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Post by simon darkshade on Feb 14, 2024 14:18:14 GMT
1972's The Night Stalker is a television movie that stars Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak, a grizzled and jaded reporter in Las Vegas. A series of strange murders sees bodies show up drained of blood, hospital blood banks robbed and the suspect escaping multiple point blank gun shots, leading Kolchak to the correct assumption that they are dealing with a vampire. After dealing with the vampire problem, he is run out of town to kill the story in order to protect the reputation of the tourist city; a nice twist. A little glimpse into a different world and a well made horro story to boot, it is available for free on YouTube.
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Post by simon darkshade on Feb 23, 2024 8:48:06 GMT
Deep Impact is a 1998 science fiction/disaster film about a comet hitting Earth. Often overshadowed by the schmaltzier and lesser quality ‘Armageddon’ from the same year for some reason (possibly the lighter tone and trendier cast), it is superior in script, tone, style, drama, sacrifice and acting. It is the more realistic and human of the two pictures, partially because it divides its fire between the astronaut/cosmonaut spacecraft crew and viewpoint characters on the ground in the form of the 16 year old high school student who was joint discoverer of the comet (Elijah Wood) and his girlfriend (Lelee Sobieski) and their families; and the MSNBC reporter who uncovers the initial government cover up of counter-comet (codenamed ELE for Extinction Level Event), played by Tea Leoni. Decent supporting roles are played by Maximilian Schell and Morgan Freeman as POTUS; the one thing that unites every character is that they are played serious and straight, with no need to inject comic relief or cartoon heroism. There are no corny one liners, no flashy sequences and a bittersweet ending. It is the thinking man’s disaster picture and highly recommended. chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2023/5/19/23680784/deep-impact-armageddon-1998-comet-movies-25-years-anniversary#www.salon.com/2023/05/06/deep-impact-25-year-retrospective-science/# |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Feb 23, 2024 11:48:53 GMT
Deep Impact is a 1998 science fiction/disaster film about a comet hitting Earth. Often overshadowed by the schmaltzier and lesser quality ‘Armageddon’ from the same year for some reason (possibly the lighter tone and trendier cast), it is superior in script, tone, style, drama, sacrifice and acting. It is the more realistic and human of the two pictures, partially because it divides its fire between the astronaut/cosmonaut spacecraft crew and viewpoint characters on the ground in the form of the 16 year old high school student who was joint discoverer of the comet (Elijah Wood) and his girlfriend (Lelee Sobieski) and their families; and the MSNBC reporter who uncovers the initial government cover up of counter-comet (codenamed ELE for Extinction Level Event), played by Tea Leoni. Decent supporting roles are played by Maximilian Schell and Morgan Freeman as POTUS; the one thing that unites every character is that they are played serious and straight, with no need to inject comic relief or cartoon heroism. There are no corny one liners, no flashy sequences and a bittersweet ending. It is the thinking man’s disaster picture and highly recommended. chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2023/5/19/23680784/deep-impact-armageddon-1998-comet-movies-25-years-anniversary#www.salon.com/2023/05/06/deep-impact-25-year-retrospective-science/#
Agree. While Armageddon is good for a cheap thrill Deep Impact is a lot more realistic. It doesn't look into the longer term impacts - which I doubt any film would do because of the time limitations - but displays the actual nature of such a disaster. I especially like the accidental way the reporter actually reveals the crisis. Never actually realised who the young student was but then that was before he appeared in Jackson's films.
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Post by lordroel on Feb 23, 2024 12:15:52 GMT
Deep Impact is a 1998 science fiction/disaster film about a comet hitting Earth. Often overshadowed by the schmaltzier and lesser quality ‘Armageddon’ from the same year for some reason (possibly the lighter tone and trendier cast), it is superior in script, tone, style, drama, sacrifice and acting. It is the more realistic and human of the two pictures, partially because it divides its fire between the astronaut/cosmonaut spacecraft crew and viewpoint characters on the ground in the form of the 16 year old high school student who was joint discoverer of the comet (Elijah Wood) and his girlfriend (Lelee Sobieski) and their families; and the MSNBC reporter who uncovers the initial government cover up of counter-comet (codenamed ELE for Extinction Level Event), played by Tea Leoni. Decent supporting roles are played by Maximilian Schell and Morgan Freeman as POTUS; the one thing that unites every character is that they are played serious and straight, with no need to inject comic relief or cartoon heroism. There are no corny one liners, no flashy sequences and a bittersweet ending. It is the thinking man’s disaster picture and highly recommended. chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2023/5/19/23680784/deep-impact-armageddon-1998-comet-movies-25-years-anniversary#www.salon.com/2023/05/06/deep-impact-25-year-retrospective-science/# Agree. While Armageddon is good for a cheap thrill Deep Impact is a lot more realistic. It doesn't look into the longer term impacts - which I doubt any film would do because of the time limitations - but displays the actual nature of such a disaster. I especially like the accidental way the reporter actually reveals the crisis. Never actually realised who the young student was but then that was before he appeared in Jackson's films.
