BFH’s Top Ten Movies I Love That I Would Never Recommend – IOTW Report

BFH’s Top Ten Movies I Love That I Would Never Recommend

Wednesday, 31 May 2023, 3:49 BFH Uncategorized 72

These are movies I love but I hesitate to recommend because I can see how some people wouldn’t much care for them.

I don’t make this list in a snooty way, like I exist on another level that “people just wouldn’t understand.” (I wouldn’t like it if I thought people were thinking that.) I’ve made mention of these movies in the past to some people and have not received positive feedback. So I have given up recommending.

I invite others to make their own list in the comments.

  • Buffalo 66 – Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci. A mother resents her son because the day he was born her beloved Buffalo Bills won the superbowl and she missed it. When the Bills have a chance to win again, and get him off the hook with his mom, “Scott Wood” misses an easy field goal for the win. He decides to murder Scott Wood.
  • Tree’s Lounge – Steve Buscemi, Chloë Sevigny. A mechanic loses his job for stealing money. He hangs out at a bar trying to get his life back on track
  • Glengarry Glen Ross- Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris. Men competing in the world of real estate sales, just trying to “fill their rice bowl.”
  • The Heartbreak Kid – Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd. A man realizes on his honeymoon that he made a mistake getting married. He meets a girl that he prefers and pursues her against the wishes of her father.
  • The Skeleton Twins- Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig. Twins, thousands of miles apart, unsuccessfully try to kill themselves on the same day. Previously estranged, they try to get their lives back on track.
  • Failsafe- Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau. An accidental bombing of Moscow puts the U.S. in nuclear crisis.
  • Gattaca- Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman. Set in the future when parents can make designer babies, a guy with inferior DNA longs to be an astronaut and has to fake his way into the program to realize his dream.
  • Boogie Nights- Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds. Kid enters the world of porn when the only thing he has is his “gifted endowment.”
  • Lost in Translation- Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson. A famous actor in Japan, to do a liquor commercial, bonds with an American girl more than half his age.
  • Ishtar- Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman. Two failed musicians get a job singing in a hotel in Morocco and get caught up international intrigue.

Bonus: The Whale- Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink. An obese gay man, suffering from multiple avenues of guilt, reconnects with his angry daughter. (The movie has many Biblical undertones.)

72 Comments on BFH’s Top Ten Movies I Love That I Would Never Recommend

  2. Cloud Atlas- huge scope of the movie is compelling, too “big” a film to explain.

    The Last Samurai- wonderful score, deeply human movie and it’s a joy to watch Ken Watanabi steal the movie from Tom Cruise.

    The Thomas Crown Affair- either version but the later one is a bit more fun. If you’ve ever hated your insurance company, watch this. Oddly, Faye Dunnaway is in both.

    3

  3. HUGE party at Furs. Bring your own anti-depressants.

    I say….

    1 Millers Crossing
    2 Bad News Bears(original)
    3 Zorro (Douglas Fairbanks)
    4 M (fritz Lang)
    5 Gods & Monsters (Brendan Fraiser)
    6 Best years of our Lives
    7 The Spanish Prisoner
    8 Decline and fall of Western Civ
    9 The Last King (Norway 2016)
    10 Mighty Joe Young(original)

    8

  4. I like the old B&Ws, some silent, some talkies.
    Especially the classics, “Nosferatu”, “Metropolis”, others.
    My wife hates them, for some reason.
    So, no recommendations, I just watch them myself.

    3

  6. Below are movies that I’ve watched many times that are not widely acclaimed. Other favorites of mine are classics that everyone is aware of so I won’t mention them.

    Ulee’s Gold – Yeah, it’s got Peter Fonda as the main character and among other issues, he’s far from being a good actor but I like the story. It’s a different take on good over evil.

    A Good Year – A workaholic that loves money more than anything finds that a lifestyle that is a complete 180 is exactly what he desires more. The cast is great and there is a ton of humor.

    3

  10. The Wall

    Foreign film (Netherlands? Sweden?) lady stays at friends farm and ends up waking to complete solitude discovers she’s surrounded by invisible wall all alone. Has the most beautiful Bach violin played by Julia Fischer. It’s not an action film (except one scene) but it’s really deep. I think about it often

    2

  11. …”Risen” is good even if you don’t normally like Christian message movies. It starts with Jesus’ death on the Cross and follows a tribune charged by Pilate to round up His apostles. Its in the mould of Ben Hur (the original) in that its an action movie that focuses on an unbeliving character that comes to faith by events, and has some really good fight scenes and a VERY good description of how bad crucifixion really is when the main character taunts Bartholomew with it (link below). There’s some problems with unscriptural parts and the end is a little hokey as the tribune chills with a risen Jesus, but on the whole its a fairly belivable depiction of how things may have gone down between the Crucifixion and the Ascension, with non-preachy but good messaging and (obviously) no cursing.

