Well, we need to kill four years somehow

[thesehnsucht.livejournal.com]

Don't we?
Recently I've realized that I haven't been obsessing enough...

Le gasp!

I've run out of material, and for someone who lives half her life in a dream within a dream, it leaves things quite stark and empty. Thanks to you all I have recently added Dangerous Liaisons, Tomorrow When the War Began (the book, then the film), and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer to my list. But obviously it won't last very long.
So, I know this has been done before, and is being done now, but let's make a list of brilliant underrated novels, films, etc. that we just feel the need to aggressively spread around. I know you have one.

So to start off, I remember a little film called The Thief and the Cobbler that I used to watch as a kid (Hey, there's a thief in it! Maybe I'm not so off topic after all). The videocassette copy I have is badly damaged and since I have no machine that could play it anymore, I decided to look it up on the internet, and easily found it on youtube. You can watch it there if you want. There are three versions, but The Thief and the Cobbler:The Recobbled Cut is superior. It was put together by fans and people who worked on the movie, so it's a bit choppy, or watch The Princess and the Cobbler, which is pretty good too and is a little more polished. The film was plagued with trouble (further into on wiki) and in the end it was never completed and the versions that were scrapped together were flops, because by then most of the animators in the movie business had worked on this movie at some point and were greatly influenced by it in their later works. So when Aladdin came out before The Thief did, people assumed that The Thief was a low-quality ripoff (remember, production issues) of Aladdin. But no, Aladdin was a ripoff of The Thief! copyright infringement! as I love to point out. So if you haven't been put off by my rant, watch it, because it really is a great movie.

phew I feel like I've pushed a personal vendetta or something
getting back to the point, please share any and all great works that you think should be better known, or already are but should still be watched

Comments

[ilysia-039.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, The Thief and the Cobbler! That movie was a staple of my childhood; I haven't seen it in years, but it's absolutely brilliant. I've never met anyone outside of my family who'd even heard of it!

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for creative, clever, and inventive novels, this rec should help.

http://community.livejournal.com/sounis/363014.html

For film, have you ever heard of Leverage and White Collar? They're both series about thieves, and I think they are some of the best shows on television right now.

http://www.tv.com/leverage/show/75367/summary.html?q=leverage&tag=search_results;title;1

http://www.tv.com/white-collar/show/75381/summary.html?q=white%20collar&tag=search_results;title;1

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Ha! I love The Thief and the Cobbler! I even love the cobbled together flop version,because it's hilarious. But seriously, some of the best animation ever. The chase scene through the palace is so Escher!

I'm going to have to search for it on youtube now, because I had it on VHS and the parents have probably tossed it.

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

I definitely thought Leverage was better int he first season, but White Collar is still going strong and they're both great thief-shows.

Speaking of shows, though, I've recently seen the BBC's Sherlock. It features Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in present-day London, doing their thing as always. It is brilliant. This show managed to make me obsessive in only three episodes. Which may be a bad thing, as there is only three episodes. I highly recommend it.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

There's a very underrated movie called Breach about US spies, which I thought was very clever and Turneresque.

[charlotteslibrary.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I've just finished Inda, by Sherwood Smith, and found it excellent--lots of political intrigue and interesting characters! Comparing it to MWT as I read, though, I was impressed anew with the way MWT packs so much into her books without spelling it out for the reader. Sherwood Smith is a fine writer, but uses more words, if you know what I mean. Not as many bits like the Gen looking out the window scene, which conveys at least 20 pages of words in a few sentences....

[thief-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I recently rediscovered that movie and realized that, lo, it wasn't a weird dream I'd had after drinking too much green cordial! Me and my sister used to watch that all the time. "When to the wall you find your back, a tac, a tac!"
I love Zigzag's pimpin' shoes. He reminds me strongly of Nahusuresh. Maybe it's the oily demeanor and beard, neh?

