Good Low Budget and Independent Flicks by 6ixStringJack

I don't pay a lot of attention to budgets and independence any more.
If I mention a film, a clue may be included just to ID the correct film.

Have you seen City of Lost Children, with Ron Perlmann? It was one of the best films in the year it came out.

Mute Witness, with ?Marina Sedona? or maybe Rob Morrow?

A Little Princess with Liesel Mathews? Perhaps the best film in the year it came out.

The Thin Blue Line, director Errol Morris

The Brothers McMullen? - Ed Burns

She's The One? - Ed Burns

Lady In The Box, Paige Rowland, Mark Shepard

Wind River was produced independently, and was the best film in 2017.

Ace Ventura was supposed to be low budget, but that might be relative.

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Sunday, April 4, 2021 9:16 AM

I do not believe I've seen any of those, except for Ace Ventura.

Thanks for the suggestions.

It's funny that you brought that one up, because I was thinking that to have a loose criteria for low budget, we should cap it at $15 Million. That just happens to be exactly what the budget was for Ace Ventura.

We'll count it though, even with inflation. Some of the movies I put up there were close to that number and were old enough that they'd be over $15 Million in today's dollars too.

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Sunday, April 4, 2021 10:51 PM

Have you seen Mom And Dad Save The World, with Teri Garr, Eric Idle, Dwier Brown? Not sure of that budget.

I'd assume UHF had a low budget, with Michael Richards, Fran Drescher. Most hilarious film I've seen in cinema (several times).

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Monday, April 5, 2021 12:53 AM

This is likely before your time:

Jim Carrey was mostly only known for his Fireman skit. He was signed for only $450,000 for Ace Ventura. He got a little more for The Mask.
His agent was trying to get him signed for $400,000 for his next film, Dumb and Dumber. But some exec at New Line balked at anything over $350,000, since he wasn't a proven property.
Both sides did not complete negotiations before the opening weekend of Ace.
Then New Line finally signed him for $7M.

We all wondered how long that guy was going to have a job, after costing New Line an extra $6,000,000.

The director says Ace cost $11M.

Also, with City of Lost Children, the cinematography and color is amazing for it's time, so watch on a really good screen. I ran a film poll back then and the only people who didn't include it in their top 3 of the year had not seen it. Same with A Little Princess, which was a remake of a Shirley Temple work.

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Monday, April 5, 2021 1:54 AM

How about Lone Star? Filmed about the same time as A Time To Kill, which also starred both Chris Cooper and Matthew McCaughnahey.

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Monday, April 5, 2021 4:10 PM

The veritable definition of "Low Budget" films:

The Texas Chainsaw Masacre
Halloween, even with Donald Pleasance and Kyle Richards.
Friday The 13th.

Mad Max, which was almost only shown in Drive-Ins in America.
After that, Tim was perhaps the best acting performance by Mel. Sometime compare that film to suffering through one where the perpetually stupid and inept Sean Penn muddles through pretending to be stupid. They were both in something lately about The Mad Man.

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Monday, April 5, 2021 9:16 PM

I don't believe I've seen Mom and Dad Save the World, but I remember it being advertised when I was a kid.

UHF was awesome, and I still watch it from time to time to this day.

Sadly, I'm old enough to have watched Jim Carrey on In Living Color. I only recently found out about how little Carrey got paid for his early films. I think The Mask was the first movie where he pulled in Millions if I remember correctly. IMDB said that Ace cost $15 Million (Estimated), but the Directory probably knows better if he's remembering right.

City of Lost Children is the one on your list that I'm most interested in. It will probably be my next watch when I get the time and feel like watching a flick. I don't have a huge screen, but it's a quality one.

Never heard of Lone Star.

I grew up with Beyond the Thunderdome. I watched Mad Max in my early 20's and was bored. It might be worth another watch now though.

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Monday, April 5, 2021 9:59 PM

The Mask was completed before Ace was released, and was actually released a few months after Ace. So Carrey did not make his millions for it, but both Ace and Mask made millions for the producers.
Dumb and Dumber is when he made millions for himself, as I explained.
The $11M figure from the director is in imdb under trivia, or did you know? section.

I think his co-lead Jeff Daniels made $50k.

Lone Star is excellent.

