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Absolutely. The guy sounded like Rajesh Koothrappali FFS.

Kinda reminds me of the The Black Knight. "Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!"

yeah but in movies they care a lot more about showing lots of niggers and chinks...

Pander to us!

captcha: cultural

Does this mean that Grotesque has just been given the best publicity ever and no way to prevent it from being sold?

The movie "The Island" has that plot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/

They threw in a genetic memory subplot too, for good measure :-P

(I'd make an allusion to Logan's Run, but I fear that would sail over your head as well.)

You mean the movie that's coming out next year? Sounds like a fresh new concept!

I didn't see Dances with Wolves (DwW) and I probably won't see this. First (and only) member of the didn't see DwW society. (DSWwWS)

Can I join? Had no interest, and I've only since seen the occasional snippet while channel-surfing.

An old pal of mine's mother may also be a member. Due to some confusion on her part, she thought it was called "Dances With Foxes". So she saw that in the TV listing, turned it on, and got quite the surprise. Don't know if she ever overcame her shock enough to watch the real movie.

(I'd make an allusion to Logan's Run, but I fear that would sail over your head as well.)

Why would you do that? It isn't even out yet!

Heaven's Gate the 1980 box office bomb, not the religious cult.

And also not to be confused with Gates of Heaven (1978), Errol Morris's first film, a documentary about pet cemeteries--which is quite good.

J.Michael Straczynski (another one-hitter)

What, Changeling wasn't good? I thought it was awesome.

It has long been replaced by soft porn in space, underground, underwater, or in another dimension. Played by the same characters who Jason used to kill at camp, oversexed, barely legal(sometimes not legal) jail-bait! They trade good acting and story for T&A or just plain blood and guts or both!

Let's have a moment of silence for the Science Fiction genre. It was killed off by bad writing and pimply-faced kids who don't care about a story as long as the alien chick gets naked.

If all that is true, then explain this recent movie. I saw it earlier this summer, not in some art house theater, but a big mainstream multiplexes. The closest thing to sex it had was one or two scenes where the protagonist was remembering his wife back on earth, who while a young women was certianly not jail-bait. There wasn't much action either, a few crashes but no big explosions (there wouldn't be much opportunity in this movie's setting). Also, it had no fantastic elements and argueably everything in it would be a plausible extrapolation of present technology in the near-future.

I hereby invoke Sturgeon's Law against your rant!:P

Heaven's Gate, 1980, Michael Cimino, starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Sam Waterston et al. Important not just because it was bad, but because it was the third most expensive film of 1980, at $35 million (in that year, Empire Strikes Back was made for $18 million), and failed so stupendously that it is now remembered as one of those few rare bombs that are so terrible that they actually bankrupt the studio that made them; see also Battlefield Earth, Masters of the Universe (or Superman 4, both did Cannon in), and Cutthroat Island.

The implication of a comparison to Heaven's Gate is that it is not only terrible, but so hideously expensive ($237 million) that it could bankrupt Fox. Which almost happened once before.

Just like Google is going into the OS business to make sure it gets never cut out, Apple is also building a huge datacenter to â" they guess â" take over some online cloud computing business of their own and be less dependent on Google for these services.

As Ned Ryerson, the Insurance Salesman from the movie "Groundhog Day" famously exclaimed:

Bing Again!

Tell that to Hedwig and his(?) angry inch.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0248845/

what's wrong with XXY?

For a totally hypothetical example, given their population genetic disposition to dimunitive size, should pygmies be granted their own event categories (i.e. pygmy and non-pygmy events)? Should sexual distinctions be eliminated, so that events are unisex, and we simply see asymmetric distributions of performance along gender lines by the type of event? (i.e. females generally under-performing males in strength-burst events, more parity in endurance events, and possibly more over-performance in events entailing a high degree of coordination? Of course transies kick everyone's asses at everything? ;)

I write as a jock and as a transsexual, so the questions are personal for me (although I tend towards non-spectator and less competitive jockosity).

Characters should die when they get old. Items that are bound to that character will disappear. There could be a memorial wall for important characters.

I'm not sure people would be excited to play Logan's Run Online.

There are few books I've found to be really funny, and I read 30+ books a year. Douglas Adams' books along with say Catch-22 and maybe Running with Scissors are about the only ones that come to mind.

Humour works better when you can have the jokes delivered with timing. I've found audio books make some books much funnier when it's done well.

Have you tried Pratchett? His are the funniest books I have ever read, well apart from The Profanisaurus Which is similar to Adam's The Meaning of Lif

Even film has it's weaknesses for humour. Film tends to want a narrative to drive things and there often isn't enough time for character development. TV is better. I'd prefer The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Yes Prime Minister, Drop the Dead Donkey, Faulty Towers and Monty Python to most comedy films any day.