    Kids may roll their eyes if you tell them its a Jesus movie, but if you don’t they may get immersed anyway. It does have some fairly graphic scenes including the Crucifixion though, so maybe not for the real young ‘uns…

    https://youtu.be/PrUlIVKOyrU

    2

  12. Damn, Burr comes out swinging with M and Best Years of Our Lives. Great movies and Best Years stuck with me for a few days after watching it.

    Other than Ishtar and Fail Safe, I’ve seen all of Fur’s favorites.

    A good place to find great movie titles, from all over the globe, is the Criterion Collection. Found many over the years just from their listings.

    3

  13. Tree’s Lounge – “He hangs out at a bar trying to get his life back on track”

    …if that works, its pure Hollywood. Hanging out at bars rarely helps anyone get their life back on track, unless you consider drunken knife fights, car wrecks, beaten spouses, and suicides to be “on track”…

    4

  15. All the Pink Panther movies starring Peter Sellers. Cheer me up for some reason.
    The 1967 Bedazzled with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore- a lonely short order cook makes deal with the devil to win a pretty co -worker’s heart. Rachel Welch makes an appearance.

    5

  17. In the comedy category, I like the classics:
    The Big Lebowski
    The Royal Tannenbaums
    The Three Amigos
    Galaxy Quest
    Dr. Strangelove

    Fun fact: Dr. Strangelove and Failsafe were both based on the same book. Kubrick decided to go black comedy.

    4

  20. I kind of feel what BFH says about recommending, but from a different angle. Shortly after I got my job my new boss asked if I knew anyone else that could come over. I recommended a guy I had recently worked with at my last job based on what I saw and knew of him at work.

    Turns out one of the things he hadn’t told me was that he lost the job before that one by beating his former boss half to death, something my new boss found out. He didn’t hire a guy but had someone else let the cat out of bag while he messed with me about how great he thought the guy was, only later letting me know he didn’t, so I could worry about the guy I recommended beating up my new boss and how that would reflect on ME.

    …see, that right THERE is why I work with machines and not people. I just don’t have HR instincts and don’t ask people about their private lives because I don’t really give a shit. But that’s good stuff to know if you’re a potential target like his boss, I suppose.

    I’ve never recommended a person for a job since.

    Movie recommendations are less dire, but people will give you greif about wasting their time. Although I image that BFH doesn’t particularly want to wade through an entire blog of greif for his, and I can respect that…

    2

  21. @Tony R.

    How could you possibly leave out Hacksaw Ridge on that list of yours? Not only was it Mel’s greatest achievement, but I would put it in the top 5 greatest war movies OFF ALL TIME.

    5

  26. Cmn¢¢guy AT 9:20 AM

    “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

    I liked that as a movie and playing a crazy person is certainly something Jack Nicholson excells at, but I really, REALLY hate that it was treated like it was a documentary and used for anti-institution propaganda by Democrats. The lofos thought EVERY nurse was Nurse Ratched and EVERY institution fried the brains of the innocent, and so this inspired a politically motivated and encoraged groundswell that led to deinstitutionalization without ANY viable alternative, which was INSTRUMENTAL in creating the full-blown homeless crisis we have today.

    This is about movies so I won’t get into details, but they did the mentally ill no favors by “releasing them” into the streets. There ARE people with issues that prevent them from being able to take care of even themselves, and people with issues that make them a danger to themselves and others, but that movie created the political opportunity to throw the baby out with the bathwater and increase human misery by throwning people into the streets where they’d be good for Democrat votes and not much else.

    Movies are a POWERFUL tool for social commentary, and THIS one did it without CGI. Imagine the propaganda they can make NOW that can show stupid people literally ANYTHING and cause them to belive it as fact…

    7

  28. I’m going to go back through the comment section for watch list ideas; here’s my contribution–a few movies I’ve watched multiple times and still not sick of.

    Tucker, A Man and his Dream
    Miracle – With Kurt Russel
    The Rookie – With Dennis Quaid
    The Right Stuff
    Twelve O’Clock High
    The Great Raid
    The Great Escape

    1

  29. Basic – travolta and samuel jackson

    Frequency – dennis quaid and jim caviezel

    The Replacements – keanu reeves

    Ransom – mel gibson and gary sinise

    Bunraku – woody harrelson and gackt

  31. I need to add one more as an outlier for me. As traditional meat and potatas kind of fella, I do not like musicals–just not my thing.

