Titanic.
It’s the best movie ever.
Parents, directed by Bob Balaban.
I chose to hide the descriptive noun for the good folks that haven’t seen this movie yet. I knew nothing of the premise when I first sat down to be the most grossed out I’ve ever been watching a movie. I, to this day, remain confident that I caught on to the plot at the exact moment Director Balaban wanted me to. Right after Sandy Dennis and the knife…the very next scene…
If you haven’t heard of this movie, it should head straight to the top of your FS D/L’s…in fact, pause all others.
Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness by Todd Solondz. Happiness has one of the best lines I have heard in a long time…
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you.”
"But I’m not laughing. "
Delicatessen
I want my bullshit detector!
Bladerunner
I was completely obsessed when I was younger.
Gumbo
Total strangeness.
Dreams, Seven Samurai
For Hong Kong movies:
The Killer
Lord of the Wu Tang (Jet Li)
5 Deadly Venoms
Iron Monkey
Infernal Affairs I & II
Second Nominations: Tokyo Fist, Happiness, Dr. Strangelove, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Delicatessen kicks ass. One of my top five movies of all time. I have it on VHS, but I wish they would put it on DVD already. It was the first French film I watched and understood without looking at the subtitles…but that’s because there’s little dialogue and the actors convey their lines so well. The scene with Clapet and his girlfriend/the brothers and the mooing toys/Julie with the cello and metronome/Louison painting the roof is classic.
And don’t forget blaxploitation movies…a favorite of mine is Foxy Brown with Pam Grier.
I always thought cult classics referred to small budget, slightly obscure films with bad acting that we still enjoy watching a lot. Seems like some people are just listing their their favorite films, which is fine but not really what I took to be the meaning of cult classics.
Anyway, let me add one to the list: North Shore. Awful acting, but a few good lines, a babe and incredible surfing action.
You took mine, so I’ll have to just add Star Wars.
I once saw this bizarre film - “Six String Samurai” - about a guitar slinging samurai guy (very the Crow in vibe, cool lead guy etc). Was set in a post apocolyptic world where this samurai fellow roamed around picking fights with skinheads, indians etc. was truly odd but absolutely engaging…
…kind of like that Oz classic “Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em”… set in post nuke Sydney at an inner city party. Nick Cave was playing as the house band, the Saints as well. As the radiation sets in people start dropping like flies… losing arms, legs, heads… so these are my 2 cult classics.
Six String Samurai is easily one of the best no-budget/cult/indy films ever made. Like many ‘no-budget’ films they filmed it on weekends with unpaid actors using film stock off-cuts spliced back together, but the difference is that the production values are still excllent. Awesome;y weird story, and excellent fight scenes too.
Definitely see it if you get the chance. Where did you see it AWOL? I saw it at the 1998 London Film Festival, and I thought that it did the festival rounds, but never made it to general release.
Brian
Its out on DVD. I wasn’t impressed and fell asleep before the end, but the Russian psychobilly band was rocking. What are they called? The Red Elvises?
The sixth-string samurai lead guy had an ad on tealit not long ago, apparently he’s in Taichung lookin to meet film people.
Yea, Red Elvises are cool. Not a great movie overall, but great idea. Still liked it, if only for what it could have been.
Saw 16 Candles on HBO last night.
Joan Cusack gives a side-splitting performance as a teen in headgear (braces wrapped around her head) trying to get a drink from a water fountain at a school dance. Brilliant.
I was also amused by the blatant racism of the character “Long Duck Dong”, who should be Cantonese, but is played by a Japanese guy with a Japanese accent. I wonder whose clever idea it was to insert a crash of a gong every time he appeared on screen? Funny in a “I hope we are beyond that in this day and age” kind of way.
Hell Comes to Frogtown. postapocalyptic b-movie starring Rowdy Rod Piper former WWF star. also starred in They Live by John Carpenter(?). Check out carpenter’s Nightbreed. He also of course did The Thing, Big Trouble, etc.