MaDStW is very funny, and Jon Lovitz and Kathy Ireland were great, plus Jeffrey Jones.

Mad Max was largely unheard of in USA, until Road Warrior came out and that was a breakout hit.

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Tuesday, April 6, 2021 8:48 PM

I conjure you have seen Billy Jack, which I think was both low budget and independent.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2021 9:36 AM

Indie? You have a whole genre of exploitation film, cheesy scifi fantasy softcore horror crap made in the 1960s, 70s and 1980s, Blaxploitation, Canuxploitation, splatter, slasher, an entire genre of low-budget films produced in Canada, Aus did some too, you have lower budget animation, you have quirky films from Germany, France, Spain, Japan, lots and lots of specific genre type like 'Horror Sciif' the Revisionist Western Spaghetti genre or Weirdest Absurd/Surreal Comedy, or Zombie movies. If you can put up with the Politics you have Michael Moore's 'Where to Invade Next' the Sicko movie, Fahrenheit 9/11 he also exposed some of the politics behind the Green Energy industry, I think that one is free on youtube or vimeo or dailymotion you had lots and lots of documentary political historical stuff free on social media sites, oldest classics like Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Big hits You have
Mad Max
Friday the 13th
Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau
Dark Star
Boss Nigger
Foxy Brown
Blacula
Dolemite
Fistful of Dollars
Night of the Living Dead
Human Tornado
El Mariachi
Eraserhead
Tetsuo The Iron Man
The Devil's Backbone El espinazo del diablo
Joyeux Noël
Run Lola Run
La Haine
Young Frankenstein
Killer Clowns from Outer Space
Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Evil Dead
Bad Taste
Black Sheep
Jonestown
Waco
Once Were Warriors a New Zealand drama film
Das Boot
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Deer Hunter
the old school Japanese animations like Akira
Triplets of Belleville French animation Les Triplettes de Belleville
all those hongkong john woo Chow Yun-fat, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee films
Way of the Dragon, Police Story etc
Horror Hits like Halloween
Bubba Ho-Tep
The new Asian scifi like S.Korea's 'The Host'
Korean I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK
JSA Joint Security Area
Documentary like Super Size Me

If you really want to go down the film maker rabbit hole you have this thing called ' Shorts ' very short films and very short movies, basically an idea or dialogue or plot condensed into 10 mins. I guess the final goal is for the film maker to advertise their ability and hopefully one day get work from a larger studio, the film shorts you will find a lot of them on vimeo, dailymotion and youtube. Some use CGI these days but its mostly old school techniquies and very indie, Arty film school stuff...They are not Hollywood, its back to pure writing, pure comedy, pure simple fantasy fiction and drama, pure film making before the days of Hollywood.
Totally indie & Their budgets are as low as you get.

Tom Hardy's Locke was an amazing film, I had massive respect for Hardy as an actor after watching that film. I dont really know anything like it

Korean film seems to be where its all at now if you can put up with reading subtitles.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2021 11:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Indie?

These are the one's I've seen on your list. For the most part, they were all pretty good or even great:

Mad Max
Friday the 13th
Dolemite
Young Frankenstein
Killer Clowns from Outer Space
Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Evil Dead
Black Sheep
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Halloween
Bubba Ho-Tep

Any others in your list you would particularly recommend?

Quote:
If you really want to go down the film maker rabbit hole you have this thing called ' Shorts ' very short films and very short movies, basically an idea or dialogue or plot condensed into 10 mins. I guess the final goal is for the film maker to advertise their ability and hopefully one day get work from a larger studio, the film shorts you will find a lot of them on vimeo, dailymotion and youtube. Some use CGI these days but its mostly old school techniquies and very indie, Arty film school stuff...They are not Hollywood, its back to pure writing, pure comedy, pure simple fantasy fiction and drama, pure film making before the days of Hollywood.
Totally indie & Their budgets are as low as you get.

I've not seen too many short flicks, but years back I caught a few on IFC. I can't find it now on YouTube, but my favorite was a black and white one from the early 2000s where a guy was going outside of his building for a smoke break. Along his long trek to the outside, he made small talk with people around the office and you saw all the no-smoking signs everywhere warning that smoking kills.

At the end of the flick, one of the guys he said hi to on his way out was actually a shooter, and the film ended with the only guy who survived being the guy who was forced outside to have a smoke.

