![\"audience2\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/audience2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI realize it’s a little presumptuous to say you’ve never seen these movies.\u00a0 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. \u00a0And some, I\u2019m sorry to say, are virtually unavailable. \u00a0So you may have to do some digging. \u00a0But it\u2019s more than worth it.<\/p>\n
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10.\u00a0 Audience of One<\/a> (2007) | Dir. Mike Jacobs | 88 min.<\/b><\/p>\n I had the pleasure of seeing this little-known documentary at a bar in Brooklyn a few years ago.\u00a0 Rather than wax on about how great it is, I’ll just tell you what it’s about, because you\u2019ll immediately want to see it. <\/p>\n 9.\u00a0 Slasher<\/a> (2004) | Dir. John Landis | 85 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Here’s an odd but completely true sentence: John Landis’s best movie is a documentary about a traveling used car salesman.<\/p>\n Backed by a killer soundtrack of songs from the Stax-Volt collection, Slasher is a fun, energetic v\u00e9rit\u00e9 doc helmed by John Landis, yes, the<\/i> John Landis.\u00a0 He is perhaps the only filmmaker in history to make great narrative and documentary films\u2014and I’m not talking about when Scorsese wants to interview Bob Dylan for six hours.\u00a0 I’m talking about a real deal run-and-gun documentary.\u00a0 A story constructed out of hours and hours of raw material that simply follows the actions of a dude or a group or what have you.<\/p>\n Check it out. \u00a0You will not be disappointed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8.\u00a0 Miracle Mile<\/a> (1988) | Dir. Steve De Jarnatt | 87 min.<\/b><\/p>\n In the 80s, in the wake of Top Gun<\/a>, Anthony Edwards was given a starring vehicle.\u00a0 It’s called Miracle Mile and it’s awesome.\u00a0 It’s an end of the world thriller with a ticking clock and a great love story to boot.<\/p>\n I was fortunate to see this movie at a small screening in New York with the director (Steve De Jarnatt) and Edwards in the audience.\u00a0 Good guys.\u00a0 The director was very well spoken and seemed to enjoy looking back on the movie.\u00a0 When asked if he was bothered that it slipped under the radar, he basically said (I’m paraphrasing) \u2018this is the movie that I wanted to make, I had written the script years previous but couldn’t get it made, finally when Top Gun hit and I got Anthony we could make the movie, still on a modest budget but the way I wanted to, what you see on screen is very close to my vision, and it made its money back.\u2019 \u00a0What more could you ever ask for?<\/p>\n He also told a funny story about Tangerine Dream (their score is of course fucking amazing) but I can’t remember it.<\/p>\n My favorite bit of score of theirs in the movie is a little tranquil blanket that highlights the movies’ poetic opening.\u00a0 It’s truly one of the most beautiful opening sequences in movie history.\u00a0 Scripted by De Jarnatt, and narrated softly and wistfully by Edwards, it encapsulates all of life in about three minutes and truly soaks over you and perfectly sets the stage for a compelling and thoughtful movie.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7.\u00a0 Threesome<\/a> (1994) | Dir. Andrew Fleming | 93 min.<\/b><\/p>\n This is the one I’m most proud to include because it’s just such an unknown gem.\u00a0 On the surface it looks like just another 90s nothing.\u00a0 But Threesome is advanced beyond its superficial trappings and proof positive that Stephen Baldwin is in fact a great actor.<\/p>\n The movie itself is basically just Stephen Baldwin, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Josh Charles (Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead<\/a>, Wainy Days: Episode 2<\/a>) in a hip, entangled dramatic comedy.\u00a0 It’s smart, clever and fun.<\/p>\n It was directed by Andrew Fleming, whose follow up was The Craft<\/a>, and then Dick<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 The Target Shoots First<\/a> (2000) | Dir. Christopher Wilcha | 70 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Okay, this one I fucking guarantee you’ve never seen.\u00a0 Not only is it only available on VHS, it’s not even really available at all due to copyright stuff.<\/p>\n The Target Shoots First is one of the most watchable and interesting documentaries ever made.\u00a0 At the height of the grunge era, Chris Wilcha (This American Life<\/a>) is hired at Columbia House (the catalog you used to get that you could buy CDs from back when people bought CDs) because he’s a 22 year old college graduate punker and corporate is looking to live out its Animal Farm destiny.\u00a0 Chris had a camcorder at the time and videotaped much of his experiences at work.<\/p>\n The movie is literally just 70 minutes of Chris’s footage (edited down from several hours of course) with him narrating.\u00a0 Nothing more.\u00a0 However, it’s one of the most deeply intoxicating movies of all time.\u00a0 Wilcha’s chaperoning through the footage is insightful, reflective, easily digestible, and an education in consumerism.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 The Postman<\/a> (1997) | Dir. Kevin Costner | 177 min.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n For some reason, some people like Waterworld<\/a>.\u00a0 I don’t get why, because it sucks.\u00a0 But there’s always that brand of salt-of-the-earth dude (or wannabe one) that likes \u2018guy movies\u2019 like Mad Max<\/a> and Steven Seagal.\u00a0 Something about Waterworld taps into that shit.<\/p>\n Nobody likes The Postman though, for some reason.