# Oddball movies that go onto being favourites



## Rosemary Fryth (Dec 25, 2011)

I have to admit that I like a lot of the funny little oddball movies that generally slip by unnoticed by the general public.

'He Died With A Felafel In His Hand' - oddball Aussie movie with some great local humour. In fact I believe the first house featured in this movie was actually based on a share-house in Herston where a number of friends of ours once lived (these friends being medieval reenactors/goths). Watch out for the toad killing scene.

'Age of Treason' - I've been trying forever to get this movie on DVD however it's just not available. Bryan Brown plays a Roman private investigator (Falco) who was hired to investigate a murder in ancient Rome. This movie always cracks me up because of the comic incongruity of a broad Aussie accent coming out of the mouth of an ancient Roman. A lot of people hated the movie for this reason, I just think it adds to its general quirkiness.

'Hercules Returns' - another Aussie gem full of local humour, local lingo and almost no political correctness. There are some brilliant lines in the movie and really needs to be seen to be believed. If for some reason you cannot get the movie, there is on You Tube quite a few extracts of some of the funniest scenes.

'Local Hero' - yet another quirky movie that has mostly flown under the radar. It's a lovely movie, with a great soundtrack, and with brilliant character acting. A definate recommendation.


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## Foxbat (Dec 26, 2011)

Branagh's interpretation of *Love's Labour's Lost* as a 1930s style musical is an oddball and one of my personal favourites


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## Abernovo (Dec 26, 2011)

Rosemary Fryth said:


> 'Age of Treason' - I've been trying forever to get this movie on DVD however it's just not available. Bryan Brown plays a Roman private investigator (Falco) who was hired to investigate a murder in ancient Rome. This movie always cracks me up because of the comic incongruity of a broad Aussie accent coming out of the mouth of an ancient Roman. A lot of people hated the movie for this reason, I just think it adds to its general quirkiness...
> 
> 'Local Hero' - yet another quirky movie that has mostly flown under the radar. It's a lovely movie, with a great soundtrack, and with brilliant character acting. A definate recommendation.



I really liked Bryan Brown as Falco. The accent never grated with me. Is _Local Hero_ really an under the radar movie? I used to live very close to Pennan (the village used as the fictional Ferness), so I've always had a soft spot for the movie.

_The Winter Guest_, with Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law (Thompson's mother) is a personal favourite of mine when it comes to these sort of movies.


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## Toby Frost (Dec 27, 2011)

_Hercules Returns_ is a classic. I can still hear him booming "Almighty Zay-oos!"

I'd nominate John Borman's _Excalibur_ and Neil Jordan's film _The Company of Wolves_. Both score points - and probably lost revenue - by being fairly adult, which enabled them to discuss the source material more but lost a lot of viewers. I have never worked out if Nichol Williamson in Excalibur is acting superbly or just hamming like crazy - probably the latter, but he remains my favourite wizard of film.


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## Abernovo (Dec 27, 2011)

Toby Frost said:


> I'd nominate John Borman's _Excalibur_ and Neil Jordan's film _The Company of Wolves_. Both score points - and probably lost revenue - by being fairly adult, which enabled them to discuss the source material more but lost a lot of viewers.



Like _Excalibur_, but _The Company of Wolves_ holds a prime position in my DVD collection. How did I not think of this? I'm already on record as being a fan of Angela Carter's work. Brilliant film of one of her short stories and she co-wrote the script, if I remember correctly.


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## Ripley!WatchOut! (Dec 28, 2011)

Local hero is a FANTASTIC movie.

Have you seen DOWN BY LAW? It's great too.

What about CINEMA PARADISO? Excellent.


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## Interference (Dec 28, 2011)

Zardoz was something of a - here comes that word again - cult fave while I was at college.  Boorman again, with Connery doing his darnedest to put all connection with Bond to rest - for good.

...and evidently failing, cos that's what I just did


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## Foxbat (Dec 28, 2011)

Ripley!WatchOut! said:


> Local hero is a FANTASTIC movie.
> 
> Have you seen DOWN BY LAW? It's great too.
> 
> What about CINEMA PARADISO? Excellent.


 
Watched Down By Law very recently. It is definitely excellent. As for Cinema Paradiso....it's one of my all-time favourites


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## JamestheLast (Jan 16, 2012)

One of my favorites is Scream and Scream Again. A Vincent Price movie that seems to have everything. Body snatching, a killer/dictator of a fascist country who can destroy people by crushing their shoulder, a vat of acid, a couple of musical interludes, a car chase, another killer running around with his hand ripped off (which he did himself). Its weird, disjointed,  and I like it. Even the title song grows on me.


