Non-threaded

Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

A place to sit back, hang out, and make monkey noises about anything you'd like.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
I was putting together a list of free Youtube movies and decided to just dump them all in a thread. I know most of you just indiscriminately steal whatever digital things, so this is mostly for my reference. I like these movies because they're mostly old and so am I, and they can be watched in terrible low quality which is great because I have no data. Also, seems like quite a few are Lionsgate movies which I generally enjoy. It's been nice slowly getting acquainted with real movies again, I've been going through my old DVDs too and trying to watch at least one a week. Being reminded of what interesting plots and character development and things look like is so refreshing after years of brainwashing by the MCU. Stargate - Mostly significant to me for the series it spawned that had MacGuyver in it and ran for like ten years (and also had inexplicable full frontal nudity in the first episode and never again, which I wasn't aware of at the time I watched it with my grandmother in the room...) but it's a pretty solid sci fi movie in its own right. Cube - I know you have all seen the murderbox movies. Not for the childrens and not the kind of thing I'm generally that into either, but this is one of those ones you have to see just so you don't feel dumb when other people talk about it. 1408 - Based on the Steven King short story and pretty good considering the history of Steven King adaptions. Hellraiser - The original and best. This one has Spanish subtitles so it's educational too! Shaolin - Sentinel has definitely seen this Bulletproof Monk - Alternate timeline where "streetwise punk" Kar is not a completely apathetic loser who will never write a story. Out of Time - Denzel Washington as a police chief who is a little too close to a double murder and has to find the real killer to prove his innocence or something. The Code - heist movie with Morgan Freeman and that's all you need to know Tracer - organized crime and parkour by actors I've never heard of. Looks fun. Frozen - "Frozen" in the sense of 'the way people die when it's very cold'. It might be fun to trick an eight year old into watching it anyway. Frailty - Spoilers: Bill Paxton dies again Southern Comfort - The worst National Guard squad that ever existed manages to turn a visit to Louisiana into a remake of Deliverance Night of the Living Dead - the one that started it all Dawn of the Dead - the sequel to the one that started it all The Hound of the Baskervilles - Nice classic Sherlock movie from before it was all about autism and homoeroticism West Side Story - genuinely don't know how tf this is free, still one of the best musicals ever made, even if it bugs me ever since I realized that literally everything that goes wrong is the girl's fault. Earth Girls Are Easy a very very early Jeff Goldblum and Jim Carrey in the same stupid movie. So cheesy and bad it loops around to good. Lone Wolf McQuade - obligatory Chuck Norris movie. And yes, there are others. The Alamo - produced, directed and starred in by ALPHA CHAD JOHN WAYNE. 100% historically accurate!!!!! The Magnificent Seven - This is a pretty iconic Western, no idea why Youtube isn't milking it for money like it is with all the other good ones. Return to Me - Agent Mulder dates his dead wife's heart, a romance. I Walk the Line - 1970 movie about a sheriff being a slut, not the Johnny Cash story In the Heat of the Night - Man absolutely no one would be able to hate black people if they were all as classy as Sidney Poitier With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story Freddie Mercury: The King of Queen Emperor Tommy Lee Jones makes some nerd figure out whether to charge the Japanese emperor with war crimes, it's not a WWII movie so don't go in expecting one. A Bridge Too Far - this is a WWII movie The Man in the Iron Mask - Leonardo DiCaprio is a very pretty man and now there's two of him The Mission - Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro try to save some South Americans from the Portugeuse. This has one of my favorite pieces from Ennio Morricone as part of the soundtrack. Their Eyes Were Watching God - absolutely terrible video quality but this is a rare actually pretty good movie adaption of a book a lot of people had to read in school. Princess Ka'iulani - The life of the woman who would've been queen of Hawaii if it hadn't been made into a state. FOR THE KIDZ: The Secret of Roan Inish Angels in the Outfield Agent Cody Banks Agent Cody Banks Again, For Some Reason They Made Another One Home Alone Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Well anyway maybe there's something in here that will interest a few of you after I finish banning everyone from the Discord.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

“Dust” on youtube has some pretty good Sci-Fi short films.

For a taste try these:

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

I'm weird, but I liked The Hunter.

Everyone loves Bruised Lee: Fists of Fury.

And this has a 99% positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes:

I Am Not Your Negro.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Shouldn't you be writing?

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Some old war movies I enjoyed and found on youtube lately:

Zulu (1964) and its sequel, Zulu Dawn (1979)

The name basically says it all.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Well AKCHULY the events in Zulu Dawn happened before the events in Zulu, so it's a prequel.

And Zulu is the superior film since the Brits put down the savages in that one. 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
I enjoyed the Zulu movie more as well, the pacing was way better and I loved the desperate last stand.

