Five of my favorite under rated movies.

I think we all have a few movies that you know and love that aren't well know the ones that fall through the cracks. These aren't movies that I secretly like while others hate (O.K. I'll admit to really digging Speed Racer which got pretty poor reviews but that movie was well known and very well promoted. and people know about it, some even actively dislike it. These are films few seem to know about, but in my humble opinion are well worth seeing.

5- Bob Roberts-  If nothing else for Jack Black playing an ultra con fanboy of a republican senator a few years before he became well known, you should check out this mockumentary. Tim Robbins plays the Titular Bob Roberts who is an ultra conservative Rush Limbaugh type senator who uses folk music to convey his message the Mockumentary takes place during his senate bid. Probably a bad film if you are a Limbaugh fan, but otherwise some incredible performances and catchy (if evil tunes).

4- Comic Book The Movie- One of my favorite films starring Mark Hamill, yeah maybe even more than the obvious choice. Hamill directed and stared in this mockumentary (I seem to like those) as Don Swan a Wisconsin high school history teacher/comic fanboy, who is also making a documentary on the release of a film based on one of his favorite comic heroes Commander Courage. The Commander however has been given a post 9-11 reboot and is not Codename: Courage. Which don clearly has a lot of nerd rage about (see what I did there) lots of very cool inside jokes for comic fans and references.My favorite is seeing David Prowse, Jeremy Bulloch and Peter Mayhew at a table, and Hamill asks if he can take a seat Prowse (the body actor of Darth Vader) replys "no, move along son." classic.

3- Under the Rainbow- Speaking of Star Wars Alumni, this was a one of project of Carrie Fisher, that she did about the same time Ford was hip deep in snakes in Raiders of the lost ark, and set in the same time frame, but definitely not connected. Under the Rainbow is a comedy about the filming of the Wizard of Oz, and the near infinite troubles of wrangling about 100 or so little extras to play the munchkins, it also adds many bizarre twists such as a Nazi plot to transfer a file to their Japanese allies in the same hotel used by the munchkins forcing the Nazi spy (played by Billie Bartey) to hide amongst  the munchkins.

2- J-Men Forever- So far these all kinda fit together huh, this 1930's style film is the parody work of the Firesign Theatre (of "don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers" fame) as radio comedians they lend their voices and comedic talent to this re-voicing and re-editing of a collection of republic serials. the results are riotous. The scenes with the caped madman are well worth the price of admission alone. oh and this clip is the full movie, how cool is that?

1- Rock and Rule- The only Animated film on the list and technically the only foreign film, this Canadian post apocalyptic story is as close to a real rock musical as there has ever been or may ever be. It is not a musical that uses rock lyrics and tunes in a more hollywood musical way such as Rock of Ages, but uses real rock music from Lou Reed, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. the animation is in my mind superb, and the story is very cool the ending sequence of Angel and Omar coming together to sing the beast back is still in my mind a pretty iconic moment. I was also able to locate the full version of this on Youtube as seen above. This is the Canadian cut which has a different actor playing Omar (Paul LeMatt played him in the US version, but no major differences.