1

(93 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment, but it's been annoying me on r/movies for a couple days that half of the submissions are people bemoaning the unwashed masses who can't appreciate Pacific Rim and went to see an Adam Sandler comedy instead.

At the end of the day, it's a Kaiju movie. A CGI Kaiju movie, but still a movie about giant monsters wreaking mass destruction. This type of flick hasn't done well in the US for decades. I don't see why it's that surprising that another one failed. Cloverfield is the only real exception I can think of, and that movie had other factors that contributed to it's mild success. People in the US don't dig on Godzilla movies.

Part of that probably has to do with the way people here generally think about movies. Part of it probably has to do with there being two very big "fun" movies coming out at the same time. I think people are just kinda sick of watching shit blow up every summer. We've already had five other movies in the last couple months that are primarily about watching shit blow up. Maybe they're just burned out.

Of course, if you look at ticket sales, there's been a steady decline over the last 15 years or so. There were fewer tickets sold last year than since 1996, and the year before was even worse. This year looks to be lower than last year, and more in line with 2010, as far as gross, which means that ticket sales are probably lower than that as well. People are fucking burned out on this shit, and no one is picking up on that. They don't want to see it go bigger and crazier.

Ten years ago you'd have maybe one or two big movies from each studio in the summer. Now every studio has a new $100 M or more movie coming out every other weekend. Meanwhile, ticket sales are going down every year. So, yeah, obviously you're going to have more huge bombs. Fewer people are seeing movies, more movies are being released every year, and those movies are costing more and more. 20 years ago something like Pacific Rim would have been a huge hit purely for the spectacle of it. Now it's just another big stupid movie and we get twenty of them every summer.

2

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

Prometheus comes out on October 9. Surely you can muster up a couple hours of words for that piece of crap, and it was supposed to be scary, so it fits the theme.

3

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

You could talk about "Antichrist". Genital mutilation, slow motion porn and talking animals. What's not to love?

4

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

House of the Devil is a good modern flick that hasn't been suggested yet, and it's on netflix instant, though it's quite a slow burn of a movie and I imagine a commentary would have to be ten minutes of "This is SOOOO 80's", about an hour of "This movie sure does take it's time..." and then 20 or so minutes of "SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT! FINALLY!!"

But I liked it. Very obviously low budget but really well made flick that doesn't focus on jump scares or gore. The blood is really being filmed, there's some nice makeup effects, camera work and lighting and it's actually kinda scary.

In the mouth of Madness is a good flick, but that one's got a pretty slow middle bit as well that might not be good for doing commentary over.

Psycho would be a good one, though kinda hard to add much to the discussion about that film (The Kane Dilemma).

You've also never done From Dusk Till Dawn. That's technically a horror film, right?

5

(33 replies, posted in Off Topic)

The thing about content like this is that you don't have to just limit yourself to the one thing. There's a ton of options out there, and you don't have to limit yourself to just one or two of them. Just by doing Let's Play stuff there are a lot of options. A lot of them do live streams via Twitch.tv, so that's another source of ad revenue. Some of them have forums, and those forums have ads, so there's another little bit of income. One of the guys I follow is a decent little sketch artist, so once in a while he'll do a sketch thing where for a few bucks he'll do a quick drawing for you, and he streams that as well so the people who paid to get the sketch done end up contributing ad views as well.

If you have any sort of fan base, even a small one, you can get some traction on a revenue stream. You can do things beyond just creating media content and hoping enough people watch it. If you can get 10K views per video, that's 10K potential buys for one of your other hobby projects. Maybe you knit scarves or something and sell stuff on etsy. Tell your youtube fans. Some of them are bound to buy something, and the people who like your videos probably won't mind if you mention you've got to make some cash once in a while.

It's a neat visualization of the solar system's journey through space. That's what I meant to say.

7

(1,649 replies, posted in Off Topic)

8

(1,649 replies, posted in Off Topic)

August 14th is the DVD release date of The Raid: Redemption. I can't wait to pop some popcorn and crank up my speakers for the bluray.

Better yet, the same team is making a sequel called Berandal which is slated to come out next year.

10

(109 replies, posted in Off Topic)

That show claims to be science fiction based on fact, only none of the facts seem to have been presented outside of the show, cause it doesn't list much. What I can tell you from the clips they have on the site is that it looks hilaribad and I kinda wanna watch it. It also looks like it makes more sense than Prometheus, which is something, I think, that marketing teams everywhere should be adding to the posters of all of their bad movies.

You paint, too? Christ, Teague, is there anything you don't do?

12

(3 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Zarban wrote:

Not only does that image look great, but if I recall correctly that scene is Kane applauding what is actually a pretty crummy performance by his mistress....  lol

That's why I find it funny when people use it to applaud things they like.

13

(449 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Trailer for グスコーブドリの伝記 -- Guskô Budori no Denki -- "The Life Of Gusko Budori"
Comes out in Japan on July 7. I just randomly stumbled onto it today. It is a sequel to this:


Night On The Galactic Railroad.

