The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen

by Richard Crouse

  Anders and Voss weave together a gallery of characters, beginning with a “supergroup” of '80s has-beens poised to make a return to the pop charts. In a clever bit of casting they hired three guys who are each worthy of their own episode of Behind the Music — Duran Duran's John Taylor, Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp, and Michael Des Barres, the former husband of super groupie Pamela Des Barres and singer from Detective — to play the comeback kids Clive, Jonesy, and Nick. Clive is married to Eva (Rosanna Arquette), an actress who has never progressed past performing in B-movie fare like Bury Your Bones in My Garage. A monkey wrench is thrown into their relationship when it is discovered Clive has an illegitimate son. Meanwhile Carl (former X bass player John Doe), an aging roadie who has grown sick of the road, grudgingly goes on tour to earn money to care for his family. The final plotline involves a manipulative up-and-coming singer named Gwen (Jade Gordon) who tries to seduce Liz's (Ally Sheedy) boyfriend Burt (Larry Klein). Burt is also the producer who is manufacturing the comeback of the band. See how it all ties together? Like the ambitious Magnolia or Short Cuts, Sugar Town's disparate elements all collide as the plot tendrils intertwine toward the movie's climax.

  Anders and Voss manage the sprawling material well, cramming lots of humor and action into a tidy 92 minutes. Weaving the threads of a story through a tapestry this complicated has inherent dangers. The challenge is to find an emotional balance without swerving into melodrama or irony. For the most part they succeed, although the film's final third has some plot resolution problems and a rather unsatisfying de rigeur ending. A cast that seems to be having a ball, however, pumps up the movie's energy level. Musicians Taylor, Kemp, Des Barres, and Doe all give very natural performances, breathing life into stereotypes that might have fallen flat if not played with so much élan. Rosanna Arquette also deserves mention for her portrayal of Eva. Having survived the ups and downs of Hollywood stardom herself, Arquette delivers a smart, funny performance informed by insider knowledge of what the downside of fame feels like. Sugar Town aims to uncover a little-seen facet of show business — mid-level stars trying to live their lives, while clamoring for another shot at the brass ring. Ultimately, it's a glib story of desperation where the serious and satiric collide.

  SUSPIRIA (1977)

  “Bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.”

  — Dr. Frank Mandel (Udo Kier)

  Based on the Thomas De Quincey essay “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow” from the book Confessions of an Opium Eater, Suspiria is veteran Italian horror director Dario Argento's masterpiece. Shot with technologically outdated Kodak Technicolor film stock, the movie is painted in lurid tones of red, blue, and yellow, as Argento unfolds the story of American ballerina Suzy Banion (Jessica Harper) and a coven of witches.

  “It was always meant to be an acid trip,” says Argento. “I went to Germany to shoot it, to accent all the expressionistic fairy-tale aspects.” To add to the film's surreal fairy-tale feel, cinematographer Luciano Tovoli studied Walt Disney cartoons to create the vibrant psychedelic quality Argento wanted.

  Suspiria drips with atmosphere from the opening minutes. Before the first drop of blood is spilled Argento earns his nickname “the Italian Hitchcock” as he establishes a feeling of anticipation and uncertainty with a series of fluid camera moves and a nerve-jangling score by Goblin. Like other Argento films the plotting is sloppy, but the lack of a clear narrative lends Suspiria much of its nightmarish quality.

  In a nutshell, here's what happens: There is a ferocious storm brewing as Banion arrives at her new school, a dance academy located in the Black Forest. She is turned away at the door, and as she is leaving to find a hotel she sees a young woman running from the school. When the woman turns up dead, Banion begins her own investigation into the death. Her search for the culprit leads her into the hands of ancient and unspeakable horror.

  Fans of gore will not be disappointed — one of Argento's specialties is coming up with new and creative ways to murder people — but the real terror here comes from his use of prolonged suspense. He's not afraid to draw out a scene until it reaches its breaking point, white-knuckling it until the suspense is almost unbearable. Suspiria is a genre classic that may not appeal to all viewers, but will certainly leave an impression on anyone who sees it.