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## Starbeast (Jan 19, 2012)

*Prophecy: The Monster Movie* (1979) Armand Assante, Talia Shire & Richard Dysart

Strong messages in this creature feature about the consequences of pollution effecting people & nature!


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## Snowdog (Jan 19, 2012)

A few:

Birdy (1984) with Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage
Turk 182 (1985) with Tim Hutton
The Wanderers (1979) with Ken Wahl

I'm not sure if they qualify as oddball, but they've always stuck in my mind, far longer than most major films ever do.


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## TheTomG (Jan 19, 2012)

Excalibur, Company of Wolves, and Local Hero. Great movies. Not adding anything new to this thread, just reiterating for the sake of giving weight to those fine pieces of movie art. Oh for more unique and interesting movies, even if flawed!


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## paranoid marvin (Jan 22, 2012)

Salute of the Jugger - Post-nuclear Rollerball in Oz. Picked it in the budget section on video years ago , simply because it was cheap. Brilliant film , and one I return to again and again.


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## Toby Frost (Jan 22, 2012)

That used to be my boss' favourite film. He could recite the entire plot, which was strange coming from a man not wholly unlike Hugh Grant.

I also have a friend who is a massive fan of the Falco books.



> Oh for more unique and interesting movies, even if flawed!



I totally agree. I was thinking about _Mythago Wood_ by Robert Holdstock yesterday, about all its flaws, and realised that I would far rather have a book like that than the slickest and most polished Tolkien clone.


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## TheTomG (Jan 22, 2012)

I keep meaning to re-read Mythago Wood, but my copy has gone walkabout somewhere in my many moves. I'll have to rebuy it, but I think I've looked on Kindle and couldn't find it. This reminds me to look again and then look further afield if I can't find it there, as I must get that book again!

Anyway, yes, flaws but originality. I can even come to love the flaws as something unique and special  But polished, slick and formulaic is always going to be boringly unlovable.


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## Starbeast (Jan 22, 2012)

Rosemary Fryth said:


> I have to admit that I like a lot of the funny little oddball movies that generally slip by unnoticed by the general public.


 
So do I, in fact, I search for them. This is a fantastic thread idea Rosemary.

*Creation of the Humanoids* (1962)

Decades before films like _The Terminator_ came out, this B-Movie hit the theaters. 

The Story: Thousands of years after an apocalypse, humans develope androids with emotions to serve people, but humankind treat them like inferior beings and eventually decide to destroy them. The gentle androids which are programmed not to harm humans secretly build a humanoid robot prototype that can kill, in effort for the peaceful androids to survive.

Side Note: Artist, Andy Warhol was a big fan of this film.


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## Toby Frost (Jan 22, 2012)

In the UK at least, Tom G, Mythago Wood seems to be out of print. I gather they're bringing a new version out and collecting some of Holdstock's other stuff together (which I've never read).

I should also mention a small British film called Mirrormask, which involves Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman, IIRC. It has an incredibly sinister version of Close to You by the Carpenters, performed by robots.


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## Dave (Jan 22, 2012)

Toby Frost said:


> I should also mention a small British film called Mirrormask, which involves Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman, IIRC. It has an incredibly sinister version of Close to You by the Carpenters, performed by robots.


 I immediately need to see that. Where can I?


One film I like but know that I shouldn't is _Napoleon Dynamite_.


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## Toby Frost (Jan 22, 2012)

It should be available on DVD. It's not perfect, and pretty cheaply-made (and it does go on a bit), but the visuals are interesting and the lead actress is pretty good. In a funny way, given that it's a PG, it feels more grown-up than might be expected.


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 23, 2012)

_Salute of the Juggers_, and _Creation of the Humanoids _are both great films.  Weirdly flawed, both of them, neither of them should work at all but they do.  

Here are a couple suggestions:_

Young Einstein_ (1988) which plays the audaciously weird idea of 'what if Albert Einstein had been a Tasmanian apple farmer who came up with a formula for splitting beer atoms'.

Thunderpants (2002) - a ten year old boy with chronic flatulence dreams of becoming an astronaut and, after a brief spell as an opera singer where he gets to 'sing the high bit with my arse', he succeeds.
_
Mirrormask_ is available on a region 2 disc.  I watched it recently.  And rather good it is too.


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## Wiggum (Jan 23, 2012)

Snowdog said:


> A few:
> The Wanderers (1979) with Ken Wahl



That is such a great movie.

