WetGeek
While modern special effects can be dazzling, they are sometimes (too often) used as a crutch to prop up an otherwise less than stellar production. I'd put Alfred Hitchcock up against any modern film maker. That man knew how to tell a story!!! Back in the day film makers were working without a net, so to speak, which is why so many of these classic films still hold up, all these years later.

      GumbyDamnIt I'd put Alfred Hitchcock up against any modern film maker.

      In an article about Alfred Hitchcock, someone wrote about his being the "master of suspense." And defined "suspense" as "knowing what's gonna happen, but just not know WHEN it's gonna happen."

          GumbyDamnIt if I could give you more than a thumbs up and a like I would. I run like the plague from CGI. Charlie Theron's stump arm in Mad Max is the only time I've been impressed with it. Other than that CGI is so painfully obviously fake most of the time I get embarrassed watching it. Without a net the only way to roll.

            WetGeek Hitchcock also the pioneer of indirect graphic violence, often alluding to it rather than showing it which packs its own psychological wallop.

                brent
                The shower scene in Psycho is a perfect example of this. All you see is the knife and the drain. Everything else is implied, but it's both shocking and terrifying, none the less, without all of the gratuitous gore (the net) that is so common these days.

                EDIT: Mind, I'm not saying that blood and gore is necessarily a bad thing, just that it doesn't make up for a poorly told story.

                    GumbyDamnIt Mind, I'm not saying that blood and gore is necessarily a bad thing, just that it doesn't make up for a poorly told story.

                    Could you imagine Tarantino doing sci-fi?

                        brent
                        Tarantino kinda stepped over the line in From Dusk Till Dawn if you consider the whole vampire thing to be sci fi.

                            GumbyDamnIt WetGeek
                            Fantasy seems a loosey-goosey category. Harry Potter goes there, right? I have visited used DVD stores that sold the Johnny Depp Pirate movies under the 'Fantasy' Category. I think I saw one of the Pirate movies but the categorization (word?) as Fantasy is over my head. That old Anne Rice Vampire Interview movie seemed like a history movie with a couple vampires in it. Mickey Rourke's fantatic Angel Heart, set in the same city, is a Fanstasy movie to me though film people call it noir. The more i write, unsurprisingly, the less I know🙂.

                                8 months later

                                My favorites are Blade Runner 2049, Dune, and, of course, the Star Wars series (except for the newest ones). By the way, thanks for the suggestions in this thread, some of them are on my watchlist now. I am especially eager to watch The Chronicles of Riddick, Donnie Darko, and the old Mad Max. I’ve heard many about these movies but never got to watch them.

                                  sasabottle I removed the last part of your post because this forum is not a place for sharing links to illegal content.

                                    2 months later

                                    At Goodwill today: a $1 DVD of the Kurt Russell/Spader sci-fi movie Stargate. Saw a lot of great Kurt Russell action films but I always missed this one..LOVED the tv series. Hopefully I will dig the movie.

                                      Solarmass I only saw this movie not tv series

                                      My wife and I were big fans back in the day, both of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. We bought DVD sets of all the episodes of both series, and ripped them to our Videos NAS share. (We had no idea at the time that we'd one day be streaming movies from Netflix, Amazon, Disney, etc.)

                                      It's been so long since we watched those, it's probably time to start at the beginning and run through them all again. Being retired, we watch a lot of movies. Especially during the rainy season.

                                          WetGeek My wife and I were big fans back in the day, both of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. We bought DVD sets of all the episodes of both series, and ripped them to our Videos NAS share. (We had no idea at the time that we'd one day be streaming movies from Netflix, Amazon, Disney, etc.)

                                          and probably in far better quality! I always remember this joke from MiB:

                                          It's been so long since we watched those, it's probably time to start at the beginning and run through them all again. Being retired, we watch a lot of movies. Especially during the rainy season.

                                          This is awesome! 🙂

                                            6 days later

                                            STARGATE the movie

                                            I'd adored the tv series so finally saw the movie last night.
                                            Impressed. Imaginative, and a great story and acting. Don't laugh, I'd park this in my Sci-Fi top ten. No-nonsense, minimal CGI, no cliches.

                                            Conditional rec: paid $1usd at a thrift. would've paid $2. If you can see it streaming for 2.99 that's as high as I'd go (for any movie basically). If it comes your way for free then all the better.
                                            I dug it.

                                              brent I'd adored the tv series so finally saw the movie last night.

                                              I fell in love with Samantha Carter sometime during the first episode of the series.

                                                  brent you and me both

                                                  Even better, she was in Stargate Atlantis, too. One episode there had her in a bikini instead of fatigues.