\u00a0 The Postman is Kevin Costner’s directorial follow up, and it was universally panned, bombed at the box office, and was the butt of jokes for a few months and then was almost completely forgotten in an era before things were forgotten so quickly\u2014ya know, pre-internet takeover.<\/p>\n Anyway, the truth is, The Postman is fucking awesome.\u00a0 It’s the best really long movie ever made.\u00a0 It’s basically the coolest idea for a sweeping epic ever.\u00a0 A hero who accidentally falls into being a hero and then begrudgingly leads everyone to victory against a diabolical, evil villain.\u00a0 The past\/future landscape is cool and the movie is littered with really funny and interesting characters.\u00a0 Like all the best movies ever made it has an unpredictable and organic sense of humor that sneaks up on you from nowhere, and a great sense of tone as it builds tension.<\/p>\n The end battle is fucking awesome too.\u00a0 No spoilers though.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Tremors II: Aftershocks<\/a>\u00a0(1996) | Dir. S.S. Wilson | 100 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Tremors is one of the best movies ever made, and it’s a tight, complete, singular story.\u00a0 Sure we’d all love to see if Val and Rhonda make it together and have little six degrees babies, but the credits scrolling over their first kiss tells us they probably will.\u00a0 A sequel just seems like such a bad idea.<\/p>\n My point here is that Tremors 2 has no fucking business being good.\u00a0 This is also sans Kevin Bacon.\u00a0 It really makes no sense.\u00a0 Especially since he’s replaced by a no-name comic relief type character, who ends up being brilliant.\u00a0 His name is Christopher Gartin and despite a prolific list of TV credits his career is less than distinguished.\u00a0 However, in Tremors 2 he not only shines but is a breath of fresh air and the glue that holds the movie together.\u00a0 His performance is just grounded enough to allow us to buy into his goofball attitude.\u00a0 And his ability to play off Fred Ward is amazing.<\/p>\n I think the ultimate strength of Tremors 2 is that it’s very similar to the first one, but adds a few tricks along the way.\u00a0 The plot devices in this one are almost as equally clever as the first (okay so having weird two-legged things break out of the graboids makes no fucking sense, but other stuff is good) and giving Burt (Michael Gross) more to do is always a good idea since he’s one of the best characters in movie history.<\/p>\n It’s not quite as good as the first one but beyond a pleasant surprise.\u00a0 Everything after it in the franchise sucks hard though.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Last Night<\/a> (1998) | Dir. Don McKellar | 95 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Maybe the reason nobody knows about this one is because it’s Canadian and not directed by David Cronenberg.\u00a0 He’s in it though, and very good to boot.\u00a0 Apart from that I can’t explain the underseenness of Last Night.\u00a0 There’s nothing about it not to love so I’m a little surprised it didn’t catch on in the \u2018indie darling\u2019 sense\u2014ya know, like The Station Agent<\/a> did.<\/p>\n Don McKellar wrote, directed, and starred in this movie, and he\u2019s really one of the greatest filmmakers of all time that you’ve assuredly never heard of.\u00a0 (Again, I think it’s the Canadianness.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s about the last day of life on earth, and takes a \u2018less is more\u2019 approach (like Signs<\/a>).\u00a0 Scope is provided by some wonderful establishing shots that are beautifully designed and illustrate the mania that has presumably been percolating for some time.\u00a0 Mania caused by an announcement that the world will end at midnight at a certain presumed date.\u00a0 The movie takes place over the course of that day.<\/p>\n Exposition is so tricky in movies, especially ones with a high concept.\u00a0 Not only is the devil in the details, but you have to allow your audience to read between the lines.\u00a0 And Last Night triumphs here.\u00a0 We’re never told why the world is ending, but we’re given certain atmospheric clues, like the day getting brighter as it gets later in the day.<\/p>\n McKellar lets his characters do the talking and what unfolds is one of the most masterful comedy-dramas ever put on screen.\u00a0 Last Night is not just the third most underseen movie ever made, but perhaps the thirteenth best movie ever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 The Backyard<\/a> (2002) | Dir. Paul Hough | 80 min.<\/b><\/p>\n The Backyard is extremely similar to the next movie in my list, Small Town Ecstasy. They’re both v\u00e9rit\u00e9 documentaries with the goal of exploring a social and cultural phenomenon.\u00a0 Small Town Ecstasy is an incredibly intimate story about a single family that speaks on the larger issue of drug use in America, ya know, thematically.\u00a0 The Backyard juggles a few narrative threads, effortlessly, and tackles (literally) the crazy world of backyard wrestling.<\/p>\n I suspect this movie isn’t very popular because wrestling (WWE) is thought of as pedestrian, sophomoric art by the mainstream media and hipster left alike.\u00a0 That bias, mixed with almost zero visibility in the marketplace, leave The Backyard toiling in documentary oblivion.<\/p>\n Paul Hough’s ability to create an organically flowing narrative is astonishing, especially since the narratives here are way more loose than the narratives in Small Town Ecstasy.\u00a0 Hough’s movie is an all-encompassing portrait of the backyard universe, and it does an excellent job of exploring the inner workings of this sometimes twisted subculture.<\/p>\n Hough is generally objective in his dissection, and often allows his points to be made by the subjects themselves.