HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher)
Subject: Re: George Miller
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:51:33 GMT

In article <Jul.22.09.56.55.1992.17118@pilot.njin.net> hedges@pilot.njin.net (Douglas Hedges) writes:
>reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher) writes:
>
>>The "right" George Miller (as opposed to the "wrong" George Miller, who,
>>while competent, is much less talented - "The Man From Snowy River" is
>>his best) took a break from filmmaking for a few years, possibly because
>>of the highly unpleasant experience of making "The Witches of Eastwick".
>>I've heard recently that he's trying to make a film, but I don't remember
>>what it was.
>
>I can't imagine
>why someone that talented isn't in great demand by Hollywood but
>I guess he's not part of "the club."  Thanks for the update.

Immediately after posting, I found out more.  The film, actually, has
been made, and will be out this autumn.  It's "Lorenzo's Oil", and
stars Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte.  It's based on the true story of
the parents of a child afflicted with a rare disease who, despite no
previous training in medical research, become committed to finding a
treatment for his disease.  While this may not sound like Miller's sort
of story, given "Mad Max" and all, he is perhaps uniquely well suited
to direct the film.  Miller is an M.D. (allowing him to beat out Francis
Coppola's M.F.A. in the sweepstakes for the Hollywood director with
the most advanced degree).

Miller is a very intelligent and thoughtful man, as well as talented.  
I suspect his absence from films had more to do with what he wanted to
do than with whether he got offers to do things.  He's at least partially
associated with Spielberg and John Landis (through "The Twilight Zone"),
two of the ultimate insiders.  (Of course, they may be jealous over the
fact that his episode of "The Twilight Zone" was undeniably much, much
better than theirs, and got the reviews to validate it.)  I think if
Miller had wanted to make action films, he'd have had no trouble getting
a job.

--
		Peter Reiher
		reiher@ashby.cs.ucla.edu

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: barker@RIPU7.acd.com ( Dave Barker )
Subject: Re: _Stand By Me_ Query SPOILER
Organization: Applied Computing Devices, Inc., Terre Haute IN
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 16:19:28 GMT

In article <l6o49oINN7bp@news.bbn.com> levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) writes:
>dododge@wam.umd.edu (David O. Dodge) writes:
>
>|In article <13583@mindlink.bc.ca> Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
>|>What got me about the last scene of this movie was that the author, after a
>|>self-satisfied smile at the literary power of his last line, turned off his
>|>computer without bothering to save his file. That to me was just the climactic
>|>piece of stupefaction in a  truly, madly, deeply stupid movie.
>
>|This has been brought to Rob Reiner's attention on MANY occasions. His
>|position is that there is a change in the camera angle before you see
>|Dreyfus turn off the computer, and therefore he may have saved his files,
>|exited the program, etc and Reiner just "skipped" showing us this. :-)
>
>It was never clear to me that he turned off anything besides just the
>monitor.
>
>	/JBL

	Who gives a shit whether or not he turned the computer off. It is
	not relevent to the ending or the movie. I thought the ending was a
	little weak, but the rest of the movie I thought was excellent -
	one of my top 10 favorite.

	Dave Barker
	Applied Computing Devices, Inc.
	Terre Haute, IN


-- 
Dave Barker  
Applied Computing Devices, Inc.
Terre Haute, IN 47802
-------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: seiffe@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Erica Seiffert)
Subject: Re: Favorite musicals
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 17:40:23 GMT

	Here is my list in no particular order:

Show Boat 
Hair (a soon as he cut his hair I was a mass of tears)
Pirates of Penznace (forgive the spelling...Kevin Kline was terrific as 
		     the Pirate King!)
West Side Story
The King and I (I saw this the last time Brynner toured with the show
		in Chicago..through a mix up..I got fith row from the
		stage...*sigh* It was a dream come true to actually see
		this done on stage)


	Well..I know there is more..I just can't think of them right now.


ems
******
I don't speak for my employers and we both like it that way!
From: esa@acpub.duke.edu (EMILY ANGERER)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: "Sisters" song - where????
Keywords: name that movie!
Date: 28 Jul 92 17:55:23 GMT
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: "Sisters" song - where????
Summary: 
Expires: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: 
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.
Keywords: name that movie!

