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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

...Hollywood movie coming true!

Finally, Joe's Apartment goes interactive! But is $500 million nearly enough to get Jerry O'Connell for voice work?

They've made music suck, they're about to make video games suck, and they've also made a bunch of really shitty movies.

Oh wait, they already have....

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Note to Hollywood: Please don't remake "The Andromeda Strain" unless you can do a damn good job! Past experience has proven that the chances of this happening (doing a good job) are pretty damn low.

That's a very customer-friendly thing for Netflix to do. If I was the type of person who rents movies, I'd probably give them my business.

No, I don't illegally download all my movies in lieu of renting, I use the public library. It's a hard thing to admit because it makes me sound like a cheap loser (cheap because I don't pay anything, and loser because it "cooler" to be a pirate), but my library has all the latest DVDs shortly after they're released. They also have A LOT of old, independent and foreign movies to choose from. There are plenty of movies I've gotten this way that I would have otherwise never known existed: Everything is Illuminated, Dancer in the Dark, and Monsoon Wedding for example. You won't see ads for films like these when you're watching My Name is Earl or a baseball game on TV.

Disclaimer: no, I don't work for the library. I'm just impressed with how my tax dollars are spent for a change.

That's a very customer-friendly thing for Netflix to do. If I was the type of person who rents movies, I'd probably give them my business.

No, I don't illegally download all my movies in lieu of renting, I use the public library. It's a hard thing to admit because it makes me sound like a cheap loser (cheap because I don't pay anything, and loser because it "cooler" to be a pirate), but my library has all the latest DVDs shortly after they're released. They also have A LOT of old, independent and foreign movies to choose from. There are plenty of movies I've gotten this way that I would have otherwise never known existed: Everything is Illuminated, Dancer in the Dark, and Monsoon Wedding for example. You won't see ads for films like these when you're watching My Name is Earl or a baseball game on TV.

Disclaimer: no, I don't work for the library. I'm just impressed with how my tax dollars are spent for a change.

That's a very customer-friendly thing for Netflix to do. If I was the type of person who rents movies, I'd probably give them my business.

No, I don't illegally download all my movies in lieu of renting, I use the public library. It's a hard thing to admit because it makes me sound like a cheap loser (cheap because I don't pay anything, and loser because it "cooler" to be a pirate), but my library has all the latest DVDs shortly after they're released. They also have A LOT of old, independent and foreign movies to choose from. There are plenty of movies I've gotten this way that I would have otherwise never known existed: Everything is Illuminated, Dancer in the Dark, and Monsoon Wedding for example. You won't see ads for films like these when you're watching My Name is Earl or a baseball game on TV.

Disclaimer: no, I don't work for the library. I'm just impressed with how my tax dollars are spent for a change.

Do you remember a summer blockbuster that was educational?

Depends on what you think "educational" is, I think. If you're thinking about "hard facts", well, that's difficult, because in order to know that you just got presented a fact, you already need to, well, know the fact. For example, in Stargate the Goa'uld names are actual names of egyptian gods. Someone not interested in egyptian mythology might not know that and it doesn't matter for enjoying the movie. The names could have just made up by the authors. And someone who recognizes the names already has that knowledge.

OTOH, you have "soft facts" that one could have picked up from blockbusters. The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a classic in that sense as it seems to reflect the reality at D-Day pretty accurate (according to veterans). You don't learn any hard facts from this scene, but you learn that a war/a battle is nothing funny. Instead it is a nightmare you'd avoid at all cost.

Compare that to the "clean and straight" war presented in 1970ish movies like Midway and you clearly see a difference.

Other examples that come to mind (although I'm not sure if they qualify as blockbusters) are Rain Man (explaining Autism to a wider audience) or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (denouncing common methods in asylums).

So, yes, entertainment and education is not necessarily an unsolvable conflict

Do you remember a summer blockbuster that was educational?

Depends on what you think "educational" is, I think. If you're thinking about "hard facts", well, that's difficult, because in order to know that you just got presented a fact, you already need to, well, know the fact. For example, in Stargate the Goa'uld names are actual names of egyptian gods. Someone not interested in egyptian mythology might not know that and it doesn't matter for enjoying the movie. The names could have just made up by the authors. And someone who recognizes the names already has that knowledge.

