Messages

1

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: February 06, 2026, 02:24:09 AM »

Back in the 90's, I used to swing by Hollywood Video about once a week and rent some crap to watch. My ma would spend her time going through the new releases... meanwhile I'd usually hit the older sections, mostly action movies and music. I think the new releases were rented out for 3 days at about 5 to 7 dollars each, whereas the older stuff was either 5 days or 7 days and was only 99 cents per video. So I'd get 4 or 5 at a time. Saw a lot of great stuff back then. It's how I discovered old Sonny Chiba kung fu movies as well as other kung fu guys like Gordon Liu, Carter Wong, etc. Mostly what I rented was the major action stars of the day though: Van Damme, Segal, Dolph Lundgren, etc.

One of the movies I always saw sitting on the shelf and never got around to renting...



RavenHawk (1995) starring Rachel McLish 

The tagline on the box cover as pictured reads: "Justice has never been this beautiful."    ROLL MY FUCKING EYES.


Finally saw this pile of crap. God I wish I hadn't.

In real life she was apparently some kind of female pro body builder. She looks kinda native american, I dunno if she really is, I haven't researched her, but considering this was the mid-90's, its entirely possible she was not native american AT ALL and they just cast her as that. You gotta remember, these were the days when they'd cast guys from India as arab terrorists without batting an eye, lol.

And the plot? Boring and PREDICTABLE AS FUCK.

Starts off, she's a young girl. The rich assholes come and want to build a factory on indian reservation land. Her parents wont sell, so they come in the night, kill them, frame their little girl for it. Shes traumatized and stops talking (conveniently never tells the cops what happened). When she's older, they go to transfer her to a full blown prison, but the prison bus crashes (predictably), oh and also now shes talking too (conveniently can talk to other characters in the movie again). She escapes the bus crash, but everyone thinks everyone died in the crash (conveniently) . So this factory they built... apparently just makes... pollution. Of course it does, it always does, that's just what rich assholes do, they build smokestacks and pollute shit just for the helluvit, dontchaknow. Anyway, really stupid story made short, she hunts down the guys that killed her family and gets revenge, the end.

Most action movies follow a pretty predictable formula. They keep using the formula because it works. Even "bad" action movies are generally entertaining enough to watch. But sometimes they're exceptionally bad. Like this one. Action movies are simple. You just have fighting, some shooting, maybe a few explosions, and as long as you make it look real enough, you have a movie worth watching. But the action in this thing is so poorly done and JUST PLAIN DULL. You spend the whole movie looking at your watch going, "Okay, how many more minutes until this pile of crap is over?"

I should've known better. I saw it sitting there every time I'd go to the video store, and every time it was there on the shelf available. No one ever rented it.

Directed by Albert Pyun. That name was familiar so I looked it up. He also did...

Sword and the Sorcerer - Not a very good movie, but a staple of the "sword and sorcery" genre that was kinda popular in the 80s.
Cyborg - I think this was Van Damme's first movie. Really super low budget, and pretty bad in my opinion, but it's a cult classic.
Captain America - The bad Marvel movie that everyone forgot and almost no one saw. I saw it. It kinda sucked, but 10 or 12 year old me didn't mind it that much at the time.

And lots of others, none of them are any better though. A couple of Nemesis movies, a couple of the Kickboxer movies. He had another kind of obscure one with Lance Henrikson called Spitfire that I saw a while back that was okay.

He's got a knack for making bad movies.

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: January 30, 2026, 07:47:58 PM »

Tron (1982)



Downloaded it from a torrent - not sure what the source was. Did they update this thing or something? Maybe it's just been so long that I don't remember it, but it seems like they rearranged parts of the movie, added scenes, etc, I'm not really sure. It had a couple of parts in it with animations that looked a little out of place and too advanced, but then again... this movie was WAY ahead of it's time when it came out. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid although I so seldom watched it because they so rarely ever played the whole thing on the Disney channel back in the 80's, and I didn't have a VHS copy of it. It's just a great all around movie. Kids and casual moviegoers like it because of all the stuff about video games and the cool special effects. But there's also plenty of embedded religious and philosophical subtext to unpack as well if you're into examining movies that deeply.

Also... Looking at it now, it makes me wonder if the story wasn't a veiled representation of the evil corporate Bill Gates (Dillinger) vs the heroic independent Steve Jobs (Flynn).

Some "prophesy" from the movies dialogue:

Dr. Walter Gibbs: "After all, computers are just machines, they can't think."
Alan Bradley: "Some programs will be thinking soon."
Dr. Walter Gibbs: "Won't that be grand... computers and the programs will start thinking, and the people will stop."

