I suppose I am weird when it comes to movies. I rarely watch movies, and when I do, I generally avoid the big budget Hollywood flicks in favor of the more obscure flicks. The LOTR movies, were the last true big budget movie that I suppose I have seen, and I enjoyed them. Beyond movies like that some of my favorites are in no particular order:
Heathers - I saw this movie when I was probably 12 years old, and I immediately fell in love with it. It is kind of a cross between a teen movie and a black comedy. It is pretty raunchy and at times over the top, but fairly accurate about what high school life can be like at times and unashamedly UN PC, which makes it something that couldn't be created today. It takes shots at just about everything from the in crowd, jocks, geeks, stoners, pop music, touchy feely hippies, self absorbed parents, teen angst, homosexuals etc etc. One of my favorite quotes of all time in any movie comes from Heathers "I love my dead gay son", followed by "Wonder how he'd react if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse?" This movie wasn't very well received at first but has become a pretty big cult classic, even influencing pop culture slang for a time. If you have ever heard phrases in the past like "What's your damage?","How Very" "Sit and Spin" or "Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?" They came from Heathers.
May- It is kind of a far out psychological horror about a woman who is a lonely outcast and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her. In the end she winds up going completely off the deep and killing people to steal their body parts so she can sew them together to make her perfect companion. Very far out, but appealing to me for some strange reason.
Dr Strangelove - I don't think there is any need to explain this movie as probably everyone has seen it by now.
Sling Blade - Probably another one of those no need for explanation movies. To me Dwight Yoakam makes this movie despite Billy Bob Thornton's great work as Carl "Sling Blade" Childers.
Shaun of the Dead- This British comedy movie is definitely not for everyone. I seen many people give this movie horrendous reviews, but I thoroughly enjoy it for the spoof it is on the Zombie horror film genre.
This Boys Life- Not a big fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, but IMO this one of of his best early roles. I am not a big fan of Robert De Niro either as I find a lot of his work to be basically underwhelming and stale despite his reputation, but IMO this is one of his best roles and surely one of his most overlooked. The movie is based off of a book which I have yet to get around to reading. It is the story of a boy and his abusive step father Dwight Hansen (Robert De Niro). At first Hansen seems like an ok guy, but we soon learn that this is nothing more than disguise he wears both for the family as well as members of his community. He in fact is a controlling psycho who uses DiCaprio's character as his whipping boy to make up for his own feelings of inequity. Basically everything about Dwight is a lie, from his tough guy persona to his attractive self confidence. Not a new theme by any stretch of the imagination, but De Niro does a very good job of bringing this character to life with a visceral meanness that would probably be hard to duplicate. The only critique I would have about his performance is that once Dwight has been exposed, he seems an almost totally irredeemable character which is rarely true in real life. This of course may have to do with the fact that the story was written by the boy who suffered the abuses, so his opinion may be understandably a bit biased against Dwight.
Just a few of the many movies I could have listed as some of my favorites.Edited by: Bear Backer