Brilliamt Movies That No One Apart from Me Seems to Have Seen

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Aside from Sarah and a couple of other friends, no one I know has seen High Strung, a great dark comedy. It stars Steve Oedekirk, who is in a bunch of shitty movies now (Blair Thumb Project? Thumbtanic? Kung Pow!), and a brief early cameo (before he was famous) from Jim Carrey, as death. Oedekirk also "wrote" the Ace Ventura movies. But none of the other crap he's been involved with holds a candle to High Strung.

High Strung is the simple tale of a man who hates everything. Most of the movie is Oedekirk in his apartment ranting about anything and everything. He writes children's books, but he is in trouble with his publisher for writing overly morbid tales about grandma dying and stuff like that. He almost never leaves his apartment because he gets annoyed and pissed off at everything he encounters.

A couple of great scenes in the movie: his publisher's wife comes over to talk to him about his newest book and keeps saying pseudoracist things. He has to nod and grin because she's the boss's wife, but there's a great internal monologue about what an idiot she is and about how he hates himself for having to listen to her crap. Finally he freaks out and yells at her. Another: a travelling salesman (Fred Willard!) comes to his door selling insurance. Oedekirk invites him in and enthusiastically listens to his shpiel, then asks to buy every kind of policy the salesman can offer. As the salesman steps out to his car to get the paperwork, Oedekirk says "Oh, there's just one problem. I'D. RATHER. BE. DEAD." and slams the door in his face.

Wow, my description makes it sound horrible and annoying, but he does kind of get his comeuppance at the end. I think what's great about the movie is how tense it is. It's hilarious, but at the same time, as he gets angrier and angrier, the tension just builds and builds. Highly recommended.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 11 August 2003 14:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I can completely hear Oedekirk delivering that line, but I'd never heard of the movie until you and Sarah mentioned it. I'll check Netflix.

Brilliant movie no one apart from me seems to have seen: Paperhouse, a horror movie about a young girl who keeps dreaming the stuff she draws while sick. Ben Cross plays her father and has a very creepy scene.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Bible and Gun Club: a satire featuring door-to-door salesmen who sell both Bibles and firearms.

Shady Grove: the film Shinji Aoyama directed before Eureka, which is lighter in tone but almost as brilliant.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I've seen Paperhouse sitting around in the cult section of the local video place. Should check it out.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Dammit. I haven't found it in years (Netflix has neither it nor High Strung, it turns out).

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and I forgot about Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid, which is a documentary where the boys from KLF burn a million quid of their own money. Apparently no one isn't going to see it anymore anyhow, since all the copies of the film were allegedly put in a van which was pushed into the ocean. Of course, that may be just another KLF bluff.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Weird, looking at the allmovie page for High Strung, it apparently also features Kirsten Dunst as "Young Girl." I don't even remember there being a young girl in the movie.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Paperhouse is one creepy-ass movie.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Yay, someone's seen it!

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah! I haven't seen it 'round the video stores in a while though, I guess it's been deleted. Maybe it'll find new life on DVD.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't want to spoil it, but ... you know the Ben Cross scene I mean? The particularly creepy one?

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not sure I remember the scene you're talking about.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I remember how to spoiler-protect this so it's all in white ...

The part where she's scribbled out his eyes in the drawing because he didn't come home from his business trip or whatever, and when he shows up in the dream -- after the freaky hammering noises, I think -- he shouts "I'M BLIND!" and doesn't have any eyes!

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Bearing in mind that I was in like 7th grade, I think, so that was the scariest thing I'd seen other than Poltergeist (which arrives today from Netflix, yay).

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyone ever see Elias Merhigue's "Begotten", or am I the only one?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, that was some freaky shit.

Poltergeist scared me more than any other movie as a kid. Nightmare on Elm Street came close.