But Zulu Dawn had the better battle exhibit where I went 'holy shit' in ways modern CGI never made me. One of the best 30 minutes of cinema, right there.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago
Speaking of battle exhibits, I recently found this one movie that's available only on youtube, Mihai Viteazul and its sequel. Both of them feature stunning pike and shot battles with seemingly half of the communist Romanian army mass enlisted as extras. Seriously, the shots outsize the CGI trainwreck of Hobbit's 5 armies, but with actual humans and actual depth.
The sequel seems more like a part 2 in a cinema experience with just a short bathroom break inbetween and goes further in-depth to the boundless depths a Habsburg is capable of deceit without losing the heart of the first.

Also here's the ever golden Lawrence of Arabia, for another solid 4 hour sit. That's a classic.

This is also totally not a ploy to necro the thread and get others to post more movie recommendations.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Another gem more people who are into historical and war stuff:

Napoleon (2002)

The name basically says it all. It's an biographic movieseries of his life, from the director to his eventual downfall. It also takes about 6 hours to fully watch.

For any Americans without VPN out there, or if the links is regionlocked elsewhere in the world:

Here's another channel who cut it up into 4 parts. Appearantly it's been cut and edited to better suit High School edutainment purposes, but the start starts at the start, and the end ends at the end. Take that as you will.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
It's not region locked.

Thank goodness, going by everyone we've ever banned, none these people even know what a VPN is.

Anyway, looks pretty cool, I'll try and remember to check it out I some distant future when I gene six hours to watch a movie.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Obligatory cheesy 80's horror/comedy movie. Actually made baby Tim cry.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a beautiful movie. The scene when the clowns need to chase a teenage girl who's just escaped from their spaceship so they fashion a balloon animal blood hound to pick up her scent... priceless.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

I don't usually watch movies on youtube, or much at all anymore I suppose, but here are a few of the ones I've liked. Unfortunately, "Enemy Mine" got removed it looks like. It's on both Hulu and Prime I think, for those who have those.

Slice of Life - A short cyberpunk film, only 25min or so. Some crazy good work with miniature models.

A Hazard of Hearts - Helena Bonham Carter plays the sanest person in it, so it's worth watching just for that novelty. It's all together in one part here, but the video quality looks lower. [I got roped into watching this but it's actually pretty entertaining.]

Charade - A fun Audrey Hepburn mystery/comedy caper. 

Family Friendly: Five Little Peppers and how they Grew

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

I've been on a 70s and 80s binge, and I've been picking through the best Scorsese movies from that time. Highly recommend everyone watch Taxi Driver, because the main character would be a CYS lurker if he lived forty years later 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Damn. I read the Wikipedia summary, and he does. Kek

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

I actually haven't seen Shaolin because it's a little too new for my general repetoire, but now I have something to look forward to and definitely not procrastinate with. Anyway, here's a few of my own that I've picked up over the years.

Martial Arts Movies:

The Mystery of Chessboxing If you ever wondered where notorious Wu Tang Clan rapper Ghostface Killah got his name- Here you go. Hear the brutal tale of the last surviving general of the Old Regime, taking brutal bloody revenge against confused and terrified kung fu masters who cannot compete with his skill. The Ghost-Faced Killer claims revenge against his retired colleagues one by one, and he would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for some snotnosed 30 year old man playing a teenager and his crazy old man teacher. Cameo appearance by the actor who plays Beggar So in the first Drunken Master movie, and also the "5 deadly Elements Style" that gets referenced in nearly everything.

Six String Samurai If you ever wanted to see a katana-wielding Buddy Holly eviscerate a bowling team of hitmen in an early 60s rock/counterculture interpretation of the post apocalypse, now's your time to be grateful that we don't live in a world where that hasn't been done.

Hard Boiled chances are, if you haven't seen this movie, and you're anything like I was before I saw this movie, you thought that gun fight scenes were boring and stupid. Then I saw this movie, and realized I had only ever seen bad Arnold Schwarzenegger gun fight scenes before. Take a look at the archetypal work of John Woo, a man who singlehandedly inspired The Matrix and Sleeping Dogs... Okay I guess a lot of things inspired Sleeping Dogs, but y'know, the gun police parts.

By the Sword a lesser-known but very wholesome fencing movie that kinda takes the martial arts archetypes of the guy driven by mastery and killing and puts a sensible, modern twist on them. It's sort of the reverse of Karate Kid, following the journey of a teacher rather than the student, and the last fight scene is just an excellent capsule of everything the entire movie was and was building up to. It was the story in and of itself.