In article <1992Jul28.143457.8202@infonode.ingr.com> dianne@dianne.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Dianne Ferrans ) writes:
>O.K. Movie quote-ahaulics, name this movie for me.  It contained
>the song:
>
>sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters,
>many men have tried to split us up, but no one can
>lord, help the mister who comes between me and my sister
>and lord, help the sister who comes between me and my man!
>
>I'm thinking late-70's?  Help if you can.
>You'll win "Movie trivia genius of the hour" :-)
>

The move was "White Christmas."
From: usul@auc.UUCP (Ron McBay)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: The Vanishing
Date: 23 Jul 92 07:33:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: auc.32639
Reply-To: usul@auc.UUCP (Ron McBay)
Organization: Atl Univ Ctr [Clark AU, ITC, Morehouse, Morris Brown, Spelman]

In article <14dituINN7qg@agate.berkeley.edu> peterme@ocf.berkeley.edu (Peter D. Merholz) writes:
>An American version of this foriegn film is in the works, according
>to Premiere mag... Has anyone seen the European version? Is it any
>good?

In a way, this is probably the scariest film I've ever seen.  The way the guy
treats life as an experiment just to prove a point to himself whether he has
free will terrified me because it's the same kind of thoughts that might 
wander through my own head and it's scary to see the path that kind of 
thinking took him down.  One of my top 2 or 3 personal favorites of all time.

Ron
-- 
Ron McBay/Atlanta University Center| Be who you must, that's a part of the
Internet: usul@auc.auc.edu         | plan.  Await your arrival.  It's simple
UUCP:     gatech!auc!usul          | survival and one day we'll all understand.
BITNET:   USUL@EMORY               |     -- "PART OF THE PLAN", DAN FOGELBERG
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher)
Subject: Re: MGM (was: Myths or Movies? (Evil Dead 3, X-MEN))
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 23:28:14 GMT

In article <v2dmnh_@lynx.unm.edu> lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble) writes:
>reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher) writes:
>
>> There are only three studios in serious trouble - MGM/UA, Orion, and
>> Carolco.  Of these, only MGM/UA is a major, long time player, and they
>> are sort of in the least trouble of the three, as best as I can tell. 
>
>Whoever owns the MGM name is licensing it out for some *very* strange
>purposes.  I saw an MGM *car stereo case* for sale the other day -- the
>box had the MGM lion on it, the whole bit.

Bits and pieces of the MGM logo rights have been parcelled out into
at least three places.  MGM/UA (or whatever they call themselves nowadays -
it's no longer Pathe Communications) owns the basic rights, but Disney
licensed certain logo rights for use in conjunction with their theme
park in Orlando.  (There's a big lawsuit going on about this issue, big
enough to drag several multimillionaires and at least one billionaire
into a courtroom to testify.)  The billionaire in question is Kirk
Kirkorian, former owner of MGM, and one of his companies holds rights
that permit the use of the logo in conjunction with the MGM Grand Hotel
in Las Vegas.  I think that company also runs the airline with the MGM
logo.

I'd bet the car stereo rights came direct from MGM itself, which is
seriously strapped for cash, but who knows?

--
		Peter Reiher
		reiher@ashby.cs.ucla.edu

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: roger@itl.itd.umich.edu (Roger Espinosa)
Subject: Re: _Stand By Me_ Query SPOILER
Organization: Instructional Technology Laboratory, University of Michigan
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 16:37:19 GMT



Oh, bejeebers.

Didn't it ever occur to anyone that *maybe* the whole story-writing-
memory-deal was the narrator/author's catharsis, and that he didn't really
want to save the story? That he just needed to relive it once more, for
himself, since his old best friend had just died?

Sorta a modern-day write-it-up, toss it in the fire bit.

I dunno. First time I saw "Stand by Me" it was the *first* thing that
came to me, and I thought it made the ending that much more powerful. Then
all these years later, I have to keep hearing about people being so bleedin'
clever about spotting the no-save action...

...aaaaargh.

Roger
(Really. It's more powerful my way. Honest. ;-)
From: hcleong@iti.gov.sg (Leong Heng Cheong)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: HK Movies (Was: Diary of a Hitman)
Date: 27 Jul 92 04:35:23 GMT
Organization: Information Technology Institute, National Computer Board, Singapore.


