Flicks You May Have Missed by Chad Brampion

The new Transformers joint came a few days ago and promptly began lobotomizing every audience member who managed to sit through all 149 mind-rotting minutes of Michael Bay’s latest robot porn epic. I won’t go into too much detail, as plenty other reviewers—Roger Ebert in particular did a thoroughly good job of defecating all over this 200 million dollar fart—but suffice it to say that most people I know have related the experience to spinning in an office chair for two and a half hours while repeatedly smashing a Furby into the back of your head. Only Michael Bay could make the first Transformers look like Citizen effing Kane. Thanks, but I’ll pass on a repeat viewing.

There are, however surprising it may seem, some titles out there in the vast Netflix warehouse that don’t suck so fantastically. Thanks to a Comcast billing error and about a hundred hours of skipped classes, I had a wonderful opportunity to catch a few flicks that slipped through the theatrical cracks. So instead of lighting your hard-earned ten bucks on fire to watch the latest fighting robot nonsense, try to get your hands and eyes on one of these little-seen gems.

Primer (2004)

For those of you who want to get your Sam-Rockwell-in-space fix but can’t find a single theater showing “Moon,” allow me to introduce you to Shane Carruth. “Hard” science fiction fans may have found a way to see this magnificent first effort from Carruth, a tale about three twenty-something engineers who attempt to create some new sort of superconductor in their garage after work. The four friends, admittedly a handful of virginal nerds, accidently discover something much further from the mundane than a superconductor—they may well have made a time travel device out of stuff you could buy for sixty bucks at RadioShack. Carruth, a former mathematician and engineer in real life, imbues the film with an air of authenticity rarely seen in science fiction endeavors. As someone who tries to read Popular Mechanics during lengthy trips to the john, even I admit that most of the space/time babble went right over my head. But that is the filmmakers’ intention, I believe, because above all else, this plot felt completely and eerily plausible. Made on an absurdly small budget of just $7,000 dollars, this little miracle of a movie pitter-pattered its way through film festivals and into the DVD bargain bin, but it certainly is worth your time and imagination.

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Director Neil Marshall (“The Descent”, “Doomsday”) clearly knows a thing or two about making horror movies. If you haven’t seen 2006’s “The Descent,” do yourself a favor and go rent it, it’s easily the best stone-cold horror movie to come out in years. Marshall always seems to get compared to John Carpenter, and the resemblance is uncanny. Using decidedly un-Michael Bay techniques, Marshall knows how to keep the camera still long enough to milk the shot for all its blood-dripping terror, he knows the difference between real suspense and cheap scares, and plot-wise the dude plays his cards close to the vest. His debut effort, 2002’s “Dog Soldiers,” lives up to all this hype I’ve spewed. Spinning a tale about a regiment of Scottish troops, lost in the moors and besieged by some hard-core werewolves, “Dog Soldiers” will remind some of Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” with its grim, almost cynical sense of dread. It’s a raw, stripped-down and genuinely spine-tingling werewolf flick that doesn’t pander down to squeamish audiences. Check it out if you’ve got the balls.

Millions (2005)

Danny Boyle finally got some respect from the biz with last year’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” and deservedly so. Boyle has long been one of my favorite directors, simply because the guy knows how to flat-out entertain. Skipping through genres like a speedfreak, Danny has made lovable characters out of heroin addicts, recreated the zombie movie, reignited the sun, and even got Leo DiCaprio and Tilda Swinton to get it on for the camera. “Millions” represents Boyle’s version of a children’s movie, and by George if it isn’t one of the best I’ve ever seen. A parable about two young brothers who stumble upon a sack filled with cash and have different plans about how to use it, “Millions”, in the hands of a less capable auteur, could have turned into a heap of melodramatic mush. Boyle, however, is a master of his craft, and delivers one of the freshest, most genuinely soulful kids movies I’ve ever seen.





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