OTOH, you have "soft facts" that one could have picked up from blockbusters. The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a classic in that sense as it seems to reflect the reality at D-Day pretty accurate (according to veterans). You don't learn any hard facts from this scene, but you learn that a war/a battle is nothing funny. Instead it is a nightmare you'd avoid at all cost.

Compare that to the "clean and straight" war presented in 1970ish movies like Midway and you clearly see a difference.

Other examples that come to mind (although I'm not sure if they qualify as blockbusters) are Rain Man (explaining Autism to a wider audience) or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (denouncing common methods in asylums).

So, yes, entertainment and education is not necessarily an unsolvable conflict

Do you remember a summer blockbuster that was educational?

Depends on what you think "educational" is, I think. If you're thinking about "hard facts", well, that's difficult, because in order to know that you just got presented a fact, you already need to, well, know the fact. For example, in Stargate the Goa'uld names are actual names of egyptian gods. Someone not interested in egyptian mythology might not know that and it doesn't matter for enjoying the movie. The names could have just made up by the authors. And someone who recognizes the names already has that knowledge.

OTOH, you have "soft facts" that one could have picked up from blockbusters. The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a classic in that sense as it seems to reflect the reality at D-Day pretty accurate (according to veterans). You don't learn any hard facts from this scene, but you learn that a war/a battle is nothing funny. Instead it is a nightmare you'd avoid at all cost.

Compare that to the "clean and straight" war presented in 1970ish movies like Midway and you clearly see a difference.

Other examples that come to mind (although I'm not sure if they qualify as blockbusters) are Rain Man (explaining Autism to a wider audience) or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (denouncing common methods in asylums).

So, yes, entertainment and education is not necessarily an unsolvable conflict

Do you remember a summer blockbuster that was educational?

Depends on what you think "educational" is, I think. If you're thinking about "hard facts", well, that's difficult, because in order to know that you just got presented a fact, you already need to, well, know the fact. For example, in Stargate the Goa'uld names are actual names of egyptian gods. Someone not interested in egyptian mythology might not know that and it doesn't matter for enjoying the movie. The names could have just made up by the authors. And someone who recognizes the names already has that knowledge.

OTOH, you have "soft facts" that one could have picked up from blockbusters. The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a classic in that sense as it seems to reflect the reality at D-Day pretty accurate (according to veterans). You don't learn any hard facts from this scene, but you learn that a war/a battle is nothing funny. Instead it is a nightmare you'd avoid at all cost.

Compare that to the "clean and straight" war presented in 1970ish movies like Midway and you clearly see a difference.

Other examples that come to mind (although I'm not sure if they qualify as blockbusters) are Rain Man (explaining Autism to a wider audience) or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (denouncing common methods in asylums).

So, yes, entertainment and education is not necessarily an unsolvable conflict

Do you remember a summer blockbuster that was educational?

Depends on what you think "educational" is, I think. If you're thinking about "hard facts", well, that's difficult, because in order to know that you just got presented a fact, you already need to, well, know the fact. For example, in Stargate the Goa'uld names are actual names of egyptian gods. Someone not interested in egyptian mythology might not know that and it doesn't matter for enjoying the movie. The names could have just made up by the authors. And someone who recognizes the names already has that knowledge.

OTOH, you have "soft facts" that one could have picked up from blockbusters. The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a classic in that sense as it seems to reflect the reality at D-Day pretty accurate (according to veterans). You don't learn any hard facts from this scene, but you learn that a war/a battle is nothing funny. Instead it is a nightmare you'd avoid at all cost.

Compare that to the "clean and straight" war presented in 1970ish movies like Midway and you clearly see a difference.

Other examples that come to mind (although I'm not sure if they qualify as blockbusters) are Rain Man (explaining Autism to a wider audience) or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (denouncing common methods in asylums).

So, yes, entertainment and education is not necessarily an unsolvable conflict

> if you take out the hard to get past old english, it becomes an enjoyable story once again.

Never understood that at all, maybe being English helps, but when I did
it at school my problem was understanding what the hell was so difficult
about it. When people asked me to translate a section into understandable
English I was baffled, it all made perfect sense already [some exceptions
of course]. Take away the language and a fair amount of the point goes away.
I thought http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/ did a good job of leaving
the language in place but updating the setting.

The Core (2003) http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/ was both educational and fun.