When NASA uses the 1998 film Armageddon as a training tool for management trainees it must be a good movie, especially if you can find 168 errors. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Feb 23, 2024 13:33:26 GMT
Well, that depends on the meaning of the word “good”.  Steve, It would be very interesting to see *after* the event and the process of recovery, but Hollywood eschews those type of stories. Elijah Wood was one of the best rated child/teen actors of his generation in the 1990s pre LOTR, having carried on when Culkin retired and clearly eclipsing him in terms of more serious roles. |
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Post by lordroel on Feb 23, 2024 13:45:31 GMT
It would be very interesting to see *after* the event and the process of recovery, but Hollywood eschews those type of stories. Elijah Wood was one of the best rated child/teen actors of his generation in the 1990s pre LOTR, having carried on when Culkin retired and clearly eclipsing him in terms of more serious roles. I can assume much of the East Coast of the United States (as far as the Ohio River Valley) is wiped out, also Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, France and Africa will be hit hard. |
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Post by American hist on Feb 23, 2024 16:46:33 GMT
I am watching the 1930 W Griffin film Lincoln which has sound. I am watching this while it is not word to word accurate.At least until where I’ve reached the latest part it seems as a good educational video. Scholars disagree about ane Rutledge. However it is probable she was Abraham Lincoln’s first sweetheart. It makes me wonder what would’ve happened had an Rutledge Maried Lincoln
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Post by stevep on Feb 23, 2024 22:59:28 GMT
It would be very interesting to see *after* the event and the process of recovery, but Hollywood eschews those type of stories. Elijah Wood was one of the best rated child/teen actors of his generation in the 1990s pre LOTR, having carried on when Culkin retired and clearly eclipsing him in terms of more serious roles. I can assume much of the East Coast of the United States (as far as the Ohio River Valley) is wiped out, also Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, France and Africa will be hit hard.
Haven't see it for a while but probably since the US east coast was hit hard I would expect the west coast of Europe was also which would be very bad for both our countries.  Can't remember if there were major hits elsewhere in the world either on land or sea. Mind you with a US based film they probably wouldn't get as much attention. |
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Post by stevep on Mar 9, 2024 14:40:28 GMT
Here about this earlier and couldn't resist mentioning it. With the Oscars coming up we shouldn't forget a far more important film awards ceremony, namely the Razzie Awards.  This year's top film was a spoof of Winny the Pooh, "Winne the Pooh Blood and Honey" where he and Piglet are serial killers which won 5 of the 10 awards. Not so much for the topic as for the appalling implementation. It missed out on worst actor and worst actress.
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Post by American hist on Mar 9, 2024 15:28:54 GMT
Cabrini is such a good movie ,my father use to teach there once upon a time. I love the film it is a accurate depiction of new york city
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Post by simon darkshade on Mar 11, 2024 14:15:10 GMT
Oppenheimer capped off an impressive performance with Best Picture. A deserved win and one I thought would happen from the moment it ended at the cinema.
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Post by simon darkshade on May 14, 2024 12:33:56 GMT
I finally got around to watching Dune 2 the other night (at home, rather than at the cinema).
My impression: A decent enough picture, but not quite as good as the first one as a stand-alone piece. The plot dragged at times without a firm sense of what was going on, and Timothee Chalamet didn't quite have the chops to carry off Muad'Dib as well as he did young Paul Atreides.
The music mainly dwelt in the background and didn't quite rise to the occasion in certain set pieces; this was in striking contrast to 1984's Dune soundtrack by Toto and Brian Eno, which complemented the cheesy science fiction with gloriously cheesy music very well indeed. This was a well shot picture, and the small screen probably didn't do full justice to the scope of the desert vistas, so this was an area where Villeneuve carried on successfully from 2021's Part 1.
In terms of acting and characters, this one was noticeably diminished from Part 1. This was partly a function of so many characters being killed off in the first picture, but also of the choices of who would get screen time and to what extent. Austin Butler was praised as Fey Ratha, but when the chief character motivation and development has to be spelled out by someone else, with no other hints, it shows bad writing; ultimately, Sting's role in 1984 probably pips him on account of more meaningful screen time. As said above, Chalamet didn't quite convince in the main role, nor was he given the opportunity to actually show some of the character's prescience; instead, we merely got the Fremen talk about it, which made for a poor substitute. This played into a larger problem of significant action or decisions taking place off screen; what we got instead was protracted PG cuddling scenes between Chalamet and Zendaya Coleman. Dune 2 never quite made its mind up what type of film it was.
Hollywood loves their little one on one Flynning sword and knife fights, and got plenty of scope for it here. There was also the awful cliche of two armies running at each other and degenerating into a confused series of 'cool' one on one battles. This honestly shows up too often to be coincidental and reduced the scope of any clash here to Part #3642 of Silly Melee Cliches.
This does come across as a bit more critical than I intended at the start, but Dune 2 is ultimately a satisfactory picture. I'd grade it somewhere around the low B range, which is a drop from the 2021 flick, which was a solid A. I'd recommend it in a general sense and as a visual spectacle, but Villeneuve's Dune adaption for me is rather asymptotic and I still lean towards Lynch's 1984 effort (albeit the Spicediver Cut).
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Post by lordroel on Jul 27, 2024 18:00:27 GMT
Why nobody told me there was a British Godzilla.
Gorgo 1961 | Horror-, sciencefictionfilm
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 28, 2024 7:32:31 GMT
A very nice picture, if of expected quality for a 1961 British horror/sci fi offering. As I like that combination of genre and time, it is enjoyable.
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575
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Post by 575 on Jul 28, 2024 8:09:27 GMT
Why nobody told me there was a British Godzilla. Gorgo 1961 | Horror-, sciencefictionfilmIn that day and age everybody had a monstermovie/Godzilla - Denmark entered the fray with Reptilicus which is reported to be the worst ever Danish movie (haven't watched it).
It's also airborne
There was also a US movie of the name and it seems both being produced by Sidney Pink.
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Can't remember if there were major hits elsewhere in the world either on land or sea. Mind you with a US based film they probably wouldn't get as much attention.
This year's top film was a spoof of Winny the Pooh, "Winne the Pooh Blood and Honey" where he and Piglet are serial killers which won 5 of the 10 awards. Not so much for the topic as for the appalling implementation. It missed out on worst actor and worst actress. 
