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Sun 24 Apr, 2005 03:07 am
Three words for the same basic idea: what movies have you found to be completely overlooked by mainstream society?
I submit: Detroit Rock City and Biloxi Blues
The former is, frankly, a "stupid" movie - sex, drugs, skippin' school, rock & roll. But so is just about every "classic" high school comedy. For whatever reason this picture has gone unnoticed, as far as my experience goes, in its relation to classics such as Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Dazed and Confused, and Revenge of the Nerds, to name three of many. I think there's little doubt Detroit Rock City measures up to all three of these, and also just about every "teenage comedy" every made; yet aside from myself, I barely know anyone who's seen it.
As for Biloxi Blues, intuitively it seems like the picture ranks along side films like Lucas and Beetlejuice; but, "upon further review," the Neil Simon work seems more like one of the truly lost classics of American film-making. Drama, comedy, romance, history - there's just something about it ... it's one of my favorite movies.
So, those are my two. What movies do you find considerably underrated, underappreciated, or overlooked?
I can think of two films that I enjoyed immensely which probably fall into the category of overlooked by most people, the first one is "Ferris Buellers day off" which I found very amusing, (because he reminds me of ME at his age) and the other was "Ed Wood" which I thought was a masterpiece.
I'm sure I can think of many more, I'll get back to you.
I've got to contest 'Ferris' in the sense I find it to be a classic; i.e. it's hard for a classic to be 'underrated'.
"Ed Wood", however, is a very nice pick: one of those movies I've never seen but have been told it's great: you're the catalyst at this point for twenty-thousand people!
"Ferris Bueller" may have a record on now often it shows up on various American cable channels, so I'm also not convinced it's "overlooked."
"Ed Wood" has also been on cable fairly regularly and its DVD sales have always been steady. It opened to good reviews so I could have a problem stating that it's underrated and Martin Landau won the Oscar for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. It's interesting how many times that particular film comes up in this forum, also not indicating it's being overlooked.
Perhaps this could to slip into being a guilty pleasures discussion.
"Ed Wood" has also has notable film awards record including Tim Burton being nominated for a Golden Palm at Cannes:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109707/awards
The user rating is nearly 8 out of 10 points.
The reviewers percentage of favorable reviews on Rotten Tomato is 89% -- not very many films can claim that record:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ed_wood/
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