  13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING (2002)

  “I believe that there is such a thing as luck. I just hope I'm lucky

  enough to notice it when it comes my way.”

  — Troy (Matthew McConaughey)

  This is a difficult, wordy little picture that asks a single question: “How do we achieve happiness?” Of course there is no answer, but director Jill Sprecher and her sister, co-screenwriter Karen, present four scenarios that offer up interesting variations on the fragile nature of happiness.

  “I really love the short story form,” says Jill Sprecher. “13 Conversations was envisioned as an anthology of a theme. For me, there's nothing really better than reading a good short story. I love Mark Twain, O. Henry — I fall back on the American classics a great deal.” Matthew McConaughey is Troy, a swaggering lawyer who is slowly torn apart by guilt after committing a hit-and-run. Walker (John Turturro) and Patricia's (Amy Irving) marriage is collapsing under the weight of his infidelity. Beatrice (Clea DuVall), a good-natured young woman who cleans rich people's houses, has her life and outlook altered forever after a near-fatal accident. The final and best storyline involves Gene (Alan Arkin), an insurance claims adjuster who fires Wade, his happiest employee, simply because he can't stand to see him smile day after day. “There is something Chekhovian in the depth and absurdity of Gene's obsession with Wade,” says Arkin, “even after trying to right this incredible wrong, he's still reluctant to let it in, to look at himself too closely.” This is an odd film — one that takes some warming to — but it does get under your skin, particularly Alan Arkin's scenes, which he executes with the skill, insight, and timing of a master.

  TADPOLE (2002)

  “Love shows signs that cannot be mistaken.”

  — Voltaire, as quoted by Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford)

  A quirky little film shot in two weeks on a shoestring budget, Tadpole was one of the finds at the 2002 Sundance Festival, where it took home a Best Director award and a five-million-dollar distribution deal from Miramax films. Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is an intelligent 15-year-old with a problem. He is hopelessly in love with his stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver), a scientist who married his father (John Ritter) after his marriage to Oscar's mom dissolved. Things become complicated when Oscar sleeps with Eve's best friend Diane (Bebe Neuwirth), intoxicated by the fragrance of the scarf Diane happened to borrow from Eve. It's a wickedly funny scene, and one that displays how blinded by love he is. It's The Graduate by way of Oedipus Rex.

  Despite its unusual subject, Tadpole works on many levels. First-time actor Aaron Stanford is terrific as the lovesick Oscar. “Gary initially was, I think, dead set on a 15-year-old to do it,” Stanford told Ensiders.com. “But they ended up not looking at anybody who was under 20, because of who the character is, because he's not a real 15-year-old. One of the lines in the script is, ‘he's a 40-year-old trapped in a 15-year-old's body.' They needed someone who was able to physically pull off 15 while at the same time having a sort of wisdom behind the eyes, an older soul.”

  As good as Stanford is, it is Broadway veteran Bebe Neuwirth who steals the show. As the 40-something temptress Diane, she wrings every bit of impish humor from the character. Sigourney Weaver provides the emotional core of the film. As Eve, a woman married to her work as much as to her husband, her reaction to Oscar's advances provides real feeling, a sensitive turn that deepens the story.

  Tadpole is a funny, insightful coming-of-age story with great performances.

  RICHARD'S FAVORITE CREDITS

  1. “The director would like to thank: Jenny — who gave me strength and major booty.” — Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999)

  2. “Manure court
esy of Seattle Slough.”

  — Harper Valley PTA (1978)

  3. “This line available . . . your name here.” — The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

  4. “Thanks to John Woo for use of his kitchen knife.” — Psycho (1998)

  5. “Ms Streisand's clothes from . . . her closet.” — A Star is Born (1976)

  6. “Dedication: To every politician who has ever jeopardized a baby's health with unsanitary kisses, who has ever delivered a three-hour Fourth of July oration about himself and George Washington, who has ever promised peace, prosperity, and triple movie features in exchange for a vote, this picture is not too humbly dedicated.” — The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947)

  7. “The Monster — ?” (Boris Karloff is not listed in the credits) — Frankenstein (1931)

  8. “Interesting fact: Actor Richard Crenna invented tartar sauce.” — Hot Shots: Part Deux (1993)

  9. “Filmed entirely on location on Earth.” — Better Than Chocolate (1999)

  10. “The film is over — You can go now.” — One Crazy Summer (1986)

  TARGETS (1968)

  “Is this what I was afraid of?”

  — Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) in Targets

  Few directorial debuts have been so startling, so self-assured as Peter Bogdanovich's 1968 film Targets. Working with a microbudget, Bogdanovich skillfully knitted together two seemingly unrelated stories and gave horror legend Boris Karloff his last good role.

  Like so many filmmakers, Bogdanovich got his big break courtesy of Roger Corman. The legendary director/producer offered Bogdanovich some outtakes from The Terror, a low-budget Corman shocker, and the services of Boris Karloff, who contractually owed Corman two days on set. Bogdanovich's task was to find a way to turn those elements into a movie, quickly and cheaply.

  Working with his then-wife Polly Platt, Bogdanovich pounded out a script (allegedly with some unaccredited help from Orson Welles and Samuel Fuller) partially inspired by the 1966 shooting spree of University of Texas clocktower-sniper Charles Whitman. To that, Bogdanovich added a parallel story involving Karloff as Byron Orlock, a monster movie legend nearing the end of a long and distinguished career.

  Orlock wants to retire from films. His presence in Hollywood has been reduced to pumping out bad drive-in horror movies, and he wants out. He feels that his films are inconsequential in light of the real-life horrors of Vietnam and inner-city violence. A money-hungry director, Sammy Michaels (played by Bogdanovich), tries to convince Orlock to take one more kick at the can and make one last film.

  At the same time in this fractured timeline of a story, a Vietnam vet named Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) is nearing his breaking point. From the outside he looks like a normal all-American kid, but he has come back from the war deeply psychologically scarred and with an unhealthy (for those around him, at least) fascination with guns. He seems in control until one beautiful cloudless California morning when he overloads, shoots his mother, his wife, and even an unlucky delivery boy. In a confession note left with the bodies he writes chillingly that he expects to be caught, but will kill many more before that time.

  Here Bogdanovich begins to meld the two unrelated stories, building tension until their inevitable confrontation in the climax of the film. Orlock is seen grudgingly preparing to make a personal appearance at a drive-in to promote his last film, The Terror. Bobby lies in wait on an oil storage tank, steadily picking off motorists on the freeway, while calmly eating a sandwich with a Pepsi chaser. After narrowly escaping the police, Bobby flees to the drive-in to hide under the cloak of darkness. Orlock arrives by limo, preparing to meet and greet with his fans. At dusk Bobby makes his way behind the huge movie screen and begins shooting. As panic ensues everyone tries to escape, except for Orlock.

  Bogdanovich never lets go of the tension in Targets. It builds and builds until the very closing seconds of the film, and more astoundingly he does it without resorting to gimmicks. There are no fancy camera moves à la Brian De Palma, no suspenseful music to manipulate the viewer, just superb editing and pacing. The scene in which Bobby randomly guns down motorists on the freeway while eating his lunch is particularly unnerving. Shot from his point of view, high atop an oil storage tank, we don't see close-ups of the dead or any blood; they are anonymous victims of a lunatic, seen through the scope of a gun and shot between bites of his sandwich. The absence of music in the sequence makes it terrifying, almost as though we're seeing news footage or a scene from a documentary on serial thrill killers. Bogdanovich has rarely ventured into the thriller realm, and it's a shame, because he has a master's touch with suspense.

  I had to wonder while watching Targets if Bogdanovich was taking a metaphorical shot at his boss, B-movie king Roger Corman, by staging a sniper scene at a drive-in, the very place Corman made his money. Or was he showing contempt for the unsophisticated middle-American audiences who flocked to the open-air theaters on the weekends?

