A Quasi-Intellectual Rant on Obscure Movies...

For my last posting this month, I noticed that it's been a long while since I ranted about anything and, since I need to fill my quota, here we go:

Scanning through the inner-nets as I am wont to do, I stumbled across a forum wherein they posed the question, "What is the most obscure film you have ever watched?" A valid question of anyone who insists they love movies; you can't ignore their existence and, for some of us, that's what our main diet is made up of.

Anyway, the various posted responses went on for 8 pages or so and consisted of titles such as Killer Klownz from Outer Space, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, Clerks, Freddy Got Fingered and The Dark Knight (!!!). After a while, the starter of the thread piped in, asking if anyone who had answered knew what "obscure" meant.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: DOES anyone know what "obscure" means?

When Joe and Jane Average watch a movie, 9 times out of 10 it's whatever is playing at the local multiplex or whatever they get out of their NetFlix kiosk. So many times, as a result, they follow whatever the rest of the world is watching at the moment. Whether it's your Inception or your Devil or your latest film written by Diablo Cody, if it's something that is the flavor of the month that cannot be easily pigeonholed into a category - bingo - it's obscure.

Obscurity isn't something that can be manufactured and loved by the general public. We're talking about something that very very few people have ever heard of, ever seen, maybe even never knew existed. Fair enough.

But then something happened.

Someone went and mentioned the movie Clerks. And then, adding insult to injury, they said words to the effect that, since it is a cult film, that in itself automatically made it obscure.

...Sorry, it's hard to write this with my face resting in my open palms, but...cult films are cult films. Obscure films are obscure films. And Clerks (and The Dark Knight, for that matter) is neither.

Whoever these - I'll take something for granted right now - PEOPLE are, they have no idea what an obscure movie is. I hope to God they're reading this, because I am about to tell them all what an obscure film is.

An obscure film is a film which has had little to no exposure since its initial release, is about subject matter that has almost never been popularized in filmic terms and - this is the biggie - is hard to get a copy of. Do we agree that Kung Pow and Freddy Got Fingered litter the very streets of our cities for the millions of copies they have pressed and they're literally shoving into our shopping bags at Wal-Mart to get rid of? I thought we could agree on that.

Not even cult films are safe enough to classify as "obscure", since it is so easy now to get your own copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space (I have 2 copies), Highlander II: The Quickening (3 copies) or even one of the old Airport movies (got the whole collection a year or so ago for $4). Obscure films are MUCH harder to come by.

Now for me, an obscure movie is something like Turkish Star Wars, Alakazam the Great (not Shaquille O'Neal's Kazaam, fercryinoutloud), Ganjasaurus Rex or any Italian version of a American movie. THOSE are films that are not readily accessible from Blockbuster Online or the Redbox just outside Piggly Wiggly downtown.

Obscure is not, IS NOT, something that lots of people have heard of. Do you understand that, humanity? Do you???

I can't believe I have to explain this, and I shouldn't have to. I know I'm preaching to the choir, what with all of my faithful readers here, but I'm sure many of you (if not all) have fallen prey to the mentality that just because some movie has even a slight bit of originality or the smallest bit of buzz from the latest YouTube blitz of breathless studio plants extolling the virtues of the latest Seth Rogan flick, that in and of itself makes for indie elitism and - naturally - obscure film-making.

No. NONONONONONONONO NO!

(deep breath)

Look at my list of films I review over there on the right side of the blog: 65% of these ARE obscure films. Understand?

The ones in that list that your folks have most likely heard of, those ones are NOT obscure. Understand?

Quick; look at the picture of the little green character I have at the top of this post. Do you recognize him/her/it? Do you know what film it comes from? Maybe or maybe not, but the fact remains that it is from a small film that came out in 1984 that, itself, was a sequel to another small film from 1979 which was far more popular. And yet most of humanity has never heard of the 1984 movie. You know why that is? Because it's obscure. Understand?

I think I've made my point and, now that I feel more relaxed and my head doesn't hurt anymore, I think this post has served it's purpose.

Now go and think about what an obscure film is to you and, while you're at it, make your own little post about it on your own blog. It's fun.

...I swear, though; if you make your post about The Dark Knight, I will hunt you down and bludgeon you with several copies of "Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion"s. And I've got lots of 'em.

Dope out.

- TGWD