Riki Oh- Ah wait, all the movie versions were taken down from youtube and now only the vastly inferior anime movie still yet exists. This is a sad time we live in, ladies and gentlemen. A sad time indeed. You do not know what you missed. I hope at least one of you watched the last hundred times I shamelessly shilled it.

Kung Fu Chefs it's exactly what it sounds like.

ARENA (1989) a movie about interspecies boxing in a sci-fi galaxy that's just as densely populated with intelligent life (that also wants to punch you in the face) as Star Wars, but even Mos Eisley has nothing on the seedy vegas atmosphere of this intergalactic space station... Eugh that really sounds like something a 'geek culture' podcaster would say, somebody please choke me to death. Just, look, honestly I've never seen such dense and elegant worldbuilding in a movie that could still be seen for free on youtube than in this film. And if that's up your alley, then watch this.

Good Ol' Family Films:

Dirty Work Norm Macdonald's most Norm Macdonald production. Features Chris Farley and that one guy who was on SNL for five minutes that I randomly see in everything these days specifically. He looks like his name is Troy. Also features probably the best joke about a particular favorite joke topic of ours ever put to the silver screen, but I don't want to name what it is because it will spoil the joke a little bit.

Brannigan John Wayne plays Dirty Harry. In fabulous England!

Krull Remember when I said I've never seen so much worldbuilding in a budget movie that's still underground enough to still be shown on youtube for free without also being basically owned by youtube? Yeah I lied that's also this movie. Enjoy the wild and wacky medieval sci fi of the 80s, with all the corny story beats to be expected from an 80s fantasy movie that plays everything completely straight. The anticlimactic ending doubles back on itself and becomes hilarious, and Liam Neeson just so happens to be a noticeable extra.

Trouble Man details the exploits of a black-belt private investigator who keeps his neighborhood clean and doesn't take shit from anybody. When you have trouble, you come to this man. Nothing can stop Trouble Man- Not even a scheming drug ring organized by whitey to siphon money out of underprivileged neighborhoods.

Slaughter's Big Ripoff The sequel to Slaughter, a name you might recognize from basically any interview Quentin Tarrantino has ever given. It's about the baddest cat that's ever lived, and if that doesn't clue you in to what's happening here, the movie opens with an attempt on Slaughter's life as an assassin shoots up his afternoon brunch in a fucking WWI Biplane. Naturally, Slaughter travels all over california kicking ass to get to the bottom of this mystery, and there's a sequence where he basically goes full Rambo on the Italian Mafia. Yeah, it sure is a ripoff. A ripoff that they let you watch this movie for free, that is.

Waterloo I don't have a lot to say about it because I'm not very cerebral right now, it's just a good movie about a complicated dude during a deeply interesting period of history, and a lot of shit explodes at the end.

Spooky moovies:

CAPTAIN KRONOS A spooky vampire movie from the 70s. This was a late Hammer Film, and it was dipping its toes into the pulpy action/whodunnit side of things. For whatever reason, it never took off. Possibly because it was still slow-paced like a normal hammer film, despite the premise being a little too cheesy for that pacing to create tension and drama. However the cheesiness makes it one of the more enjoyable Hammer Films in general and has embedded itself so far in my brain that I randomly and autistically reference it in everything I ever write with vampires in it. Go ahead and watch, you'll see what I did pretty quickly.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes when somebody asks you about 1970s horror movies, what do you think about? Are they magical and mysterious like Suspiria or the Exorcist? Lower budget exploitation works like The Hills have Eyes? Are they progressive horror tales from the newly formed African American voices of cinema, like Ganja and Hess or... Uh... Blacula? Do Leatherface, Micheal Meyers, and H.R. Giger's Xenomorphs come to mind? Do you think of Vampyros Lesbos? Well if you didn't even stop to think for one goddamn second about a serial-killing mastermind who zaps people to death with an actual freezeray, fills airplane cockpits with rats, and spends nights playing the double organ with a full band of of ambiguously living humanoid automatons, then you're an uncultured swine in need of some reccommended watching, buddy. And also if fucking Vampyros Lesbos is the first thing that comes to mind when somebody asks you about 70s horror movies, stop it, get some help.

Vampire Hunter D. Look, I know it's a weeb thing, just bear with me! I know it opens with a girl in a ridiculously short skirt making squeaky noises as she runs away from a monster- No it isn't porn, it's just japanese. Look man, it was the 80s, this sort of thing was very new to Japan. Don't lose faith in me yet! Are you still here? Okay good. So it's a post-apocalypse story about a badass vampire-slaying vampire in a post-apocalyptic gothic-sci-fi world where people rely on laser forcefields to protect them from the creatures of the night that crawl up out of the wasteland and eat people. See? It's not so bad, right? There's more cool stuff, too. Just bear with it!

