OT Surprisingly Good Movies | Page 4 | The Boneyard

OT Surprisingly Good Movies

ZooCougar said:
I didn't enjoy it as much in theater as I do now. It seems to have improved with age.
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It wasn't very good, but the story itself is quirky and has moments that you tend to remember more fondly. That's my take anyway. Plus, Zooey Deschanel is absolutely adorable. Stephen Fry is good as the narrator.
 
The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Sir Ben Kingsley. It's about the tightrope walk from the top of the Twin Towers when they were just about to be completed. I first saw it about a year ago during a sleepless night, putting my then newborn back to sleep.

I don't remember it being in theatres, so it is very good, presuming it was "Straight-to-video."
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I find a certain smugness to her when she is in non-Oscar bait movies, like she wants everyone to know she is slumming it. That said, when wants to turn it on, she is one of the best actresses of the last 20 years.
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She won her first two Oscars in 1979 (Kramer vs Kramer) and 1982 (Sophie' Choice), 38 and 35 years ago. ;)
 
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I don't want to start another thread, but I'm going to add "Surprisingly Good Kid Movies (or Movies You Thought Were for Kids)" as a subsection. Kids movies are a necessary evil for parents, and it's great to find a movie that you like. They may even be movies that you'd want to borrow a kid for if you didn't have young kids. There are a lot, but here are the first couple that jumped to mind.
  • Most Pixar movies. They're not "surprising" now, but I a lot of people thought of animation as "kids" stuff and CGI as technology over story telling. So Toy Story was surprisingly awesome. I also like Toy Story 3 a lot and the original Cars (which has a reputation about being more for kids than other Pixar films, or at least for rednecks). Up and Wall-E wouldn't even be considered kids movies if they weren't animated.
  • Tim Burton movies. These could fit in the "Thought They Were for Kids" category. He has a childlike storytelling along with his gothic vision, but some of the movies are deeper or scary. Beetlejuice jumps out as the one that adults would've found surprisingly good (but I was a kid), but Nightmare Before Christmas was unexpected also. I just saw Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on a plane because I've seen every other movie that airlines are now offering. It was good (not great), but pretty darn scary. Not sure I'll let my young kids see it. And Miss Peregrine has a hot version of Mary Poppins / Hogwarts professor thing going.
  • Lego Movie.
  • Scooby Doo animated show/movies during the "Mystery, Inc." run. Just about every comment is a double entendre that is funny for the kids and parents. A line from Fred when reminiscing about summer camp: "There we were... up Schmit's Creek without a paddle between us."
 
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HuskyHawk said:
It wasn't very good, but the story itself is quirky and has moments that you tend to remember more fondly. That's my take anyway. Plus, Zooey Deschanel is absolutely adorable. Stephen Fry is good as the narrator.
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Zooey Deschanel was also absolutely adorable in Elf, one of the best things about that movie. As for Hitchhiker, kudos also should go to Alan Rickman for doing the voice for Marvin the Paranoid Android. He was right on.
 
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HuskyHawk said:
Thought of another surprisingly good movie, that is also a cult classic. Big Trouble in Little China.
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Phenomenal. Other weird ones like this that I have a soft spot for:

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - Same kind of cult classic-ish movie
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane - shockingly good for an Andrew Dice Clay vehicle
 
Deadrody said:
Phenomenal. Other weird ones like this that I have a soft spot for:

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - Same kind of cult classic-ish movie
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane - shockingly good for an Andrew Dice Clay vehicle
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Buckaroo Banzai. They were certainly aiming for the cult audience when that one came out. Not sure how much sense it makes, but it is an enjoyable movie. I recall at the time that I was a bit disappointed that they never came through with the more or less promised sequel. Nowadays, that wouldn't bother me all that much.
 
tdrink said:
Repo Man (props to Harry Dean Stanton)

After Hours

Election
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Repo Man, the movie that really introduced me to Harry Dean Stanton while I was attending UConn. Solid low budget fun. The generic food cans were a riot way back in the day.

