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The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
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Unappreciated masterpieces?
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"The Warriors" (1979) and "Escape From New York" (1981) were not the first movies to generate interest in New York as a place where strangeness and even criminality were the norm. For me the movie that did that was "Midnight Cowboy" (1969). (It's a masterpiece but I'm not sure it's unappreciated.)
My girlfriend at the time and I would visit New York (from Nashville), put on old clothes so we would not be potential victims, and then go out into the Times Square and 42nd Street area at 2-3 AM. During the '70's that was a totally bizarre place. Strange people doing very strange things...
The height of that strangeness occurred when we were riding the subway late-night and right behind us were two muggers/robbers who were loudly dividing up the loot from a just-held robbery. One was going to get the watch and jewelry and the other was getting the cash and they didn't care who knew about it.
The visual look was a lot like the street scenes in "Bladerunner" - dark and garish and threatening (but exciting, too - we used to say that visiting there was like being plugged in to a light socket...).
I would not have the nerve to do that again, but it made for some great/strange memories.
It was like going to the zoo, except that the exotic "animals" were the people.
To get to the real point of the thread:
Two Unappreciated Masterpieces: "Thunder Road" (1958) and "Invaders From Mars" (the real one, from 1953)
My girlfriend at the time and I would visit New York (from Nashville), put on old clothes so we would not be potential victims, and then go out into the Times Square and 42nd Street area at 2-3 AM. During the '70's that was a totally bizarre place. Strange people doing very strange things...
The height of that strangeness occurred when we were riding the subway late-night and right behind us were two muggers/robbers who were loudly dividing up the loot from a just-held robbery. One was going to get the watch and jewelry and the other was getting the cash and they didn't care who knew about it.
The visual look was a lot like the street scenes in "Bladerunner" - dark and garish and threatening (but exciting, too - we used to say that visiting there was like being plugged in to a light socket...).
I would not have the nerve to do that again, but it made for some great/strange memories.
It was like going to the zoo, except that the exotic "animals" were the people.
To get to the real point of the thread:
Two Unappreciated Masterpieces: "Thunder Road" (1958) and "Invaders From Mars" (the real one, from 1953)
Ernest P Shackleton
One Too Many
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I love these two comments. We probably all would describe the vibe with different language, but most of us would arrive at the same place. Thanks for sharing your experience as well. They've lightly touched on the city transformation from 50s to 60s a couple times on Mad Men. There's no good reason why they'd explore it much further, but I would really love for a show of that caliber to delve deeper.
Another show that had the capacity to turn a city into an alien field was Taxi Cab Confessions, but that is for another time.
Nobert
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Would Glenngary Glennross count? I have no idea what its reception was like, but for whatever it's worth it crystalized my appreciation for the unassuming acting style of Lemon or Spacey over the Pacino "I'm actin over heah!" approach.
And some movie in which Kirk Douglas plays a washed up, big-city journalist who comes into a small town and exploits a mining accident to reestablish his reputation.
And some movie in which Kirk Douglas plays a washed up, big-city journalist who comes into a small town and exploits a mining accident to reestablish his reputation.
Levallois
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Blackthorn
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I agree!
Absolutely! It's right up there, with Big Trouble in Little China.
Not being sarcastic, even if it reads like it. Those are a couple of my favorite movies.
frussell
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I loved it when it came out, but it's hard to find on cable or Netflix. I'll have to buy it. I was a big Farnsworth fan since "Comes a Horseman," and will watch parts of "The Natural" when it's on just to see his unassuming, easy style. I had the good fortune to hang out with him on a trail ride a few years before he died, right after he did the Alvin Straight lawn mower movie, and he was EXACTLY like his characters in the movies. Humble, dry-witted, but never at someone else's expense. He seemed downright bashful that anyone had noticed his performances over the years. Hell of a horseman, just like Ben Johnson, whose screen time I was always waiting for when I watched those old John Wayne cavalry movies as a kid.
Levallois
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You're right, he's terrific in Comes a Horseman. Under-appreciated actor.
mikespens
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Just saw "Kon Tiki" 2012 and although not a masterpiece it is a most excellent adventure.
Two Types
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For me, it has to be Hellzapoppin (1941):
Whilst everyone remembers the Marx Brothers and other comedy acts, Olsen & Johnson delivered the oddest, funniest (and most-overlooked) film of the period. I hate to think how many times I've seen it and each time I laugh at all the same jokes.
"Will Stinky Miller please go home, your mother wants you."
---Stinky-Miller-742470.jpg)
Whilst everyone remembers the Marx Brothers and other comedy acts, Olsen & Johnson delivered the oddest, funniest (and most-overlooked) film of the period. I hate to think how many times I've seen it and each time I laugh at all the same jokes.
"Will Stinky Miller please go home, your mother wants you."
LizzieMaine
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"That's the *first* time a taxicab driver went straight to where I told him to go."
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Hatari!
p51
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Good call on "Grey Fox" I bought a pirated DVD of it about a year ago as you can't find it commerically. It was an even better film that I'd recalled.
Nobert
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Ah, thanks.
I'd also forgotten The Grey Fox. I saw that when I was about twelve, and it was one of the first films that made me think maybe these art-house flicks my parents were always dragging me to might actually be kind of interesting, along with The Brother from Another Planet.
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I couldn't agree more. However, I should add that I saw it on it's opening weekend in 1979 with friends, and we all walked out of the theater disappointed because we (and almost everyone we knew) were somehow under the impression it was supposed to be another Aykroyd/Belushi "buddy movie". I re-watched it when it was on television about 10-15 years later, and gained more of an appreciation for it. Then I saw it again about 10 years later, and it became one of my favorite movies.
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