Answered general questions about movies, TV and more

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Chosen answer: No. Wayne disliked High Plains Drifter enough that he said he wouldn't want to work with Eastwood.

Captain Defenestrator

How does Blu-ray conversion better the quality of old movies? The "Film Foundation" or whatever they are called is going back and restoring countless old movies like The Red Shoes to DVD and Blu-Ray. And they keep saying that the Blu-Ray makes it better than ever and clearer. How is that? The original film was the original format. So how can changing the format better something that was in a lesser form originally?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: Any movie shot on film, as all older movies obviously were, has to be scanned into a digital format in order to be placed on a DVD or BluRay disc. Generally speaking, for DVD releases, films were scanned at the minimum resolution necessary for that format, and thus using the same scan for the high-definition BluRay release wouldn't result in any improvement to the picture quality. What companies are doing now is returning to the original film negatives, if available, or original film reels if not and rescanning them as a much higher resolution, generally after going through them painstakingly frame-by-frame to remove imperfections in the original images. Thus the versions of those movies now being released on BluRay are not only cleaned up versions of the original, resulting in a better image, but are taken from new high-definition scans, allowing the full resolution of the BluRay disc and the high-definition television it's being played on to be utilised, making for exceptional quality.

Tailkinker

This is a movie that I got from Red Box a couple years ago or so. But for the life of me I can not remember what it was called. From what I remember, the basic jist of it was this swordsman wanted to become the greatest swordsman in the world and is Japanese. He challenges the current best and beats him in seconds right at the beginning of the movie. And it is his mission to beat that guy's full clan, which he does, killing them all except a small baby that he can't bring himself to kill. He takes it to raise, but this goes against his own clan's rules and so now he is hunted for dead. He leaves Japan and goes to America in the old west. He meats up with a dysfunctional circus group and mixes with them. This group has their own problems with local cowboys. And by the end of the movie, it becomes a three way battle between this guy with the Circus guys on his side, the cowboys, and Ninjas out to get the main guy. All fighting each other. This was the plot to the best of my memory. I can not remember the name and would love to watch it again. Does anybody know what movie this is?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: Sounds like "The Warrior's Way".

MasterOfAll

I remember about five or more years ago I saw this movie about a girl or a guy who goes to Ireland and while there this older guy knocks their heads together. Later on he/she gets drunk and married and tries to get out of it, but falls in love. Oh and some guy lies too long in a tanning bed and gets badly burned.

Answer: I think the movie is 'The Matchmaker' with Janeane Garofalo. There is a knocking heads scene and a guy does spend too long in a tanning bed and burns, but there's no 'getting drunk, married and regretting it' scenario.

ChiChi

Please help. This movie was made around 1995-2001. Can't remember a lot of details. There was an old house and boy and a girl lived there. At the end of the movie we realize that they were possessed by spirits of two lovers, who died a long time ago. I also remember that the name of the boy is important, at the end of the movie he asks the protagonist to say his name aloud, and when he does, the boy dies.

afisher1

Chosen answer: This is an adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw", a horror story written by Henry James. There have been several made over the years, listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw#In_popular_culture.

Jon Sandys

I'm trying to find the title of a movie I watched in the early 1980's about a poor military family whose daughter is killed by a train while playing on the train tracks, and money is donated to the family for the funeral. That's pretty much all I can remember, but would love to see it again.

Answer: I think it was a made-for-TV movie with Jane Fonda called the Dollmaker.

I don't know if it's a show or a movie but there's a scene where a boy and a girl are at the movies and the girl is really into the movie. She keeps reaching in the bag of popcorn which is on the boy's lap. The boy then proceeds to dump the popcorn so the girl can touch his penis. The bag has red and white vertical stripes.

Lobos88

Chosen answer: Not sure if it's the scene you're thinking of, but the movie "Diner" uses a box of popcorn that way.

When people point out a movie mistake, a lot of the time it is answered as a "character mistake" and not a "movie mistake?" What difference does it make? The scene was written for the movie and filmed. The mistake was not noticed during filming or when editing, the mistake was not noticed and they could have used another footage without the mistake. So how can the producer/director/editor leaving a mistake in post production considered a "character mistake" and not a movie mistake?" This question was answered earlier but the answer still makes no sense to me.

lartaker1975

Chosen answer: It's a slight matter of judgment, but broadly speaking "character mistakes" are the sort of mistakes people make in real life - getting a historical date or other factual information wrong, or a mis-spelling on a sign, things like that. As such they could be a sign of bad filmmaking, or just a believable slip that someone could easily make in real life. So it makes sense to have a section for these sort of "behavioural mistakes" different to "factual errors" which are definitely filmmaking/research mistakes, such as wreckage burning in space, or it apparently being daylight everywhere in the world at the same time (both from Armageddon).

Jon Sandys

I am looking for the title of a movie that I think was an NBC "Movie of the Week" sometime between 1989 and 1990. I think it starred Meredith Baxter Birney who worked as a nurse. Her daughter had been raped. The mother becomes obsessed with bringing this rapist to justice. The police had no clues. The mother hangs out on the same street corner of the same bus stop where her daughter was abducted and raped for a year with her husband in a car nearby. The same guy who tried to rape her daughter tried to rape the mother. She was able to fight him off and get the police involved. Then a bunch of other women came forward saying he had done the same thing. It was based on a true story. I want this movie on a DVD. Does anyone know the name of this movie?

Answer: I believe the movie you're looking for is Darkness Before Dawn.