Yep. That's social media alright.

Just wanted to highlight that in yellow to reiterate my point I made to 2dum in his Palestinian Victimhood thread about him relying on ai assistant apps. 

But back on topic...

Always been a fan of the original Tron since i was a kid. They did a sequel back in 2010 called Tron: Legacy that was really good too. Surprisingly, it was almost as good as the original.

They made a 3rd one last year, Tron: Ares, starring Jared Leto. As of writing this, I'm a little less than halfway through the movie and my verdict so far... not good.

I saw that the opening credits mentioned Trent Reznor as some kinda executive producer or something so I looked up some info on the movie and apparently Disney specifically commissioned "Nine Inch Nails" (THE band name, not just Trent, they want THE BAND NAME attached to the movie) did the music, and it's the first music score Nine Inch Nails as the band name has done since the Quake1 soundtrack. And it's still not enough to save this movie. The plot is pretty bad. I've seen reviews that seem to like what this movie did with the Tron narrative, but... no. I disagree So far it's just bad. Very simplistic and dumbed down story. So far its just rehashed tron cycles and light suits with too many greenscreen effects and animation. And being that it's Disney in 2025, of course they gotta add their woke racial subtext... the bad guy (grandson who runs Dillinger corp) is a white male tyrant, who for no apparent reason starts to look more sickly with dark circles under his eyes like he's going psychotic with greed. Meanwhile the good girl (who runs Flynn) is a female (feminist box CHECKED), asian (ethnic box CHECKED), only interested in doing good and serving others (collectivism good, altruism good... and yet Christianity and loving thy neighbor as thyself is somehow evil and wrong), and of course all of her coworkers and friends are very nonconspicuously diverse... so very diverse. Yeah, lets make sure we all notice how diverse they are... but pretend that "diversity" is a normal thing even though it was obviously a conscious decision here. And theres nothing wrong with selecting people based on their race... because somehow that isn't racist if it's done "properly." Yes, apparently there's a right way and wrong way to pick people based on their race.

Yeah, IMDB has the rating on this thing at 6.2/10.  No way. The plot is simplistic and juvenile, like someone tried to dumb down Tron for kids. 3 or 4 from me so far. Will add more when I finish the movie.


ADDED:

NOPE! Didn't really get any better. Silly nonsense plot stays pretty nonsense. It's just that the other two movies had something DEEPER going on with them. Sure there was the idea of this whole other world inside the machine, but when you try to put programs from inside the machine into the outside world... plausibility disappears and that suspension of disbelief is impossible to maintain. A laser that can 3D print a real tree with real oranges growing on it! SURE! They obviously had a group of people with a cursory knowledge of computers devise a story where they said, "Okay... THIS TIME... they go OUT of the computer grid! AMAZING, RIGHT!?!" NO! It's a stupid premise! Can't believe Jared Leto did this movie. Can't believe Trent Reznor put his name and music on it too.

3

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: December 30, 2025, 09:57:04 PM »

Watched the original Naked Gun trilogy of movies starring Leslie Neilsen.

They used to be some of my favorite comedies as a kid. They should rightly be classics. Are they? I dunno. Do they get enough play to be called that anymore? And with OJ Simpson as a character in all 3, it kinda soils them.

OJ, you fuckin' prick. What he did completely shits on the legacy of these 3 great movies. So sad.

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: December 14, 2025, 05:45:57 PM »

The Sopranos

Im @ the beginning of the 6th season.

Living right near Washington D.C now, im in New York and New Jersey 5 times a month, so I got inspired to watch the series for some reason.

I thought it was a good show, but I had 2 complaints:

1. How they wrote it into the Chris Moltisanti character that he would aspire to be an actor. It kinda broke the feeling and flow of the show during those scenes. An actor playing a gangster that wants to be an actor? It was just ridiculous.

2. Meadow Soprano's boyfriend Noah... who comes off as so very entirely gay... but apparently is not gay. And NOT a decent actor either. Every scene with him trashes the show.

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/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 (and forever) Thread

« on: December 02, 2025, 01:20:20 PM »

The older I get, the more I enjoy Christmas. These days, I go out of my way to decorate the outside of the house with lights and stuff (maybe I'll get some pics soon).

No pics of the outside yet.

But I did spend a few hours taking out my old It's A Wonderful Life Christmas village and train set. They used to sell these pieces at Target from about 1987 until about 1997 I believe. My mom started collecting it and would display it on top of the upright piano in the living room every Christmas. By the early 2000's, she had collected so much Christmas crap that she didn't have the room to store all of it, and she considered throwing the village set away. I always enjoyed it as a kid so I held on it to it. But I've never gotten it out to display at christmas time because... I have kinda the same problem: TOO MUCH STUFF. By the time I get everything else set out, I have no more table space big enough.