Quote:
Tom Hardy's Locke was an amazing film, I had massive respect for Hardy as an actor after watching that film. I dont really know anything like it

Ah... So you're the other person that saw it.

I found it quite enthralling. It's a movie you can't really explain to anybody, because I'm sure any way I tried to sell it would make it sound stupid.

One of my favorite "genres" of movies is where they can make all or at least a majority of the film take place in a single location... the more claustrophobic the better.

Movies like Circle, Phone Booth, and Devil come to mind.

Locke was that, but it was also very much different than that. Only one man and his tech on the road. I've never seen Tom Hardy before, but I have to praise his acting chops for that flick. What a potentially horrible idea for a movie production if they had a bad actor and/or director doing it.

The film left me wanting for more when the credits started rolling, and I went from "wait... that's bullshit! You can't end it there!" to thinking about all of the possibilities of what happened to everybody after it was over.

That's my absolute favorite type of movie. The ones that I'm still thinking about days or even weeks after I've seen it.

Quote:
Korean film seems to be where its all at now if you can put up with reading subtitles.

I'm not a huge fan of that, but I might start being more relaxed about it. I don't know if my hearing is changing a bit or what. I don't have any problems IRL hearing what people are saying, but at least on the modern TVs I find that I have to turn the volume up quite a bit in any movie that has a lot of action just to hear the voices. When I visit my bro, my old man is always using subtitles when we watch something, and now that they're getting so easy to use in modern streaming services, I'm making use of it from time to time myself. When I watched Locke, I used it. Not that it was action heavy or his accent was too thick, but it was still an accent and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any of his dialogue.

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Tuesday, April 13, 2021 6:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Any others in your list you would particularly recommend?

Really it Depends what you're into and sometimes me personally my mood or taste in film might vary depending on the day of the week or time of the year or whatever, sometimes I like thrillers, other times fantasy adventure or scifi

If you're into escapist animation, maybe checking out foreign stuff, make the Japanese Akira or French 'Les Triplettes de Belleville'

Horror? maybe check out the original Black and White movie Night of the Living Dead

Old Weird Classic Retro Scifi comedy then maybe 'Dark Star'

The net can help you sometimes. Websites like 'Taste of Cinema' List Genres such as 'Dystopia'
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-great-dystopian-films-that-are-wo
rth-your-time/
another site called Taste Dive gives you films that are similar vibe or Movies like the one you just seen
https://tastedive.com/movies/like/Killer-Klowns-From-Outer-Space
There is also a Movie Map site which links movies that are like each other but I'm not sure I always agree with the websites picks
https://www.movie-map.com/the+evil+dead
Biblr another site
https://bilbr.com/movies-like-mad-max/
and Movie Flavor
https://www.movieflavor.com/similar/The+Great+Outdoors/1988

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Wednesday, April 14, 2021 8:11 AM

I've found recently that I have a REAL hard time actually sitting down to watch a movie, and an even harder time getting into a TV show. If it's a TV show that has had a multiple season run already it gets harder for me to want to watch it the more seasons it has, but at the same time if it's a new show I usually don't want to get into it because it's probably going to be cancelled before it wraps up.

I can literally sit and watch YouTube for hours when I'm winding down for the day though. I think it's because YouTube spent the last decade and a half tweaking and reaching near-perfection with it's presentation and the behind the scenes algorithms (all political bias aside).

There's just a sense of a lot more control there, and if you feel like watching a 2 hour video by a content creator you like you can, but most of the time it's 10 or 15 minute videos that you can always click off of if they're not doing it for you. The "next up" is usually a good choice considering the video you were just watching and the sidebar/homepage has a lot of good choices based off of your prior viewing habits.

To watch a movie, I've got to fire up my TV which rarely ever even gets turned on, load up the Fire Stick, and then mindlessly surf all of the options out there until I find something that maybe I might be interested enough in investing 90 minutes or more of my time... all based off of the cover image of the DVD, a one paragraph blurb, and an almost meaningless 5 star rating system.

That's why I like recommendations from other people. I get most of mine from youtube channels these days, if I'm not getting them from my old man. My friends mostly are into Hollywood schlock that I have no interest in, and my brothers have totally different tastes than I do.

