General Movie Questions (and hopefully answers)

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Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

therattle posted:

Really? That's amazing. They didn't use an interpositive/internegative? These days one can only make about 300 prints from an IN until it gets screwed, so if they were printing from the original negative for a wide release, that would do the trick.

This was the official impetus for the special editions. Well, part of it, I suppose. I saw a documentary about it that showed what the original negative looked like, and it was completely wrecked.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2008 18:10

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 11:21

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

ZenMaster posted:

Explain Bill Murray's character in Darjeeling Limited.

He was their dad, right? A ghost or a spirit? They were just carrying around his "baggage" with them until the end when they could let it go. What happened to the mother? She bailed on her poor kids TWICE.

Wait, what? Huh? Admittedly I've only seen The Darjeeling Ltd while inebriated but wasn't his character just completely unrelated and placed there only as a gag?

# ¿ Jul 21, 2008 19:48

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

I was hoping the commentary for Revolver would shed some light on things, but it really doesn't. Guy Ritchie says a lot of words that mean nothing at all and then basically says "I want people to interpret it anyway they want."

Having said that, a read of the Wikipedia article clears most things up nicely. Doesn't stop it being a bit of a mess of a film, though I can enjoy it on a mostly visual level. And I still think the final scene is brilliant.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2008 14:57

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

On the one hand, I want to see Salo because of it's pretty legendary status, and it seems well regarded. And it's being re-released by Criterion next month, so that helps. But on the other hand it sounds pretty drat disturbing and horrible and I'm not exactly going to enjoy it.

Those that have seen it, how did it make you feel? Are you glad to have seen it? Should I see it? I'm a wuss.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2008 21:13

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Thanks. I wanted to try some Pasolini but don't really know much about his work, so I thought I might start with Salo. I guess I'll give it a miss, though.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2008 22:05

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

And the characters name was Bashir.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2008 14:45

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Egbert Souse posted:

Or consider how THX 1138 went from being rated G in 1971 to R in 2004 for the re-release, for nudity. And it was all present in the original cut!

Well, kind of, but kind of not. In the original when THX is watching his porn it's not really clear that he's masturbating, but in the director's cut there's this machine that comes along and pretty blatantly sucks him off.

It is a big step from G to R, but without that addition it may have scraped through with a PG-13 which isn't a huge stretch.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2009 19:52

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Nuke Goes KABOOM posted:

Also, you can't exist at the same time as you're already existing, that's why the movie made a good move in not having him hunting in the scene where he dies. Since he died and still exists (in the book) the one that was hunting can now jump around replacing the one that was shot.

I've re-read this and I really don't know what you're getting at here. His time travelling doesn't create copies of himself.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2009 13:47

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

InfiniteZero posted:

It takes a long time to complete the CGI scenes, so it actually makes perfect sense to film the live action sequences of those scenes first so they could be shipped off to whichever studio was doing the CGI as soon as possible so they could get to work on that.

I'm not sure what's weird about this at all.

Because OK FOLKS is saying they did it the opposite way; shot the non-CG scenes first.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2009 17:35

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Steve Yun posted:

When they convert films for PAL, do they speed it up 4%?

Usually. Going from 29.97fps to 25fps kind of necessitates it, and unless you pitch down the audio afterwards it's fairly noticeable.

If you read the ratings pages at the BBFC they always mentions this to explain why home video releases always seem to be shorter than their theatrical brethren.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2010 08:18

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

SaintFu posted:

Film is 24 fps.

The BBFC page is here.

NTSC is 30 fps, and I was told many years ago that the difference is made up by repeating every fifth frame. That may be totally wrong. Now that I think about it, I have no idea what that would do to the audio track.

I am a dumb and got the framerates mixed up. It's 25fps down to 24fps (approximately) which is a difference of ~4%.

Look here for an explanation of film to NTSC.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2010 14:15

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Cat People also has a pretty great score by Giorgio Moroder.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2010 10:37

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

KasioDiscoRock posted:

Weird, I really thought it was Steven King's Sleepwalkers which oddly enough also has a mother-son sex scene (if I recall correctly).

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of at first, too. The mother-son incest stuff in Sleepwalkers was pretty gross, but then the mother was Alice Krige in her sexy prime so I could see where the son was coming from.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2010 21:13

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

SubG posted:

I disagree. The main changes to the look of the xenomorph between Scott's film and Cameron's were purely functional---Cameron wanted the actors in the suits to run around more, and the suits were designed to accommodate this requirement; as far as I know there were no deliberate changes made purely for aesthetics (I'd be willing to be demonstrated wrong here; I'm just going from information remembered from interviews here).

Nah, the most noticeable change is that the heads were very prominently ridged instead of smooth. That can't be for any reason other than aesthetics.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2010 23:46

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

the Bunt posted:

What the gently caress? Eddie Adams?

What? Eddie Adams -> Dirk Diggler.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2010 09:02

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

President Anime 2008 posted:

The pitch is lowered so it sounds the same, just a tiny bit quicker.