[queens-thief.livejournal.com]

Oh man there are so many, but off the top of my head I would say The Magician of Hoad by Margaret Mahy. I have a good feeling that most of the community has read or ben rec'd this book but it is just that good that I must recommend it.
It leaves that wonderful unsettled feeling, like you need to look at your world in a different way, especially language. And it does involve politics and machinations with some wonderful twists a la MWT.
I will definitely be checking out The Thief and the Cobbler--thanks!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I've always felt Ursula Le Guin's Very Far From Anywhere Else was very underrated. It's a great coming-of-age book, realistic fiction from someone who writes a lot of fantasy. I was so glad to see that it has a spiffy new cover (http://www.amazon.com/Very-Far-Away-Anywhere-Else/dp/0152052089). Much more appealing than the old one.

And of course, The Truth Trap by Francis A. Miller. Leslie and tiegirl turned me on to that one, and it's still my current fave.

[thesehnsucht.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you everybody!
I'll definitely be looking those up
and I'm so happy that there are other people who know about The Thief and the Cobbler! If it was ever finished, it would certainly be the greatest animated movie ever made. No doubt about it.
I've found that there is a blog dedicated to The Thief run by the people who worked on it and are still in love with it, after all the years

[aspectabund.livejournal.com]

LOLOL it is funny hearing praise for the Thief and the Cobbler after I've heard so much about the behind the scenes stuff for it from my animation teachers. Richard Williams, the guy who directed it, insisted on the mind-numbingly slow process of animating the whole movie on ones, which basically means doubling the number of drawings that have to be done; AKA, doubling the length of time it takes to make. Yeah, it looks a smoother and nicer, but not THAT much nicer, and your average movie-goer isn't really going to notice the diff.

Plus, all those crazy scenes with machinery and things, especially the bit at the end where the Thief is stealing the balls back? All done by hand. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG THAT SHIT TAKES TO DOOOOOOOO AGH my hand bleeds in sympathy at the very thought. But, while it is very impressive that they did it, by the time the movie finally got released the industry was already able to achieve the same effect with much cheaper, faster computer technology, so no one even really noticed. :I

The extended version of that scene is, btw, ridiculous. It is so super way too long and pointless and boring. While the shortened version of the movie messed up a few things, I think it actually improved that particular scene by cutting its length in about half.

DON'T MIND ME, JUST A JADED ANIMATION STUDENT DOOP DE DOOP MOVING RIGHT ALONNNNG 8D

[aspectabund.livejournal.com]

Also, you have Kate Beaton icons, and KATE BEATON IS AWESOME.

[thesehnsucht.livejournal.com]

yeah my mind was blown by how long it must have taken to do all those drawings, which was the reason so many companies dropped the project since Williams could never meet a deadline
and yes, the last part does get a little drawn out, but it still would have been pretty awesome it it was finished in my opinion
and yes Kate Beaton is awesome

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Under-read:

Joan Aiken's Wolves series -- adventure in slightly-alternate early 19th c. England and beyond. The first book, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is not quite like the rest, but once the series gets going it is full of derring-do, wacky political and assassinatory hijinks, utterly bizarre plotlines (including: parodies of Moby Dick, exploding mince pies, Queen Guinevere living in Brazil, hallucinogenic peas...) and fairly awesome characters from the margins of society, especially the inimitable Dido Twite. And wolves:

Black Hearts in Battersea
Nightbirds on Nantucket
The Stolen Lake
Dangerous Games
The Cuckoo Tree
Dido and Pa
Is Underground
Cold Shoulder Road
Midwinter Nightengale
Witch of Clatteringshaws

[traboule.livejournal.com]

My favorite is Midnight is a Place. Best. Ever.

Things that are not so good: giving any of the Dido books to an eight-year-old with no concept of English history. I know I read half of these, but I completely missed the point because no one had bothered to tell me about the Glorious Revolution.

I should probably read them again now that I know better...