the presence of the gorgeous Olivier Martinez) are both atrocious and I made the mistake of buying both movies on DVD before actually seeing the films. I didn't feel one way or the other for "The Human Stain" and haven't seen the rest. Most movies that I like that have been dismissed as crap are films that I like because they are so bad.

I really liked A.I. until the end. I really wish they'd left it with him staring at the Blue Fairy. The ending was just terrible.

I love Eyes Wide Shut.

I can't think of anything else. Except The Sweetest Thing. lolol.

I think Goodfellas is a masterpiece, but I guess it wasn't really underrated. :shrug:

Legends of the Fall - loved everything about it- the actors, the script, the cinematography. I thought it was spectacular. :nod:

Grumpy & Grumpier Old Men - I think they get blown off as silly fluffy comedies, but the chemistry between the actors is amazing. :)

Much love for that movie! :xoxo:


I think Serial Mom is underrated. It is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.

"Pussywillows, Dotty."

Honey, every John Waters movie is underrated. That man is genius.

YEP!!!!!!!!! :nod:

I also think "House of Spirits" was underrated :mad:

I LOVE Serial Mom. Not a huge John Waters fan, but Serial Mom is a favorite.

How about Altman's "3 Women"? That's his finest movie, it blows away everything else on his resume, yet it gets no recognition whatsoever. I was orgasmic when it was finally released on home video last year, almost 30 years after it came out.

Of course it's great, Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve are in it. :D

Ozon's Swimming Pool was fab, too, but that got praised pretty well, so I don't know if it's very underrated.

Identity is underrated, too. It might have been slighty overdone, but I think it is a fab movie.

I thought Swimming Pool was overrated :laugh: I liked it, but it dragged too much for me. But, to each their own!!! :cool:

Yep!
 

You could bore me with it - I adore that movie (Ice Storm) and thought the same about American Beauty (although I enjoyed it). I didn't know Ice Storm was underrated, though.

You? Are right. :p Spirited Away was just beautiful...
Apparantly I can't think of any movies until someone else mentions them... :confused:

Annette Benning was the only thing I liked about American Beauty, she was *so* good. Kevin Spacey is one of the worst actors I've ever seen and the movie itself was so incredibly hokey that it made me chuckle.

"Sometimes there's just so much beauty in the world" while he's watching a video of plastic bag blowing in the wind. :laugh: Talk about intellectual masturbation!

Yeah, Spacey again. I really enjoyed all the other performances, that next door neighbor gay guy was great, and I loved Mena Suvari... :D It's no Ice Storm, though, that's for sure...

Speaking of The Ice Storm, Sigourney Weaver's new movie Imaginary Heroes is pretty good, too. The plot is an absolute mess (suicide to incest to drugs to life-threatening illnesses to affairs in only 90 minutes), but it's still quite funny and satisfying for some reason.

Aside from Spacey, that guy was what ruined the movie for me. Not the actor, Chris Cooper is always good, but the character and the twist of him being gay was just ridiculous. I must say, though, that the scene at the end with Benning going berserk and smelling her husband's clothes after he's murdered was incredibly well done. That's the one scene that has stuck with me.

Hmmm, i thought it was perfect that he was gay, a compelling plot point and the way Chris played it, totally illumating the family dynamic. :shrug: I don't remember the smelling her husband's clothes part....guess it didn't stick with me... :D

That's too bad, it was quite a disturbing scene. :nod:

I could handle his being gay, but I thought they really went overboard when he killed Spacey. It was just absurd to the point where I couldn't help but laugh. It was so out of left field and just didn't gel for me, it needed more to it than his simply being rejected by Spacey. I guess it just rang hollow for me. :shrug:

I thought the "more" it needed was the fact that he obviously had so much self loathing, anger, and pain, at being gay. And I thought Chris really showed that. And, he had spent years acting violently towards his family... :shrug:

I think all of Cronenberg's movies could be considered underrated, too. Especially Videodrome (The Ring is a total rip-off), Dead Ringers, Spider, and eXistenZ (Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law are fantastic in it). Even when he's atrocious (Crash, etc.), there's always something intriguing about him.

Twue, very Twue.

So was Nicole Kidman! After reading the book you realize how miscast she was. It's like the director slapped some brown dye on her in an attempt to "ugly" her up. There is no uglying up Nicole Kidman no matter how hard you try! And her "tough" act did not convince me. Her vulnerability showed through too many times and the character was not supposed to be that vulnerable, at least not from the book's perspective. The director took a few too many liberties with the material. Sorry! I read the book first!

:nod: Agreed on both counts!

I HATED American Beauty.

You just reminded me. Speaking of underrated movies, I think Map of the World is up there. For some reason I really liked that flick AND Dissention, Julianne Moore is in it! I love her, she's quite possibly my favorite actress alive today.

Other Underrated Movies:
The Big Lebowski---pure (overlooked) comedic genius

The River's Edge---disturbing portrait of human ambivalence and alienation and noone can argue the genius of Crispin Glover. :laugh:

And speaking of Crisping Glover, add Ruben and Ed to the list. I'm a sucker for buddy/roadtrip movies and especially when they are that quirky.

White Oleander---I really liked that kid in it, I think her name is Allison Loehman? Anyway, I think she and Michelle Pfeiffer stole the show.

American Psycho--- Great piece of social satire that one. And I LOVE Christian Bale with every fiber of my being. Can't wait for the new Batman.

I *loved* her in The Human Stain, dear. The book is one of my favorites (it is, truly, the great American novel) and I knew going in that they'd never be able to do it justice on film, but I thought she was spellbinding. That scene between her and Hopkins right before Ed Harris showed up outside her house is pure movie magic; I couldn't take my eyes off her. I liked her interpretation of Faunia, however different it may have been from the book; I certianly bought her as white trash.

Hopkins, on the other hand, seemed to be going through the motions and he simply was not believable in the least. There was nothing to that performance.

Sigourney Weaver is *amazing* in that movie! The book is completely pretentious chick lit garbage, but the movie was quite good. I have so many favorite actors and actresses, but Moore and Kidman are right up there. See Vanya On 42nd Street if you haven't seen it, Moore's great in that one.

DUDE! That is my mother's favorite movie. :laugh: It is hilarious.

That one's good, but River's Edge grates on me like you wouldn't believe. :laugh:

I tried to read the book years and years ago, but it was too disgusting for moi. It? Was sick.