Spooky Spooky No that's the actual name of the movie. (Translated to English anyway) Certain people among you can attest to this movie's magical qualities. This is a movie directed by Sammo Hung (that's a name that means something to chineaboos, normies don't worry about it) that provides a delightfully stupid take on Ancient Chinese Mysticism. Watch some wacky Hong Kong Police struggle to survive the trials and tribulations that naturally come with fighting a deadly water ghost from Hell.

That's enough movies for now. I know there's more if I were to go through them, but 90% of my Movies Playlist is deleted or private now (RIP Mean Johnny Barrows, you had the best theme song in movie history) and I don't have the heart to keep looking through this sad savaged wasteland of erased obscure culture. Especially not when I should be doing something else! Dammit, Mizal.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Since I have Prime, I see I can sign up for a one week trial of something called Fandor, which includes Riki Oh. Hmmm. Whatever this Fandor is, the logo is a little penguin. It's a sign!

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Remember, the dub technically works, but the subtitles are always funnier.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Heard of like five of these, and seen one: Hard Boiled. It's a fucking masterpiece of action cinema. Anyone reading this, if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it right now. You won't regret it.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

So much yes for Six String Samurai. 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

A coworker who grew up in the 1980s kept trying to get me to watch Krull. I finally attempted to. It felt like reading a 100,000 word storygame to get that one experience point you need, but it has an average rating of 3 and the ending is frustratingly hidden. Why do writers try to blend fantasy and sci-fi like this? Only Star Wars pulled this off well, to my knowledge. It is nigh impossible. Why do they do it?

My finally opinion: the movie is very fat and very ugly.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

The distinction between sci-fi and fantasy is an arbitrary one borne mostly of immaturity. People try to blend this stuff because it's cool. The worldbuilding concepts of Krull are cool and interesting. The concepts and stories of the Dying Earth cycle are not only cool and interesting, but they played a major part in shaping the common fanon pop culture has about fantasy to begin with. Prior to maybe the 2000s, there wasn't a strong distinction between science fiction and fantasy, because all fiction is a sliding scale of nonsense that doesn't hold up to scrutiny anyway. Because it's, y'know, fictional. Alien lifeforms were common entities in old pulpy fantasy stories and D&D, famous and respected ones that built the language of both genres.

Psychic powers are just science-flavored magic made out of the same bullshit as curses, witchcraft, and lasers. A superhumanly strong two-headed troll is as biologically improbable as an alien lifeform whose bodily fluids are metal-eating acid. Lemme tell you something, what's your distinction between sci fi and fantasy? Is it science? Alright, then there's nothing to worry about, nothing about Krull involves hard science. We do not have laser beams or wizard spells. We most certainly do not have alien invaders. Krull is, in fact, an entirely fantasy film. Is it because Sci-fi is speculative? Alright, then, again, it's all fantasy. Nothing in Krull is about the real world. Is it because there's a mix of futuristic and medieval technology? Well boo fucking hoo. The technology is just window-dressing for the magical reality that story creates. This distinction is as persnickety and dumb as a kid not wanting his vegetables to touch. 

If Sci-fantasy is just fantasy with different levels of technology, then where do you draw the line?  Wuxia is a genre of fantasy, with physicality-based stunts as magical as spells and rituals. Hell, it often comes with rituals. But there's a growing contingent of such stories that take place in all sorts of time periods. Even the modern day. Hell, Mizal's link to Bulletproof Monk gives us a fantasy story with technology that'd be far-flung by the standards of the usually ancient "fantasy" time period, since it takes place today. Hell, a lot of fantasy stories take place today. Most horror movies involve blatantly magical entities in our technologically advanced time period. Would you call Guillermo Del Torro a trash filmmaker?

While we're in the business of just naming off things that managed to mix it successfully... The Elder Scrolls series has robots, steam power, and other incredibly sophisticated machines. Plenty of tabletop settings. Warhammer, Deadlands, Dark Sun, Spelljammer... Hell, don't even get me started on Shadowrun! And then there's Game of Thrones, one of the most successful fiction books in recent times... Have you actually read them? Westeros is on a planet of eldritch H.P. Lovecraft deities, magic that often mimics things in the real world that have scientific explanations, civilized apes, and the white walkers are... Pretty damn near Extraterrestrials. And this wouldn't be the first time he's written fantasy stories with scientific or futuristic stylings.

It's true, Krull is a very simple story we've all heard before, that happens to be incompetently told. Some of us find its hamfistedness charming. If you don't, that's perfectly valid. Ironic charm isn't for everyone. But I won't stand to have one of my favorite genres slandered by some rube who can't stand a B-movie.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

You could use the same reasoning to say that all genres are ultimately arbitrarily chosen lines of distinction. Maybe the problem with Krull is that the blending is too overt. You mentioned Elder Scrolls, but the science fiction elements are more subtle, and lean closer to Steampunk than, say, Star Trek type Sci-fi (whatever word describes futuristic sci-fi like that).