In article <1992Jul27.012505.5166@athena.mit.edu> ep[rice@sql.sybase.com writes:
>I just watched Diary of a Hitman.  This is the worst movie I have seen
>in recent memory.

[...]

>
>I wouldn't normally post something like this (I mean, there are a lot
>of movies I think are bad), but I had to make an exception.  I cannot
>think of the last time I was this shocked and dumbfounded, by a movie.
>
[...]

>-666 on the -4 to 4 scale.
>

[NB: I've never seen DIARY OF A HITMAN before -- I assume it is
a Hong Kong movie based on the content of the previous posting...]

For Hong Kong movies, the ratio of bad movies compared to good
movies is very much higher than that of Hollywood (IMHO, of course).
The reason that this fact has gone mainly unnoticed in America and other
parts of the non-Chinese speaking world is that usually, only good HK
movies made it there.  If you take a look at rec.arts.movies and
alt.cult-movies, it is usually the few HK movies that are being
discussed: ENTER THE DRAGON, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, THE KILLER,
A BETTER TOMORROW, POLICE STORY, and A CHINESE GHOST STORY.    
This represents only a very small percentage of the thousands of 
HK movies made each year.

John Woo, for example, is not that great a director in this part of the
world.  A BETTER TOMORROW was a box-office hit, but his later films
could not get out of the sterotype and received quite bad reviews.  His
latest film, HARD-BOILED COP, was described as a non-sensical piece of
violent formula trash in the papers.  It also didn't do well in the box-office.
This same film ran in the theatres in Singapore for only 2 weeks, 
if I'm not wrong.

Many other films are equally bad.  Currently, some of the HK movies
playing in Singapore are: HER JUDGEMENT DAY, SON ON THE RUN, CASH ON
DELIVERY, CALL GIRLS '92, GIRLS WITHOUT TOMORROW 1992, VENDETTA
and LUCKY ENCOUNTER.  All of the above are small budget B-movies that
try to break even via violence or sex.  The plot is out of the same
formula, the acting is non-existence, the editing is bascially just piece
together different scenes onto the same film, the music are all from
recycle-able can music, and direction is... well, put it this way: 
I can do at least as "good" a job.  

Granted, this is not the season of good HK movies in Singapore, but they
are by far very much worse than Hollywood's post-academy pre-summer
releases.

One thing very bad about HK movies: they are real "trend followers".  You
should see all the vampire/zombies films that came out after the success
of MR VAMPIRE (a.k.a. STOP BREATHING TEMPORARY), and all the ganster
movies after the success of A BETTER TOMORROW.  Most of these copy-cats
just hopes to cash in on the success, and are basically hurried projects
with no production values at all.

And you thought the current crop of Hollywood sequels are bad... :-)

Leong, Heng-Cheong
  hcleong@iti.gov.sg
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: uhschreg@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Ulrich Schreglmann)
Subject: Re: REVIEW: NAKED LUNCH
Organization: Student Pool, CSD, University of Erlangen, Germany
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 14:04:30 GMT

kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu) writes:

>Cronenberg was once quoted (somewhere) as saying that a true adaptation of
>the book would result in a movie that would cost several $100 million, which
>was why it was decided early on that the movie would be about the writing of
>the book, _Naked Lunch_, not a real adapation.

That sounds interesting. Does anybody know about the book and what would
have been so expensive in adaption? If it was no adaption how much did
it have to do with the book? Is it understandable? I didn't quite get
the plot of the movie, although I enjoyed it. (I don't loathe bugs, ei-
ther.)


May the Cool be with You!

(C)OOL mcmxcii
From: bd@fluent@dartmouth.EDU (Brice Dowaliby)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: Christopher Walken
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:42:01 GMT
Reply-To: bd%fluent@dartmouth.EDU
Organization: Fluent Inc., Lebanon NH


in article <2518@nlsun1.oracle.nl> gbradley@uks197.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Bradley) writes of Communion:

>It's the film version of the Whitley Striebling (sp?) book of the
>same name. This book was very big in Britain some years ago, but may not
>have been in the U.S. It concerns the author's apparantly factual
>account of meeting aliens while staying at a remote holiday home in the
>woods/mountains with his family and friends.