I'd be interested in some of your "must watch" list though, knowing how much you liked Locke.

Thanks for the tips on those websites. I'll check them out.

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Friday, April 16, 2021 10:04 AM

Finally got access to City of Lost Children. I'm going to check that one out when I can find the time to unwind.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021 9:40 AM

I watched City of Lost Children last night. Thanks for the recommendation JSF. That was right up my ally.

I was thinking it was a mix of Ink, Brazil and Dark City. Ink, which I've mentioned here several times before as perhaps my favorite movie, came out quite a bit after the fact, but had to have been HUGELY influenced by this movie.

Is there a dubbed version? I happened to watch the subtitled version. It was annoying at first, but once I got into the movie it didn't bother me much. It was probably less bothersome than some bad dub job would have been.

Beautiful sets and cinematography.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021 10:10 AM

Delicatessen in 1991 could be another for you, French Horror Comedy scifi-ish? Dominique Pinon again as an actor, Director Jean-Pierre again. Maybe surrealist but more thriller and great camera work and sound, visually stimulating film, just a unique movie from beginning to end. He also did the weird Rom-Com Amélie and the 4th Alien movie, one of Joss Whedon's first feature film scripts. If you like his stuff you might enjoy that whole french new wave-surrealist quirky film they have been doing since the 70s, 80s and 1990s, I think maybe Cronenberg, Terry Gilliam, Chan-wook Park, Sam Raimi or David Lynch or Kubrick were maybe inspired by French films even if they did not admit it.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021 3:36 PM

It's funny you mention Delicatessin and Amelie. I saw both of them mentioned when I did some reading on CoLT after I watched it. I can't imagine I'd have any interest in Amelie, but Delicatessen kind of piqued my interest. (Despite what I consider a terrible name that would have immediately turned me off had I not bumped into it the way that I did).

You just mentioned a whole list of directors that I do enjoy. It wouldn't surprise me if they were influenced by French surrealism flicks if CoLT is anything to go by.

You ever see Run Lola Run? My brother just raved about it today when I was telling him about CoLT. I think I'm going to give that a watch next.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021 4:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I watched City of Lost Children last night. Thanks for the recommendation JSF. That was right up my ally.

I was thinking it was a mix of Ink, Brazil and Dark City. Ink, which I've mentioned here several times before as perhaps my favorite movie, came out quite a bit after the fact, but had to have been HUGELY influenced by this movie.

Is there a dubbed version? I happened to watch the subtitled version. It was annoying at first, but once I got into the movie it didn't bother me much. It was probably less bothersome than some bad dub job would have been.

Beautiful sets and cinematography.

Keep in mind this cinematography is from almost 30 years ago. I think that was also pre-CGI.

I think I saw a version once which had dubbed ST. I am not sure which version I have now.

I think the subtitles is how I saw it in cinema. Back then, that level of cinematography was only available on the big screen.

That level of cinematography I think is most closely matched lately in Jane Got A Gun (or maybe it was Hateful Eight), Wind River,

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021 6:35 PM

It was 95, which was two years after Jurassic Park came out.

There was some CGI, but like most things that didn't cost a bajillion bucks and have Spielberg or Lucas attached it wasn't particularly good. Probably on-par with the "dust" effect on the Buffy TV show. Thankfully it was minimal and if you didn't allow it to take you out of the movie than it doesn't.

I'm referring to the sequences with the mind-control flea and the green mist that contained the nightmare which floated around the port town and ultimately through Miette's nose.

I'm not going to fault the movie for that. I can't imagine that there were really any other good options to get that point across with the budget they had at a time when big budget studios were using million dollar computers less powerful than a standard smart phone today to make Dinosaurs come to life.

I'm betting the dub job isn't very good, which would be a shame. It's probably better that I watched the subtitled version.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2021 9:52 AM

Got a good source of Run Lola Run after an aborted attempt yesterday. The one I watched seemed to be "jarring" in how it began and was just slightly over 30 minutes long.

Being that it was French cinema, I thought this was odd, but it was perhaps intentional. But after about 10 minutes I decided to look into it more and discovered it was a full feature length movie.

It looks like that's one of the rare flicks that the critics and audience are in complete agreement with. 93% critic score with 83 reviews, and 90% audience score with over 100,000 reviews.