Atleast reading the movie physics review on it. http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

Quotes such as "It's the worst physics movie...ever...." and "...the movie's heroes are at least 335 bombs short...." just make me laugh everytime I read it

Physics don't matter. In a few years, all fuel will be replaced by Brawndo. (It's got what Buses Crave.)

This is an old debate. Yes, TV and Movies largely rob you of time and money, and take up brain-cycles and memory capacity that could be used more productively for other things. Largely. It's because people choose to watch that kind of movie. We could all be watching intelligent, thought-provoking documentaries and technical films. But we don't. (Exceptions are noted.)

Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful ability. I'm glad I have it, it allows me to be entertained by reading, hearing, and watching works of pure fiction. I'm also glad that I'm smart enough to know the difference between fiction and fact. I got that by asking questions (stimulated in many cases by unrealistic scenes in movies, I'm sure). Not everyone wants to learn, however, and those that don't want to learn are probably irredeemable anyway. And laying the blame for their failures at Hollywood's doorstep is like blaming Goth Music and Violent Video Games for school shootings. It completely misses the point that solid education (or other forms of intervention, usually originating with parents that actually, gasp, pay attention to their children) would obviate the need for babysitting people through basic fact-versus-fancy analyses of obviously unrealistic media.

Some of us are able to handle our mindless entertainment responsibly. Those that can learn, will. Those that can't, will probably massively outnumber us within a generation or two anyway, if they don't already.

It's amazing how much Gene Roddenberry changed the world just by making it all up. If we're seeing Star Trek gadgetry now, I'm in awe/wonder/terror as to what it's actually going to be like in the 23rd century. There is a documentary out there on this topic called How William Shatner Changed the World by the History Channel.

I think that the bad bad guy looks a bit like Miguel de Icaza

I remember it from a skit on Not Necessarily the News on HBO, in reference to Reagan's Star Wars defense system.

Was it Game Over? The IBM thing was an allegation, not a fact. Kasparov comes off as a sore-loser-egomaniac who lost the later games in the match because of a hissy-fit he had with the "incident". The last scenes in the movie we see him vainly trying to reclaim his "ego" by trouncing opponents in some tournaments. Comes off like an ex-NFL'er parading through the local flag-football league.

Electricity can be dangerous. My nephew tried to stick a penny into a plug. Whoever said a penny doesn't go far didn't see him shoot across that floor. I told him he was grounded.

I don't believe you forgot to mention the horrors of female breasts ... shame on you! Think of the children!

Wasn't this already covered in the move Evolution?

Silly, misguided fool! There really *WAS* a documentary about said super criminal:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062861/

For some non-American releases, references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut. This includes dubbing, plus changing the logos during post-production. Taco Bell remains in the closing credits. In the Swedish release the subtitles still use Taco Bell while the sound and picture has been altered as above.

-- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106697/trivia

I have. Well, sort of. Of course, I didn't really expect it to be a good movie, but I secretly hoped it could be good in the same way Postal the game was. Maybe something like Road House (except with all the ghey carefully removed): rather stupid, cheap, and cheesy, but also super violent and funny. Apparently, the movie easily scored on the "stupid" part and failed on the "funny", which is pretty much what I thought was the realist expectation.

A million dollars.

No relation to Galaxy Express 999?

I thought it would have looked a lot more like the animation in Osmosis Jones. Still, with the mentioned possibillities of better displaying cervical cells, I'm sure this will lead to some geeky new trends in pr0n.

I was going to respond with a He-Man comment, but I have a nagging fear... either it was one of those "I ate too much pizza night" nightmares or Dolph Lundgren beat me to it... http://imdb.com/title/tt0093507 Oh god, it's true.

Too late. Again. (Look at how detailed the trivia pages are!)

Too late. Again. (Look at how detailed the trivia pages are!)

Leading into...

Revocation of emotions only seems like the logical next step...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/plotsummary

Johnny! Let's go! Lucky!

I've been to Cube, and the human rights situation there is deplorable.

They already made it (and Cher is in it, woo hoo!): http://imdb.com/title/tt0089560/

You are a very lucky person, if that is the worst movie you have ever seen. ...*shudder*... The Nail Gun Massacre comes to mind.