I'm looking for a movie or maybe a TV movie from the late 90s/early 2000s, where a man stalks a teenage girl and sometimes stalks her in her own house. It's not the movie "Hider In The House" but similar. The only scenes I can remember with detail are: the father ends up walking on a trap door and falls into the basement where he's pierced by spikes, and the stalker forces the daughter to dance with him at the end. Also I believe the teenage girl has no mother, and the only family she has are her father and brother.

Lemmwinks

Chosen answer: Christina's House.

I can't remember the name of this movie - maybe it is a kid's movie. But the father of this family creates a white teddy bear that every kid loves. I think the teddy bear would say "i love you" or something. Then, this nice teddy bear get mass distributed across the country. The very first bear that the father made is actually completely evil and wants to take over the world or something by controlling all the teddy bears. The teddy bear get red eyes when he's evil. What movie is this?

Answer: It was the 'honey I shrunk the kids' TV show. The bear was called Fwuffy. It's on YouTube.

What movie is it where a boy gets messages from either aliens or the government through the TV static?

Answer: A few possibilities - Cocoon: The Return (1988). Also an episode of the X-Files - a woman who is a multiple abductee has her own daughter taken. The son stares at the TV, scribbling in a notebook prime numbers. When translated reveals classical music, DNA codes and government secrets. Another is a black sci-fi comedy titled Terrorvision. An alien appears on a family's TV screen, warning them about a huge blob of a monster about to land in their home.

Jeff Swanson

I don't have much to go on. I watched this maybe in early 1990's late 1980's. The only scene I remember, on a nice sunny day, in a big farmhouse in the midwest, a teen girl decides not to go to picnic or event with her family so she is home alone. A car pulls up to the house, a young man goes up to the door and tries to lure the girl to go with him in his car. I don't remember if they know each other already. She is on the staircase talking to him through the screen door it seems like for a long time. She seems scared to go, but she finally decides to go with him, and they take a ride to a corn field and I believe have sex.

Answer: It might be Smooth Talk (1985) with Laura Dern. Based on the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates.

rswarrior

A few years back I was watching MTV and they played a movie. All I really remember is it had to do with bullying and a guy was on a video chatting website where other people can see him, and he was saying he was going to kill himself so he stared taking pills, and then when he started taking a lot people got worried and were saying they needed to call the police. The boy finally went in his bed and said goodbye - the cops came into his house and brought him to a hospital.

Answer: It could be the movie Suicide Room.

I am searching for a movie that I believe was made in the 90s.The plot involves a teenage girl who runs away for the summer due to family problems (from what I can remember it was stepmother in particular.) She ends up staying with her brother for the summer, who I believe lives on or by a lake. Her family finds out from her brother that she is there and follows her. This includes her mother and other extended family. I vaguely remember a pregnant girlfriend of a family member who falls in love with someone else (the brother perhaps?) And stays with him in the the end. I also remember a sister who falls in love. I saw this on TV, so it may have been a made for TV movie. Does this movie sound familiar?

Answer: That would be 1992's "Big Girls Don't Cry... They Get Even".

LorgSkyegon

I'm looking for a movie, possibly two, that I saw 20+ years ago. This is what I remember. There is a girl (late teens, early 20s) with short dark hair who gets kidnapped by a group of people. She escapes and I remember her running down the street in her underwear (I think) and then she goes up to a house and starts pounding on the door to get help. An older woman comes to the door and the girl is begging to be let in, but the woman gets freaked out, goes back into the house, and shuts the door. The kidnappers find the girl and take her again. The other part I remember is very vague and I don't know if it's from the same movie or a different one. There is a man with longish, dark, curly hair and glasses. There is also an old pick up truck; red, maybe orange. I also remember a mattress being outside and set on fire. Please help me if you can.

KitKat0922

Chosen answer: This may be Last House on The Left.

I'm after the title of a cartoon. I remember watching a cartoon when I was young i.e. in the late 90s (animated film) that had hillbilly style animals that would play bluegrass music. I remember the grass actually being blue in the cartoon. I remember one scene where the 'good character' was versus the 'evil character' in a musician's competition and the evil character was playing so hard that the guitar smoked and blew up. Another scene was when the good character was being told to keep on practising and he would get better at playing his banjo. This sounds really vague, I know, but any help would be appreciated.

Answer: Are you thinking of The Devil and Daniel Mouse? This was an animated short movie made by the Canadian company Nelvana. You can find it on Nelvanamation Vol. 2 or in the DVD extras of Rock & Rule (another, and even better, Nelvana film).

Aerinah

I'm trying to remember a movie that maybe came out in the 70-80's about a man who falls in love with a woman but when he goes to sleep with her he finds out she's a man, and he may have beaten him in a garage?

Answer: Could be 'A Girl Like Me'.

I am looking for a movie where a white women is lost in the desert and then found by an Arab and kept in his house as a sex slave.

Answer: This sounds very much like the 1990 film, The Sheltering Sky, starring Debra Winger.

raywest

I was wondering if anyone could back me up on this. When the James Bond films were in limbo between 1989 and 1995 and two studios were fighting over rights issues, I am sure I read articles which claimed that producer Joel silver was desperately trying to obtain the franchise with the full intent of casting Mel Gibson as Bond (despite Gibson repeatedly saying that he wasn't interested). I have found nothing anywhere online to back this up so I was wondering if anyone else had read this. Or it is simply my imagination?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: There were many actors who were considered for the role of James Bond during this period, including Mel Gibson in 1987. MGM suggested casting him, but producer Albert Broccoli rejected him because he was not British.

raywest

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