Movies that transcend their genre

[Declaration Day]

I just popped one of my favorite movies of all time into my DVD player, watched about twenty minutes of it, hit pause, and here I am typing.

There are many special-interest movies out there.  Star Trek: First Contact is the one I am watching now.  This is a good movie.  No, it's a REALLY good movie.  I happen to be a Trekkie, and I will admit that most of the Star Trek movies seem to be written with the intent of inducing a coma.  This one is such an exception that's it's worth starting this thread.  The action, drama, plot, character development, and portrayal of the virtues and flaws of the human condition are exceptional.  The bottom line is, even if you have no interest in Sci-Fi, I believe you would like this movie.

Another one that comes to mind is Any Given Sunday.  Let's get one thing clear:  I don't give a rat's behind about football or any professional sport.  I consider watching (or caring about) sports to be a complete waste of time.  Yet, this is a great movie.

What special-interest movies that are (in your opinion) of similar greatness, do you recommend?

[Cosmoline]

I liked First Contact, though of the ST films I think the second stands out the most.

Some of my favorite off-the-beaten track standouts:

I just finished watching "Conagher," a Sam Elliott western from the early 90's.  It's not well known, but it has a wonderful slow amble to it and is one of *very* few Westerns that really captures the spirit of the best novelists.  So many are about one gunfight after another and you barely have time to collect your thoughts.  It's also the final appearance of Ken Curtis, the one-time singing cowboy who was probably best known as Festus from Gunsmoke.  There's a final scene where Curtis, as a dying rancher, passes the torch to Elliott and it's obvious the meaning goes well beyond the film.  There is also no profanity and the violence is realistic without being barbaric.  The reality of death is shown, which I think is important. 

Another one I love is "The Thin Man," the William Powell/Myrna Loy classic from the early 30's that spawned one of Hollywood's first big series of sequels.  It has wry wit, face-paced dialog but a total lack of the sardonic cynicism that stains so many more recent efforts.  It's hard to say what genre it's in.  Humorous crime I suppose.

"Where the Rivers Flow North" is a fantastic tragedy set in the north woods of New England in the 1920's.  Rip Torn plays a one-armed logger who refuses to sell his life lease so a dam can be built.  I think I'm the only one who's seen it, but it's worth watching for sure.

"The Ranger, The Cook and the Hole in the Sky" is another Elliott TV movie that stands out.  Again, it's pretty much G-rated fare but a lot of fun nonetheless and a must-see for any lover of the outdoors.  It's  film that gets air into your lungs.

"Journey to the Center of the Earth", the 50's Cinemascope epic with James Mason, has been forgotten for the most part.  But in spite of the absurd premise it's an extremely good film.  Half of "Raiders of the Lost Arc," at least, is an homage to this movie. 

[Manedwolf]

I just popped one of my favorite movies of all time into my DVD player, watched about twenty minutes of it, hit pause, and here I am typing.

There are many special-interest movies out there.  Star Trek: First Contact is the one I am watching now.  This is a good movie.  No, it's a REALLY good movie.  I happen to be a Trekkie, and I will admit that most of the Star Trek movies seem to be written with the intent of inducing a coma.  This one is such an exception that's it's worth starting this thread.  The action, drama, plot, character development, and portrayal of the virtues and flaws of the human condition are exceptional.  The bottom line is, even if you have no interest in Sci-Fi, I believe you would like this movie.

Another one that comes to mind is Any Given Sunday.  Let's get one thing clear:  I don't give a rat's behind about football or any professional sport.  I consider watching (or caring about) sports to be a complete waste of time.  Yet, this is a great movie.

What special-interest movies that are (in your opinion) of similar greatness, do you recommend?

I thought it was boring and predictable and laden with poorly acted angst, myself. And with plot holes you could drive a truck through. Plus, what, do they try to converse on power on the spaceships by turning off all the lights, now?