There's probably no one here who gives a shit, but despite it's insanity and pro-christian themes, I fucking love the movie "Night on the Galactic Railroad" and this is apparently a sequel to that. Based on the writing of Kenji Miyazawa. I am looking forward to this, and I hope it has the same vibe and tone as the first film. The trailer looks promising. However, the character has a different name in the new one, so maybe they just decided to use the same character designs or something? Hell if I know. Looks interesting to me, at least.

14

(19 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Budget was 45,000 Euros, which I believe roughly estimates to about $6 Million.

I decided to try making one of them there charts for Chris Nolan, cause all of his films are very highly rated, but not many of them seem to be well known outside of 'film people' circles.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1927416/Chris%20Nolan.jpg

As you can see, The Dark Knight is clearly the only film he's made that's made the correct amount of money. The rest of those bars don't come anywhere near the line.

16

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I've thought about writing up an article or something that would help people to pinpoint their ideal P&P RPG based on what sort of things they're interested in. D&D is great to get your feet wet, but there are games out there that cater to specific personalities. I used to know some people who were into VtM so I tagged along to one of their sessions and it nearly killed my soul. And then there are games like Rifts that appeal to people who love math and collecting dice.

I've never heard of Cyberpunk 2020, tho I surely bumped into it at some point while browsing in shops for dice/cards/books/figures/whatever. I don't have a store anywhere near me where people can game up.

17

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic)

And who'd wanna play games on their phone, anyway?

18

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I remember having a similar overwhelming joy wash over me when I read an article about a studio that was working on a RIFTS turn-based strategy RPG that they described as a combination of X-Com and FF Tactics (in the article, not the guys making it...). They had screen shots that looked awesomely like a retro throw-back to those older isometric games and they listed off a bunch of the available races and professions and how some of the skills and combat would work. It sounded AMAZING.

And then I saw that it was only going to be released exclusively on the N-Gage. I actually considered buying an N-Gage just so I could get that game.

19

(64 replies, posted in Off Topic)

That shelving system looks awesome.

20

(1,649 replies, posted in Off Topic)

21

(7 replies, posted in Off Topic)

You want her mom to die just so your movie will be more entertaining?

YOU MONSTER!

A lot of old stories were about a character who lost one or both parents or some siblings. Back when the stories were new, odds were good that one of your parents would die before you were grown. Today it's not so common. I'm surprised there's not more divorce or neglect in modern stories for kids. There should be. I think a lot of the early 80's movies for kids helped me to realize that it was normal for families to always be arguing about stupid shit. How many kids out there act crazy and throw over the top fits because their reality doesn't match the bullshit idealized families they see on TV and in movies? There's clearly more to it than that, but I bet it's not helping much.

22

(64 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I know what to get Snail and Jimmy for christmas.

23

(64 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Snail. You have five (SIX!?) copies of Titanic. I'm assuming that several of those are either documentaries or non-Cameron movies. I think at least two of them are Cameron's, tho.

You're interested in the Titanic a bit, yeah?

24

(64 replies, posted in Off Topic)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1927416/DVD%20Collection.jpg

I have more bluray downstairs. My movies shelves are a mess. I need to re-organize them by genre or director or something. Kinda glad this thread popped up, cause it helped me discover that my DSLR doesn't want to power on. Either my battery is fucked or my camera is fucked. Glad it wasn't right before something important happened where I would really need a camera. (edit: NM, it was the charger. Good. Those are cheap.)

25

(19 replies, posted in Off Topic)

otero wrote:

never was a fan of the original, and im trying to watch it all in order... but it still feels like a naruto clone to me. Not that thats a bad thing, but its a very narrow appeal.

I kinda felt the same way when I started watching it, but season two is pretty consistently great. I started the series by watching a couple episodes every day on netflix, but about 5 or 6 episodes into the second season I was like "Wow...  this is a fucking kid's show?" and pretty much watched the rest of the series in one weekend. The guys writing it obviously sat down and said "OK, we're gonna do one season in a really typical way where we set up heroes, set up the villains and set up the motivations and everything, then in season two we're gonna go through and tear all of that down by having our heroes and villains both walking around in a moral gray area where they question their goals."

It works really well, and a few of the season 2 episodes are probably some of the best kid's cartoon series episodes I've ever seen. The character arcs from the first to last season are pretty great. Every character has undergone some fundamental change in their worldview by the end, some very drastically, and it all makes sense and feels believable for that character.

Which is my only real problem with this one thus far. The most interesting character in this series right now is Asami Sato just due to the shit she has to deal with and the fact that at the end of the series, her issues are the only ones that have been left undealt with. Her world at the end of the series is totally different than it was at the beginning.

The rest of the characters are gonna have some awkward moments at cocktail parties when the conversation heads into politics and current events. Asami, meanwhile, is gonna be sitting in the corner crying and cutting herself.