Agreed. With the significant exception that is South Park:BLU (many of my friends didn't like the TV series but love the movie), your opinion could be due to your good taste in TV comedy. Might I suggest Spaced? - as it it another example of a TV series that isn't known as well as the films it spawned [Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead] but IMHO being better and funnier.

Unless he's referring to the actually-quite-good BBC TV series, that was first aired in 1981 - after the first book, before the adventure game, etc etc.

No it's more like a Far East/Daoism and Bushido. See The Seven Samurai and The Tao of Star Wars

Sure it can.

They were showing a trailer for Surrogates at District Nine. The plots sound similar- intermeshed human-MMO worlds gone flakey. Cameron may have better F/X from what I've seen so far. If both are well-executed, then I may like both.

I loved those books as a kid. I'm sure we would just get something like this.

The problem is, you can't sue god.

I think I saw this in a movie once.

Man, Gene Simmons was way ahead of his time!

Oblig:

Commander Pavel Chekov: Course heading, Captain?

Captain James T. Kirk: Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102975/quotes

They *guess* that you may be guilty before it happens and blacklist you.

Or they get elected, because they are backed by established political campaign groups, which do all the footwork, regardless of political or personal qualities of the candidate.

I'll see your Femme Nikita and raise you a Delicatessen. :)

Are you saying that this movie is as good/groundbreaking as Star Wars orThe Matrix? I am somewhat dubious. Don't get me wrong, it looks a whole lot better than most sci-fi movies. I especially like how the first commercials I saw for it were public service announcements about District 9. Then commercials with non-human sympathizers being arrested. Then later you see a commercial with "glick gluck mcglorlock" (translation: "We just want to go home.") and you kinda realize that there's going to be more depth to the story than Starship Troopers (the movie, not the book). Looks interesting, I'll definitely Netflix it. It might be the best sci-fi movie of '09 but you've still got

• Gamer
• The Fourth Kind
• The Time Traveler's Wife
• Pandorum
• Splice
• The Surrogates
• 2012
• 9
• AstroBoy
• The Box
• The Sky Crawlers
• Radio Free Albemuth
• Hunter Prey
• Deadland

While a lot don't have release dates yet and could be pushed back and most will probably suck, that's a lot of competition to dismiss at this point. And lastly, I have great hope for Franklyn (to be released here in the states).

You can probably scratch "The Time Traveler's Wife" and "2012" from your list. The first is being laughed out of theaters as we speak. The trailers for the second look like Michael Bay conceived of the "science."

I was curious about your list, and looked for some information about them. Then I realized others might do the same, so here it is to save the hassle. Please note the obvious: SPOILERS.

Gamer
The Fourth Kind
The Time Traveler's Wife [link to the book rather than the movie]
Pandorum
Splice
The Surrogates, based on The Surrogates comic series
2012 -- brought to you by the same people that brought you "The Day After Tomorrow". I think I'll skip this one.
9
Astro Boy
The Box
The Sky Crawlers
Radio Free Albemuth -- based on a Philip K. Dick novel
Hunter Prey
Deadland

I was curious about your list, and looked for some information about them. Then I realized others might do the same, so here it is to save the hassle. Please note the obvious: SPOILERS.

Gamer
The Fourth Kind
The Time Traveler's Wife [link to the book rather than the movie]
Pandorum
Splice
The Surrogates, based on The Surrogates comic series
2012 -- brought to you by the same people that brought you "The Day After Tomorrow". I think I'll skip this one.
9
Astro Boy
The Box
The Sky Crawlers
Radio Free Albemuth -- based on a Philip K. Dick novel
Hunter Prey
Deadland

It's fascism in the sense that it is extreme nationalism but lacks the racist/violent overtones of what is considered Fascism in the world today.

Racism is not necessarily part of fascism, and Nazism is not the archetypical form of fascism. Stalinism is arguably more fascistic than Nazism was.

Fascism is first and foremost about belonging to the group (fasci). That group could be Aryans, members of the Party, descendants of the Roman Empire, people who served in the military, or even humans. People who belong to the group are considered superior, and those outside the group are subhuman.

Often it's a set of concentric circles: Parrty Secretary, politbureau, Communist Party, Russian (in the case of Stalinism), or Fuhrer, Nazi party, Aryan (nazis), etc. (Exactly how Mussolini's Italy was organised, I'm not sure, but that was actually the prototype for fascism).

If you define your group along racial lines (as the nazis did), then considering everybody outside of the group subhuman is definitely racist, but this isn't necessary for fascism.

Have you seen the movie The Wave? That's basically how fascism works.

The propaganda (in the film) does bear a significant resemblance to Nazi style propaganda but adjusted to be the product of corporate thought (would you like to know more, it's more like nationalistic advertising then propaganda).