The only Trek movie I really liked was II, because of the deliberate scene-chewing, the Horatio Hornblower ship combat, (spaceships delivering broadsides! hell yeah!), and the imagery of a WELL-DRILLED crew doing their jobs.

As for movies that went flying out of the mold they were supposed to come in, I'd say Demolition Man. It was supposed to be a dumb action movie, but from Dennis Leary's liberaterian rants to the literary references to Brave New World, to sheer writing genius like the ubiquitous profanity-fine buzzers, the commercial-jingles-as-popular-music, and lines like "he doesn't know how to use the three seashells" and "Now all restaurants are Taco Bell", it became intelligent societal satire of the first order.

[Cromlech]

I really enjoyed Demolition Man.

[Declaration Day]

I also enjoyed Demolition Man. 

I thought it was boring and predictable and laden with poorly acted angst, myself. And with plot holes you could drive a truck through. Plus, what, do they try to converse on power on the spaceships by turning off all the lights, now?

The only Trek movie I really liked was II, because of the deliberate scene-chewing, the Horatio Hornblower ship combat, (spaceships delivering broadsides! hell yeah!), and the imagery of a WELL-DRILLED crew doing their jobs.

It's been a long time, maybe ten years, since I watched Star Trek 2.  I don't remember much about it.  Maybe I'll dig it up tonight and refresh my memory.
 
There's a certain cheesiness inherent in Star Trek.  It's certainly not intellectually stimulating.  The parallels between the Federation and the UN are nauseating, and the acting is often sub-par.  Yet, something about it appeals to me, and it's not just action and eye candy.  I guess it's a love-it or hate-it franchise, much like Star Wars.

[Manedwolf]

I also enjoyed Demolition Man. 

I thought it was boring and predictable and laden with poorly acted angst, myself. And with plot holes you could drive a truck through. Plus, what, do they try to converse on power on the spaceships by turning off all the lights, now?

The only Trek movie I really liked was II, because of the deliberate scene-chewing, the Horatio Hornblower ship combat, (spaceships delivering broadsides! hell yeah!), and the imagery of a WELL-DRILLED crew doing their jobs.

It's been a long time, maybe ten years, since I watched Star Trek 2.  I don't remember much about it.  Maybe I'll dig it up tonight and refresh my memory.
 
There's a certain cheesiness inherent in Star Trek.  It's certainly not intellectually stimulating.  The parallels between the Federation and the UN are nauseating, and the acting is often sub-par.  Yet, something about it appeals to me, and it's not just action and eye candy.  I guess it's a love-it or hate-it franchise, much like Star Wars.

The only thing I liked it the more recent series for a brief while were the Klingons. They, for a brief while, made them into a VERY nice viking-like culture with a rich mythos. I recall one show mentioning their ancient story about brothers who fought for 12 days and 12 nights because one had dishonored their family. I love that sort of stuff. For a while, while the federation people were weenies in pajamas who would negotiate like the UN, the Klingons were the ones who would have already blown away the enemy and be on their way home, writing drinking-songs about their victory.

Then they fired those writers and went back to homogenous, boring tripe.

[CAnnoneer]

To answer the original question - movies that transcend their genre - I'd say "Patton" and "Das Boot". The first one looks like an action flick / historical drama, but is in fact a character study and a monument to a great American. The second one might be confused for an action flick like "The Enemy Below", but is in fact a tribute to all submariners, a psychological study, and a commentary on the wartime culture.

[Antibubba]

A lot of science fiction takes itself too seriously, and either ends up stiff, or unintentionally funny.  Action films are the same way.  So my pick of SF/Action films is The Fifth Element.  It doesn't take itself seriously at all.  Too many people have forgotten that Bruce Wills has some of the best deadpan comic timing in the business (Watch old Moonlighting episodes if you don't believe me).  I think part of what makes it so great is how much background  crap is going on--signs, actions, loudspeakers, etc--behind the main characters, as if they live and work in a real world.  Some of those bits and pieces could be whole movies, and they're on screen for half a second and never seen again.  The future is as cluttered and messy as the present.