What little I saw so far has my interest piqued.

I would advise not putting on subtitles along with the dub though. That's a habit I've started to get into when watching action movies just so I don't miss any dialogue. But it ends up with hilarious results here since the dub and the subtitles don't match at all and you end up with a sort of schizophrenic feeling if you're reading different words than what is being spoken.

I'll let you know what I think of it after I watch it. Hopefully I'll be able to get Delicatessen soon too. Who knows? Maybe I'll even watch Amelie and feel super cultured.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2021 9:59 AM

Oh... Since we're on the French kick, anybody here ever see Banlieue 13, aka District B13?

I believe it was actually made in French Canada, does that still count?

That was one of the better action flicks I've seen over the years. At least with the Dub, it doesn't seem to be the deepest movie ever written, but the parkour stunts are amazing.

If you got a kick out of the opening scene from Casino Royale, Banlieue 13 is a must watch.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2021 4:03 PM

Subtitles are supposed to translate what was said on screen, although that doesn't always happen with fidelity.

Dubbing is supposed to attempt a match at both meaning, inference, and lip-syncing. Dubbing of old Chop-Saki fliks from the 70s where the Asian person runs his mouth for a minute, and the Dub says "no" are not good examples of dubbing.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2021 4:19 PM

It was kind of funny to see swears show up in the subtitles, but none spoken... only a minute later to have swears said on screen, but no swears in the subtitles.

If I hadn't already decided to watch the dubbed version instead of subtitles, the choice was made for me. I don't have the option for a French audio stream. At least the dub seems passable.

Assuming there aren't any problems with it again, I'll probably watch it tonight.

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Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:10 AM

(Edited post on 4/23/2021):

Run Lola Run is a German film. Not a French film. My mistake.

Ended up with a subtitle version when it was fixed. That's alright.

Run Lola Run was good. Anybody who's a fan of Time Loop movies should enjoy it.

I think I'm possibly suffering from high-expectations syndrome though. Not only were the RT critic/audience score 93 and 90 respectively, but my brother said at one point during the conversation that he thinks it was better than Groundhog Day.

Spoiler Alert: It is not better than Groundhog Day.

In fact, I put it at number 5 on a list of the top 5 Time Loop flicks I've seen:

1. Edge of Tomorrow
2. Groundhog Day
3. 12:01 PM (a dark half-hour made for Showtime mini-flick from the late 80's/early 90's)
4. ARQ
5. Run Lola Run

I'm still glad I saw it though. I love me a good Time Loop.

But damn dude... That girl could run. I got tired just watching her.

Delicatessen is up next...

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Friday, April 23, 2021 12:15 PM

Watched Delicatessen. Loved it.

*POSSIBLY SOME MINOR SPOILERS*

It doesn't quite fit in my genre of films that take place in a single spot, but the majority of the movie takes place in a single high rise apartment complex and the sewers underneath.

The only "sci-fi" involved, at least that I noticed on a first viewing requiring me to read subtitles was that we're living in a post apocalyptic world seen through the lens of the people who still occupy the building.

I really like how they don't throw in any exposition to try to explain what happened like most Hollywood flicks would feel compelled to do. You don't need to know. Use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

It's got some of the goofiness and goofy character traits seen in CoLT (goofy to an American at least... Maybe the French actually acted like this in the late 90's/early 2000's?), and I think that's a good thing. I'm new to Dominique Pinion, but I like the dude. Even more in this movie than in CoLT.

I thought it was crazy that the butcher who ran the complex (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) looks like a spitting image of a childhood friend of mine, just fatter. I have to show him this flick and tell him he should find out if there is any shared genes there.

I think I'm going to put Amélie on the list. This whole French cinema thing is kind of growing on me. I'm hoping it's not just Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet that I like and there's more hidden gems to find overseas.

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Friday, April 23, 2021 4:21 PM

Have you seen Meet The Feebles? An early film from Peter Jackson. I know several people who claim this is their favorite film. I don't recall if there are live-action humans in the film.

Joe's Apartment was a lesser, later work, but somewhat similar in style.

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Friday, April 23, 2021 10:02 PM

I've seen Joe's Apartment back when it was newish, but I don't remember much of it.

