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

I am trying to identify a film. It's an animated film in Japanese or Chinese. The art style reminds me of Ghibli or Miyazaki. There's a girl standing on a bridge (next to another girl?) and she's looking down at some school-age boys her age playing in the water. They motion for her to come in, and she looks like she's going to jump in but then decides not to. Later there's a scene where that same girl (or another girl) takes shelter at what looks like an abandoned shrine in the woods (it might be raining). She hears some voices, and two spirits reminiscent of the ones in Spirited Away materialize next to her. Another spirit wearing a hoodie/cloak jumps onto her lap, and the girl screams and runs away.

conquer987

Chosen answer: I think the film you're looking for is "A Letter to Momo"

Old Maid movie - I watched this movie about ten years ago. I think it's based around 1900 - 1970. It starts in a school where they are writing with quills and the main character gets bullied. Later on after the girl leaves school she works as a maid in a large house. Her job goes well here until the bully gets a job there and frames the girl for stealing a coin she found while cleaning. The girl gets a job at a factory and later on the bully does does too, though she acts nicer. Later on the girl marries a rich man and has children. Later on the girl and her children encounter the beggar whom the girl ignores. One of the girl's daughters runs in front of a horse and cart and is saved by the beggar/bully. Both characters are female. I appreciate any help. Thank you.

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

What is the name of the movie about a teenage girl who runs away, meets two men at a truckstop and then drives away with them in the truck? She starts a romance with one of the men who turns out to be a bit crazy, he later makes a plan with her to hold her hostage and ransom her parents as a way to get money, but then it turns serious and police are involved and she has to convince him to give himself up and let her go.

Answer: I believe the movie is called Stolen Innocence.

I don't know the title or who was in it but I was very young when I saw it in the early 2000s, before 2004. It was either a movie or series episode about a woman who was married - I can't remember if she and her husband were kidnapped but I know that she was. In the movie she was raped a lot by two captors - then when they are trying to escape, a car chase ensues and it ends with the man that she has fallen "in love" with dying from a gunshot wound and her getting returned with or back to her husband. But then she actually wakes up in the night and says her captor's name due to Stockholm Syndrome, that I believe she gets during the brutal kidnapping. What is this movie called, please?

I'm trying to find out the name of a television movie I watched in the late 70's early 80's about a couple with two daughters, one a teenager, the other preteen. The eldest daughter gets involved with an older guy that's a bad influence (drugs and alcohol, maybe) and she runs away with him. Years later the younger daughter follows in her sister's footsteps.

Answer: Might be "Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring" with Sally Field.

I am looking for a film, it is about a woman who is working in a cafe when it is robbed and everyone else is shot, she runs away to hide out in a small town where she begins to have what appears to be delusions of a murderer in that town. She falls in love with a man who tries to help her. This is all I can remember, any ideas?

Answer: That's Nora Roberts' Angel Falls. Starring Heather Locklear as the chef. It airs on the LMN, every few months.

I remember a movie where this girl ran away from her mother. Before she ran away, her best friend was in the car with her and her mom. They were parked in the woods and then they ran away together. Then I remember them in an 18-wheeler smoking weed. The girl meets the leader of a cult and wants her. She runs away and her mom comes to save her. In the end they're at a gas station and the girl sees the cult symbol hanging in the car.

Answer: The movie is Octane (2003). Madeleine Stowe plays the mother and Mischa Barton, the daughter.

I can't remember much about this film, but I remember being a child around late 90s or early 00s (it's all a blur) and seeing what I believe was a scary movie. The movie (I think) consisted of a male and a female who fall in love? I feel like I remember them getting off some form of public transportation and later making out in the grass. I believe the movie ended with a piece of paper with a large question mark written on it. Or something else. I've really been trying to find it, but because it was so long ago I feel my memories may be jumbled. Thank you.

I only remember what I think is the beginning of this movie. A dad makes a bid at a silent auction on a house. They win the house but the dad dies before they find out. The house is a real mess and I remember his family standing outside looking at it ready to move in, realising how much work needs to be done on it.

Answer: Try "The War" (1994).

I'm looking for a movie I saw on TV around the late 1990s. I am not sure if it was a made for TV movie. I remember a scene where a town was surrounded by a forcefield and the townspeople could not leave. The setting was kind of old timey. There was a little girl playing on a swing set in the forcefield and she convinced another little girl to come into the forcefield and play with her. When she did, the first girl attacked and killed or ate her. I can't remember exactly. Does anyone know the name of this movie? Thank you.

Answer: There was a TV episode ("A View Through the Window") similar to what you described in the series Night Visions. The army calls upon Bill Pullman to explain an open portal, which shows a Pioneer family. They can not enter, only observe. As time goes on, he begins to appreciate their simple lifestyle, but when the army wants to invade, he figures a way to enter the portal, to warn them. Once inside they attack and eat him.

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 have been trying for years to find the title or anything about a terrifying gorilla movie I saw in the early 50's. It was in color and the first scene was a detective in a destroyed apartment, kneels down by a fireplace and a dead young woman falls headfirst (has been pulled up). As the movie progresses, each young woman killed was given a bracelet with a little bell on it. As with King Kong, the gorilla won't kill the last girl and is killed by police. Can you help?

Answer: This sounds a lot like "Phantom of the Rue Morgue": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047348/.

Twotall

There was a movie I watched a couple of years ago on LMN and it involved a woman who was house sitting, She had tried on the owner's clothing and wore it when answering the front door to a guy who planned on stealing something in the house. I also remember a scene where the guy has the girl tied by the wrists hanging from the shower thing in the greenhouse, and then they end up making out with each other.

Answer: A House in the Hills.

I am looking for a movie that I remember seeing as a kid in the 90s. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of details but I specifically remember the main character who was a teen with brown hair zip lining from a construction-looking structure. I also want to say that there was an ape or gorilla of some type involved.

Answer: Not completely sure, but sounded like George of the Jungle. He was swinging on the Golden Gate though. The actor is Brendan Fraiser. He was pretty popular on the 90's scene. Hope that's right for you.

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 am trying to find the name of a movie and all I have is a scene from it. I don't know the actors' names or even the time frame but the scene that I saw was a man in a white military looking uniform with blood on it stumbles out of the woods and there is a young mother on the side of a country road that is nursing her baby. The man then removes her baby and sucks her breasts until he is full and leaves her. The timeframe of the movie looked as if it were maybe WWII Russia or a foreign land. Can anyone help me?

Answer: Essential Killing is the name of the movie you are looking for. Luckily I had rated it in the IMDb and was able to go find it. It is currently available to stream via Netflix as of August 16th 2013.

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

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