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The Devil's Backbone - 7.5/10

I really liked this film. Unsurprisingly, a lot young people who loved Pan's Labyrinth found this film "boring" and "not scary". Proof that expectations color perception. How some of these same people can enjoy the unremittingly boring Paranormal Activity movies boggles my mind. Apparently extended shots of empty rooms is more entertaining than a well-paced drama about loneliness and abandonment. And jump scares are cooler than existential horror, I guess.

Les Diaboliques (1955) - 8/10

M (1931) - 8.5/10

Black Narcissus (1947) - 9/10

The Phantom of the Opera (1925) - 7.5/10

I have to say the Criterion BRD of Black Narcissus is one of the most gorgeous things ever displayed on my TV. It was almost like watching an actual Technicolor print. Beautiful beyond words.

I don't see any reason that this has to be the end. Your original intention was always to make these fan-edits for you and your family and friends, and Disney can never prevent you from doing that. You've been kind enough to share the Revisited saga with all of us, and because of that, you've become very well-known in certain circles. If push comes to shove, you can finish your edits as originally intended, for your friends and family. If they somehow end up online one day, without any warning, and with a new pseudonym attached to protect your privacy, that will be a blessing for your many fans.

But I would never let the potential threat of Disney stop you from fulfilling your passion. That would be a tragedy.

Jacob's Ladder - Deeply affected me. A beautiful, sad, and genuinely scary film. 9/10

Trick 'r Treat - A surprisingly fun and original horror anthology. A very high quality production with definite repeat value. I'm looking forward to sharing this with my friends. 7/10

Peter Jackson's "Braindead", the original uncut version.

Absolutely hilarious, and easily the Bloodiest. Movie. Ever.

8/10

Just finished Slaughterhouse-Five.

Amazing. Never wanted it to end. So it goes.

Started reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon about a woman who accidentally time travels to 18th century Scotland.

My girlfriend recommended it, it's one of her favorites, but so far I'm not into it all that much. She hated - couldn't even finish - one of my all-time favorites (John Crowley's Little, Big), so maybe I'm disliking it out of spite.

Davnes007 said:

FanFiltration said:

Pic fail? Or, is it just me?

No, I can't see it either. It's a facebook image, and they don't usually show up with hotlinking.

hrgiger said:

 

to all:  I do find it hilarious though, that when in the previous 12,000 pages every little shadow and glow and "cumulo-nimbus or cirrus?" has been picked over beyond belief yet this glaring slug puppet suspension of disbelief killer has people all nostalgic.  O_o?

You're right, I didn't mean to jump all over your post like it was blasphemy or something. :D

It's a fair point you make, I guess I think the difference is the idea of completely replacing the slug would remove an original - and beloved - element, and any time adywan has made such a decision (such as with removing the AT-ST from the Hoth battle), people are going to get emotional about it. I'm sure there is someone who's emotionally attached to the original clouds and buildings on Bespin, lol, in my case it's the creatures. I just LOVE hand-made creature effects. I bemoan the loss of so much great latex make-up and animatronic effects in film in exchange for shiny computer imagery (I don't hate all CGI, I just think it's used too much and often too poorly). Watto, from the Phantom Menace, comes to mind as a creature that could've been so much better (dialogue and racially-insensitive performance aside) had he been a practical puppet.

Maybe some dust and debris flying up out of the lip of the crater where the slug's underbelly rubs against it would help sell the shot more.

hrgiger said:

please someone tell me that the 'space slug glove parachute pants arm puppet' is going to be fixed eventually.  once you look away from the falcon and look at the crater's edge and the fabric rippling over it, it becomes so obvious it is a poorly realized puppet and you can never look at it the same way again!

There's no way to fix it without replacing it with CGI, and I'm totally against adywan doing that. The fact is, it's a movie from the 70s, and I want it to kind of show. I don't want it to look like a movie from 2012. I much prefer the handmade feel of the original trilogy. It gives character, and having a space slug puppet come out of the hole is A LOT more charming to me than a computer-generated image.

I can look at that scene and imagine it as a giant space slug, because I have a good imagination, and I can look at it and be amazed that these young guys could achieve something so grand and exciting with just puppets and models. I think those that need everything to look 100% believable and realistic are forgetting that even CGI ages over time. You're just replacing one aged technology with another.

The puppet is fine the way it is. It's loose skin rippling over the edge of the crater, not fabric. ;-)

^ I had no idea because the picture is so small but then I realized you can click on it to make it bigger and then it's easy. Michelle Pfeiffer.

fgqb#19nyj said:

 

You don't say.

Mrebo said:

Wait...this is real?

Casting is under way for “A Christmas Story Too” — not the FunnyOrDie.com comedy video, but a genuine feature film follow-up to the beloved classic, to be directed by Brian Levant (“Beethoven,” “Are We There Yet?” “Jingle All the Way,” etc.). They’re looking for Ralphie, now a teenager (legal 18 to play 16), Dad, now fiftysomething; fortysomething Mom, plus brother Randy (now 11) and teen pals including Schwartz.  The story will again focus on Ralphie yearning for a special Christmas present, but this time it’s a 1938 Hupmobile Skyline convertible.  Sweet!  Unfortunately, he takes one on a test drive and manages to ruin the convertible top, leading to a mad scramble to try to make enough money to repair the roof.

http://becksmithhollywood.com/?p=5162

If opinions are like assholes, then how does DuracellEnergizer take a shit? :)

TV's Frink said:

I agree with you, I was just pointing out that you misstated what he actually said.