Haven't seen Meet the Feebles. I'll check it out.

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Saturday, April 24, 2021 8:03 PM

You've got to check out Nobody.

That's all I'm going to say about it.

Great flick.

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Sunday, April 25, 2021 4:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You've got to check out Nobody.

That's all I'm going to say about it.
Great flick.

Welcome to the Forum called "Cinema"

www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=64281

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Sunday, April 25, 2021 10:21 PM

They can't all be winners...

I watched Meet the Feebles. It's is a serious contender for the worst film I've EVER seen in my life.

If it weren't for the "passage to India" joke that made me laugh out loud, I wouldn't have found a single second of the movie amusing.

Except for Arthur the worm, I hated every character. Even the ones you were supposed to care about.

The best part of the movie, SPOILER ALERT, is when almost every single one of them was murdered.

Fuck the Feebles.

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Sunday, April 25, 2021 11:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
They can't all be winners...

I watched Meet the Feebles. It's is a serious contender for the worst film I've EVER seen in my life.

If it weren't for the "passage to India" joke that made me laugh out loud, I wouldn't have found a single second of the movie amusing.

Except for Arthur the worm, I hated every character. Even the ones you were supposed to care about.

The best part of the movie, SPOILER ALERT, is when almost every single one of them was murdered.

Fuck the Feebles.

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Imagine the hypocrisy of a government who will allow businesses to card people to get a job or buy groceries, but won't card people to vote in elections and gives millions of non-citizens free money from taxpayers.

Yeah, nw I recall that it was a love it or hate it type flick - not much middle ground.

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Monday, April 26, 2021 8:22 AM

Yeah. I don't know what it was dude. I liked the Muppets growing up, but not so much that I found this take on them offensive or anything. I'm definitely no puritan, so even though watching the movie makes you feel like you need to take a shower, that's not grounds for the hate. I like a lot of oddball stuff. This seems on the surface to be something that I would have really enjoyed.

I don't know why I hated it so much.

So you're in the "loved it" camp then?

If I had something nice to say about it, it would be the puppets were all made well and the puppetry was good work.

And somehow, I liked Arthur the worm.

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Imagine the hypocrisy of a government who will allow businesses to card people to get a job or buy groceries, but won't card people to vote in elections and gives millions of non-citizens free money from taxpayers.

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Tuesday, April 27, 2021 10:04 AM

Having a hard time getting Amélie for some reason. I find this kind of strange since out of all of these French/German flicks I've been watching recently, Amélie was the only one I'd ever heard of before through other pop culture at the time. I specifically remember it being part of the plot in an episode of Home Movies in the early 2000s.

Got myself a list of so-called "Hidden Gem" 80's/90's low budget sci-fi on queue that I might start going through in the meantime.

The only one on that list I had seen was Crossworlds, and 20-something me enjoyed that flick. I'm not going into these expecting much, but they might be interesting.

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Imagine the hypocrisy of a government who will allow businesses to card people to get a job or buy groceries, but won't card people to vote in elections and gives millions of non-citizens free money from taxpayers.

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Tuesday, April 27, 2021 5:00 PM

Have you seen Be Kind Rewind? Not the criteria for low-budget, but it has that vibe.

Wonderful cast. Funny scenes.

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Tuesday, April 27, 2021 7:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Have you seen Be Kind Rewind? Not the criteria for low-budget, but it has that vibe.

Wonderful cast. Funny scenes.

I never even heard of it before, but I just looked it up.

That sounds up my ally. It's on the list. Thanks.

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Imagine the hypocrisy of a government who will allow businesses to card people to get a job or buy groceries, but won't card people to vote in elections and gives millions of non-citizens free money from taxpayers.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021 10:19 AM

Be Kind Rewind was a no effort get for me, and a nice way to wrap up the day.

It won't be going on any of my top lists or anything, and I could find a ton of criticisms of how it was done from the implausibility of how the tapes got erased in the first place to the fact that it was hinted there would be a happy ending to the story, but I won't do that since none of this movie was operating with any pretense of reality.

It was just a fun movie, and sometimes it's nice to just shut the brain off and just enjoy something for what it is. The actors made the characters really enjoyable to watch. When the credits start rolling, it makes you wish we lived in a world where that particular happy ending could actually take place.

