the list of 9 for august 26, 2007:
NINE CULT MOVIES I SAW IN THEATERS WHEN THEY WERE NEW
For the sake of argument, I'm defining a "cult movie" as something that, upon its release, wastoo strange or too obscure to find a major audience, but that, in the years since, thanks to cableand home video, developed a massive following. (In other words, Star Wars isn't a cultmovie but Blade Runner is.) As usual, I'm not trying to brag - this list isn't to show you howforward-thinking I've always been. Rather, this is meant to show you how public perception canchange about a work of art as time goes by. I may have missed Rocky Horror, Repo Man andBlue Velvet in their original theatrical runs, but I did catch:

  1. Brazil, 1985. I remember seeing this with my friend Craigat the Century 25 dome in San Jose. I was fifteen. I don't recall why we went to see it - I hadseen Terry Gilliam's previous film Time Bandits (yes, also in a theater) so I assume I musthave caught an ad for it saying "From the director of Time Bandits." As with most of thefollowing films, Craig and I were pretty much the only people in the theater. When it was over, weweren't really sure what we saw, but I definitely liked it and was creeped out by it.

  2. Donnie Darko, 2001. This film came out shortly after 9/11and as such, nobody cared to see some art house flick about airplane parts falling out of the skyand onto a spooky teenage boy. At the time, with no fanatical cult following to sway me, I foundDonnie Darko to be pretentious, pseudo-Lynchian hogwash. Five years later, my wifeconvinced me to watch it again (as the "director's cut") on DVD, after forcing me to read all theCliffs Notes so I would understand that really it's a science fiction story. I liked it better ona second viewing, but it still leaves me cold. Probably the one thing I really appreciate aboutDonnie Darko is that it's the only movie set in the 80's that I've seen where the teenagerswear Ocean Pacific T-shirts, like I did.

  3. Office Space, 1999. The year 1999 was jam-packed withmilestone films: Episode I, The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, Magnolia, American Beauty, TheSixth Sense and so forth. So can you blame Mike Judge's quiet little comedy - with no sense ofaesthetics and comic timing that one can enjoy most at home, with buddies, while drunk - for notmaking a splash when it came out? I saw this at the cheap theater shortly before it retired fromthe big screen entirely and told my friend Jamal, who I saw it with, that it would probably playbetter on TV.

  4. Raising Arizona, 1987. A handful of cineastes in LosAngeles and New York must have known about the Coen Brothers in 1987, thanks to their thrillingfirst feature Blood Simple, but in San Jose and the rest of mainstream America, nobodycould care less, and the movie bombed. As for me, I knew it was a winner, thanks at least to thosecrazy chase scenes. In fact it may be the only good movie from 1987. By the way, Ialso saw the Coens' now even bigger cult hit The Big Lebowski in theaters - and I couldn'tstand it.

  5. Tron, 1982. This is like the Velvet Underground of movies:nobody saw it except for a bunch of impressionable young nerds who each went on to create someamazing film and art. And then there was me too. I'm sure I saw this three or fourtimes in the theaters when I was a kid. Video game junkie that I was, it was almost requiredviewing. Decades later, its eerie lighting, sound effects, and rudimentary CGI are still prettyamazing.

  6. The Dark Crystal, 1982. I tell you, 1982 was a great yearto be a 12-year-old kid who had yet to be told by his peers that sci fi and fantasy were dorky.Had I been three years older, I might have written off Tron and The Dark Crystal askid stuff. Had I been three years younger, I might not have had the patience for them. But I canquote The Dark Crystal as well as any latter-day fan - even if I haven't seen it in 25years.

  7. Heathers, 1989. As I write this list, I realize how somany of these films come from the 80's. Perhaps when the 90's hit, filmmakers became moreself-conscious about creating a "cult" movie, and so the thrill of discovery weakened? 1989'sHeathers may have symbolized the shift: an early Sundance hit, dark comedy aimed atteenagers, an instantly quotable screenplay - it all seems so obviously calculated to be a cultclassic, looking back now. Yet I still enjoyed it, and I continue to enjoy it to this day. (Unlikethe even more self-consciously culty Buckaroo Banzai, which I also caught new in theaters,and which tried way too hard.)

  8. Dazed and Confused, 1993. I saw Richard Linklater'sSlacker when it was fresh and new and film critics everywhere were raving about it. Itrated a big ho hum with me. But I got hip to Linklater's Dazed and Confused thanksmostly to an article in Film Threat (back when it was an actual magazine). I fondlyremember Film Threat, and how it turned me on to up and coming filmmakers like QuentinTarantino, Peter Jackson, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin and others. Anyway, I thought Dazed andConfused was pretty ordinary, but it would be fun to watch it again now that half of its cast(Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg) are big names.

  9. Mulholland Drive, 2001. You'd think David Lynch would havea built-in audience by now. But he continues to confound filmgoers so frequently that I think alot of people (except for the most faithful of fans, such as yours truly) stay away from a newLynch offering until enough people tell them to go. And although Mulholland Drive wasenough of a cult hit even during its theatrical release, I have yet to meet anybody whoactually saw it before it arrived on DVD.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2011