Cult films

[ldoolin]

What are some "cult classic" movies you like?

Here are a few of mine:

Tapeheads - 1988. An early Tim Robbins film before he was well known. Two out of work security guards try to break into the video production business making rock videos. Hilariously zany fun, full of cameos and in-jokes. Bonus: Spoofs a sleazy right-wing presidential candidate too. This was something of a forerunner to Bob Roberts (see below). Swanky Modes rule!

Vanishing Point - 1971. Car chase film through Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. Not the usual "redneck" film that most car chase movies are; a very heavy post-Woodstock feeling pervades it.

Runaway Train - 1985. Love this one; great scenery and train footage, set in wintery Alaska, with an outlaw subplot about escaped convicts.

Bob Roberts - 1992. Every DUer should see this if you haven't already. Everything in this movie is the truth. And it all started happening just two years after it was made.

Two-Lane Blacktop - 1971. Two drifters drive across the country and get their income by challenging others to drag races. A hitchhiking teenage girl and another drag-racing drifter join them for a cross-country race that runs out of steam. Very stark filming technique and setting along Route 66 during pre-Interstate Highway America. James Taylor and Dennis Wilson star in their only starring film roles that I know of.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - 1986. The...anyone? Anyone? Laffer Curve. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what VP Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. Anyone? Voodoo economics. :)

Thunder Road - 1958. How'd you guess this would be on my list? :)

[vi5]

1. TAPEHEADS!!!

Someone else knows and has seen that movie. I love it and own it on DVD. Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, Bob Forrest from THelonious Monster, Stiv Bators from the Dead Boys and Fishbone all make cameos. Great stuff.

ALthough I have to admit I hate Ferris Buellers Day Off with a passion.

[ldoolin]

8. A prized part of my collection

Yep, I own it on DVD too. I still can't get over that fried chicken ad, the paint being dumped all over Cube Squared as they do a Swedish version of Devo's "Baby Doll", Norman Mart passing out candy cigarettes to children in his campaign ads while "Repave America" plays, the new agers channeling Fluffy the poodle...Tapeheads never fails to leave me rolling with laughter every time I watch it.

[david_vincent]

2. Ya got some good'uns there!

Vanishing Point is cool. How about adding both Days of Heaven and Badlands (I'd nominate The Thin Red Line too, but it's not a cult movie). Another one that comes to mind is this great, wild movie with Robert Mitchum as a depraved maniac pursuing a couple of little kids - I think it's called Night of the Hunter. It was just amazing.

[ldoolin]

9. I'm going to have to check those out...

'Cause I hate to admit that I haven't seen any of those three yet. I've heard Badlands mentioned more than once as one I'd like. Gonna have to make a trip to the video store.

[MarianJack]

20. Night of the Hunter It Is!

It had a great, but short, performance by the late, great Lillian Gish also!

[acmavm]

3. Harold and Maude, Local Hero, Grace Quiqley are my three

favorites, not necessarily in that order.

[Kamika]

4. evil dead2/army of darkness

Not 100% they are cults.. but still

[MrScorpio]

5. Zardoz

Zardoz is a lie!!!!

[KCDem]

6. Reefer Madness.

Someone else already mentioned Harold and Maude... another great one.

[mitchum]

7. "Vanishing Point" was the first thing that came to mind...

when I saw your thread title!
Also:
"Cockfighter" AKA "Born To Kill"
"Pracherman"
"The Executioner"
"Phantom of the Paradise"
"The Honeymoon Killers"
and, of course, "Thunder Road"

[tigereye]

11. Trekkies is fascinating

Another for Harold and Maude, one of my favorites
Spinal Tap
Repo Man
Blade Runner... at my house we can't watch this too many times, and it's influence is evident in many films since then
Blood Of a Poet
Plan Nine from Outer Space ( better if you're drunk)
Ed Wood

[ldoolin]

15. Spinal Tap

"I don't think the problem was that the band was down. I think the problem was that we had a Stonehenge monument that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf!"

Workin' on a sex farm...

:):):):)

Good choice!

[BlackVelvetElvis]

31. Something along the lines of Trekkies...

Mondo Elvis. Rhino released it years ago and is now out of print.
It's only 30 minutes long and is the funniest thing I've ever seen.
It's basically short conversations with over the top Elvis fans.
I love the Yahtzee-playing twins:
"There's a lot of similarities between our lives and Elivis's life. We're identical twins and Elvis was a twin; his brother died at birth. I almost died at birth-I was stillborn."

[welshTerrier2]

10. Return of the Secaucus Seven

This is an early John Sayles film that takes a look at some "60's" people a year or two after they got out of college ...

It's a great film with some really great comedy and just the right touch of political and interpersonal issues to keep it interesting ...

