Flawed but delicious movies

[pinboy3niner]

Some have a 'reveal' at or toward the end.

Some of my favorites are:

The Usual Suspects

Primal Fear

The Sixth sense

Arlngton Road

They can be hokey in a way, but they are so well done that it's hard not to love them.

[Tobin S.]

1. I bought Arlington Road for something like $3 on clearance at a video store

having never seen it before. The blurb on the DVD jacket just sounded interesting to me. It was $3 well spent. One of the few movies I've watched more than once. It didn't win any Oscars, and it was kind of hokey, but that mindfucker of an ending made it worthwhile.

[Ino]

2. Dang it!

Arlington Road is not on Netflix Streaming, nor at my library. I'll never be able to see it. I hazza sad

[pinboy3niner]

6. I just watched it again on cable

Never say never! One way or another, you'll get to it. It's on your Bucket List, right?

[WinkyDink]

3. I love that movie so much! I have a VHS tape! (In fact, it's the one staring at me in the TV stand!)

[Aerows]

4. I loved the Usual Suspects

I've never seen Arlington Road ... I need to check that one out.

[pinboy3niner]

5. It's worth it!

Some really good performances there. Joan Cusack has few lines but can be devastating with just a look.

I call it hokey because it's one of those movies we would normally dismiss because all depends on some mastermind manipulating people and knowing precisely how and when they will react (like The Usual Suspects). But that is so well done (and with such a good cast) that it is greatly entertaining and we overlook its faults.

[Aerows]

7. I watched it

Whoa. That was a great use of amnesia and flip fillming! The kids and the wives are fascinating because they are portrayed as not really caring.

[pinboy3niner]

9. I have no idea what flip filming is

But the kids and wives are superfluous as characters here, except for Cusack and Bridges' gf. I think the young woman on the phone (a student of Bridges' who is interviewed on the news after the tragedy) is a great touch

[Aerows]

11. It's when you use flashbacks

or "future flashes" in film.

[pinboy3niner]

12. What did you think of 'Memento'? nt

[Aerows]

15. Haven't seen that one

I'll check it out and get back to you .

Arlington Road was interesting. Not my favorite, but certainly gripping. Thanks for the recommendation.

[shenmue]

13. I'm the only person I know

who doesn't like 'The Usual Suspects.'

[Aerows]

14. Hey, everyone has different tastes

I don't like sweets. Who am I to judge someone that likes a doughnut?

[Ron Obvious]

8. The Wicker Man

The original from 1973. I just watched it again last night and thought it held up really well. It's deeper than it appears to be on first watching, and the songs are pretty good too.

[pinboy3niner]

10. Good one!

I only saw it for the first time recently when it ran on cable. But it's the kind of movie I was talking about.

[nirvana555]

17. I own Primal Fear and can't watch it enough. iMHO, it's a great movie. N/T

[reflection]

22. Great movie. The remake was horrific though. n/t

[Ron Obvious]

23. So I've read

I've not seen it, but it's exactly the kind of movie that would be screwed up by a Hollywood remake.

Reading 1 star movie reviews on IMDB is a secret pleasure of mine.

[Aerows]

16. If we want to go recent

Star Trek: Into Darkness. It was flawed but awesome, in my opinion.

Another interesting film was Bound. Flawed, but also fantastic.

[betsuni]

18. I saw "The Innkeepers"

the other day and can't stop thinking about it. Time for ghost stories now that it's almost October. Its flaws made me mad, but it was a strangely charming movie. I hate it when a story is so ambiguous that the viewer has to fill in a lot of blanks, and then what you decide still doesn't really add up because you don't have enough information. All I wanted to know in this movie was if one of the historical characters was real or entirely made up. It would've been so easy to have a character mention whether there was a record of her in the files of the local library. But apparently this was too much to ask. If the director's goal was to vex me into obsessing about his movie because I want to know what the hell was going on, then he succeeded.

[Tom Kitten]

19. Candy (the 1968 movie)

Candy is usually delicious. "Candy" the movie is deeply flawed but fascinating to watch. It stars Richard Burton, Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, John Huston, Ringo Starr,Charles Aznavour but the main male lead is John Astin (best remembered as Gomez Addams from the Addams Family TV show). The title role, Candy, is played by Ewa Aulin, who was unknown at the time and appeared in few films after this. But she is very beautiful and basically the movie revolves a series of events where she meets all the aforementioned actors and all they want to do is try and get into her pants. Parts of it awful but a lot of it is hilarious (Walter Matthau especially as a super gung ho Army commander). It was filmed in that sort of psychedelic style that was popular for awhile in the late 60s, and has a great soundtrack. And it also has a "reveal" towards the end that'll probably make you go "yuck".

I found the trailer for it on youtube...

[hifiguy]

25. "Barbarella" has much the same kind of hokey

charm, pseudo-psychedelia and all 'round campy goofiness. Terry Southern was also involved with the film, as co-writer with Roger Vadim, IIRC.

"A great many dramatic situations begin with screaming."

[Raffi Ella]

20. Marie Antoinette.

It's flawed in so many ways but I love everything about it.

[WinkyDink]

21. "House of Games": Joe Mantegna/Lindsay Crouse. "No Way Out": Kevin Costner/Sean Young/Gene Hackman.

[gratuitous]

24. Did it have $48 million worth of laughs?

No, but what do you care? It's not your money:

Ishtar.