Quentin Tarantino, director of some actually good ‘cool’ movies. This is a companion piece to my 10 Awful Movies People Think Are Cool list. Read that one first. Or read this one first. It doesn’t really matter. Continue reading 10 Actually Good Movies People Think Are Cool
Tag: scorsese
The 10 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen
I realize it’s a little presumptuous to say you’ve never seen these movies. Some of you out there may have seen a few, but some are so rare I’m almost certain they have only been seen by like one dude other than myself. And some, I’m sorry to say, are virtually unavailable. So you may have to do some digging. But it’s more than worth it.
10. Audience of One (2007) | Dir. Mike Jacobs | 88 min.
I had the pleasure of seeing this little-known documentary at a bar in Brooklyn a few years ago. Rather than wax on about how great it is, I’ll just tell you what it’s about, because you’ll immediately want to see it.
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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Brian De Palma (But Didn’t Care Enough to Ask)
When I was in junior high school, Scarface was the most talked about movie in the hallways. It was 2000, and those hallways were a reflection of the culture at large. One time a kid asked me, “Who directed Scarface, Scorsese?” He had never heard of Brian De Palma.
There’s a popular book called Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. It’s a gossipy, oral history of 60s and 70s American movies. In the back of the book, they summarize the directors integral to the movement and give a filmography for each. Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, and Malick are featured, but not Brian De Palma—despite being mentioned heavily in the book. You’d think the guy that gave Robert De Niro his first on-screen appearance (The Wedding Party, 1969) and gave him steady work way before Scorsese ever did, would be important enough to mention.
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I Don’t Like Jokes, I Don’t Think They’re Funny
Jokes, almost inherently, aren’t funny. We all know scores of ‘classic’ jokes from the aristocrats to dead babies to chickens crossing roads. None of them are funny. But, in the right context, we’ll laugh at them, because the joke isn’t what’s funny—the idea of the joke being told is. It’s that extra layer, that prefix, that meta, that deeper meaning, which gives a joke life, and makes it funny, and makes you truly laugh. (Laughing simply because you’re ‘supposed to’ is why sitcoms are popular, despite their unfunniness.)
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