Best Overlooked Film Revisited: 2004
By Tom Houseman
February 18, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
In his analysis of this year's list David Mumpower brought up similar concerns: can movies that are getting this much attention really be considered overlooked? Is $25 million too high a cutoff for determining whether a film can have that term bestowed upon it? The answers to those questions, in my opinion, are no and yes. Looking back at the list of films that have won this award, many of them made significant bank, and while none of them got as much attention as they deserved considering their quality, it would be hard to qualify most of them as having been overlooked.
But what if we significantly lowered the cut off? What if we divided it by five? Any film that made more than $5 million at the domestic box office probably got at least some attention from real movie fans, the sort of people who read this Web site. In addition, I would add another rule: if you won an Oscar, you probably weren't overlooked by people who care about movies. Whether or not everyone saw a movie, if it won an Oscar people are aware of its existence. The exceptions to this rule are films in the Documentary and Foreign Film category, because most people ignore the movies in this category unless they are very high profile.
With those rules in place, I am going to go through the last five years and determine what my ballot would have been for the "Best Actually Overlooked Film" category. I'll start today with the 2005 Calvin Award, which was won by Shaun of the Dead, a film that can only be considered a cult classic if you are talking about a cult that's bigger than the Church of Scientology.
Number ten on my ballot would be The Door in the Floor, a beautifully told story adapted from the first part of John Irving's novel A Widow for One Year. The film is about a young aspiring writer who becomes the assistant to a philandering children's book author and finds himself caught in the middle of the man's crumbling marriage. Things get more complicated when the young assistant starts having an affair with the author's wife. The film is anchored by two understated and fantastic performances by veterans Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. Basinger is already an Oscar winner and Bridges will be one within the month, but the performances they give in this film are some of the best of their career.
Coming in at number nine is Stage Beauty, a film that is so defined by its lead's performance that there isn't much else memorable about it. But really all it needs is Billy Crudup, who gives one of the best performances of the decade. Crudup plays Ned Kynaston, a Shakespearean actor famous for playing the ingénues in the days when women were legally barred from the stage. But when the law is repealed, Crudup finds himself ousted by his former dresser, played by Claire Danes. Crudup is so mesmerizing, and his fall from grace so brutal, that you can't look at anything else on the screen.
All but two of the films originally in this category are eliminated by the new rules, and I've only seen one of them. Primer absolutely deserves to be on this list. A fascinating and incredibly complex story about two men who invite a time machine, Primer is one of the most confusing but captivating films I've ever seen, and it makes Donnie Darko look like garbage (not that that's saying much). Made on a budget of $9,000, Primer deserves the sort of success that Paranormal Activity had, and is a film that I want to watch over and over again until I someday understand any of it.
Number seven is the only foreign language film on this list, Goodbye Lenin! It stars Daniel Bruhl, who might be Europe's Johnny Depp because he always takes interesting, challenging parts and his eyes are dreamy (you might remember him and his dreamy eyes as the Nazi war hero in Inglourious Basterds). Goodbye, Lenin! is a comedy about a young man living in East Germany whose mother goes into a coma just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. When she wakes up he has to pretend that they are still under Soviet rule because he is afraid that the shock will kill her. The film is utterly charming and sweet, and is a delight to watch.
Due to its NC-17 rating, The Dreamers had its fate sealed as an overlooked film, but it earned its spot at number six on this list. Bernardo Bertolucci's love letter to cinema is beautiful, erotic, and the perfect film for any film snob. Featuring wonderful performances by Michael Pitt, Eva Green and Louis Garrel, it tells the story of a young American who goes to Paris and falls into bed with two rebellious film-loving students. At times shocking, it is understandable why it got its rating (and why George Michael Bluth likes the way the French think), but it is a powerful film that deserved a larger audience.
Mean Creek was the surprise of the year for me and kicks off the top five. I am generally wary of films with casts comprised of mostly children, but this movie was more Lord of the Flies than Unaccompanied Minors. A teenager decides to help his younger brother get revenge on the class bully by taking him out into the woods and embarrassing him, but things go horribly wrong in this brutally intense drama. A micro-budget film, it features excellent performances by Rory Culkin, Carly Schroeder, Scott Mechlowicz and Josh Peck long before most people had heard of any of them.
At number four is another intense film, this time dealing with kids in a very different way. Kevin Bacon stars in The Woodsman as a paroled sex offender who moves into an apartment across the street from a middle school. As he tries to get his life on track, he has to deal with his estrangement from his family, a hardassed cop who won't leave him alone, a woman who tries to help him and coworkers who constantly harass him. Kevin Bacon gives the performance of his career in this stark and honest film, and Kyra Sedgwick, Mos Def and Benjamin Bratt give great supporting performances. None of the films on the top five are easy to watch, but this one might be the most disturbing
Its biggest competition for that title is number three, The Machinist. You might have heard of this film because of stories that Christian Bale lost 60 pounds to star in it, and just looking at him will make you uncomfortable. Of course, it doesn't help that he is an insomniac who loses all grip on his sanity when he starts to believe that he is being stalked by a coworker nobody else thinks exists. Watching his mental collapse is gripping, and Bale is at his best here. This terrifying horror film was directed by Brad Anderson and written by Mark Kosar, who sadly has spent his time since writing remakes of horror films, including the upcoming The Crazies.
Number two is a film anchored by an all-star cast and a fantastic script. We Don't Live Here Anymore is about two failing marriages (making it twice as good as The Door in the Floor) that start to collapse under the weight of infidelity. Jack and Hank are best friends, but their friendship and their marriages are tested when Jack starts sleeping with Hank's wife. Reminiscent of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Closer, We Don't Live Here Anymore is a perfectly acted drama that avoids the indie film cliché of excessively clever dialogue. The conversations sound realistic and sometimes awkward, but every scene is so powerful and so insightful. Mark Ruffalo might be the most underrated actor of the decade, and gives one of his best performances alongside Naomi Watts, Laura Dern and Peter Krause.
And what was the Best Overlooked Film of 2004? That would have to be Mario van Peebles' brilliant biopic How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass. Van Peebles plays his own father, Melvin, in this film that he also wrote and directed about his father's struggles to make the ultimate blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback's Badaasssss Song. In a decade saturated with biopics, three stand out in my mind for finding unique ways to tell their protagonist's story, and Outta Your Ass is the first (the other two also were overlooked in their respective years, so I'll wait to talk about them). Part documentary and part drama, this film is fascinating. Sweet Sweetback's was a groundbreaking work of independent cinema, but was an absolute mess of a film. Outta Your Ass reigns in that chaos to tell the story of how it was made, and the result is a breathtaking work of cinema. Mario van Peebles is a dominating force on screen, channeling his father's passion and anger perfectly. How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass is a film that should be seen by everyone, and having made just over $350,000 at the domestic box office, it is embarrassing just how overlooked it was.
1) How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass
2) We Don't Live Here Anymore
3) The Machinist
4) The Woodsman
5) Mean Creek
6) The Dreamers
7) Goodbye, Lenin
8) Primer
9) Stage Beauty
10) The Door in the Floor