  Tim O'Kelly is effective as Bobby, his outward calm just a shell to hide the rage and pain that lives within, but the film really belongs to his octogenarian co-star. Boris Karloff once said, “As long as they want me, I'll work till the end.” And he did; in a career that spanned almost 200 films, Karloff stayed in front of the cameras until just a few months before his death in 1969 at age 81. Targets would have been a great capper to his long career, but unfortunately he continued to say “yes” to virtually any producer who would hire him, and in the last year of his life made several Mexploitation horror films with titles like Alien Terror and Isle of the Snake People. See Targets instead, and appreciate how good an actor Karloff was. He portrays Orlock as a kind yet cynical, world-weary fellow. “I'm an anachronism,” he says, feeling left behind by the changing pace of life in a world that he helped create but has no place in.

  To see Karloff at his best check out the “Appointment in Samarra” scene. He tells a haunting fable about the consequences of trying to escape our fate in one long 95-second take as the camera slowly glides into his face. His deep, slightly lisping voice (familiar to all as the narrator of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas) dances over the macabre lines, weaving a spooky story about the Angel of Death that cleverly foreshadows the conflict yet to come in the movie. Karloff himself considered Orlock to be his greatest performance.

  Targets was not a success when first released in 1968. A sniper story, even one that could be considered anti-gun, was too timely in the wake of the Kennedy and King assassinations. As a result the film was poorly marketed and only played in limited release.

  THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN (1938)

  “Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, we're going to present for your approval a novelty picture with an all-midget cast, the first of its kind ever to be produced. I'm told that it has everything, that is,

  everything that a Western should have.”

  — The introduction of The Terror of Tiny Town

  Producer Jed Buell could be called many things, but politically correct isn't on the roll call. He elevated bad taste to an art form, producing novelty Western movies with unusual casts. In 1939 he unleashed Harlem on the Prairie, specifically geared toward the 800 or so African-American theaters in the United States. But his “finest” moment came a year earlier with the release of The Terror of Tiny Town, the world's first (and to date, only) all-midget musical motion picture.

  Buell stumbled across the idea for the movie following an offhand remark by his assistant. “If this economy drive keeps on,” he said, “we'll be using midgets for actors.” Buell assembled his cast through talent agencies, radio broadcasts, and newspaper ads promising “Big Salaries for Little People.” He even recruited a troupe of 14 circus performers from Hawaii. In all he cast almost 60 actors with an average height of 3'8”, ranging from teenagers to pensioners.

  The storyline (by Fred Myton and Clarence Marks) involves a feud between the Preston and Lawson ranches. Tension between the two families has reached an all-time high, as each believes the other is
responsible for a series of mysterious cow disappearances. What they don't know is that evil gunslinger Bat Haines (“Little Billy” Rhodes) is actually behind all the trouble in Tiny Town, working in cahoots with the corrupt sheriff. Our hero (you know he's the good guy because he's wearing all white) Buck Lawson (Billy Curtis) suspects that someone other than the Prestons might be the source of the town's woes, but is preoccupied with wooing the lovely Nancy Preston (Yvonne Moray). Haines realizes that Buck is onto him, and tries to frame him for the murder of Tex Preston (Billy Platt). Proclaiming his innocence, Buck avoids a lynch mob, and at the end there is the inevitable showdown between good and evil in a cabin wired with dynamite.

  This sounds like a typical Saturday matinee bottom-of-the-bill serial Western, but add in actors of small stature, a duck that walks backward, and cowboys who chase one another around on Shetland ponies, and you've got big-time entertainment.

  The Terror of Tiny Town is the height of exploitation filmmaking. The diminutive actors are never treated with any dignity, and jokes are made constantly at their expense. In the film's prologue Buck proclaims that once this movie is seen, “I'm going to be the biggest star in Hollywood.” “No way,” counters Bat Haines, “I'm going to be the biggest star in Hollywood.” In fact, the script is a goldmine of cheesy “big” and “small” jokes. “That's a big order for me,” says one character. “You'll get smallpox from him!” warns another.