Of course it's different. It's a much more American approach, but that doesn't mean it's not propaganda. It tries to influence thought, and urges everybody to belong to the group. Do your bit in the fight against the Bugs, even if it means killing innocent insects.

I fully agree that the society presented in the film is not nearly as utterly evil as the nazis, but it does have what I recognise as strong fascist tendencies.

So that is what happened to initech. They really should have fleshed that out more in the movie, it would have been a great subplot.

My only exposure to Afrikaans was from "The Gods Must Be Crazy". :)

I agree, it was not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Just not as amazing as I thought it would be. And yes, it is nice to a a major non-American movie. Shaun of the Dead anyone?

Autotranslation of the parent's sentence: "yes , i did to tell the truth of district 6 heard , and i did it also saw"

No one has done anything like this before. The style of seamless blending of handheld, real documentary, fake news, CCTV (security cam) and live action fluid is tight.

Sure. No one.

Before i went to see it, i'd read that on IMDB, it was around 8/10. Now, it's higher:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/

!8.9! out of 10.

And, at Crunchgear, it's got some high remarks, too.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/17/district-9-loved-on-imdb-ranked-89-out-of-10/

I saw it at Metreon in SF, and when i got in, the line had about 200 people ahead of me. 5 minutes after i got into line, some 50 more were behind me, and this was 25 to 30 minutes before starting. After i seated, the auditorium was about 70% full. It has seats for maybe 600, IIRC, (based on the size of the imax one i'd seen Trek in at the same complex). By the time we were 5 minutes from start, it was pretty chock-full. (Yeh, and we had some 12 to 15 minutes of promotionals and trailers...)

After a few anatomic (funny yet gross, gross, yet funny) scenes and some limb damage, a couple walked out. Even tho it was dark, the people to either side of me exchanged glances with me. We smiled, like "Welll.... guess it's not for EVERYbody..."

But, i have to say, whenever i eat prawns, I'll probably ALWAYS think of this excellent film.

I immediately thought of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084171/

I suppose.

I just remembered Enemy Mine, as well, which has some relevance.

Paying famous celebrities insane sums of money for voice overs
 
Vocal performance in an animated feature or a video game seems easy only when you've heard it done well.

How can District 9 which is such a great movie with some of the best unique effects Ive seen in a recent Sci Fi movie cost 30 Million and yet Transformers 2 cost $228 million

It's not unusual for a low-budget flick to take off in late summer. The question is whether District 9 has enough gas to keep flying.

The Transformers franchise has proven remarkably durable.

Revenge of the Fallen has grossed almost $400 million dollars in the US alone.

For everyone who is raving about Moon:
It was a very limited release

It opened in 8 theaters, peaked at ~250 and is currently showing at 100 theaters.
If you didn't live next to a few major cities, you can't and won't see it.

I'd be much, much more interested to know how much of the currency showed evidence of, say, uranium or plutonium. Those are supposed to be scarce, really, really scarce.

Plutonium, yes, uranium, no. Uranium is actually fairly abundant - about 4 ppm average in the Earth's crust, or the 48th most abundant element in natural crustal rock. Plutonium OTOH is entirely man-made. It is present in nature due to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing back in the '40s, '50s and '60s, but the levels should be below detectability in currency, I believe.

In any case, you would be perfectly safe, unless you were using the bills to snort the plutonium. Most common uranium and plutonium isotopes are almost pure alpha, with inhalation being the major danger. You'd have to have really bad luck to get any detectable health effects even if you inadvertently handled directly contaminated bills.

I would say Children of Men was the last one I saw that meet your conditions.

This is great! I'm getting a whole list of good sci-fi movies to watch!

I would say Children of Men was the last one I saw that meet your conditions.

TWFI

Starship Troopers?

*ducks* ;)

Well, it does tell us something about ourselves: how easily we resort to fascism in times of war, and how tempting it will seem to do so. And I don't think the movie, lame though it may be, is all that wrong there.

Most sci-fi movies these days are nothing more than action movies or horror movies dressed up with aliens and rayguns. District 9 actually uses the premise to tell us something about ourselves. I don't recall the last "sci-fi" movie I watched that did that.

Starship Troopers?

*ducks* ;)

As I mentioned initially, and as several others have since replied to you, the 20-year-old Alien Nation is exactly that movie. The main difference is that the aliens are slightly more integrated with human society (in California), mainly because they look pretty much like people. Alien Nation was a great movie, you should see it. The TV show that followed was rather lame by comparison.

As I mentioned initially, and as several others have since replied to you, the 20-year-old Alien Nation is exactly that movie. The main difference is that the aliens are slightly more integrated with human society (in California), mainly because they look pretty much like people. Alien Nation was a great movie, you should see it. The TV show that followed was rather lame by comparison.