Also, doesn't Krull actually have alien invaders? I thought that was a main premise of the story? The whole Black Fortress thing?

But, as I said, there are instances of movies that do this overt blending very well. Star Wars was the example I mentioned. Regardless of what you may think of the more recent movies, it would be disingenuous for someone to claim the original movies weren't really innovative for the time, and there are so many modern tropes that come from Star Wars that no reasonable person can deny the greatness of those films.

Anyway, while I don't usually like stories that have cyclopes and laser things, the main problem with Krull isn't really that. The main problem with Krull is that it sucks.

EDIT- But let me just say that your points are very well made, and while my personal preference is that sci-fi elements in traditional fantasy should be subtle and few and far between, it does not invalidate that sub-genre at all.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

I didn't say that Krull didn't have alien invaders, I'm saying that we don't. Aliens, particularly human-shaped invaders, are as fictitious and fantastical as dragons, and should be treated no differently in stories that involve both. A lot of people detect an artificial tonal clash in these two things, but that's just people compartmentalizing certain tropes into genres. Taken at face value with no account for what the genre "should" be, I find the worlds of Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Deadlands, and Numenera to be perfectly on their marks despite all things that should technically be mixing and matching. Anything within them is a pallette-swap away from being "too fantasy" or "too sci-fi" but you don't get that from them because they aren't written to be products of a genre. They're written to be self-contained worlds of stories, and while they share the same tropes as a 1950s Atomic Sci-fi film and Lord of the Rings, it doesn't feel like a mashup because it isn't meant to be. So it is with Krull.

 

The aliens aren't some hyper-advanced civilization. No more advanced than Krull, anyway. For all their laser technology, they're seemingly limitted, and our heroes beat them back more often than not. And Krull obviously isn't really intended to be our ancient world. It takes some visual cues from our medieval times, yes. But their armor and their customs are exceptionally different. The humans of Krull are also, apparently, a planetary empire. The aliens of Krull fit within the tone and aesthetic of that world. They were, in fact, made for it.

 

And yeah, like I said, it isn't a very well-told story. But it was badly told in just the right way and has good comedic timing. I found the scenery and other concepts evocative and they certainly sparked my imagination, and the cheesiness of the story doubled back on itself for me into something that was almost knowingly hammy and silly, which keeps me thoroughly entertained whenever I watch it. It's not a very good movie, but it is a quite enjoyable one, at least, for those of a certain taste.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
I do admit the sissy magician made me chuckle.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Science Fiction is totally a genre, but Star Wars fucked up how people see it.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Star Wars is fantasy. 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Yes. But many people see it as Sci-Fi. 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

People also think water can't get wet. 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

My point is that because of Star Wars' popularity, a lot of "Sci-Fi" media has moved away from hard Sci-Fi and towards Fantasy with space ships and aliens. I think Black Mirror is the only "hard sci-fi" (at least many of the episodes are) film or movie in recent years to have any sort of popularity. 

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Star Wars has been popular for over 40 years. What popular movies prior to that were doing hard sci fi correctly?

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

To the extent that "science fiction" means writing fiction about science themes -- i.e., about possible futures and/or technologies based on science/technology principles we can articulate today, and not necessarily about futuristic space travel -- I'd say that Kubrick's "2001" might qualify as one of the few pre-Star Wars movies that might be classified as "hard" sci-fi, and largely because of the source material. Happily, there have been a string of recent movies with hard sci-fi elements: Gravity, Interstellar (at least in terms in how relativity is used as a story element), and Arrival all come to mind. All of these have their imaginary elements, but each are grounded to some to degree in actual science.

Ad Astra comes close to hard sci-fi, although to me there are too many far-fetched elements. Noble effort, though.

The original Jurassic Park probably also qualified as grounded sci-fi at the time it was released (1993) but we now know more about both dinosaurs and DNA that the movie is dated, from a sci-fi perspective. For instance, velociraptors were actually the size of turkeys and covered in feathers; extracting Neanderthal DNA has been hard enough that no one currently expects to retrieve dinosaur DNA, even though we now have an actual dino tail encased in amber (real tissue, not just mosquito blood). Each of the JP/JW sequels have been faithful to the "look" of the original movie, to the detriment of the science, so as the field of paleontology advances the movie franchise is stuck in the nineties. (And if you are a fan of spinosaurus as depicted in JP3, look up the current state of affairs; any illustration prior to 2020 should be considered obsolete.)

