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If you are like me, you are running out of things you want to watch so I am going to start a thread of movies I love that you might not have seen. If you are a big film nerd you have probably seen a lot of these, but maybe you will find something new to watch in here.
1) Wild Zero. This is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. It involves the following, zombies rock and roll, aliens, a magic whistle, a transgender love story and arms dealing. The first time I saw it I immediately watched it again.
2) Little Dieter Needs To Fly. I have seen more than 50 Werner Herzog films and this documentary about a Navy pilot who was shot down in Vietnam is my favorite. He remade it as a narrative film called Rescue Dawn that is watchable but not nearly as good.
3) The Spook Who Sat By The Door. This film about a black CIA agent is probably the most radical blaxploitation film ever made. The ending is fucking insane. The film was pulled from theaters and was lost until 2004.
4) Wild In The Streets. Another exploitation classic that tells the story of a teen pop star who becomes president and puts everyone over 30 years old into concentration camps. The fictional band had an hit song and featured Richard Pryor on drums.
5) F For Fake. Orson Welles second best movie. It is a documentary about art forgery with one hell of a twist. Don’t read anything about it. Just watch it.
6) Citizen Kane. While we are here we might as well add this one. Look, it’s considered the best movie of all time for a reason and completely holds up. Just watch it already, stop pretending like you saw it a long time ago.
7) The Yes Men movies. The @theyesmen have three documentaries about their hilarious activism and some of it might seem quaint in the Trump era but they are incredibly inspiring. (Plus I shot the poster for the third one.)
8) Lawrence Of Arabia. Another classic most people only pretend to have seen. It is the most beautiful film I have ever seen and one of the most epic. If you can binge 90 Day Fiancé you can find 3 hours to watch one of the greatest films of all time.
9) Battle Royale. I hope by now most people have seen it, but if you haven’t I am so jealous you get to watch it for the first time. A class of 8th graders stuck on an island who have to kill each other to survive. It’s the Hunger Games but actually good.
10) Captured. Captured is a documentary about Clayton Patterson a videographer who has been using his camera to document the Lower East Side (and police brutality) for decades. So fucking inspiring and a local icon.
11) Barry Lyndon. I mentioned that Lawrence Of Arabia was the most beautiful film I have ever seen, well Barry Lyndon is #2. One of Kubrick’s most underrated films and features way better dueling scenes than Hamilton.
12) First Person. This is a TV show but it is really 17 documentaries about single, interesting people. Everything @errolmorris does is good but First Person is an incredible binge watch in 2020.
13) The 13th. Just watch it already. It’s free on YouTube and when you are arguing with people about white privilege and systemic racism it will make your job much easier.
14) Man Bites Dog. A fictional documentary about a French serial killer. Mocumentary is not the right word for this brutal masterpiece. Filmed before Blair Witch, this “found footage” feels a little too real sometimes.
15) Harder The Come. Filmed in the slums of Jamaica the Jimmy Cliff crime story has one of my favorite sound tracks of all time. Make sure you watch it with subtitles the first time.
16) Cockfighter. Warren Oates plays a mostly silent character. A cockfighter who got his best bird killed running his mouth vows to not speak until he wins a championship. Also the director has an AirBNB in LA where you can watch movies with him.
17) Deathrace 2000. By now you might have figured I have a passion for 70s exploitation films. The David Carradine starring cross country murder race is one of the most enjoyable. So funny and so much better than the remake.
18) Tristram Shandy. I have not read the book, but the film has to be one of the strangest adaptations of all time. Full of Steve Coogan forth wall breaking, behind the scenes footage and attempts to explain itself it’s incredibly worth watching.
19) Irreversible. I assume most people have seen it but it completely blew me away the first time I saw it. A series of single take scenes in reverse chronological order that gradually slows down to a shocking ending. TW: Truly upsetting rape scene.
20) My Best Fiend. Gonna take a break here with another Herzog film. It documents his relationship with Klaus Kinski made perhaps unfairly after Kinski’s death. A wild primer to both of the men’s work.