    But, for some reason, I LOVE the movie 1776. Other than the story, which I love most any version of, I think what makes it great is that it isn’t just one song after another song with just a couple of minutes of dialogue in between. If you took out all the songs (which I mostly like oddly enough)–you would still have a pretty compelling movie.

    1

  33. SNS
    I agree there are people with issues, however a larger portion are there because they can. They have perfected the minimalist lifestyle.
    An older friend once told me about a guy he had gone to school with. Who realized he could don a pair of dark glasses, sit on the sidewalk with a can of pencils and make money. Never worked, his whole life.
    He was one of 4 that traveled the area playing music, their combined ages was >320. I got to know them because they would need misc. instrument repairs. The fiddle player (Early) had an amp, but no electricity at home. He would stop in just to test his equipment out. Often he would stay and play for an hour or more. He died @ 98yo, after 2 days in the hospital. Pern, guitar, banjo, fiddle, died at 92yo, raking leaves in his yard. I learned, there is always a way to make money, if your willing to get off your ass.
    I’ve often told people they can reduce their cost of living, by giving up living indoors.

    1

  36. BFH AT 9:54 AM
    Are these movies you guys would hesitate to recommend?

    In my case yes. mostly because my wife didn’t care for either and because they have actors that are either not well liked or that had roles outside of their norm.

  37. BFH AT 9:54 AM
    “Are these movies you guys would hesitate to recommend?”

    …If we’re doing HESITATE to recommend, one such movie even though I personally like it very much and found it uplifting and helpful to ME for very personal reasons is the Lionsgate movie “The Shack”. It deals with a father who’s daughter is kidnapped, raped, and murdered and how his inability to deal with it is destroying the REST of his family. He learns where this guy killed his daughter and thinks he’s there and goes to kill HIM (which of us would NOT!), and instead literally meets Jesus who leads him to a place where the Trinity helps him deal with his loss and his greif and his guilt, and ultimately with EXTREMELY difficult issues of forgiveness EVEN OF THE RAPIST.

    Forgiveness is an EXTREMELY difficult issue for some (me included) and would be UNFATHOMABLY difficult for someone in THAT situation, but the movie points out that we MUST, for our own sake, our family’s sake, and that the Lord REQUIRES it of us if we even HOPE to get it from HIM. This makes some REALLY good points and even uses a garden he has to weed and cultivate as an allegory for what’s going on in his soul, which they demonstrate graphically when all is done.

    I hesiate to recommend it because some people on first blush might think it’s “woke”. It makes some VERY untraditional casting decisions, such as casting a Black woman as literal God, an Asian woman as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus actually appearing to be Middle Eastern. I don’t have a problem with ANY of that myself as God can be and IS whatever He wishes to appear to be, even changing His appearance to an elderly man when the main character “needs a father” (although showing His face even as a Black woman to a living human is pretty unscriptural), but some people seemed to want the beardy old White guy and don’t care for this version. It’s NOT woke because race and sex are a non-issues other than appearance, but it seems to bother some people (as does personifing The Holy Spirt AT ALL), so that makes this a bit hard to recommend to people who may despise the message for the messanger.

    The other thing about Christian movies is that they sometimes take liberties with Scripture to make it fit their theming, which isn’t right, but they all do it and it’s better than watching Velma on Netflix, but since this one is no exception also makes it difficult to recommend to anyone wanting a hard, literal interpretation of Scripture and gets upset if they can’t find some facet of the movie in whichever version of the Bible they are using.

    Also it’s a pretty particular message that maybe not everyone needs or will “get”. It resonates with ME because of things in MY life, but not everyone has the same experiences, so it might not carry the same weight with them. So I’m not going to recommend a movie like this even though I like it and appreciate it because there’s too many reasons that someone who ISN’T me may think I simply wasted their time and tried to force Woke Christianity on them without looking any deeper than that.

    Here’s a trailer link if you’re interested.

    But I don’t, for reasons already explained, recommend it to everyone…

    https://youtu.be/CL0yUbSS5Eg

  38. I agree with the great kid’s movies, Secondhand Lions, I loved Big Fish, also The Sandlot, Stand By Me, all of the Monty Python movies as well as all the Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers, Being There, Dr. Strangelove. One of the best British Peter Sellers movies was The Lady Killers also with Alec Guiness, Herbert Lom as a bunch of totally inept bank robbers and a little old lady who kept getting in their way and foiling their every move. My dad loved all the Coen Brothers movies especially O Brother Where Art Thou. And the Marx Brothers movies just for good measure. And all the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies. And don’t forget all the Godzilla movies.