I love Star Wars, but see this as "space fantasy," even more so now that it's been given the JJ Abrams treatment (case in point: watching distant planets blowing up in real-time as if they were nearby moons). As a life-long Star Trek fan, I think this franchise is also more space fantasy than science fiction, although at various times they've made an effort to incorporate actual scientific theories. One of the current iterations, however, is based on the premise that mushrooms (or rather, fungi in general) are the key to interstellar travel, and that has been a difficult concept to swallow...

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Arrival is such an underappreciated movie.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

I liked Arrival a lot, although it is not for everybody. The "twist" is somewhat telegraphed in a similar way that it was in The Sixth Sense, but it deals with the issue of communication intelligently.

I was about to add The Martian as a recent hard sci-fi movie -- actually the book more so than the movie, although the movie didn't stray too far (if anything, it just skipped a few elements). The opening sequence with the wind storm is pure fantasy -- even the author admitted as such, as Mars doesn't have enough air pressure to cause that much damage -- but otherwise the set-up is based on what an actual NASA mission to Mars might look like in 2030s, and Watney's survival is grounded in both science and math.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
Top NASA officials kept a straight face while some nerd kid explained physics to them like they were....well like they were an American movie audience. The Martian was pure fantasy.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
I agree. The "on Mars" stuff was mostly realistic (other than the storm, as you mentioned), and very well done. I was sad that they left out so many of clever things he did on the trip, though. But as you said, the movie more or less was faithful to the book.

I'll say one thing: it's a page turner. I finished the book during a series of flights in basically one sitting, which is something I rarely do, because I wanted to see the movie but was stuck flying. I was pleasantly surprised to not be disappointed in the movie after reading the book.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
I love Arrival. Yeah, it has a weird time paradox (they never really make much sense), but I love the fact that the aliens aren't just Homo sapiens with green makeup, and that the story wasn't about invading species trying to wipe out humanity. While that's a fun cliché, it been done way too much.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Mm, I'm not sure hard sci-fi means what you're thinking of. Concern for absolute scientific accuracy is a relatively recent development in sci-fi, not saying there weren't instances of it before, but the earliest things that typified the genre were sort of pulpy and aesthetics based and didn't have a lot of regard for how this sort of thing was actually supposed to work, because their purpose was the very thing that actually sets Sci-fi apart from fantasy, their speculative nature, which was more generalized in scope and therefore required a bit more plot magic to work. There's not really supposed to be a genuine real-life scientific reason that Frankenstein comes back to life, or a theorem behind the medicine in Flowers for Algernon, or why there's a time machine in The Time Machine. Though there's really a sliding scale of sci-fi hardness, none of this is by any means an exhaustive taxonomy.

Though I definitely didn't word my statements clearly. Sci-fi is most certainly a genre, my point was that the difference between fantasy and science-fantasy is mostly bullshit, since before the turn of the 20th century there wasn't really a distinction between them. If your burly barbarian story involved interstellar travel, then that's just how it was, Swords and Planets is a microgenre of its own. Of course 1950s B Movie Aliens and, say, sorcerors from the year 1066 are going to make your setting look eclectic, but making aliens and whatnot fit within your world is a prerogative of description and art direction or whathaveyou, because aside from the fickle fashions of what aesthetics people were spoon-fed growing up, in fantasy there is nothing that separates fantasy from futurism. In fantasy, both are fictitious speculations often based on nothing but the idea of what would make a cool story.  And indeed, Star Wars has (to some extent) played a not insignificant part in fucking up how people see that too. But that's more of an overall cultural problem to do with the genre-based films industry.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
We need more movies set in the dense jungles of Venus.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Also I think you'll find it's actually pronounced more like 'Gar'

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

It's not on youtube, but, uh.

Black Dynamite is free on Crackle. It comes highly recommended, but also contains nudity so I can't link it here.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago
@ISentinelPenguinI

Please share the treasures you have found.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

Which ones? I've found a couple Burt Reynolds classics. If you like 70s cars and practical effects car chases, there's White Lightning, and Gator.

Do you want a movie where Jean Claude Van Damme kicks fuckers? Sounds like Bloodsport.

Robocop 1 (and 3) are free, but they want you to pay for the middle one. Tsk tsk, that's how they get ya.

There's the Chucky Movie, if you're into that kinda thing.

If you thought Bladerunner needed a lower budget and a higher mustache, there's Runaway.

And 12 Angry Men if you're into really intricately written classics.

And The Cheap Detective if you think noir mysteries just aren't serious enough.

some movies probably none of you need

4 years ago

For those of us who can't get enough of post apocalyptic settings.