The movie "The Big Chill" totally ripped off this movie and doesn't come close to the original ...

btw, the group of friends gave themselves the name the Secaucus seven because they were arrested for some type of traffic violation in Secaucus, NJ on the way to an anti-war demonstration in D.C.

[tigereye]

13. Ooh... Brother From Another Planet

there are so many good John Sayles movies!

[ldoolin]

14. I'd completely forgotten that one...

Thanks for reminding me. Great film!

[devilgrrl]

19. EXCELLENT choice!!!!!!!!

One of my favorite Sayles movies!!!! :bounce:

Hated 'The Big Chill'! The only thing that sorry excuse for a movie accomplished was spawning "classic rock" radio :puke:

Add 'Matewan' and 'Passion Fish'! :-)

[ldoolin]

30. Matewan

That movie should be required viewing in high schools. An excellent portrayal of what people went through to organize unions and win basic economic dignity in this country.

The Big Chill sucked, to put it nicely. I once had the pleasure of turning on a Big Chill fan to Return of the Secaucus Seven, and he agreed, it was much better.

[MisterP]

12. Rocky Horror!

Nixon: "America needs a full-time President."
Audience: "And not a part-time crook!"

[Elidor]

16. Eraserhead

My favorite Lynch film - disturbing and unpleasant to watch, but vastly more entertaining than that Twin Peaks Firewalk crapola.

Freaks - a dark little gem from 1932 which unfortunately ended the career of its director.

[madaboutharry]

17. I don't know it this counts, but

one of the best movies I have ever seen is "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio. A truly great film.

[JackSwift]

18. Repo Man (another vote)

Eating Raoul
Buckeroo Banzaii in the Eighth Dimension
Touch of Evil
Groundhog Day

[TheMightyFavog]

21. What's that watermelon doing there?

I'll tell you later.


Buckaroo Banzai. What a cool movie.

Does Big Trouble in Little China as cult?

[JackSwift]

25. OH YEAH!

How could I have forgotten BTILC?

[BrotherBuzz]

22. Delicatessen, Split, and Crumb...

are my cult movies...well, not much of a cult, but it's growing.

[HEyHEY]

23. Runaway train

"Runaway Train - 1985. Love this one; great scenery and train footage, set in wintery Alaska, with an outlaw subplot about escaped convicts."


Love runaway train, my buddy didn't like it and now it's is always a point of argument with us.

[DrWeird]

24. Time Bandits

Why have you got Ferris Bueller's day off as a cult film? I thought that it was a big hit and is a conventional classic.

Saw the Runaway Train a LONG time ago when I was a kid on TV. It was a weekly movie show that aired a bunch of stuff nobody watches anymore. Like "The Coca-Cola Kid," "Gauntlet (Eastwood)" and this one movie about some two-bit criminal/drug addict who's obsessed with Silver Surfer comic books, can't remember the name.

The best I ever saw, and it coincided with when I started experimenting with pot, was a movie about suburban pot smoking teenagers in the seventies. The plot basically is how disaffected the kids are and the parents are conservative and overly concerned. At one point all of the adults in the town, minus the cop, are gathered in a PTA meeting in the school. The kids lock the parents in the school and end up throwing a huge party that just levels the whole town, and gets the cop killed. It's a real teenage rebellion flick. Too bad I can't remember the name.

[Spirochete]

27. Over the Edge, it was called

It was Matt Dillon's first movie. I have it on VHS. i love that movie.

I think the Silver Surfer one might be Breathless, with Richard Gere. I think i remember something about Silver Surfer in that one. And a big Jerry Lee Lewis fan, too.

[ldoolin]

28. Ferris Bueller

All the John Hughes teen flicks turn up nowadays in the cult film books. Yeah, they were very big hits and I don't know if they really belong there, but I liked 'em.

I'd forgotten about The Coca Cola Kid. Another good choice. And Over the Edge was probably one of the most dead-on teen movies about the 1970s ever made.

[giantrobot_2000]

26. Some of my favorites

"Manchurian Candidate" and "7 Days in May" - Required viewing for any liberal.

"Repo Man" - I first watched this three times in a row (the drugs helped!)

"King of the Hill" - Sodenberg's sleeper hit, no one's ever heard of it.

"Kentucky Fried Movie" - Offensive and hilariously non-PC.

"Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" - One of my favorite documentaries.

"La Haigne" (a.k.a. "The Hate") - Awesome movie about Jews and Arabs in Paris ghettos.

"Dark Days" - Cool documentary about the homeless who live under Penn Station.

"Style Wars" - THE movie about the NYC graffiti wars in the 1970s!

[PVnRT]

29. Hellraiser!

C'mon, the first two were good. Then they just got....wrong.