I feel ya on the "lots of ideas with a disproportionately small amount of idea payoff," but I got the sense that the guys actually had a bible for the movie and manuevered a story out of it, they didn't put the whole thing on screen. *cough* Matrix sequels.

I'll bet we get payoffs for some of the ideas introduced here in "TRON 3: We should just call this TRON 2."

That said, if the movie had combined your point about misuse of time with your point about paying off just a couple more of the ideas, we would have had another candidate for the "strange perfect movie" shelf.

Matt has won the thread.

Also Brian, for his truly unprecedented restraint.

Beldar, that picture is cracking me up.

I think he's asking where he could find the pilot script, if anywhere.

I think I mentioned it a long time ago (don't remember which commentary,) and I'm certain it comes up in next-next week's Aladdin commentary.

I mentioned this documentary in some commentary, possibly in two. Hm.

Anyway, loved it.

We can easily do hover text, but you can always search for "Phantom" to find The Phantom Menace, and so on.

I'll get Holden on it.

Let me preface by saying that I speak for myself and my cohorts by describing you as some sort of weird god, to whom we are grateful and willing to tithe.

I use the HOC to check on comments and DIF-related stuff, and yeah, it's...a website with a learning curve.  Basically the site is a database with a large number of ways to sort the data it stores. The issue is that there's so much text and so many columns and graphs and lines going on that it runs together, and it takes your brain a second to start sorting it out. The homepage is a seven foot tall list of movies.

In terms of cleaning it up, I'd simplify the process for a user to find what they're looking for. (I also really hate the clouds of text in different sizes to indicate relative clickability. They're an eyesore and I never use 'em anyway.) Right now the user has access to everything at once, which would be great if there was a way to make it look less intimidating.

If it was set up so that the home page was one wide column that was just updates and blog posts, your typical news posts that summarize the past few days in commentary land, that would inject a bit more personality into the proceedings. Along the left side, links like "find a show, find a movie," simpler than the current set up, would ease the user into the workings of everything.

I'm looking for a commentary for The Phantom Menace.

*clicks "Find a Movie"*

This pulls up a page with a search bar, and below that a list of letters. I could either type in "phantom," and find The Phantom Menace next to Phantom of the Opera, or I could click "P," and look for "Phantom Menace, The."

Hey look, there's eighteen commentaries! I don't even know who to pick.

by: Sonic.Cinema
by: Film.Pigs
by: Renegade.Commentaries
by: Rifftrax
by: MMM.Commentaries
by: Adudathuda
by: Speakeasy

by: Film.Fever.Radio
by: Kore.Commentary
by: STAN.Podcast
by: IHN.Radio
by: Down.in.Front
by: Switched.on.Show

by: Cantina.Commentary
by: Red.Letter.Media • Tysto.Commentaries
by: Cantina.Commentary • Nathan.P.Butler
by: Commentary.Track.Stars
by: Clone.Cast

(Incidentally, I know Nathan Butler. Small world.)

Helpfully, these are separated into chunks for me. "Comedy" "Discussion" and "Riff." (I've added paragraph returns in the list above to illustrate as much, for example.) I'm not in the mood for an MST3k of the thing, and I've already had my share of laughs at George, so I'm gonna choose from the "discussion" sorted episodes, based on the tweet-length summaries of the shows. Hooray!

Back on the home page, clicking "find a show" brings up a list of all of the available podcasts, sorted similarly, with the same tweet-length summary.

Comedy

Down in Front

Weekly | 86 Episodes | Four industry professionals sit down informally to discuss the working parts of movies, to the great amusement of themselves.

Discussion

Film Grok

Weekly | 15 Episodes | Reasoned discussion and insight into films and the filmmaking process.

So on. (I don't know if "weekly" or "15" is right for Grok.)

That kind of thing. I guess the "tl, dr" version is - yes, I can understand someone thinking the site is confusing. It's not incomprehensible, but it's not immediately intuitive. Don't even ask me about trying to find page two of the Down in Front quotes. (Prior to you making the special DIF-only quotes page that is now linked in the "press" section of DIF.) That said, you've put a colossal amount of work into this fucking thing, and changes should be considered heavily and only put into effect if everyone agrees.

This is actually a lot of fun, I love the critic guy and he's very believable, and the grid in Gallow's movie cracks me the fuck up. It's about fifteen minutes too long, in my opinion - the easiest bits to watch were the reviewer, and the producer with the beard.

My only notes so far are related to frame composition (the interviews are all rather squared off, which makes a bit more sense as they're talking to camera and not an interviewer, but it looks a little plain) and audio. The audio is listenable, but onboard mics are always kinda crappy in small rooms like these, and the echo is unavoidable.

Buy one of these (or something similar) and an XLR cable, and then save money on the boom itself by using a paint roller and extension handle from Home Depot. For lighting, the cheapest and best solution is generally avoiding existing room light (or sunlight coming trough windows) and lighting up the dark set with chinese lanterns, which are those paper ball diffusers you can buy at Pier 1 or World Market for like ten bucks. The bigger the better, because bigger ones can hold more lights and actually light half a room on their own. Small ones are good for detail lighting.

On the whole, very enjoyable. Good stuff. It also reminds me (pleasantly) of this short film Trey made, with minor help from myself and other random folks connected to us, a couple years ago.

I looked for this thread for a long time before noticing it was a sticky. I'm retarded.

Anyway, Dorkman went through and added/clarified a bunch of entries in the glossary.