Four Little Known Movies That I Love

When we talk about movies that we like, we often talk about blockbusters that everyone loves (even if they're forgotten five years later.) However we all have favorites that were not blockbusters and some were even flops. I want to talk about 4 little known movies that I really like.

1. The Villain (1979) Starring Kirk Douglas, Anne-Margret, Arnold Schwarzenegger: This is one of the last movies to include Arnold Schwarzenegger in the cast and he was not the headliner. It is basically a live-action Roadrunner cartoon in which Arnie and Anne-Margret are collectively the Roadrunner and Kirk Douglas (playing an inept outlaw) is Wile E. Coyote. Ms. Marget plays Charmin Jones who is carrying a bag of money in a cross country journey while Arnie rides shotgun for her (and plays a stupifyingly naive good-guy named Handsome Stranger - named after his father - think about it). Kirk Douglas is Cactus Jack Slade who is trying to steal the money but his horse is smarter than he is. It is a slapstick comedy with a lot of gags that you miss if you only watch it one. Quotes from the movie.

2. Being There (also 1979) Starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine: A role only Peter Sellers could play. He portrays a man who was basically a slave in a wealthy house who was never allowed to learn to read or leave the house and is totally ignorant of the real world. However his speech, dress and mannerisms are upper-class. He is evicted from the house and forced to wander the streets until a series of unlikely events lands him in the home of a very wealthy man who assumes he is a formerly wealthy businessman down on his luck. He introduces him to the President of the United States who is utterly impressed with him and takes his simplistic remarks as metaphors for a deep understanding. Before the movie ends it is beginning to look like this totally ignorant man is going to be the next President. The movie is a satire on how the media creates major personalities. Quotes from the movie.

October Sky (1999) The true story of a coal miner's son named Homer Hickman who dreamed of being more than a coal miner. He wanted to be a rocket engineer and in his coal-mining town in 1957, he and some school chums set out to build a rocket. This movie tells of his failures, challenges, misfires, and other difficulties that ultimately led to him growing up to become a NASA engineer. Loving model rockets like I do, this movie has a special place for me. Quotes from the Movie.

Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) Woody Allen, Dan Ackroyd, Helen Hunt, David Ogden-Stiers: Ordinarily I see Woody Allen and I head the other way, but this movie is different from most of his movies. Instead of playing a neurotic loser, he plays a private investigator who is actually a likeable rascal, far different from his typical typecast. He is investigating a series of burglaries, but the twist is that he, under post-hypnotic suggestion, is commiting and forgetting the very crimes he is investigating. He is very puzzled when all the evidence points to him. Quotes from the Movie.