(ALMOST) TWENTY GREAT MOVIES YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF (part two)

Ok, I’m all rested and relaxed and ready to finish my list of movies you’ve never really heard of, but really ought to see. Ready? Here we go…

11. J-MEN FOREVER (1979) Back in the late seventies, Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman of the highly subversive, extremely funny comedy troupe Firesign Theatre took a stack of old movie serials from the thirties and forties…you know, those old chapter plays that ran all day every Saturday at the local movie house in the days before television…chopped them up and put them back together into one feature length film with entirely new dialogue and story and put it out as a bizarre tale of sex, drugs, rock and roll, alien invasion and superhero lunacy. For years the only version of this movie was a highly edited one that used to run on the old USA NightFlight show on the USA network. Then somebody found an uncorrupted copy in a vault somewhere and now it’s available for everyone on DVD. Definitely an acquired taste, but worth the trouble.

12. LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (2006) A highly commercial film that no one saw, mainly because the plot is not easy to explain, this crime caper stars Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor, Wicker Park) as a young man not named Slevin who gets mistakenly caught up in a power struggle between two ruthless ganglords, played by Ben Kingsley (Ghandi) and Morgan Freeman (The Bucket List, Wanted). Also starring Lucy Liu (Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels) and Bruce Willis (Die Hard, Pulp Fiction), the is-he or isn’t-he twist and turn and back again nature of this film will keep you guessing all the way til the end.

13. THE MATADOR (2005) Pierce Brosnan (Nomads, Tailor of Panama) is Julien Nobles, a hit man going through a mid-life crisis. In Mexico City, he befriends stricken businessman Danny Wright, played by Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets) and the two forge an unlikely friendship that includes Danny’s wife Bean played by Hope Davis (Mumford). Largely a character study of two totally disparate personality types, Brosnan goes totally against his James Bond stereotype in an entertaining tale of friendship and trust.

14. MUMFORD (1999) I love this movie. Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, Silverado), this is the story of a disgraced IRS investigator played by Loren Dean (Enemy of the State, Gattaca) who shows up in the small town of Mumford pretending to be a psychiatrist named…Mumford. An all-star cast featuring Hope Davis (The Matador) Jason Lee (Dogma, tv’s My Name is Earl), Alfre Woodard (Take the Lead, tv’s Desperate Housewives), Ted Danson (tv’s Cheers), Mary McDonnell (Dances With Wolves, tv’s Battlestar Galactica), Zooey Deschanel (Elf), David Paymer (Ocean’s 13) and others in a mistaken identity mix-up of a romantic comedy that satisfies from beginning to end.

15. NEAR DARK (1987) A cult classic of no small measure, this vampire flick co-written and directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Lance Henrickson (Aliens), Adrian Pasdar (tv’s Heroes), Bill Paxton (Apollo 13, Twister, tv’s Big Love) and B-movie staple TimThomerson (Trancers) is an old west take on a gothic theme and while it doesn’t always make sense and the ending is weak, it’s largely a lot of fun.

16. NOMADS (1986) This stylish horror flick is notable not only because it's a well-crafted yarn that scared the beejesus out of me when I saw it in theatres, but because it was written and directed by a pre-Die Hard John McTiernan (Die Hard, Thomas Crown Affair) and stars a pre-007 Pierce Brosnan (Matador, Thomas Crown Affair) who starred in the film during hiatus from his work on tv's Remington Steele. Lesley-Anne Down (tv's the Bold and the Beautiful) got top billing for this film as the ER doc who gets downloaded with the dying memories of Brosnan's French anthropologist Jean Charles Pommier. Witty and slick with a neat little twist at the end, Nomads also features British rocker Adam Ant in non-speaking role as the leader of the bad guys.

17. REAL GENIUS (1985) Val Kilmer (The Saint, Batman Forever) followed his debut in the absurd Top Secret with this totally superior comedy directed by Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl) and co-starring 80's character mainstay William Atherton (Die Hard I&II, Ghostbusters) in a story that promises... "When he gets mad, he doesn't get even-he gets creative". One of my favorite comedies ever and some of Kilmer's best work, including the line, "I was just thinking of the last words of Socrates which were 'I drank what?".

18. SUNSHINE (2007) A tight and stylish sci-fi flick that totally slipped under almost everybody's radar, Sunshine proved that director Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire) had a career that went far beyond zombies. Cillian Murphy (Red Eye, Batman Begins) and Chris Evans (both Fantastic Four movies) star in this story of man's first trip to the sun.

19. SUNSHINE STATE (2002) I could easily have listed Silver City, Passion Fish, Brother From Another Planet, Return of the Secaucus Seven...basically any movie by writer/director John Sayles is worth watching over and over. This one stars Edie Falco (The Sopranos), Angela Bassett (What's Love Got to Do With It, Strange Days) and Oscar-winners Mary Steenburgen (Melvin and Howard, Time After Time) and Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People, Falcon and the Snowman) in a quirky little character study about real estate in Florida.

Well, that should do it. I know there are many more. List your favorites and I'll make another list one day after I've watched them. In the meantime, watch these and let me know what you think.