These are some of my favorite movies you may not have seen. I don't list popular movies, like The Matrix and Blair Witch. I assume you've seen those.

Baraka

The Cinestudio theater at Trinity College (Hartford, CT) used to show this movie late every December, but they didn't show it in 2000, and it doesn't seem to be returning there any time soon. The movie was filmed in 72mm, and Trinity has a 72mm projector, so this looked awesome on their screen. A Dead Can Dance song was used in the soundtrack.

I recently spoke with the theater director at Trinity, and he said they're trying to get the movie back this year. Apparently that movie has some licensing issues that they're trying to resolve.

Begotten

I've seen both positive and negative reviews of this movie. The negative comments all criticize what the movie ``tries'' to be. I don't think that's important. What's important is what the movie is. It's just plain weird. It's Eraserhead weird, but in a totally different way (it doesn't seem so arbitrary or random). And it's visually compelling: filmed on grainy, high contrast black and white film, with a cool soundtrack.

The City of Lost Children

This looks like it was filmed on the set of Dark City, only it's a French movie, with subtitles (I suppose the DVD has English dubbing).

Cube

This movie was filmed in a single room.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Movie

If you've ever watched a really bad movie and made wise cracks through the whole thing, then you sympathize with the characters in MST3K---it's really hard to explain, you just have to see it. This was a series, actually, but they did release a movie for the silver screen. ``The Movie'' wasn't much more than a normal episode. In fact, many of the episodes are funnier.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The DVD has a few of Tim Burton's earlier works. One of them, ``Vincent'', is great! It's like an Edward Gorey cartoon come to life (it's animated like Nightmare is).

Pi

Filmed in black and white, with a good trippy-techno soundtrack.

Pitch Black

Decent under-promoted sci-fi thriller. Good continuity, nice effects, obscure but competent actors, very little of that sarcastic ``Yeah, that could happen'' feeling.

This is Spinal Tap

Ok, when I first saw this movie, I had no idea what it was about. I was flipping channels, and I found it showing on public television late one night. At first, I actually thought it was a true story, and I had no idea that the narrator was Rob Reiner. After a few minutes I thought, ``Either these are the stupidest people on the planet, or this movie is a spoof.'' It turns out it was a spoof.

• Harry Shearer
  Harry Shearer also does the voices of these characters on the Simpsons: Montgomery Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Reverend Lovejoy, Scratchy, Dr. Marvin Monroe, Otto, Dr. Julius Hibbert, Dr. Pryor, Eddie, Herman, Mr. Largo, Jasper, McBain, Lenny, Dave Shutton, Jebediah Springfield, God, The Devil, Hitler

These are some of the worst movies I have ever seen. There are in fact worse movies than I list here, but I don't want to admit that I actually watched them (e.g., Showgirls, possibly the worst movie ever).

Blair Witch II: Book of Shadows

Did you rent this on DVD? I don't know if the tape has this (I suppose it does): Apparently the producers paid no attention to the produciton of this movie, and in an attempt to salvage it later for home viewing, they decided to edit in some ``scary'' stuff after the fact (subtle visual things), and ``point them out'' to you in a segment after the movie itself. ``See? See? See how scary our movie is? We know you weren't scared before, but arent you scared now?'' Oh, puh-LEASE. Look, if you're caught walking around with your zipper down, don't make excuses and say you meant to do that, you just look worse. Just zip up and get the hell out.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

I was stupid enough to pay 8 bucks to see a 2-hour Toys 'R Us commercial. And what's up with Jar Jar Binks? Is he a joke? Coolest part: ending credits.