(xpost)

Alex, I want to see that movie.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Tapeheads. Fishbone as "Ranchbone", Sam & Dave as "The Swanky Modes", Jello Biafra, Don Cornelius, "waffles just pancakes with little squares on 'em", Tim Robbins & John Cusack & the 2 1/2 minute high-five, "Cube Squared" (with a little help from Devo), a political ad with a candidate sticking cigarettes into childrens' mouths as they dance "ring around the roses", somebody stop me now before I tell you EVERYTHING!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyone ever see Elias Merhigue's "Begotten", or am I the only one?

I was going to see it, but every one of my friends who saw it said it was shite, so I decided not to waste my money on it. Was it any good?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

oh my god, tapeheads

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Jello Biafra was in Tapeheads?! The last time I saw it I wouldn't have had any idea who he was. Who did he play? (I'm not sure I'll remember the character, but ...)

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:25 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, I was just looking at this obsessive fan page of High Strung, and apparently Jani Lane of Warrant was in the movie too. He plays an obnoxious neighbor. So if you need another reason to see the movie, there you go.

I've seen Tapeheads, but I don't remember much about it.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, "Begotten" is kinda shite, but I don't regret seeing it. It was one of those films that I really wanted to buy into, having heard all the hype. But once my friend Rob and I were about fifteen minutes into it, it was all we could do not to burst out laughing. You will NEVER find a more pretentious bit of nonsense in your life, but it's still interestingly shot (using all sorts of filters and whatnot). To its credit, it has a very unique look.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it better than Shadow of the Vampire?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, that's what my friends said about it too. Apparently, when it was shown at the Helsinki Film Festival, about one third of the audience left halfway through each screening.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Didn't Susan Sontag say it was the greatest movie of the last 400 years or something?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Jello played an FBI agent in Tapeheads!

(And I made an oopsy, not Sam & Dave, Sam Moore & Junior Walker)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 11 August 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

dude, High Strung appears to star BIFF.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw tapeheads like
three times in the theater--
stupid but so great

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Tep I've seen 'Paperhouse' too - and oh yes there are a couple of disturbingly creepy moments in it - definitely that one you've mentioned...but isn't there also a bit where...
Ben Cross is being all friendly & nice-father warm happy family stuff....when SUDDENLY he LUNGES forward with a horrible mad/blank look on his face as if to strangle her, and the lens/angle and music lurch wildly - and then she wakes up

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I have not met a
single other human being
who has seen Terje Vigen

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes! I think so. I haven't seen it since ... let me think, how old am I? Since 1992 at the latest. The video store lost its only copy, and I haven't been able to find it anywhere else.

I used to rent that and Parents and a Poltergeist movie every Halloween (and Blue Velvet every April).

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:11 (twenty-two years ago)

paperhouse is based on "marianne dreams" by catherine storr and is not — quite — as good as the book, sadly: the film's ending is a bit too star trek 3, and where the book is wistful and wide open, and the opposite of action thriller, really

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Whoa, it's based on a book? Mark, you have just made me day, and made it twice if it's in print. (The ending was the weak point, yeah. The movie was a movie I loved for moments more than for the whole.)

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

tep: in print in several formats in the uk, currently out of stock on us amazon

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I just looked :/ I'm gonna order it from Amazon UK, shipping is pretty reasonable from what I remember.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

corndog man, folks.

― thomas de'aguirre (biteylove), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

search and destroy
communion

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

The best part in Tapeheads is when they are in a car, and what's-his-name puts his hand out the window, out of frame, and pulls his hand back with a beer.

No one I know has seen "No Maps for These Territories" unless I have forcefully shown it to them.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Monday, 11 August 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

okay how about
'the blood of heroes' (it's
also known as 'jugger'):

rutger hauer &
joan chen in future weird
dystopian game

the ball's a dog skull
it's like 'gladiator' but
with some painful sex

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 11 August 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I've seen Paperhouse. It's all right. I read a really negative review of High Strung from Entertainment Weekly that scared me off of renting it. Something about a line where he says relationships should be called "Painland" or something. GAH.

Nobody talks about how great the movie Used Cars is. They really should.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 11 August 2003 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Destino - a short surreal animation set to the Spanish ballad of the same name. most famous as an oft-rumored collaboration between Dali and Disney.