Marks on imdb.com:

Writer:

• Voltron (2008) (announced)
• Masters of the Universe (2009) (pre-production) (screenplay)
• Unbroken (2003)
• The Stranger (2003)
• Fast Forward (2002)

Producer:

• Unbroken (2003) (producer)
• Risk/Reward (2003) (associate producer)
• The Stranger (2003) (producer)
• Fast Forward (2002) (producer)

Miscellaneous Crew:

• Saved! (2004) (assistant: Sandy Stern)
• Family Secret (2000) (assistant to director)

Editorial Department:

• Family Secret (2000) (assistant editor)

Basically, Marks self-produced a couple of indy shorts early in the decade, then there's a big gap where he fell off the radar. Hard to say if he was script doctoring, working the business side of the industry, or just had enough money to bum around Hollywood bugging people to read his screenplays. Suddenly he reappears screenwriting two big (the studios hope) franchise relaunches.

I have to wish him all the luck personally, but resumés like this don't fill me with confidence about the final product.

Thundercats is in pre-production, slated for 2010.

http://imdb.com/title/tt1047015/

No. http://imdb.com/title/tt1060277/

The original Voltron is a Japanese TV Series.Not a Film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086824/

As sleazy and as fucked up as the movie business can be, I've always been consoled that at least it wasn't the sewer that is the music business.

I don't know exactly how they did it, but the people who run the business, the distributors, studio heads, and agents, have managed to keep the creative talent basically on their side; you occasionally see someone like Soderberg release Bubble to Internet the same day as theatrical, but it's always a lead balloon, and he goes back to do Ocean's 13 (why didn't he sell that piece of sh!t on the Internet?). That particular instance was more a case of Mark Kuban trying to break into the status quo, than Soderberg trying to break out.

I do travel with some privileged company, but nowhere in the culture of Hollywood is outright hostility to the exhibitors or distributors even comprehended in the visceral way it would come to the surface in the music industry. A lot of it has to do with the extreme competence of the agents, and the way they managed to get the artists a lot of the upside benfit of a movie while putting all the downside risk on the studio; there's so much money to be made if you're a successful actor or director, and the studio never comes back to collect on money they "loaned" you to make a film. You can see the interaction in the constant writers and actors strikes: the film industry is constantly hashing out the issue of how much creative people should earn, and I hope it continues to. The record labels would simply tell the creative types "Go fuck yourself" if they asked for more money.

Well, we are talking about expanding what constitutes Fair Use here. He was saying the lack of proper attribution was "the shit going on" acting a barrier against a fair-use consideration(*).

A citation should only require enough information to uniquely identify the the source material to facilitate its retrieval for comparison. For most TV content, title (with disambiguation as necessary), season and episode number (1x04) or production code number (#7G04) for a TV series, and the work's copyright notation (© YYYY Copyright Holding Company) should be sufficient. IMDb number if you're feeling generous (tt0756399). It appears to be enough for them when they borrow footage from each other in tiny print at the bottom edge of the video before the overscan, and sometimes not even for the full duration of the clip used.

(*) Fair use by definition does not require "permission" as he also suggested, eliminating his other gripe from consideration. He apparently feels otherwise, and that alone should disqualify him from being a juror in any case involving a fair use defense. Lawyers should take note to ask the question to prospective jurors during voir dire.

They say that they buy their data from Tribune Media Services. Where does TMS get the data from?

There's lots of room for competition here. Others can buy from TMS. Or from where TMS gets the data. Or from TMS competition (who is that?).

Or use a P2P system like the old CDDB. If tens of thousands of people enter data for the next few days TV listings, then each person will have to enter only a few listings at random on average each day or so.

"What's on TV?" are facts about the real world, like the days the circus will be in town. They should be as copyrightable as any facts. Copying a complete, value-added compilation of them in bulk to another medium by one person could conceivably be prohibited. But one person posting a couple-few facts is too prohibitive. Especially when the listings are advertisements for the shows.

And there's the question of how to catch each person entering the data. Even if source listings include defects, fake data that can be copyrighted more strongly than can reports of fact, the sheer numbers of P2P can provide redundancy to eliminate those defects in automated data quality assurance techniques.

And what's to stop people from just pointing their own MythTV at free schedule data like IMDbTV? Why should the TV schedule publishers be unhappy that we've got automated ways to consume the exact same content in their index, but probably even more because it's easier to navigate and control our TV?