I saw the Six-String Samurai either on HBO or the IFC back home while I was still in college. The music just oozes with coolness. I also saw Delicatessen on the IFC. I am glad I taped it seeing as it hasn’t be rereleased and my cable company dropped the IFC.
Xanadu anyone?
Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel has to be one of the best, most debauched films of all time. Great, great, great, great, movie. If you ever see it Buy It, you won’t regret it.
A lot of great movies and some definitive cult classics have been named in this thread. Some of which, I have to check out, and some of them I have to give props a second time. Especially because, I have rarely heard praise about these flicks from others outside my own little circles.
Harold and Maude: delightfully odd movie
Hedwig and the Angry inch: Best rock musical evar! No question, it is a must see.
Unnamed (i think) Cult classics
Blazing Saddles: too funny
History of the World: Mel Brooks will spare no one in his quest for comedy gold.
Igby goes down: Modern age version of the Graduate (not as good, but a good movie, nonetheless)
Darkman: Great “spoof” of the Super hero genre (or is it?)
Five Easy Pieces: Nicholson at his best, maybe.
The Last Detail: another Nicholson movie
I will never forget when he tries to order simple toast at a restaurant. You know, If I was finicky, I would feel the same way here. As my chinese is, as of now, non-existant, I just take what I get at restaurants, because the few times I tried to do anything else were complete communication disasters. You may know what I’m talking about 
Ah, Alex Karras as Mungo and the unforgettable Madeleine Kahn…classic stuff. I bought Paper Moon on VCD and loved her in it.
Other favorite cult classic:
Serial Mom (“Excuse me, are those pussywillows?”).
another one that I liked that flike mentioned elsewhere: Happy, Texas.
Good question, but I think I found an answer Xmas day. Which was pretty boring here in Taiwan, so I rented a DVD, Happy, Texas. It’s about 2 Texas convicts who escape prison and hole up in Happy. Thing is, one of them is played by Jeremy Northam, a Brit (The Winslow Boy, Emma). Northam plays Harry Sawyer, convicted of fraud and credit card crime, like maybe one of those transplanted yankees, with just a touch of maybe upper-midwest/Great Lakes accent. To a tee. Who needs Patrick Swayze? Or Billy Bob Thornton? when you can find Brits or Aussies who can duplicate American regional accents like MS Word can cut and paste “y’all” and, as opposed to Swayze anyway, can actually act.
By the way, the movie is hilarious. It’s not exactly Oscar material, but it has good Austin music and Steve Zahn is way funny (Wayne Wayne Wayne, Jr., convicted of grand theft auto, not the sharpest pencil in the drawer). After the jail break, these 2 steal an RV owned by a romantically involved pair of male Li’l Miss pageant producers who were stopped in Happy to produce a local pageant for the local school. The plot is pretty convoluted, but basically they have to live as 2 gay pageant producers in order to stay free. Among loads of great one-liners, WWW, jr.‘s explanation of how he, being gay, can make love to the kids’ intensely repressed teacher: “That whole gay thing is just like a hobby.” Oh yeah, and he only knows one song, which he dutifully teaches the girls anyway: 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. Ah, maybe you have to be there. Anyway, check this movie out if you like good-natured Fish Out of Water stories and like to laugh.[/quote]
Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro
The King of Comedy–again Mr. De Niro
Boogie Nights (not really sure this is a cult classic but I LOVE this movie!)
This is Spinal Tap
Dirty Harry
[quote=“ImaniOU”]I saw the Six-String Samurai either on HBO or the IFC back home while I was still in college. The music just oozes with coolness.[/quote]I haven’t seen it but the star, Jeff Falcon, opened a place in Taichung; The Loft, a kind of bar-chillout lounge-hostel. He had some interesting ideas for it but last time I walked by it seemed to have closed down.
Red Violin