Neglected Gems

[GordonCole]

It's brutal, savage and hard to watch but essential pulp fiction on film, the 2010 version of Jim Thompson's seminal title, The Killer Inside Me. With the recent Oscar bestowal on Casey Affleck perhaps this film may receive more attention. Having seen it when it came out I had not expected the rather mild looking Affleck to hit the maudit and violent notes of psychpathology that Thompson bestowed on his character, Lou Ford, who seems to have a triumvirate of the disparate criminal elements of real-life killers like Harvey Glatman, John George Haigh and Edmund Kemper. But Thompson's West Texas Deputy Sheriff is an amalgam of the worst of all and beyond, since he is trapped in his miasma of almost controlled rage, violence and stasis hidden well under an outer vestige of normalcy.
The reason Thompson's gritty and vicious novels ring true, is that he lived it in his travels as a bellboy, oil rig worker and tramp. Whoever said write about what you know, gave Thompson a good steer and this Oklahoma native endowed his writing with every nuance of mental aberrations that he'd experienced in his years on the periphery of society. It's said that without the reprints of many of his Gallimard classics by Black Lizard he might not have come back into prominence but I doubt it. And though the Stacy Keach film version of the book which came out in 1976 was sufficient the Affleck take is more true to the nature of the original novel so this neglected gem may acquire a new audience, if of course they have the stomach for it. A neglected gem should always be shared...

[hamradio]

Any relations?

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/moviemom/2017/03/neglected-gem-way-go-shirley-maclaine-paul-newman-dick-van-dyke.html

[GordonCole]

Any relations?

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/moviemom/2017/03/neglected-gem-way-go-shirley-maclaine-paul-newman-dick-van-dyke.html

I'm kind of more of an FFRF guy.

[Mr. Gorman]

HOFFMAN (1970-UK)  I think is a 'neglected gem' for sure.  Starring Peter Sellers, Sinead Cusack, Jeremy Bulloch, Ruth Dunning.  The movie starts with a theme song by Matt Monro.  I've seen this several times. 

[cigarjoe]

It's brutal, savage and hard to watch but essential pulp fiction on film, the 2010 version of Jim Thompson's seminal title, The Killer Inside Me. With the recent Oscar bestowal on Casey Affleck perhaps this film may receive more attention. Having seen it when it came out I had not expected the rather mild looking Affleck to hit the maudit and violent notes of psychpathology that Thompson bestowed on his character, Lou Ford, who seems to have a triumvirate of the disparate criminal elements of real-life killers like Harvey Glatman, John George Haigh and Edmund Kemper. But Thompson's West Texas Deputy Sheriff is an amalgam of the worst of all and beyond, since he is trapped in his miasma of almost controlled rage, violence and stasis hidden well under an outer vestige of normalcy.

The reason Thompson's gritty and vicious novels ring true, is that he lived it in his travels as a bellboy, oil rig worker and tramp. Whoever said write about what you know, gave Thompson a good steer and this Oklahoma native endowed his writing with every nuance of mental aberrations that he'd experienced in his years on the periphery of society. It's said that without the reprints of many of his Gallimard classics by Black Lizard he might not have come back into prominence but I doubt it. And though the Stacy Keach film version of the book which came out in 1976 was sufficient the Affleck take is more true to the nature of the original novel so this neglected gem may acquire a new audience, if of course they have the stomach for it. A neglected gem should always be shared...

 

Check out the Thompson based Hit Me (1996), and The Kill-Off (1989) also.

I found that I liked Susan Tyrrell in the 1976 version of The Killer Inside Me better than Jessica Alba though.

 

[FletcherChristian]

"Go"  (1999) starring Katie Holmes, Breckin Meyer, Sarah Polley, Jay Mohr, ect.  

 

There weren't many movies back in the day that featured the late 1990's - early 2000's Rave scene, which back then was off the radar.  If you were outside, you didn't come in.   Also a little dark comedy, a bit of drama, and some action.  A cool movie, one of my favs from the end of that decade.

 

It's not really a hidden gem maybe, it was fairly popular when released, thanks in part to Katie Holmes time on TV.  Even to this day, it's still a cult classic to peeps who remember how cool the scene was back then.  AND...at times the soundtrack, a cool mix of songs, is absolutely killer.