But this year I was feeling nostalgic, so I said I'd finally break it out and let it see the light of day after more than 20 years being packed away. Unfortunately, I'll have to put it all back into boxes and pack it away again before christmas day so the family will have a place to eat when everyone gets here that morning.



My cameras really old and it sucks.

The train runs on 4 AA batteries that are stored in the coal car just behind the engine (you can see the little red switch on the top rear of the coal car that turns it on and off). My mom had packed it away with batteries still inside. When I opened it up, they were of course crusty and corroded. The expiration date on the batteries said 2011. Amazingly, none of the little figurines or cars were broken even though they were all packed into one single big ziplock bag inside a box. I've moved the container in and out of the basement 20 Christmases, dropping it, bumping it, beating it around, not knowing how poorly the ceramic figures were packed, and somehow it all survived.

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/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 (and forever) Thread

« on: December 01, 2025, 06:23:10 AM »

Note:

I started to rename this the "Christmas in perpetuity thread" but... whatever.

It was called "The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023)", but since the forums won't let me add enough to the Subject of the first post to just keep adding years every year (lol), I just put "and forever".

--------------------------------------------------------------

I've mentioned horror movies and westerns around here before. But I also like Christmas movies too, especially the classics.

I love Christmas movies. Maybe not as much as I love horror and Halloween movies.

Meh, I take that back. I guess I like them just as much. The older I get, the more I enjoy Christmas. These days, I go out of my way to decorate the outside of the house with lights and stuff (maybe I'll get some pics soon).

Anyway, back to movies...

I love all the various Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol movies - Reginald Owen version, Alistair Sim version, George C Scott version, and the Patrick Stewart version. There are others too. Most people think the one with Reginald Owen and Gene Lockheart is the oldest one (1938), but there's actually an even older but lesser known British-made one from 1935 called Scrooge starring Seymour Hicks. For the longest time, the only surviving copies available were all no bigger than about 360p and in pretty bad shape with cloudiness in some parts and LOTS of scratches on the film. People did their best to clean it up and piece together the most viewable version possible from several different sources. And alas, finally a couple of years ago, a professional outfit got ahold of some original film and remastered it to a very decent looking colorized 4K 2160p version. There are other "colorized 1080p" versions on youtube, but they look like crap. This is the best one to watch. I'm normally not a fan of black and white colorization (I prefer the original black and white version of It's A Wonderful Life), but with the improvements and clarity in this version compared to the old commonly available versions, this one is far superior and I can gladly overlook the colorizing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eotS-FnRJE

In some ways, I think the 1999 Patrick Stewart version might be the best version in that it follows the actual Dickens story the closest. A few years back, I was at Barnes & Noble and picked up a book that was a collection of Dickens' Christmas stories, including A Christmas Carol, and I actually read A Christmas Carol in several hours start to finish. All of the movie adaptations follow the biggest points of the story, but there are a few small details that you don't see included... the biggest one I can think of is when Scrooge arrives home, he sees Marleys face on the door knocker. Usually you see him go up the stairs to his room... and thats it. But in the story, as he is going up the stairs, he is terrified to see the ghostly apparition of a horse-drawn hearse going up the staircase. Dickens clearly intended the idea of ghosts and haunting and terror to be a theme throughout the work, and I don't think any of the adaptations do a good job of reflecting that. Anway, back to what I was saying about the Patrick Stewart version...

I believe I have the original DVD version somewhere in the basement in a box of christmas movies, but I never dig the DVDs out anymore - I have everything on MP4's on a portable hard drive. I can transfer them to a USB stick and then pop that in my mini blu ray and MP4 player in the living room, or I can transfer them to the video folder on the pc itself and then stream it any other tv via the media player app on my XboxOne. But for a long time, the only version I could find was the 480p version that someone copied from the DVD. This year I've found a 1080p version that was apparently ripped from the TBS streaming app, and it seems to be 4 minutes longer than the DVD version... so maybe it's got some bonus scenes, I dunno yet. I also found another version where someone AI upscaled it to 4k from the 480p DVD source. Both look much better (obviously the 4k one looks more well defined), but they both have frame rate issues. There's a very small bit of choppiness to the frame rate, whereas the old 480p version is very smooth with a constant steady 24fps. Perhaps the original files were MKV and someone encoded them to MP4 poorly.