Fixed.

Right. That's the ultimate form of thread crapping, don't you think? I'm indifferent to Vietnamese romantic comedies, I don't go onto IMDb, look them up, and post in the threads "I don't care about this one way or the other." It's a silly behavior, I genuinely don't understand it! It like, "Hey, everybody, look at me not caring! My opinion is that I don't have one." LOL

Yep. Never seen Death Valley. Now I want to.

I thought Charles Grodin was terrible in My Summer Story. He's just not likeable at all. Darren McGavin was so perfect.

The thing that makes A Christmas Story so good that the others lack is the numerous subplots incorporated from other Shepard stories. They combined at least 15 short stories to make the movie, packing it with narrative interest and humor. Most films have 1 or 2 subplots aside from the main plot, A Christmas Story has 11. And every story is very craftily set up and then resolved, all of them intertwining and in some cases combined where they were wholly separate in the book. It's a very tight script and an excellent example for any writer in how to juggle numerous plot threads. If this sequel is an original script, I doubt it will attempt to juggle so many stories.

SilverWook said:

Bob Clark did make an "official" sequel in the 90's.

 

It was retitled "My Summer Story" on home video. Obviously all the parts were recast because of the passage of time, but it did have Jean Shepard's narration.

Your images aren't showing up, SilverWook.

Several movies, TV and theatrical, were made based on Jean Shepard's stories and star the Parker family. There's:

• A Christmas Story
• My Summer Story
• Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss
• The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters
• The Phantom of the Open Hearth
  
  

I've read his book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, from which most of these movies took their stories. It's really good, and A Christmas Story perfectly captures Shepard's tone.

I'm curious if A Christmas Story 2 is based on a Jean Shepard story, or is an original script.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I have no strong feelings - positive or negative - for the original, so colour me indifferent.

I'm just curious, why do people do this? I see it in pretty much every thread on the internet. Someone posts a thread about something, a movie, an album, a game, and someone comes in and goes, "I don't like this" or "I don't care," and then leaves. It's called thread crapping. I'm geuinely curious about this impulse, because I don't have it. It's like I want to know what it's like to be a monkey or an autistic person. I want to know what it's like to be someone who thread craps! What drives you?  :-)

I'm currently playing the fan translation of Mother, the 1989 Japan-only precursor to the beloved SNES RPG Earthbound (titled "Mother 2" in Japan). Absolutely loving it. It's basically a Dragon Quest clone, but set in the present, and extremely charming and funny, as it was written by a well-known Japanese author, Shigesato Itoi.

If you don't know, Earthbound has one of the most loyal fanbases of any game ever released in America, partly because the game is so wonderful, and partly because American fans have been so horribly shafted by Nintendo of America over the years in trying to get the two other games in the series localized. It's the kind of thing I think a lot of originaltrilogy.com folks could relate to. There's a hard-luck story, a community coming together to raise funds to promote the games in the States in the hope of release, getting so tantalizingly close more than once only to have the rug yanked out at the last minute, and an if-they-won't-do-it-we-will spirit in the community that I just love. Fans even produced a player's guide for Mother 3 that is absolutely gorgeous. This is serious devotion for a game that totally deserves it.

Has anyone else here played Earthbound or any of the other Mother games? If you emulate on your PC or Nintendo DS, I highly urge you to give the series a try.

fgqb#19nyj said:

These are very ambitious projects, taking on these films. I'll give him that. But can he get all six done in the next ten years or so?

I wish he did the Prequels first, because if anything needs to be fixed, it's those films.

Couldn't disagree more. Thank god he did the OT first. Those are the only ones I really care about.

Plus, adywan will need all the skills he's learning working on OT:Revisited if he has any hope of transforming the prequels into good films.

Warbler said:

when was that picture of McKayla taken?  What was she actually unimpressed about?

She was angry at herself for not winning the gold, and the picture was taken when she was awarded the silver. I thought it was pretty childish of her, as do a lot of people, hence the meme showing her being unimpressed by amazing things.

Tobar said:

That was both interesting and informative though I could have done without the expletive heavy Plinkett with a dash of Peter Griffin impersonation. =P

That's been egoraptor's style for years now. Nothing new, he was doing it long before Plinkett. I'm convinced he uses "fuck" so much because his fans think of it as almost a trademark.

compyislife said:

It was a bit random, but I made good points.

The humor is a little random because that's his whole schtick, but I think the actual argument he makes is anything but. There's a pretty clear point being made and he supports it well.

By the way, as a professional designer, I can't resist pointing out that the Space Jam website is one of the worst site designs of all time, lol. But at least it's not covered in social networking links and an obnoxious loading screen, both of which are equally frustrating to me.

none said:

^ I'm going to stick with the drugged and held at gun point, point of view.

A much better theory. :-D

SpilkaBilka said:

 

Wow, how did they get Tim Heidecker?

 

Maybe he's a fan of Plinkett or Half In The Bag?

compyislife said:

 Heh, it's funny how the pictures spoof too much sharing on facebook, and yet the site hosting them is covered in 'like' and 'share' buttons... xD

I don't think the article is questioning sharing and liking in the context of websites, but in the middle of a game it pulls you out and breaks the feeling of immersion. What it's really picking on is hand-holding tutorials by modern games.

This is one of the best rants/analyses I've ever seen about what is wrong with modern games and so right about classic games, and it perfectly ties in with georgec's link. If you're a retro gamer, you have to check it out:

http://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM