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Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year countless films are released into theatres and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully, we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

The Crow (1994)

I remember way back when I applied to be a writer on this site, we had to submit an application wherein we told a little bit about ourselves. Mine included the usual biographic blather, but the one thing that stood out to David was my simple statement that I could recite the Crow's script from memory. You have to be a serious film fan (or wacko...) to make a statement like that. And so this column was born.

The Crow stars Brandon Lee as Eric Draven, Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame as Sergeant Albrecht, Michael Wincott as top thug Top Dollar, Bai Ling as Top's Sister/Lover (Ew!) Myca, Anna Levine as street kid Darla and David Patrick Kelly as T-Bird, the leader of the gang of scumbags that initiates the events in the movie.

The movie's plot is simple. Innocent people are brutally murdered. One of them is so angered by what happened to them that even death cannot hold him and he comes back as an unstoppable, un-killable agent of vengeance. His wrath is swift and righteous, but other bad guys determine the source of his power and try to steal it. It doesn't end all that well for anyone not on Draven's side.

The Crow has and always will hold a special place in my heart. This is a film that didn't exactly open in a monstrous way, but did take the #1 spot that week with an $11 million opening. That's a number that would be considered an abject failure today. And it did this in a way that was entirely respectful and practically reverent to the lead actor in the film, Brandon Lee.

This was pretty important, because as most people know, Lee was killed during production of the film in a firearms accident. And the producers of the film were stuck with the horrible task of trying to salvage a production with their lead actor gone.

It wasn't just salvaged, it was incredible. I had never seen anything like the Crow when it came out, and 17 years later it still holds up as a great film. It's stylish, well done and while it's hardly a masterpiece of great literature, the script feels very real. T-Bird and his crew are beyond scuzzy in this film, and when Erik comes a calling you're given the rare treat of cheering for the undead creature looking for blood. It's a twist on a horror film that was spun long before all the Vampire films and books that have been produced lately.

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