Another movie that does this is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension!, which is also really hard to put in one genre.  If you ever watch the Director's cut on DVD, see it sometime with the director's voiceover, and you'll see it enters another genre:  Docu-drama!!  I kid you not--at the beginning he thanks the Banzai Institute for access to their materials and files so that this "dramatic representation" of the real events can be known by a wider audience!  L'edMAO.

[K Frame]

L.A. Confidential

The Maltese Falcon

Bull Durham

[Manedwolf]

A lot of science fiction takes itself too seriously, and either ends up stiff, or unintentionally funny.  Action films are the same way.  So my pick of SF/Action films is The Fifth Element.  It doesn't take itself seriously at all.  Too many people have forgotten that Bruce Wills has some of the best deadpan comic timing in the business (Watch old Moonlighting episodes if you don't believe me).  I think part of what makes it so great is how much background  crap is going on--signs, actions, loudspeakers, etc--behind the main characters, as if they live and work in a real world.  Some of those bits and pieces could be whole movies, and they're on screen for half a second and never seen again.  The future is as cluttered and messy as the present.

Another movie that does this is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension!, which is also really hard to put in one genre.  If you ever watch the Director's cut on DVD, see it sometime with the director's voiceover, and you'll see it enters another genre:  Docu-drama!!  I kid you not--at the beginning he thanks the Banzai Institute for access to their materials and files so that this "dramatic representation" of the real events can be known by a wider audience!  L'edMAO.

Fifth Element is awesome eye candy. I LOVE the city in that...even the details most people don't notice, like that it's New York, but the sea level has dropped hundreds of feet for some reason. Look carefully when the lunch flying-boat thing is leaving. That's the Brooklyn Bridge back there waaaaay up in the air, and buildings are built all the way down the canyon walls that used to be the river beneath. And when the spaceship is leaving, you can see that the Statue of Liberty is still there, but Ellis Island is now a rock spire, it's also way up in the air.



The foreground spire is Ellis Island, the background biggest cluster at the highest level is Manhattan itself. Sea level is depicted as having dropped hundreds of feet, but they don't explain that, it's just ART. I love that.

Plus, compare the chaotic aerial taxi chase in that to the boring airspeeder chase in SW episode II. Fifth Element was far more fun in that regard.

[Matthew Carberry]

"The Ranger, The Cook and the Hole in the Sky" is another Elliott TV movie that stands out.  Again, it's pretty much G-rated fare but a lot of fun nonetheless and a must-see for any lover of the outdoors.  It's  film that gets air into your lungs.

You should read Norman McClean's original story, it's more-or-less autobiographical, like most of his writing.  It is a novella so it is often bundled with two others as "A River Runs Through It & Other Stories".  All about being a young man in Montana, logging and working as a Park Ranger (mostly watched for fires back then).  I also recommend his "Young Men and Fire" for a heart-wrenching true tale of bravery and loss in the Mann Gulch fire in the '50s. 

"A River Runs Through It"
"Logging and Pimping and "Your Pal, Jim""
"USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky"

[Iain]

Had a friend who was a big sci-fi fan, would always respond to good natured teasing (and quite accurately) that sci-fi was merely another way of expressing ideas about human existence whilst having cool guns and stuff. He never would watch a western though.

[Manedwolf]

Had a friend who was a big sci-fi fan, would always respond to good natured teasing (and quite accurately) that sci-fi was merely another way of expressing ideas about human existence whilst having cool guns and stuff. He never would watch a western though.

Science fiction, to me, seems to often be either be tales of human beings in a reality that simply hasn't  happened yet, stories of what humanity can do if it really tries hard enough, or cautionary tales of what could happen if we make the wrong choices.