  40. And the goofy semi-Monty Pythonesque Time Bandits movie with all the midgets and Sean Connery etc. flitting in and out of time. And the classic Kurt Vonnegut movie Slaughterhouse Five. And Sean Connery’s first movie, the Disney classic spooky Darby O’Gill (the banshees scared the heck out of me when I was a little kid) and the Little People. And let’s not forget the classic sci fi movie Forbidden Planet.

    1

  41. Movies I like but I don’t think that many people would enjoy in no particular order.

    1.) Hotel Budapest
    2.) Donnie Darko
    3.) The Watchmen
    4.) Memento
    5.) Ikiru (highly recommend, a Kurosawa film)
    6.) Moneyball
    7.) The Long Riders
    8.) Inception
    9.) Spirited Away
    10.) The Quick and Dead

    I also agree with “M,” “Gattaca” and “Ulee’s Gold.” I’m sure there are more, but this is what comes to mind right now.

  43. “The Search for One-Eye Jimmy”
    “Spitfire” (1942)
    “Jacob’s Ladder”
    “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood”

    I enjoyed em, but not sure anyone else would.
    (I know some others, but I forget)

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

    2

  44. geoff the aardvark
    AT 10:54 AM
    …Monty Python is an acquired taste, one that I have acquired, but not everyone has. It ranges from the silly (Dead Parrot Sketch) to the borderline blasphemous (Life Of Brian), and the dark humor they excel at (singing “Always Look At The Bright Side Of Life” in chorus while hanging from crosses) isn’t something everyone appreciates.

    So I love them, but wouldn’t recommed them to my mother or my pastor…

    2

  48. SNS, I haven’t seen the movie The Shack, but my all-guys book club read it and it’s a very interesting and very controversial books for a lot of Christians. I didn’t see anything blasphemous about it, but a lot of Christians were highly offended by the portrayal of Jesus as a black woman. The setting where the protagonist meets Jesus was set at Wallowa Lake in Northeastern Oregon in one of the most beautiful glacier fed extremely cold lakes in the country. I am very familiar with that area because my mom’s sister and her family lived in the Wallowa valley, and we visited there quite often. It is also the area that Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians were driven out of around the 1ate 1870’s by the US Army and chased across Idaho and Montana in one of last Indian wars and almost escaping into Canada before they were caught and given marginal reservation land up around Nespelem, Washington to live on. The Nez Perce received a raw deal out of that but have since reestablished themselves down around the Lewiston, Idaho and Lapwai, Id. area. which is called the land of the butterflies because of all the butterflies.

    1

  50. Three movies I like but would not necessarily recommend are:

    (1) Life of Brian. This film primarily satirizes organized religion and, to a certain extent, social justice warriors (ahead of its time). I did not find it sacriligious, but a biting and humorous commentary on some of the ancillary aspects of organized religion institutions. I hesitate to recommend it because many people are uncomfortable with films that revolve around religion.
    (2) Brazil. This is a dark comedy adaptation of Orwell’s “1984.” Unlike Orwell’s novel, Big Brother is not necessarily evil but instead made up of mostly ordinary people who demonstrate ordinary incompetence at times while engaging in frequently evil acts. Too many people miss the dark humor aspects of the film and are not familiar with “1984.”
    (3) Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks is notorious for taking on social issues head on and wringing comedy from the subject. Cleavon Little was perfect as Black Bart – a black man who recognizes bigotry for what it really is. But too many people can’t get past the language and the use of the “n word” throughout.

    4

  52. SNS, there are some other very good Christian novels out there to read. I highly recommend Peace Like A River by Leif Enger which is a great redemptive book and anything by Michael D O’Brien, a Canadian Catholic writer of the first magnitude who has written tremendous fictional and non-fictional books about Christianity. I just recently read his latest book The Lighthouse, a short 200-page book about a lighthouse keeper off of the East coast of Canada in Nova Scotia which is well worth reading. His novel Sophia House about a Jewish boy named David saved and hidden by a Polish bookkeeper in Warsaw in World War 2 is an excellent book. His book, The Father’s House, a very long book of well over 1000 pages is a modern-day retelling of the story of the prodigal son and suspense novel as well and also is an incredible book. And his latest book which I am going to order from Amazon soon is a fictional biography of the prophet Ezekiel which I am looking forward to reading. And if you’re into far out space opera sci fi his novel Journey to Alpha Centauri, another very long book is also a good read. Enjoy! I love good movies, but I love reading good books even more.