At any rate... I've found this particular version that also seems to be remastered or upscaled to 4K from the original 480p DVD source, and this one has a nice and smooth frame rate. Note that this is not the TBS version with 4 additional minutes. I'll try to watch both versions at some point this month and figure out where the extra 4 minutes are coming from. I can already tell that the TBS version is definitely different because the font for the opening credits from the DVD source is a yellow script style font, and the TBS version has white plain letters similar to Arial or Helvetica font.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5qrGM1Nx5k

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/dev/random / Re: UFO SPACECRAFT CONFIRMED BY USA

« on: November 19, 2025, 07:48:27 PM »

There is a documentary film coming out in late November with 34 senior officials detailing UFO encounters and secrets.

They even say they have seen the bodies ...

Then again, didn't somewhere in the ballpark of 34 senior officials say the Steele Dossier about Trumps Russian Collusion was legit? How'd that turn out? When it comes to the government, "senior officials" are as honest and reliable as "elementary children".

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Trouble Shooting / Re: Hacking client?

« on: November 19, 2025, 07:43:17 PM »

A LEGIT QUESTION.

That's all I'm gonna say about it. *cough cough*

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Quake / Re: invite! spam

« on: November 07, 2025, 09:35:28 AM »

The users whine about insufficient management and whine again when the hammer drops.

 

why not grant admin privs to someone who is at least somewhat active? Focalor maybe?

I'm actually not active. I'm active on the forums here, but I never visit the servers anymore.

There are fewer players on the servers these days, and fewer admins. Come here, post a condump, maybe someone will see it within a few hours... but maybe not - folks are busy these days.  I would recommend using whatever ignore feature your client may have to block any individuals chat spam in the meantime if it gets too frustrating.

10

/dev/random / Re: What games are you playing ?

« on: November 03, 2025, 10:38:00 AM »

The Google doodle game for Halloween was really cool: a Halloween/trick-or-treat themed version of Pacman. Addictive, just like the original arcade game.

https://doodles.google/doodle/pac-man-halloween-2025-edition/

I remember playing the original arcade version a few times at one of the local roller skating rinks when I was a kid. As the 80's progressed, Ms. Pacman tended to be the one you'd see in arcades more often. I also had (and still have) the Pacman cartridge for the old Atari 2600 system. It was not like the arcade version. The levels were simpler looking solid block walls rather than designs with rounded corners, and it was a good bit harder to play than the arcade version due to the joysticks that didn't function the same way as the arcade stick. The ghosts seemed to move faster on the 2600 too. It was pretty frustrating. Not quite as fun as the arcade.

I guess someone saw how much the old atari systems are fetching these days and decided it was worthwhile to design and release a modern system to capitalize on the retro gaming craze.

https://atari.com/collections/atari-2600-plus

Compaible with old 2600 and 7800 cartridges. I have probably a good 20 or 30 cartridges for the 2600. I have 2 of the original 2600 consoles - one that was my dads back in the early 80's, and one that I bought used at a video game trading store back in 2001 or 2002 for about 20 or 25 dollars... back when nobody really wanted them and stores were selling the games for about 1 dollar each just trying to get rid of them ASAP. Unfortunately I didn't go on a game buying spree back then.

I also see on Amazon that they have a special yellow PacMan edition of the 2600 Plus.

Might have to ask Santa Claus to get me one for Christmas. I don't have a power adapter that will run the old consoles anymore, plus, I think they were only able to connect to a TV via coax cable, which none of my TV's have anymore. These modern ones have HDMI as well as wireless controllers which would be SUCH a welcome addition. With the old ones, the console had to be pretty much on the floor in front of the tv, and with the cable length on the controllers, you were always forced to sit on the floor right in front of the tv.

11

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: October 21, 2025, 01:29:17 AM »

As the Halloween horror marathon continues...

Watching another old one...



Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056687/
starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford

This one was famous because, as people know, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford HATED each others guts, and SOMEHOW they were brought together in this one glorious movie to oppose one another, and it came off brilliantly.

A kind of funny, kind of fucked up tidbit I read while looking up some info about this movie...

Joan Crawford died in 1977, and Bette Davis died in 1989. When Bette Davis heard that Joan Crawford had died, she said, "You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good."

 

12

Quake / Re: invite! spam

« on: October 21, 2025, 01:14:05 AM »

If the goal is to spam and annoy people because it's fun, why would you stop just because someone asked you nicely to?

YOUR m.o. is to annoy people because you think its fun. Solipsism at work.

13

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: October 15, 2025, 01:26:22 AM »

  I didn't get that far. For certain, Anthony Perkins was a better "mother".