Thanks for the recommendation.

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Imagine the hypocrisy of a government who will allow businesses to card people to get a job or buy groceries, but won't card people to vote in elections and gives millions of non-citizens free money from taxpayers.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021 2:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Be Kind Rewind was a no effort get for me, and a nice way to wrap up the day.

It won't be going on any of my top lists or anything, and I could find a ton of criticisms of how it was done from the implausibility of how the tapes got erased in the first place to the fact that it was hinted there would be a happy ending to the story, but I won't do that since none of this movie was operating with any pretense of reality.

It was just a fun movie, and sometimes it's nice to just shut the brain off and just enjoy something for what it is. The actors made the characters really enjoyable to watch. When the credits start rolling, it makes you wish we lived in a world where that particular happy ending could actually take place.

Thanks for the recommendation.

I really liked the cast.

Have you seen Blindside? Did you recognize the Michael Oher actor?

I always like Melodie Diaz, everything I've seen her in.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021 5:51 PM

Blindside from 1987? I don't think so.

By the Michael Oher actor do you mean the one they all thought chose the Lion King?

I don't think I've seen Melonie Diaz in anything else.

Yeah. They were all good.

Interesting that Yasiin Bey doesn't go by Mos Def anymore. Or at least that's what his IMDB entry on BKR would lead you to believe. Never knew his real name before today.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021 7:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Blindside from 1987? I don't think so.

By the Michael Oher actor do you mean the one they all thought chose the Lion King?

I don't think I've seen Melonie Diaz in anything else.

Yeah. They were all good.

Blindside. With Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Lily Collins, Ray McKinnon, Kim Dickens, Kathy Bates, based on a real story. It was a really good film, so you probably didn't see it.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021 8:23 PM

Apparently IMDB hasn't seen it either.

Sounds like it's a football movie.

If there's one thing I enjoy less than Hollywood schlock, it's football. And that was true before SJWs ruined the sport.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021 10:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Apparently IMDB hasn't seen it either.

Sounds like it's a football movie.

If there's one thing I enjoy less than Hollywood schlock, it's football. And that was true before SJWs ruined the sport.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0878804

I guess there is a football backstory. In the background. Anything needed to know about football is explained in the film. There ius also some basketball played by some kids, like 1-on-1. Maybe baseball, too. And cheerleading - or at least cheerleaders, in practice as well as in uniform. Maybe other exercise activities.

A lot of the football people, players, coaches, parents, are shown to be dooofuses.

Quinton Aaron played Michael Oher. His only prior credit was Be Kind Rewind, the prior year.

I just realized you probably never saw The Waterboy, which also had Kathy Bates. Same for Happy Gilmore - with Bob Barker.

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Wednesday, May 26, 2021 6:38 PM

The term "low budget" is sticking in my head. The term "good" - not so much.

If you thought Blair Witch Project was low budget, then maybe The Resort should be as well. The cinematography, sound, editing, transitions, and pace/feel is similar to BWP. I'm not sure if there was a script.

I would not claim it is good.

When the credits started to roll, I did not wait to see if there was a coda - which there probably was.

Still in cinema now.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2021 11:00 PM

I just watched a Japanese cartoon from 2001 called Spirited Away today.

It's not an "Anime" flick. I like a few of those that I'd seen over the years, but it's not really my thing. This art style much more closely resembles Taro the Dragon Boy from 1979 than any Anime style.

I'd never even heard of this flick until a YT video about it came in my feed about a week ago and after only about one minute into it I stopped watching that video and decided I wanted to see the movie.

I loved it.

Apparently, others did as well. It's currently got an 8.3/10 on IMDB and it won an Oscar in 2003 for Best Animated Feature when it was dubbed and released in the US.

While not exactly fitting in the "Under 15 Million" parameters for "low budget" on a budget of $19 Million, especially not back in 2001 compared to today's dollars, it's still fairly low budget for an animated feature, when you consider that award winning movies like 2009's "Up" had a budget of $175 Million.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I'm going to have to watch Taro the Dragon Boy again.

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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 12:21 PM

Princess Mononoke might be another you might enjoy, it seems to have influences from Pagan Folklore Japan, the culture of North islands, Ainu and Jomon people, Emishi/Ainu people and Yamato I guess before Japaneseness was standardized into one modern 20th and 21st century Japan culture.