I saw Election recently for the first time. Excellent movie. Although with Alexander Payne directing, and with Mathew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon in it, I would hesitate to call it surprisingly good. I expected quality stuff, and I got it from this film.
 
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tdrink said:
After Hours
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First time I saw that I thought it was great. But it got worse with repeated viewings as Griffin Dunne's character got progressively schmuckier each time.

But it does have naked Linda Fiorentino going for it.
 
"Best Man Down." I thought it was just going to be a quirky indie. It turned out to be much more than that. Not exactly a star studded cast but Justin Long, Jess Wexler, Tyler Labine and especially Addison Timlin were good in this. And Addison needs to be in more movies.
 
Deadrody said:
Phenomenal. Other weird ones like this that I have a soft spot for:

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - Same kind of cult classic-ish movie
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane - shockingly good for an Andrew Dice Clay vehicle
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BIG-BOO-TAY! TAY! TAY!
 
Ted 2. I thought it was actually funnier than the original. The first movie got heavy after the Flash Gordon party. If I am watching a movie about a foul-mouthed, pot smoking teddy bear, I don't want heavy, I want funny.

There was not a dead scene in the whole movie. It was just fun.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Hangover 3. Reviews were pretty rough, but I thought it was very funny and a good end to the trilogy. I thought Hangover 2 was just the original, in Bangkok, and was not a fan overall. I liked the focus on Chow.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005). I really liked this movie. It was like the 9th major swords and sandels epic over a 5 year span, and there was definitely some audience fatigue on the genre when it came out. I am not a huge fan of Orlando Bloom or Eva Green for that matter, but otherwise the cast was pretty strong, especially Ghassan Massoud as Saladin. I have heard that the Director's cut is even better than the regular movie, but I have not seen it.

Smoking Aces. A bunch of cartoonish assassins go to Reno to kill Jeremy Piven, who is basically playing Ari Gold. This movie is just a fun film to watch. The plot is ridiculous, but it doesn't really matter. Enjoy the dialogue and the shootouts.

Boiler Room - Giovanni Ribisi is amazing in this movie about a Long Island bucket shop, stock brokerage. I am sure people walked out of this movie in 2000 wondering when Vin Diesel would win his first Oscar.

25th Hour - I am not sure how underrated this movie is, because it got a lot of love when it came out. Still, it is probably Spike Lee's best film.

Tin Cup - There are a lot of places this movie could have gone wrong, from its slow pacing, to a cast with inconsistent Kevin Costner, mediocre Rene Russo, and weak Don Johnson, to the fact that it is a movie about golf from the 90's without a Tiger Woods cameo. This is one of the funniest sports movies ever made.
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I love smoking aces and tin cup.

"We straight nightmares. We the walkin, talkin existent circumstances."
 
auggie22 said:
Echo the following:
Boiler Room
Tropic thunder
Dead pool
This is the End (x2 .... what a surprisingly funny and silly movie)

Add to that:
Semi-pro
Swingers
High Fidelity
PCU
Kingpin ( this movie holds up perfectly )
Hall Pass
Outside Providence
Just Friends ( hillariouslu rewatch able )
Say it isn't So
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I thought just friends had like one really funny scene (xmas lights...).
 
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Was hooked into "I Love You, Man" yesterday. Hysterical.

I am not a Paul Rudd guy but here he is about to marry Rashida Jones and realizes he has zero friends. No best man candidates. Then he meets Jason Segal...a bachelor with no buds at all.

Funny stuff.
 
nwhoopfan said:
I'm looking forward to the sequel, comes out in another week or two.
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Finally went to see Kingsman: The Golden Circle yesterday. If you're a fan of the original, you'll most likely enjoy the sequel as it has the same feel to it. While they amped up the number and scope of the action sequences, they don't come with the same level of unexpectedness that the original delivered. I went with my girlfriend who had not seen the original and she enjoyed the sequel.

 
Stepping back a few decades,to a genre rarely seen now.
Hombre
Valdez is Coming
The Professionals
 
The new Spider Man was pretty good. Didn’t expect much but was pretty surprised.
 
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