I would rather see it described as Strieber's "purportedly" factual
account, rather than "apparently" factual.

IMHO it was a crock, and was hyped incredibly (it also sold very well
in the U.S.).  The movie was kind of fun if you're ready for
total b.s., but I thought the writer and/or director did have an
anal fixation of some sort...

-- 
    Brice Dowaliby         |    I may speak fluently, but 
(bd%fluent@dartmouth.edu)  |    I don't speak for Fluent
From: "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: the vanishing
Date: 27 Jul 92 21:59:50 EST
Reply-To: "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com>
Distribution: rec
Organization: Channel 1 Communications

FT>Although I am getting sick of Americans remaking
FT>quality foriegn films. Why not just allow forign films to get a better
FT>release pattern and promotion. If we can export all our films all around
FT>the world, forign films should become a staple in our theaters.

     I'd like to second the motion.  Unfortunately, there are two factors
     that seem doomed to guarantee that movies made outside of the USA
     will be extremely rare on theatre screens in our country for a LONG
     time to come.  Those factors are:

     1) Those foreign movies were not made by Hollywood studios.  This
     means that the profits from these movies will be flowing to a studio
     other than Hollywood.  Tinseltown cringes at the thought of actually
     having some COMPETITION, so they have spent decades building a
     monopoly on the movie business - not only in America, but all over
     the world.  As a result, American movies are seen worldwide, but
     many foreign studios have trouble showing their movies IN THEIR OWN
     COUNTRIES!

     The Hollywood studios might still be able to make money on foreign
     films by gaining distribution rights to those movies here in the USA,
     but the other factor comes into play:

     2) How many mainstream American movie viewers actually want to see
     a movie with SUBTITLES?  Oh sure, I know they enjoy Hollywood movies
     with subtitled sequences, such as "Dances With Wolves," but Orion
     Pictures made sure that they promoted "DWW" as an ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
     movie.  Try foisting a movie with subtitles on people today, and many
     of them will turn away in droves, because it means they'll have to
     THINK when they see these movies.  The horror, the horror.
---
  SLMR 2.1a  Sometimes I miss my Mom...then I reload.
--
Channel 1 (R)   Cambridge, MA

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com (Mark Slagle)
Subject: Re: TERMINATOR II
Reply-To: slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com
In-reply-to: Matt Pyson's message of Sat, 25 Jul 1992 16:32:31 EDT
Organization: You wouldn't ask this if you'd seen my desk.
	<64238@hydra.gatech.EDU> <1992Jul24.221646.500@sura.net>
	<92207.163231MRP105@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 18:37:22 GMT

In article <92207.163231MRP105@psuvm.psu.edu>, Matt Pyson <MRP105@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

> Trusting a Terminator.... I'd say that she'd be very safe
> trusting a Terminator since they are not sophisticated enough
> to do sneaky, manipulative plotting...  they're just too
> single-minded. 

You know that, but Sarah doesn't.

> [Stuff deleted about the terminator possibly being mis-programmed]

>> Do the words, "bug," "glitch," "malfunction," "crash," or even
>> "Trojan horse" mean anything to you?

> These are all certainly possible, but they don't fit in with
> the tone of the rest of the story as presented. The movie isn't
> about humanity being destroyed because of a programming error.
> That's closer to what WarGames was about. T2 is about the
> triumph of humanity and human feelings over inhumanity and
> emotion- lessness. All machinery functions as it ought, unless
> it is part of the story that it doesn't. 

Again, you know that, but the characters in the movie don't.
The question revolves around the motivation of the characters,
not the motivation of the director.

> There was no subplot about Arnie having ulterior motives,
> therefore he didn't have any.

Well, there wasn't such a subplot in the movie actually made ...
So what if we got somebody to go back in time and kill Cameron's
mother before she spawns him, then T2 would never have been made
according to this vision, and we could have any subplot we want ...
--
----
Mark E. Slagle                                 PO Box 61059
slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com                       Sunnyvale, CA   94088
408-756-0895                                   USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: tfarmer@datamark.co.nz (Thomas Farmer)
Subject: Re: Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:41:13 GMT
Organization: Datamark International Ltd.