\u00a0 When Hough does speak (by way of an American voice over artist, because Hough is British and didn’t want to use his own voice for some reason) it is generally expository.\u00a0 However, when he does cross the line and offer his two cents, it not only arrives organically by way of his material but also comes as a welcome punctuation to the drama we have just witnessed.<\/p>\n Much of the material is extremely shocking, and it’s meant to be.\u00a0 Any earnest depiction of a bizarre, esoteric, sub culture should be handled with a warts-and-all approach.\u00a0 Especially if it supports your thesis.\u00a0 However, as shocking as it is, the movie is tempered by addictive and endlessly quotable humor that only a great documentary can provide.<\/p>\n The real statements of documentary subjects are always infinitely funnier than the written word because their stupidity is in earnest.\u00a0 It’s from that vulnerability and openness that The Backyard draws it’s real strength.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. Small Town Ecstasy<\/a> (2002) | Dir. Jay Blumenfield | 85 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Okay, some people have seen this, but I’m putting it at number one because it’s not only almost completely unavailable and never talked about but also one of the best movies ever made.<\/p>\n Small Town Ecstasy is an HBO documentary from 2002 that chronicles a California family as they struggle with drug addiction.\u00a0 Like many great documentaries, it was meant as one thing and evolved into another.<\/p>\n A camera crew goes to a rave to begin a documentary about drug use in America.\u00a0 They stumble upon some captivating characters and start following them.\u00a0 What unravels is completely beyond expectation.\u00a0 If this movie were more well known it would be a touchstone in v\u00e9rit\u00e9 filmmaking.\u00a0 Its story is amongst the greatest of all time, constructed brilliantly by a very caring band of filmmakers.<\/p>\n Movies like this are so good they look effortless.\u00a0 Of course, the more effortless-seeming the end result, the more craftsmanship in the construction.\u00a0 Remember, as fluid as this movie may seem, it was all unwieldy raw footage to begin with.\u00a0 Its emerging, building, and naturally flowing narrative was created by a wonderful synthesis of expert camera work and meticulous, painstaking editing.<\/p>\n Small Town Ecstasy is truly one of the greatest achievements in all of movies.\u00a0 It’s a hilarious, touching, shocking and profound human story that deserves a much wider audience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Honorable Mentions:<\/b><\/p>\n Operation Filmmaker<\/a> (2007) | Dir. Nina Davenport | 92 min.<\/b><\/p>\n This is an interesting one.\u00a0 It’s a documentary about Liev Schrieber hearing about an unfortunate kid in Baghdad on True Life who wants to be a filmmaker so he hires him to be a PA on Everything is Illuminated<\/a> but the kid turns out to be a lazy dickhead.\u00a0 I think I’ve said enough.\u00a0 Go watch it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stolen Summer<\/a> (2002) | Dir. Pete Jones | 91 min.<\/b><\/p>\n This was the first movie from Project Greenlight, the charitable experiment put on by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris Moore, where budding filmmakers pitch their movies for the chance to direct them for a one million dollar budget.<\/p>\n The winner was Pete Jones and what resulted was a fairly nice movie.\u00a0 It’s not great, but Kevin Pollack and Bonnie Hunt shine, and it’s a nice little story.\u00a0 Negative points though for literally using comic sans for the opening titles, retard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heavy Metal Picnic<\/a> (2010) | Dir. Jeff Krulik | 66 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Okay, so I’m kind of tooting my own horn on this one because I did have the honor of editing this movie.\u00a0 I figure since I didn’t direct it though, I can still throw it a bone.\u00a0 Heavy Metal Picnic is the feature-length follow up to Jeff Krulik and John Heyn’s legendary cult documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot<\/a>.\u00a0 Picnic never found an audience but it’s actually really fun, interesting, and touching.<\/p>\n It chronicles the goings-on at a 1985 heavy metal field party in Potomac, Maryland, attended by some 1,500 shirtless stoners.\u00a0 The documentary is anchored by a 45 minute tape made by some of the party goers who were interviewing people, ineptly, with a primitive VHS camera and stolen CBS microphone clip.<\/p>\n Jeff Krulik, the director, showcases the original footage and tracks down some of the folks on the tape, offering them a chance to reflect on their former selves.\u00a0 What unravels is a lighthearted and sometimes hilarious time capsule piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I realize it’s a little presumptuous to say you’ve never seen these movies.\u00a0 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. \u00a0And some, I\u2019m sorry to say, are virtually unavailable. \u00a0So you may have to do some digging. \u00a0But it\u2019s more than worth it.<\/p>\n
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\nIt\u2019s about a priest who has literally never seen a movie in his life until the age of 35.\u00a0 The first movie he sees is The Lion King<\/a>, and he’s so moved by the experience that he is determined to make his own movie\u2014”the best movie ever made!”\u00a0 Audience of One is a v\u00e9rit\u00e9 delight following the priest on his journey to make a biblical sci-fi epic.<\/p>\n![\"sold\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sold.jpg\")
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