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 11 August 2003 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

A.M. OTM
about that great kurt russell film;
high school cult classic!

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 11 August 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Then there is that great
short film called "La Balancoire"
(1928)

And a recent film,
"The Uncertainty Principle"
(it's in Portuguese)

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 11 August 2003 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait, so you AVOIDED a movie because Entertainment Weekly said it was BAD? You must live in some kind of bizarro world.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 11 August 2003 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

more that the scene descriptions and the lines referenced (like that "painland" one) sounded atrocious, rather than the critic's opinion of it.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 11 August 2003 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

after all, you even thought YOUR description made it sound horrible and annoying.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 11 August 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait, so you're avoiding a movie because I made it sound horrible and annoying? You must live in some kind of bizarro world!

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 11 August 2003 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, shut up and rent Used Cars. You'll thank me later.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 11 August 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Vampire on Bikini Beach. It is utterly brilliant for reasons other than intended (DB can confirm this, but I guess that fact means that someone part me did see this, etc.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 11 August 2003 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I went to see 'Paperhouse' at the cinema - if we're talking Bernard Rose horror flicks, I didn't find it as scary/creepy as 'Candyman', to be honest. I seem to remember that 'Paperhouse' also reminded me of an old UK kids TV prog from the early 70s (??) in B+W(??) which involved a remote spooky house, and a trapped (poss crippled) child - just a vague recall, at the edge of mind/memory...

I'm sure loads of other ppl have seen it, but 'To Live and Die In LA' always seems like one of the most underrated films ever made.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Monday, 11 August 2003 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

So it looks as though
all of my unknown movies
will remain unknown...

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 11 August 2003 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I watched To Live And Die In LA on your recommendation, Andrew - it is very good.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 11 August 2003 20:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Paperhouse is brilliant. Out on DVD here in Britain, but not in America I believe.

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:54 (twenty-two years ago)

There's this film called "Crimewave" (or "Big Crimewave" at the video store so as not to confuse it with the Sam Raimi pic)which RULES. It's based on a typical writer's block plot and then goes all screwy. In a good way. I can't explain it, except to say that the director also worked on Kids in the Hall and (amazingly enough)it's Canadian! PS the star (and director) says NOT ONE WORD throughtout the entire movie. Genius.

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 01:10 (twenty-two years ago)

my friend was obssessed with that movie but no one else believed it existed!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 01:59 (twenty-two years ago)

"The top! Few guys made it!"

aaahh.. quote catharsis

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

'To Live and Die In LA' always seems like one of the most underrated films ever made.

It's because its magic is inexplicable. Four years ago I tried to watch it with a friend. After ten minutes he stopped the tape and said, "Let me guess. The almost retired cop gets killed and his partner sets out to avenge his death. And the partner's new partner is some wimp who tries to do things by the book but becomes a tough guy in the end." - "Yes, but things go horribly wrong, you know. Um." We ended up seeing Pulp Fiction instead. Bummer.

― Sommermute (Wintermute), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:43 (twenty-two years ago)

okay how about
'the blood of heroes' (it's
also known as 'jugger'):
rutger hauer &
joan chen in future weird
dystopian game

I've seen that one. It's one of the better examples of post-apocalypse-action-flicks a la Mad Max. It's been years since I saw it, though.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

Ok, I saw one tonight that was amazing: World Gone Wild with Adam Ant, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Bruce Dern. The best lines ever. No one apart for me seems to have seen it, and it's most definatly brilliant.

― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 30 August 2003 04:34 (twenty-two years ago)

okay how about
'the blood of heroes' (it's
also known as 'jugger'):

Seen it. Several times actually. Couple of my friends were even known to do the "jugger salute".

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 30 August 2003 06:05 (twenty-two years ago)

World Gone Wild with Adam Ant, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Bruce Dern.

Seen it. Can't remember any of the lines, but it was hilarious at times.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 30 August 2003 06:06 (twenty-two years ago)

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