Never considered Excalibur as a oddball movie.

Big Trouble In Little China would be my contribution.

And anything that involves the undead, Bruce Campbell, his chin, and a shotgun.

Otherwise known as a Boomstick.


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## Mouse (Jan 23, 2012)

Spookily, I bought Mirrormask on Amazon the other day for about £4. Had to hold off buying Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. 

Anyway, I love _Funny Bones_. Starring Jerry Lewis, Oliver Platt and a young Lee Evans. Set in Blackpool. The music's brilliant and all the complete weirdness is excellent. If anybody used to watch TFI Friday with Chris Evans and remembers _Freak or Unique_? will recognise a whole load of people in this film!


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 23, 2012)

You are Frelling Kidding me!  I just came back to this thread to add _Funny Bones_!  I came across my VHS copy today and thought 'aha!  now _that's_ a real oddball favourite.'  

It's a real pity Chelsom's career then went so horribly wrong with _Town and Country_.


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## Mouse (Jan 23, 2012)

Yay! Someone else who's even heard of it! I _adore_ that film. One of my favourites ever. (Also, excellent use of 'frell!')


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 23, 2012)

It is wonderful little film. I saw it in the cinema back in 1995.  There were three people in the audience.


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## Starbeast (Jan 25, 2012)

*Creature From the Haunted Sea* (1960)

Filmed in Puerto Rico, Roger Corman produced and directed this very strange crime/comedy/horror B-movie. This film is so weird-good for me, because it has silly acting, odd dialogue, a character that does animal sounds, a chain-smoking mobster/sea captain, a secret agent, the Cuban revolution, stolen gold, a jazzy cartoon credit sequence at the beginning of the movie and.....a big hokey looking monster (and more). 
I love it.


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## Diggler (Feb 2, 2012)

*Survive Style 5+ *(2004)

This went from oddball, to just plain bizarre. The story revolves around separate groups of weird people who's lives are all intertwined through an existentialist Hitman (Vinnie Jones).






*Bangkok Loco* (2004)

Off the wall Thai oddball extravaganza. The story follows a young musician who has been trained in the mystical drumming style "Drums of the Gods". He must avoid the police, stay alive and beat the forces of evil in a drumming contest.


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## JunkMonkey (Feb 19, 2012)

Just remembered another candidate:  _The Independent._  A mockumentary about a prolific maker of schlock independent low budget films called Morty Feinman (director of such classics as  _Twelve Angry Men and a Baby (1987), The Man with Two Things (1988),_ _The Harlem Globetrotters Meet the Black Panther_s (1974) and the world's first all-midget beach party movie, _Teenie Weenie Bikini Beach_ (1972).  Feinman's complete fictional filmography is on Wkipedia here.

It's a messy, bitty film that really can't make its mind up what it really wants to be (mocumentary or straight narrative) but it _is_ consistently funny. and stands repeated watching.


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## Toby Frost (Feb 19, 2012)

_Brazil_ by Terry Gilliam. It's basically _1984_ with jokes.


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## JunkMonkey (Feb 19, 2012)

Toby Frost said:


> _Brazil_ by Terry Gilliam. It's basically _1984_ with jokes.



Agreed it's a good film. but hardly one of those 'funny little oddball movies that generally slip by unnoticed by the general public' though.


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## Metryq (Feb 19, 2012)

It's not sci-fi, but the Japanese film _Tampopo_ is my favorite "weird" film. Every aspect of life is examined through the lens of food. The main story is a "noodle western" where the hero, a truck driver wearing a cowboy hat, rides into town and ends up helping a widow turn her fourth-rate noodle cafeteria into a first rate restaurant. The movie is fleshed out with short vignettes, like a husband rushing home to his dying wife. The conclusion of that scene was so bizarre I literally did not know whether to laugh or cry, and tried to do both. "Oh, that's terrible! Ha-ha-ha!" The real prize-winner is the gangster and his moll.

(WARNING: This movie will make you hungry, so watch it while eating dinner.)


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## Starbeast (Feb 19, 2012)

Metryq said:


> _*Tampopo*_ is my favorite "weird" film. Every aspect of life is examined through the lens of food. The main story is a "noodle western" where the hero, a truck driver wearing a cowboy hat, rides into town and ends up helping a widow turn her fourth-rate noodle cafeteria into a first rate restaurant.
> 
> (WARNING: This movie will make you hungry, so watch it while eating dinner.)


 
Awesome mention *Metryq*, this is a fantastic film!

I highly recomemend this 1986 "food" themed film. Great characters in the movie, my favorite is the good hearted truck driver helping the charming Tampopo to become an excellent chef.

