So this past week I've watched some excellent older films that I'm reasonably assured most users here probably haven't seen but might enjoy, especially if you're sick of recent media. Anyway here you go.
Watership Down (1974 version)
Based on the excellent Richard Adams book (which I also highly recommend) about a small band of rabbits fleeing the destruction of their warren and setting out to find a new homeland. The animation is rather poor but its buoyed by strong voice acting and a compelling story. Pay close attention and you'll see some interesting stuff on the power of myth, folklore, leadership, Nature, and the will to power. Way more than just a cartoon about cute bunnies. Not for young children, by the way.
Zardoz
This might be the most ridiculously based movie I've ever seen. Unfortunately more people seem to know Zardoz from the infamous promotional picture of Sean Connery in a tight red speedo and riding boots with bandoliers than from actually watching the film. From the same director that made Excalibur and Deliverance, it stars Connery as the leader of a post-apocalyptic band of horse-riding barbarians who are manipulated by a powerful, hidden but debauched elite into keeping the hordes of unwashed peasants at a manageable level. The unusual aesthetics and sometimes iffy special effects might turn people away, but if you look past that you'll experience one of the most virile, masculine, Nietzschean, anti-feminist, anti-modern movies ever made.
The Naked Prey
Firmly in the category of "Things That Would Never Be Made Today", Naked Prey is about a white hunter in colonial-era Southern Africa who is captured, stripped naked, and forced to flee as he is hunted by spear-toting tribesmen. Read what you will into that plot in Current Year lol. If you like "man is the greatest prey" type stories, you'll love this. There is almost no dialogue, just a savage, kill-or-be-killed race for survival.
Really? I watched it all the way through.
But then I like shit that's a little bit surreal.
Honorable mention: "Ghost in the Shell" Not the series that came later, the og movie. very trippy, very entertaining. Anime movie from the same era as akira
There is too much art school theater production in Zardoz.
'Ghost in the Shell' was a good conceptual movie, but it had pacing problems and the non-ending was terrible. 'Akira' had pacing issues as all, even more than GitS, but it's still one of the best anime movies.
Zardoz was...odd...and sadly I think that's what I liked about it, same with GiTS.
Akira had a little bit of that as well, although it was more straightforward.
I dunno. there's a certain, for lack of a better word, "unreality" that certain movies have that just appeals to me. Dun really know why, but it does...
btw, not crapping on stand alone complex. it was good, but it didn't have the same feel.