Unfortunately this isn't even always done, so it sounds faster and higher pitched. Once you notice it in can make things seem a bit comical.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2010 13:54

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Dr_Amazing posted:

For noir movies I also recommend "DOA"

I want to report a murder.
:ohdear:

Who was murdered?
:smith:

I was.

DUN DUN DUUUUN

# ¿ Mar 2, 2010 15:27

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

kalensc posted:

So I'm sure The Prestige has been gone over several times before in previous iterations of this type of thread, but I only have three small questions, and they probably aren't the ones that I expect got asked a lot when this movie came out.

#1 - When Borden writes Tesla on the paper, he intends to lead Angier on the wild goose chase. I don't recall Borden ever noticing Angier at Tesla's failed demonstration back in London. Was this a convenience used by the writers to get Angier on the path to the machine, or are we to interpret that Borden was crafty enough to realize that Angier would sacrifice several years and untold amounts of money just because of one name on a piece of paper.

#2 - When does Cutter learn about the fact that Borden is in fact two twins posing as one person? I could see him having always known from before the movie started, but never revealing it to anyone because of the magician's code, although that would probably take a lot of suspension of disbelief on the viewers' part. Or was it only after he discovered that Caldlow=Angier, and off-screen the non-jailed twin approaches him to enlist his help in getting his daughter back?

#3 - I'm not quite sure to what degree with audience was supposed to be surprised at some of the "revelations". We know the hats and the cat got duplicated in the teleportation, so obviously Angier was as well, and once they mention the trap door and show the blind stage-hands removing the wrapped-up glass containers, it's pretty easy to deduce what's going on. But then the end reveal with the rows of Angiers is presented as somewhat of a twist; was it just supposed to be visually shocking to see dozens of dead Hugh Jackmans, or did the writers really think the audience would still be confused at this point of the movie?

#1 - Is this really a problem? From what we saw he didn't notice Angier at the demonstration, but would he have had to? He gives him the name of some dude far away (that created some fancy special effects machine for his own show), Angier (predictably) goes off to investigate.

#2 - Your second assumption is probably correct. It requires less wrangling of off-screen events in the mind of the viewer.

#3 - It seems obvious to a lot of people (including me) but if you've never seen the massive Prestige derails in this forum from days of yore you might find it hard to comprehend how many people completely misunderstand the simplest poo poo in this film.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2010 11:07

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Szmitten posted:

I've always been kinda bummed out that The Departed never shifted any of its popularity onto Infernal Affairs

Yeah, me too. They both do some things better than the other, people should really see both. IA2 was pretty good, too. I wouldn't bother with the third, though, because it has a few ideas but is ultimately... daft. Even watching the whole trilogy in chronological order, some stuff in IA3 doesn't even make a lick of sense.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2010 15:30

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

I watched Kick-rear end last night, and it got me thinking; how often do films use pieces of music from another film's score? I'm sure it must happen a decent amount, but I'm drawing a complete blank.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2010 21:53

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

SubG posted:

Every Tarantino film with a score.

Doesn't count! Too obvious!

# ¿ Apr 26, 2010 22:04

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

And where does the one in the ballroom go, when she threatens her with the gun? Hmm.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2010 09:51

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

foodfight posted:

Herzog Indian Jones adventure

Well that's just something else entirely.

# ¿ May 28, 2010 15:42

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

SkunkDuster posted:

Also, one scene in particular where the two aliens gang up on the third one to spill its blood gives some better understanding to how they are very high reasoning creatures.

Pretty extraneous after the "They cut the power" "What do you mean they cut the power? They're animals!" scene, no?

# ¿ Jun 7, 2010 14:33

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

bad movie knight posted:

Wait for it regardless. You don't know what might happen between now and then, and it's like $40+ for the DVD set.

What, really? In the UK you can get it for �10 from Amazon, and for like �5 on sale in stores. They practically give it away these days.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2010 15:39

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

mackd717 posted:

near the very end of Alien, when Ripley looks like she's home free, what is the Alien doing? It looks like it's just lying down in some pipes chillaxing.

From what we can deduce from the film, it's either just chillaxing, or it's actively trying to escape the ship that's going to blow up. Depends on how much intelligence you think it has.

But, outside of that, I'm pretty sure Ridley Scott said it's nearing the end of it's life and it's kind of just laying down to die. Buuuut I may be mistaken.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2010 11:39

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

mackd717 posted:

I suppose it may just be chillaxing, because the Aliens in .. Aliens were a few weeks old (?) at least and didn't snooze to death.

Yeah, that's the thing; since it's never made clear in the film, Cameron could just go a different way with it.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2010 11:46

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Has anyone ever seen a (French, I think?) animated film called Time Masters (or Maitres du Temps, whatevs)? I was wondering if it ever got an English release anywhere. It was obviously animated with the English voices, but as of a few years ago it had only been released in French and Russian, dubbed with English subtitles.