Sometimes it's so remarkably prescient that looking back on old writings can be startling, such as Jules Verne's works, wherein he had a submarine that traveled under the polar ice cap, a submarine that ran on electricity generated by the same processes as the sun, obtaining its fuel from seawater. About a century later, the real USS Nautilus, named in tribute, did travel under the polar ice cap...and a first edition of the book, open to that page, now rests in her main corridor in a case as acknowledgement. But she still ran on nuclear fission, we've not yet achieved the deuterium fusion that Jules predicted, even though we know it's possible. Verne also chose the coast of Florida as an ideal launch site for spacecraft, and though his capsule was launched by a cannon, the concepts of orbital insertion and the like are there, and eerily close to reality. He even nailed weightlessness...in 1865!

Science fiction also strongly reflects the culture and society that it came from, with the occasional standouts of iconoclasts. And yes, not all world cultures have much science fiction or speculative fiction, a societal "what if" view of the distant future. I think it says something positive about the ones that do.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Legends of the Fall
The Color Purple
gotta say Forrest Gump, too.

[zahc]

Last time I went to blockbuster, I was shocked to find Forrest gump in the comedy section. I guess I hadn't thought about it much; I can't say where else it should have gone.

[The Rabbi]

I thought Demolition Man was moronic, at best.

Recently I saw White Goddess, a movie about emigres in 1930s Shanghai and really liked that.  Indochine with Catherine Denoeuvre was also wonderful.  In both cases I had to space watching it over several days because they had that rich chewy quality movies sometimes do.

[Modifiedbrowning]

Antibubba, I was going to mention Buckaroo Banzai but you beat me to it. That movie is probably my all time favorite.

[Matthew Carberry]

Hudson Hawk

[K Frame]

You know, all this talk about science fiction movies and no one has mentioned Blade Runner. I'm really kind of surprised.

[tyme]

Suicide Kings
Zero Effect
Brick
Primer

[Matthew Carberry]

You know, all this talk about science fiction movies and no one has mentioned Blade Runner. I'm really kind of surprised.

Blade Runner was crap.





Just kidding 

[mustanger98]

I noticed Conagher being mentioned and I've always liked it.

Legends of the Fall... it's wasn't just a western, a war movie, Prohibition-era gangser/bootlegger, or drama/romance kind of chick flick. Bigtime psychological case study. I'd have to watch it again to see what all I missed the first time.

Right now, Shane is on TCM. There's another one that transcends its genre. Folks being pushed around by gunslinging bullies and trying to figure their way through the problem. One man knows the way through, but after he eliminates the problem, he moves on because the folks he just helped don't like violence. Ben Johnson played one of the bad guys, but his character wasn't as bad as the other bad guys... especially not vile as Jack Palance's character, Jack Wilson of Cheyenne.

[Matthew Carberry]

I noticed Conagher being mentioned and I've always liked it.

Legends of the Fall... it's wasn't just a western, a war movie, Prohibition-era gangser/bootlegger, or drama/romance kind of chick flick. Bigtime psychological case study. I'd have to watch it again to see what all I missed the first time.

Right now, Shane is on TCM. There's another one that transcends its genre. Folks being pushed around by gunslinging bullies and trying to figure their way through the problem. One man knows the way through, but after he eliminates the problem, he moves on because the folks he just helped don't like violence. Ben Johnson played one of the bad guys, but his character wasn't as bad as the other bad guys... especially not vile as Jack Palance's character, Jack Wilson of Cheyenne.

If you liked the film you should read Jim Harrison's actual novella.  "Legends" is usually bound with "Revenge" (made into a movie with Anthony Quinn and Kevin Costner) and "The Man Who Gave Up His Name".  All studies of love and vengeance.

Jim Harrison is Hemingway-esque but without the "macho" drive.

William McKittridge wrote an essay concerning the evolution of the Western hero (and concept of violence itself) called "Silver Bullets", he contrasts "Shane" and "The Wild Bunch" to name a couple.  You might track that down as well, he's an excellent essayist.

[SteveS]

Hudson Hawk

I liked this movie, too. 

[Matthew Carberry]

Hudson Hawk

I liked this movie, too. 

I think it was judged more seriously (and thus harshly) than the creators intended.  Good caper film that kept getting weirder.