    1

  55. Other films I liked but do not necessarily recommend to others:

    (4) The End. A Burt Reynolds film about a man with terminal illness who wants to commit suicide (and hires Dom Deluise to murder him). Again, a dark comedy that deals with euthanasia issues.
    (5) Grand Hotel Budapest. I like quirky movies, and I like Ralph Fiennes. But not everyone’s cup of tea – except Dr. Tar’s apparently.
    (6) The Naked Gun films. I hesitate to recommend these only because OJ Simson is in them.
    (7) Little Miss Sunshine. This is “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” before TLC starting airing these types of shows. Alan Arkin is terrific, but the dysfunctional family can make many people uncomfortable.
    (8) All Quiet On The Western Front. The violence is relentless and the film is ultimately depressing. The last version made was terrific.
    (9) The Menu. What can I say – Ralph Fiennes is great as is the rest of the cast. It’s a parody of cooking shows and foodies, a horror movie, and a commentary on the pursuit of ultimately meaningless leisure activities. Many people cannot get the subtleties, and I don’t often recommend it because they feel it’s boring.
    (10) Zoolander. You have to buy into the premise that the male modeling profession is very important in this movie universe. This premise is quirky enough that when I do recommend it, I advise watching it a second time because most people find it perplexing when they first see it, but hysterical on the second viewing.

    3

  56. Wyatt – The End and Fatso are two that I like from that period, but would never mention them. Now, when I think of Burt Reynolds I also think of Dom Deluise.

    Agree with Little Miss Sunshine.

    1

  64. Due to work I always come late to these threads, which means I’m usually pissing into the ocean. Regardless, here are some that I genuinely like but hesitate to recommend to others, as they are acquired tastes:

    1) All the Rivers Run (Australian mini series)
    2) Knightriders (took me two decades to find a copy of the ending song by Donald Rubinstein)
    3) The Inner Circle (no happy endings)
    4) Margaret’s Museum (same as above)
    5) The Omega Man (yes, some outdated cringey moments. I was eight years old, gimmie a break)
    6) Hamlet (Mel Gibson version)

    Here are 5 that I WOULD recommend, but are off the beaten track a bit:

    1) The Duelists (Ridley Scott’s first feature film. Come for the amazing soundtrack, stay for the sabre fights)
    2) Stardust (so sue me)
    3) A Midnight Clear
    4) Regarding Henry
    5) The Great Waldo Pepper

    OK, bladder’s empty now. And the sea quickly disperses it into nothingness.

    2

  65. I would hesitate to recommend most movies. A good movie is a personal experience that stays with you. I would definitely say some of the movies on my list are movies that should be watched. Not necessarily the kind of movie you watch with friends drinking beer.

    Like… Big Wednesday. You’ll either “get it” or you won’t. Same with Bad News Bears and Best Years of Our lives.

    They have a mood and theme more than a tight plot or explosions.

    1

  67. geoff the aardvark,
    Correct me if I’m wrong, but the black woman in “The Shack” was God and Jesus was a middle-eastern looking man. The Holy Spirit was a vaguely oriental-looking woman.

    Not trying to start a fight, just how I remember it – and my memory ain’t much.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

  68. Not recommended due to the gore & violence, but excellent nonetheless, Old Boy. The original South Korean Version, subtitles & all. Not going to go in depth, but check it out, if you dare. The poor central character goes through hell & then some. Also, I would recommend(sorry BFH)Glenn Garry Glen Ross. The whole cast, Jack Lemmon in particular, were amazing. Except Alec Baldwin in the beginning of the film, otherwise flawless flick. Last one that I HIGHLY recommend is maybe the greatest movie(modern)that most have never heard of is “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead”. About 2 brothers who plot to rob their elderly parent’s jewel store. Amazing cast, smart plot.

    1

  69. SNS,
    “I’m Gonna Get You, Sucka!” was, indeed, a great film. I believe it was too subtle in plot and execution, though, for general acceptance. Some of the finest acting in the annals of film: “I want one rib.” Oh, it takes the breath away. Sir Ralph Richardson and that Hamlet guy would have killed for a part.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

    2

  70. “The Lion in Winter”
    “A Man for all Seasons.”
    “King Rat”
    Oh, and that one that had a car crash – and some people talked about stuff – that one I would recommend.

    Not for everyone.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

    1

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