Yeah I respect the Japanese for their cartoons films made on their low budgets, they might not make stuff as big as Disney animation or Marvel and DC or the Pixar stuff but they do some pretty good hand drawn animation.

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 12:50 PM

Yeah. Thanks. I actually got that one and a few others who's names are escaping me on deck.

Mononoke is the only one I'd ever heard of before. When I get around to giving them a watch I'll let you know the names of the other ones and if they were good.

I agree about that style of artwork in the non-anime Japanese animation flicks. It's always held a special place for me since I saw Taro the Dragon Boy about a dozen times when I was a kid. Of course, I didn't have any context about the actual folklore back then and just thought they'd invented cool characters for a cartoon experience that was more "mature" than most of the things I'd been watching at that time (save for stuff like The Last Unicorn or The Littlest Mermaid... not to be confused at all with the Disney movie).

I'm actually kind of thrilled that there seems to be a pretty wide catalog of similar stuff out there from over the years, assuming I can get my hands on any of them.

BTW... the guy who made Spirited Away is the same guy who directed Princess Mononoke, isn't he?

I was kind of surprised I couldn't find any links, even in the artists category, between Spirited Away and Taro the Dragon Boy. They look so similar in art style. But I suppose that shouldn't surprise me too much since Anime is a thing and there had to have been one original cartoon that used that style of artwork long before it became the cultural phenomena that it has today.

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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Sunday, June 20, 2021 9:05 PM

Rather than going to Mononoke straight away, I went for one that looked a lot more obscure and watched Howl's Moving Castle.

I didn't like it as much as Spirited Away, but it was still pretty good. I'm sure I would have loved it when I was a kid, and if you've got kids it's probably a lot better than a lot of the US cartoons they make these days. The art style was beautiful, as always... although this one seemed a bit closer to anime than to Taro/Spirited Away. I still wouldn't call it anime though.

I knew I recognized some of the voices, and was surprised when I saw that Christian Bale, Billy Crystal and Lauren Bacall were in the cast of the US dub. I feel like I should know who Emily Mortimer is, but nothing in her filmography is jumping out at me.

It looks like this one was nominated for an Oscar, and has 8/10 ratings on the big sites, just a tad behind Sprited Away. But it only grossed a little over $5 Million in the US and Canada, so it wouldn't surprise me if it weren't a household name despite the actors voicing it.

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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Sunday, June 27, 2021 2:36 PM

I liked Princess Mononoke even less than Howl's Moving Castle.

Maybe I should switch directors. Someone who perhaps wasn't an Oscar's darling for so many years.

ETA: I should elaborate and say that it wasn't a bad movie. I enjoyed watching it, and the artwork was gorgeous as always when it comes to Studio Ghibli.

I just walked away not really caring much for the characters and at one point even had to fight off falling asleep in the last third of the movie. Where I was very invested in the story of the characters of Spirited Away and even in Howl's Moving Castle, I just didn't really care much about anybody in this movie. I think that's kind of a fatal flaw if you're putting out a movie that is over 2 hours long.

I think I'm going to go back and look at Hayao Miyazaki's earlier works. I'm particularly interested in The Castle of Cagliostro which came out in 1979, the same year as Taro the Dragon Boy. Though I was never a super-fan, I enjoyed watching Lupin the 3rd many, many years back when it was ran on Adult Swim's block along Cowboy Beebop.

I'll probably watch the movie and the entire run of that show next.

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And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2021 9:05 AM

Interesting... there seems to be quite a few Lupin the III movies out there. I'm not sure if they're just compilations of episodes of the TV show or not. I'm pretty sure without looking it up that they're not done by Studio Ghibli.

Looks like Cowboy Bebop had a movie too. Since they only had one season, I might rewatch that and see the movie as well.

ETA: A live action Cowboy Bebop?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop_(2021_TV_series)

I'll curb my enthusiasm for now, especially since I had always hoped they'd make more of the animation after I'd watched it.

Who knows though? If it's done right, it might be something that fans of Firefly could love. I'd certainly recommend OG Cowboy Bebop to anybody who loved Firefly.

You'll even get to relive the disappointment of a single season.

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And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 3, 2021 11:25 AM