Black Sabbath (1963): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057603/

ENGLISH version streaming: https://play.xumo.com/free-movies/black-sabbath/XM0EOHWGA22VZT
ITALIAN version streaming (turn on subtitles): https://tubitv.com/movies/100008899/black-sabbath

One of my sort-of favorite horror movies is the old Boris Karloff narrated Italian-made Mario Bava film, Black Sabbath (1963). Apparently it's the film that Geezer Butler saw that gave him the idea to name their band Black Sabbath. And... apparently not too many people saw it back in those days, as it was a commercial flop in Italy and internationally. According to wiki, it did decent sales on home video, although I'm not sure if they mean once it was released on vhs and betamax in the 80's (which is doesn't mention at all) or when it was later released on dvd in the 2000's.

I've had a lower quality 480p version for many years, but this year I was finally able to track down a full 1080p English language version. It wasn't easy. It's easy to find a 720p or lower English language version... or a 1080p Italian language version. But one single place had the 1080p in English.

Boris Karloff is just a cool creepy dude, I love his movies. His narration intros help make this movie better than it otherwise would be... and in fact he actually STARS as a character in one of the three stories presented. It should be noted that the English language version is a good bit different from the Italian version. They edited out things like any mentions of lesbian relationships or prostitution (which were key plot points in "The Telephone" segment in the Italian version, as well as clipping out some of the more violent and bloody scenes. Also, according to wiki, the color mastering techniques they used differ from the Italian to the American version. Which is odd, because one thing I always notice about the film is the great usage of colored lighting effects to create eerie atmosphere in the backgrounds and to accentuate faces and parts of the foreground in key moments.

For example... the faces in the window at the end of The Vurdulak story:



And most especially on the face of the old dead woman in the Drop of Water story:



There's almost no horror movies that legitimately scare me... but lemme tell ya... you watch this part late at night with all the lights out... and the part where the dead lady with the freakish face shows up will give you legit chills, it's pretty good. The best part of the movie in my opinion. I guess thats why in the original italian cut, they saved that story for last.

14

Quake / Re: invite! spam

« on: October 15, 2025, 12:18:06 AM »

It's 2025, and some people STILL do this. 

I don't play anymore, but for the sake of others, I'm gonna do something crazy that probably won't work, but you never know until you try: I'm going to simply ask nicely and hope they're excellent enough to listen. And so I humbly ask this person to please cease with the chat spam and just play the game and enjoy the miraculous fact that this many people still bother coming to these servers to play this very very ancient game.

  

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: October 08, 2025, 02:30:13 PM »

Watched the Psycho collection - there's 4 movies total, although theres technically 5 because theres one in the late 80's between parts 3 and 4 called Bates Motel. I skipped that one. It was a made for tv thing (not a theatrical release as far as I know) that had Lori Petty in it. Um, NO THANKS.

Psycho is pretty much a horror masterpiece. I have to assume that Alfred Hitchcock never intended for it to have any sequels. Hitchcock never made any sequels to any of his movies, and I think what says it all is the fact that it wasn't until a couple of years right after he died that they dared to make the 2nd one. I don't think he would've approved of it. Nevertheless... it happened, and I watch them sometimes, and they aren't too bad. They don't compare to the original obviously, but sequels very rarely do.

But if you want to get REALLY technical... there were 6 Psycho movies... if you include the 1998 remake they did starring Vince Vaughan, Anne Heche, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, and William H Macy.

I think I had seen it before a long time ago on HBO or The Movie Channel. I had forgotten all about it until I started looking up some info about the Psycho movies while watching them. I didn't remember anything about it so I tried watching it...

I got about 50% through it, right to the shower stabbing scene and the part where he pushes the car into the bog... and I turned it off, I couldn't take anymore. There was NO POINT TO IT!

This is precisely why YOU NEVER MAKE REMAKES. Psycho was a masterpiece, people love it, so if you change it, people are going to complain. And changing the work of a brilliant director like Hitchcock is probably considered blasphemy among Hollywood folks. So obviously when they started to make this movie, they had no intention of changing it and having everyone say that they ruined it. So instead... they pretty much copied it shot for shot. The credits looked the same, the music was the same, the camera angles were the same, everything the same. So... what's the point of making the movie at all? Why should I sit here watching the remake when I already saw the original? Maybe there's someone who hasn't seen the original before. Why should they bother seeing this remake when they can just watch the original?

This is the problem you have with doing remakes. If you change it around, people complain that you changed it too much. If you don't change it at all and you do a shot for shot copy... then there's no point. You're honestly better off braving the complaints and revamping it with some modifications to things. Either way it's gonna suck, but at least it'll be something that sucks that I haven't already seen before.