In article <1992Jul27.025919.15473@wam.umd.edu> dododge@wam.umd.edu (David O. Dodge) writes:
>
>Sure, if you like violent oddball films. If this is the same print that
>came around earlier then there won't be any subtitles (though the theater
>may give out a sheet with the English dialogue on it). There isn't much
>dialogue anyway so this isn't too much of a problem.

There was about one scene in it where I missed not being able to
understand what the characters were saying.

>Basically it's about a man who's got a "metal fetish", and another man
>who sort of gets "infected" by the metal guy. REALLY strange. There are
>some fairly nasty gore scenes (in B&W) -- not for the timid.

Yes, the big 'Black'n'Decker' phallus was a high light of the evening!

>As far as the sequel goes (Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer), I missed the
>D.C. showing of this, but the director said it wasn't nearly as violent,
>and I've read it supposedly has more of a plot. He said that even if
>you're put off by Tetsuo you should still see Tetsuo II (or rather that's
>what his interpreter says he said).

I have seen both Tetsuo and Tetsuo II. I hated the second one and
nearly walked out. It seemed to have all the excesses of the first
with none of the redeeming qualities.

The director uses a lot of 'interesting' camerawork, some of which is
quite fun.  There is a lot of sped up and stop motion photography. The
people appearing to surf down the street was mildly amusing.

One of the main problems is that the director doesn't know when or how
to stop. Some people may define this as being his style but if so I
think it's a style.

The best bit is the soundtrack. Industrial style music.

The people who enjoyed it most appeared to be the ones who were fans
of Japanese animated films and comics.

-- 
    Thomas Farmer | tfarmer@datamark.co.nz    or | Amiga 2.04, AIX 3.1
Datamark Intl Ltd | tfarmer@cavebbs.welly.gen.nz | Win 3.1, OS/2 2.0
 Technical Writer | 
    & PC Wrangler | If I had something witty to say, I'd put it here.
From: traveler@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Batman 2--Studio snowed critics & public!
Date: 28 Jul 92 03:49:46 GMT
Reply-To: traveler
Organization: University of Florida  (ufl.edu)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4


	I am a latecomer to the Batman Returns debates, but I agree
that it was vastly overrated.  While certain elements of the
film are intriguing, mainly the possibilities of the Bat-Cat-
Penguin triangle, it was mostly a mess.  I like it less and less
the more I thought about it.  SPeaking of the character triangle,
like I said, it had possibilities, but they were underexplored.
And as for the "dark" sets, they were alot cheesier than the
original film's Gotham--you could tell easily that this was
done on soundstages and with miniatures, while that one was
ona huge backlot at Pinewood Studios.
	Frankly, I'm getting tired of the "dark", urban-decay thing.
BLade Runner and Brazil did it right...Batman 1 , while not on
their level in general, came close with its designs.  But the
idea is over a decade old now.  This points to Burton's general
lack of originality.  He is not all he is made out to be!
After watching him on BOb Costas' show, I started to like the guy
less and less; all he did was gesture wildly and speak
incoherently, whining about his art and the oppressive studio
bosses who, heaven forbid, tried to make him put PLOT into his
movies.  Burton is a postmodern psuedo artiste--an avant-garder
for the baby boomer set.  
	Unfortunately, he is but the most prominent in a new school
of filmmaking--that of huge, broadly-outlined, clunky fantasy
films...'60s sitcoms transfered to the big screen (remember
the Adams Failmy?).  He is a pale, pale imtiation of Terry Gilliam,
who actually does movie fantasy well, and epically.
	The studios skillfully sold Burton as artiste, and BR as art
..thus winning over he critics in advance.  Burton moaned
about he commercialization, but probably laughed all the way
to the bank.  

--------------------------------------------
Max Clarke			/o)\
TRAVELER			\(o/
--------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
From: usagi@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Erin Sasaki)
Subject: MOVIE QUOTES WANTED
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 22:59:56 GMT


Hi - 

	I have a request for all you quote collectors out there.  Every week
at my office we have a trivia quiz of sorts, and I thought it would fun to
have a movie quotes trivia quiz next week.  So, if you have colletions of
movie quotes (and their attributions) and could e-mail them to me, I would
greatly appreciate it.

	Thanks!

						Erin Sasaki
						usagi@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies,rec.arts.sf.movies