If you like Seven Samurai and thought that story would be even better in post apocalyptic America, well this is it. As far as I know this movie has only ever gotten a VHS release.

World Gone Wild

If you're more into old wild west movies about a mysterious stranger coming into a troubled town, you might like this one. Not too much more to say about it other than that.

Steel Frontier

Here's one of those Italian Road Warrior rip offs. Should have enough action, violence and unintentional bad acting to keep you entertained.

It also has an underlining message of the dangers of degeneracy since the bad guys are a bunch of homosexuals dressed in Andrew Lloyd Webber costumes and they're determined to kill all the God fearing straight people to bring about the end of the human race.

The New Barbarians

If you want something less overtly homoerotic, then you might like this Italian Road Warrior rip off instead.

Not much to say about it other than they're fighting over water rather than gas. The lead bad guy has a black female second in command so it's racially diverse!

Exterminators of the Year 3000

This next one has been mentioned on the forums a couple time before and I'm pretty sure at least Sentinel has seen it.

This is the absolute best of all the Italian Road Warrior rip offs mainly because it doesn't just take stuff from Road Warrior, but like from every other post apocalyptic movie that had been made at that point and mixes them all together. It also manages to have a plot line from a post apocalyptic story that hadn't even been written yet (Let alone the movie the book was based on)

2019: After the Fall of New York

Anyway that should be good for awhile.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago

The Seventh Seal is rightfully a classic and considered one of the best movies ever made. It's on YT for free in pretty high quality http://youtube.com/watch?v=mbgiWPJLSsM

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago
Come and See - (With English subtitles). I haven't gotten around to watching it but heard its a pretty good and impactful movie about a young boy in WW2.

Fire and Ice - Its a Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi animated Sword and Sorcery movie. This one is still just on my watch list so I can't really say if its actually any good.

Stalker - (With English subtitles). Its free on YouTube but I like it so much I bought the criterion collection DVD of it. Stalker is based on the Russian Novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky. The story follows A "guide" who leads 2 other men through a dangerous mystical place called the Zone, Within the Zone waits a Room that grants your greatest desire. Stalker is a very long movie that some may find boring so keep that in mind if you plan on watching this beautiful movie.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago

Fire and Ice, I recommend. As a Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi animated Sword and Sorcery movie, it's exactly what that sounds like, no more, no less. Unapologetically hammy, violent, and perverted. It's got caveman ape-goblins, heroic barbarians, evil wizards, ancient ruins, dinosaurs, and at least one underwater abomination. A more prehistoric expy of Death Dealer even makes an appearance! Full of evocative matte paintings with 1e-reminiscent artwork rotoscoped around in it. I think it kicks a lot of ass.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago

For the longest time, I always felt like Darkwolf was actually Nekron's dad.

When I got the special DVD release and listened to the commentary, Ralph basically said that was indeed in the script, but it just never got put into the movie.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago
Come and See is pretty intense. The title is a reference to the book of Revelation, and it's one of those movies that are undeniably important and well made, but leaves you with zero desire to ever watch again because putting a bullet in your head is probably a more positive feeling way to spend that time. Very Russian that way.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago

I took a class on Hong Kong cinema. These are the highlights.

The Killer

Great hitman action movie. Is available on netflix. Would recommend to anyone who doesn't have a problem with over the top violence. 

Drunken Master

A film that single handedly revitalized the Kung Fu genre. Early Jackie Chan with a great performance.

The Story of Woo Viet

Another action movie,this one with social importance. Tells the story of a Vietnamese refugee. 

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago
Osama

(Not the Bin Ladin variety.) This was a 2003 movie made in Afghanistan, the first one after the US moved in and people there were allowed to make movies and music and art again, and a Golden Globe winner.

It's about a little girl who had to pretend to be a boy in order to support her mother and grandmother after the OG Taliban took over in the 90s. Saw it years ago and it was pretty impactful because the girl is so realistically just a dumbass little kid thrust into this situation, she's not coming up with any brilliant plans or one liners or anything, just getting carried along by events. It was made by an Afghani director who has hopefully fled the country by now. (I notice his personal site has been taken down...)

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tv5shB4Gg0

Idiocracy if you've never seen it is about a completely average Joe that is put in hibernation for an experiment, woken up 500 years later and finds society has devolved so far he's brilliant in comparison to everyone else. It's funny but also inaccurate because this process isn't going to take anywhere near 500 years, or even 50.

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago

A couple of very old movies/shorts

The Great dictator

The classic charlie chaplin nazi movie, the famous one who had cost him his entire career. It's one of the first those wacky nazi's movie. It also borrows a lot of elements from the silent film era. 

Education for death (1943)

This is one of my favorite propaganda shorts of disney. Germany may be my favorite disney princess.