I'm popping the corn, I got my used subtitled VHS copy of _Tampopo _ready in the VCR. (I'm definately watching this in the near future)

*The Wages of Fear* (1952)

Truck drivers are needed to haul "nitroglycerine" on dangerous roads. 

Remade in 1977, directed by William Friedkin - *Sorcerer* (I like both versions)


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## JunkMonkey (Feb 20, 2012)

Starbeast said:


> *The Wages of Fear* (1952)
> 
> Truck drivers are needed to haul "nitroglycerine" on dangerous roads.
> 
> Remade in 1977, directed by William Friedkin - *Sorcerer* (I like both versions)



The book was pretty good too.


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## Jammill Khursheed (Feb 28, 2012)

*The Devil Dared Me To* (2007, New Zealand) - A purposefully overly gory story about a stuntman with a dream, struggling against his own ineptitude and a vitriolicly blood-thirsty safety marshal out for revenge.  Think Evil Kineivel meets the Evil Dead (for un-necessary gore, there are sadly no zombies)

Or one of my favourite films of all time:

*Upworld: A Gnome Named Gnorm* (1990, US) - A Gnome (pronounced Gah-nome, humans just say it wrong apparently) witnesses the murder of a police officer involved in a failed sting, and the police officer's partner has to protect the little gnome and solve the case as they are both hunted down by the real killers.  A lot more like Witness with Harrison Ford in than I actually remembered until I typed that sentence.  Except with a G-Nome instead of the G-N-amish.


Jammill


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## Alex The G and T (Feb 28, 2012)

I was watching a documentary, a couple of nights ago, about the making of the new Elton John/Leon Russell album.  Elton mentioned that he had turned down an offer to do *Harold and Maude*. I was thinking music; but apparently the offer was for the lead role.  Elton declined because his musical career was on the verge of skyrocketing.

Either way, music, or role,  would have been disastrous.  Bud Cort was perfect, as were the Cat Stevens songs.


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## CyBeR (Feb 29, 2012)

Once saw a film on TV, one of those old John Travolta flicks that are basically feel good tripe: *Phenomenon*. Had a problem for many years even pronouncing the name in English. 
Basically, the premise was this:


> An ordinary man sees a bright light descend from the sky, and discovers he now has super-intelligence and telekinesis.



It ended sad but it was a fun film to watch and one I never saw again but remember so fondly that I really wouldn't watch again. 

There was a plot point in the film where the character kept having a rabbit munch on his garden. He tried to fence the garden...rabbit still got in. Got higher fences...rabbit got in. He buried the fence, wire and all to almost half a meter in the ground...rabbit got in.
As his powers and intelligence increase, he comes to a realization: he had fenced the rabbit inside in the first place. That moment of the film still brings a smile to my face even now, as it shows so much about normal problems in real life. 
Fun stuff.


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## Starbeast (Mar 7, 2012)

*Gamera Super Monster* (1980)

If you like giant monster flying turtles that blast fire out of it's mouth, silly songs, clips from previous Gamera films, flying superhero women from space, very cheap special effects and a villain who travels in a starship that looks like the _Star Wars_ Star Destroyer (rear of the ship looks like Darth Vader's helmet), then this movie is for you.

I like watching this fine mess, it's good for a laugh.



*JunkMonkey*, I do want the novel _The Wages of Fear._


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## JunkMonkey (Mar 7, 2012)

This is my copy:




Wages of Fear by the_junk_monkey, on Flickr

You can't have it.


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## Starbeast (Mar 13, 2012)

JunkMonkey said:


> This is my copy:
> 
> 
> You can't have it.


 
Heh heh.  Eventually I'll get a copy. For now, I think I'll watch the 1952 version of the film.



*Fantasy Mission Force* (1982 - a.k.a. Dragon Attack & *Mi ni te gong dui*)

This is the strangest movie actor/martial artist Jackie Chan has ever been involved in. Some people call this film the Taiwan version of _The Dirty Dozen (1967)._

Basically, the story is about Japan trying to take over the world. But the "world" in this movie is a surreal place where you're not sure what time period this flim is in. I don't want to give away any spoilers, because this movie throws everything into it, I can narrow it down by calling it a fantasy/action/comedy.

Jackie Chan is only in the film for about 15 min.s, but that's ok, because the movie is loaded with unusual characters that are weirdly enjoyable.

For me, _Fantasy Mission Force_ is one of the strangest, coolest and wildest flick I've ever had fun watching.


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