the movie thread

[boredjedi]

I don't think I've seen that one Below. Kind of gives me Lovecraft vibes. Looks interesting.
I did look it up. Maybe that's why it flew under my radar. Another movie the studio paid for and
just dropped the ball on it because they lost faith in it. Cost $40 million to make and it only made $2.6 million back
at the box office in 2002. I never understood why those idiot suits do that. They spent nothing on advertising the film.

Nowadays, I just fire up and play Silent Hunter 4:Wolves of the Pacific for my submarine fix.

[chuft]

Ah yes I remember it well. Lots of WW2 books around back then because, WW2 wasn't that long in the past. Three of my uncles fought in it, my father was just a little too young. So many WW2 TV shows and movies, and they weren't the hyper-realistic anti-war movies of today.



Below is a good movie if you don't mind some supernatural in your WW2 submarines.

[BRBFBI]

Thanks for the recommendations, boredjedi chuft. I like books better than movies when it comes to subs, but there are a lot I haven't seen. The only other one I have is Das Boot.

I just got done watching Alien for the first time. I'm not a big movie person so there are a lot of classics I've never seen. I liked it from the opening scene, which is about four minutes of dialogue free shots of the ship. What an incredible set. In fact, I'd say the sets are what I liked most about it. The characters didn't give me much to grab onto; the chick who isn't Ripley is basically personality-less, and nobody else had that much characterization. I like the earlier scenes where the sense of unease is palpable.

[boredjedi]

Thanks for the recommendations, boredjedi chuft. I like books better than movies when it comes to subs, but there are a lot I haven't seen. The only other one I have is Das Boot.

I just got done watching Alien for the first time. I'm not a big movie person so there are a lot of classics I've never seen. I liked it from the opening scene, which is about four minutes of dialogue free shots of the ship. What an incredible set. In fact, I'd say the sets are what I liked most about it. The characters didn't give me much to grab onto; the chick who isn't Ripley is basically personality-less, and nobody else had that much characterization. I like the earlier scenes where the sense of unease is palpable.

You're welcome.
When I saw Aliens (the second Alien movie) I started calling her Rambolina.

Certain movies still hold up even many many decades later. Considering they were usually considered low budget.
Usually those low budgets really spark the creativity. They had to get very creative on how to accomplish what
they wanted. Nowadays, they just keep tossing money at the budget and the movies end up being crap.

[chuft]

Alien is one of my favorite movies so I cannot be objective about it. I think it's a masterpiece and I have watched it many times. I don't know which version you saw. The theatrical version is lacking a certain scene that I think changes the movie a bit, whether it's for the better or worse is a matter of opinion, but Aliens makes more sense without that scene being in Alien.

It's quite impressive, the practical effects in Alien. No CGI back then, it was all physical effects.

[BRBFBI]

Alien is one of my favorite movies so I cannot be objective about it. I think it's a masterpiece and I have watched it many times. I don't know which version you saw. The theatrical version is lacking a certain scene that I think changes the movie a bit, whether it's for the better or worse is a matter of opinion, but Aliens makes more sense without that scene being in Alien.

It's quite impressive, the practical effects in Alien. No CGI back then, it was all physical effects.

I watched the director's cut. I appreciated the practical effects a lot. Some of it was transparent, but in a cool way. Like how the thrusters on the escape pod in the final scene are shooting out huge amounts of water lit by bright lights from inside to look like rocket exhaust.

Certain movies still hold up even many many decades later. Considering they were usually considered low budget.
Usually those low budgets really spark the creativity. They had to get very creative on how to accomplish what
they wanted. Nowadays, they just keep tossing money at the budget and the movies end up being crap.

I see varying numbers, but it seems like it was made for about $11M, which is almost $50M in today's dollars. Not quite a budget movie, but a far cry from the $150-200M movies that Marvel/Disney pump out every year now. I'm surprised its budget was as low as that. Based on its reputation and the quality of the sets, I assumed it was one of the more expensive movies made in the '70s. I guess Sigourney Weaver wasn't a big name before Alien. In the course of researching this I read that the three celebs in Netflix's Red Notice, Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, were paid a combined $60M - more than the entire budget of Alien adjusted for inflation. Big name actors actively make movies less immersive for me since I just see them playing a character. I'd rather see somebody I've never heard of before. There are tons of great aspiring actors out there, I don't need to keep seeing the same two dozen.

[chuft]

We watched the first episode of Farscape today. I became aware this week that it was on Amazon Prime. I had seen a few episodes from later seasons back in the day on Sci Fi but never had seen the whole thing or even most of it. So I was excited to watch it from the beginning.

Seeing commercials was a bad flashback to years past, and having to have a quick trigger finger on the Mute button is annoying, I may spring for the extra $3 a month to skip the ads.