I wanted it so much that I ended up making my own version by taking the Russian DVD and using an old VHS recording of one of the two times it's ever been shown on TV, splicing in the English voices.

I'm not particularly optimistic, but I thought I'd ask to see if anyone knew about it. I've always loved it, the visuals were incredible (at the time?) what with being based on the art of M�bius.

vvv That's cold, man.

Akuma fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jul 14, 2010

# ¿ Jul 14, 2010 15:51

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Synnr posted:

This is going to be a bit stupid so don't yell at me. Ok so.. in Fight Club...when the hell is Nortons character talking out loud to Pitts character? I can take most of the movie up the part in the car before the crash. There, it seems like the two fellows in the back are looking at each other worryingly when Norton/Pitt are yelling at each other.

I'm trying to but I really can't understand what question you're actually asking here, because you seem to answer yourself...

# ¿ Jul 19, 2010 15:42

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

qntm posted:

What instances are there of a movie being made with the intention of retconning it in the sequel?

Plenty of movie sequels exist which expand upon events in the original, or add details that weren't there. I'm sure plenty of movie sequels exist which retroactively modify the original, too. But in the latter case, that modification comes about because the creators of the second movie decided to retcon the first. Has anybody ever made a movie which finishes with the audience thinking that the story has been resolved in a specific way, but the director has deliberately misled the audience so as to blow their minds in the sequel? Like for Film 1, the killer is caught and sent to jail, everybody is happy, the end. Film 2: it turns out he wasn't the killer at all and actually there are hidden details all the way Film 1 which prove this and this was the plan from the beginning of the production of Film 1.

The Saw films probably do this but I can't quite remember. I wouldn't be surprised if there were clues about Hoffman a movie or two before the reveal.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2010 09:33

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

X-Ray Pecs posted:

That was an intentional retcon? I always thought Darth Vader "killing" Anakin Skywalker was a metaphor for how the dark side took over Anakin.

Nah they pretty much address that with the "from a certain point of view" discussion. They knew how it sounded.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2010 13:20

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

muscles like this? posted:

What was different about the ending?

Wikipedia tells me it's implied he gets caught.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2010 13:22

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

I guess it's because he was designed to be modular. The spirit of the toys' design seems to play a big part in what they can do and how they act. Since his constituent parts can all work separately and really far apart I guess his consciousness is just... Everywhere. Or nowhere. Doesn't matter, it's probably not housed by any one piece.

Other toys have kind of had that, though. The toys that Sid mangled and put together seemed to function with transplanted heads and limbs and poo poo, buuuut more like whatever the new head was controlled the rest. From what we saw.

I don't think you're supposed to think this much about it.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 17:10

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

That's pretty horrific. They just age and fall apart and don't die until they ground up into little pieces? And if they don't they could like for thousands of years until they wear down to nothing? Not nice.

From what I can remember we've only seen two things that definitely kill them: getting blown up, and incinerated. It's pretty horrible to think that they watched one of their own kind get completely obliterated by an exploding rocket. Yet the toy in question still didn't break "character."

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 17:15

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

haveblue posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Yeah but adding the consciousness element changes things quite a bit so it's less a philosophical question and more a pragmatic one. In the end we can't know because we have too many questions. Can he use another eye? What if it was an official replacement eye made for Potato Heads? Not that we need to know.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 17:22

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

^^^ With Sid's toys one piece became dominant over the others when they were transplanted. With the Potato Heads they can exchange parts and still control them.

I don't know, the only thing not his own that we've seen him use is a new body, and all that did was be acted upon by the limbs. I was thinking more about the nature of the toys; if it's some official replacement part, is it imbued with life by virtue of being a toy (part) and activate as his when it becomes his?

We've seen the two heroes both lose limbs and lose the ability to use them until they were fixed; but would it have worked if they were new parts? What if all the stuffing in Woody's arm was replaced? Or the hand? This is the Ship of Theseus. With our Lord God Potato Head it's a whole different ballgame.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 17:32

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Fatkraken posted:

Why have I seen so many posts explaining/arguing about The Prestige? It's complicated while you're watching it, but after the ending everything is laid out in a completely unambiguous manner. Same with Inception, it all fits together. Do people just not pay attention?

It's partly that and partly people looking for some final secret twist which doesn't exist.

Like Borden's brother being a clone and not a twin.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 12:04

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

peer posted:

Actually we do not know whether the copy or the original remains in place, but it doesn't really matter. "Teleports the original to a warehouse" is still pretty dumb though. Unless you're just trying to derail this thread like all the others in which case well done

We do know which, "they are both your hats." It's like the "clone" thing in Farscape - think of it more like splitting than copying.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 14:02

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

Also, lollin' at "tiny glass tanks." I must've missed the miniaturisation part of the process.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 14:04

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 11:21

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

# ¿ Dec 13, 2010 08:58

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