The quest of fire

The cool thing of this movie is that there is not a lot of dialogue. It's entirely cave man brabble. It's about some cave men as you guessed it searching for fire. 

Birth of a nation

Remember birth of a nation, the confederate movie you had to watch during film school? I discovered that you can see it in full 1080 quality on youtube. Only watched a few clips of it since it's very long and also a silent movie. Still, revolutionairy film techniques were used.

Starship troopers

Gotta put this one in too as it had become quite a cult classic. 

The room - tommy wiseau

A true masterpiece that will last till the end of time. It's one of the most terrible entertaining trainwreck that many have experienced. 

some movies probably none of you need

3 years ago

Quest for Fire is probably still the closest thing to an accurate portrayal of prehistoric times.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago
https://youtu.be/Ja8TsLgOGfI

The Secret of NIMH is now free, for those of you who like cartoon mice taken seriously, or are of the correct age where this is reliving your childhood.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago
Welp this thread is revived so I'm gonna talk about a film from my country and one that happens in my country lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-rUfBTQ1g

This is Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite) which quite frankly is one of the best movies from Brazil, which talks about an Elite Unit in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, It's also a bit of social criticism talking about how far we should go to create Order and one other message is one that supports the rupture between The Police Force and Politics.
If you can I recommend listening in Portugues cus the dubbed version seems a bit off (then again I'm Brazilian and I first watched in Portuguêse so I might be biased lol)

If you want something more lighthearted that also happens in Rio de Janeiro, I recommend Rio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1GRO31ve5Q) which talks about a Blue Macaw parrot named Blu trying to go back home after getting sent to an aviary to breed with another Blue Macaw Parrot named Jade that wants to go to the Florests and be free, It's a pretty fun movie to watch and doesn't need you to think too much about it lol.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago

Harakiri, one of the best samurai movies ever made is free on YT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pu334qqNdk

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago
I've just discovered that archive.org (which some of you might be familiar with as the Wayback Machine and specifically where we would archive the funniest drama filled threads sometimes before the bad mods could nuke them) contains a collection of movies and shows and other media as well.

https://archive.org/details/movies

Haven't had time to really browse yet and it all seems a bit random and some of it is foreign, but there are surely some hidden gems there.

I just dug up the 1956 Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, which they used to show on TV every year before Easter when I was growing up. Along with Ben-Hur it was the original big budget all star sandal flick, featuring gloriously theatrical performances, bath robes galore, and a level of based epicness Hollywood is now too weak and effiminate to aspire to.

The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille

.....it's three and a half hours long, so not for the faint of heart.

Couple clips of Moses confronting Pharoah:
(Realizing I actually have no idea how they did special effects in 1956...)


This woman is astoundingly sparkly.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago
Sentinel's greatest find yet, all 71 episodes of Poirot:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvKcRPhAGzCq7ofWZoEadhAd7bRX1naS-

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago
Lmao, alright so there is an episode where a man conspires with his butler to elaborately set up a kidnapping of his four year old son, non fatally poisoning his wife as part of the scheme, and wasting police manpower and resources too.

See the thing is, his old but respectable family is penniless, but his wife is rich. By convincing her her child has been kidnapped, he can get her to pay the anonymous mystery kidnappers ransom. And then he can afford to have his family estate renovated and keep up appearances as a country squire-- that's his entire motivation.

...upon figuring him out, Poirot declares he's not going to give him away or tell the wife anything, because he senses that deep down inside, he's a good father.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago

I think I saw that one once. Yes, all the best parents use their children and potentially traumatize them for fun and profit

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago

I think the idea was that the kid had no idea a kidnapping was even occurring, which seems like the sort of thing that could only happen in the 1920somethings, as if something like this happened today they'd probably be telling the kid to be way more wary of people. Or maybe not, I don't know how old exactly this kid is supposed to be.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago
They did mention the age, he was supposed to be four. But they didn't tell him about the threats and anyway he was "kidnapped" by people he knew.

All the trauma was on the wife, but hey no reason to let her know who was responsible or why. Good thing she doesn't seem to like him much anyway,. (you can tell because they routinely eat dinner at opposite ends of a giant table, staring Britishly at each other from 20ft away)

There's also this hilarious scene of the car containing the boy honking at like 20 policemen and then slowly ambling along in its old timey way down a long country road containing no other traffic while they all just look at it.

This episode is just a particularly batshit compilation of 1920isms, I love it.

some movies probably none of you need

2 years ago

Look, across-the-table-dinner is as romantic as starchy 1920s British nobility get. That boy was conceived four years ago by the parents sleeping in separate rooms with both elaborately carved headboards against a shared wall.