@knievel said:

a whole feature film of tension made out of, what is essentially, a cast of just two.

Not strictly true, as we never seen the truck driver, so kind of a solo performance !

They spent weeks scouring southern California looking for just the right truck.  Speilberg wanted a truck that not only looked intimidating and ominous but had a personality all it's own, or his own.  Aside from a beefy arm protruding out of the cab every once in a while you never see the driver.  In other words the truck was a character.  In a way, Kneivel is correct the truck was casted as a character.  

I don't believe anything on wikipedia which is an amateurish bullshit replacement for what SHOULD be a professional peer-reviewed encyclopedia,  but yes, you're right I noticed elsewhere it was shot on 16mm, which was extremely unusual for a network movie at that time.  It's funny how I truly feel without trying to be obnoxious that it is the only Spielberg movie I like.  With all the gobs of money and infinite resources and production values thrown at those films he has made since, I still like that gritty little thing much more than any of his later ones.

Speaking of 8mm, there was no professional film stock at the time, just reversal Kodachrome, Ektachrome and black and white reversal.  (though Kodachrome was a beautiful film stock unfortunately no longer made.)  Also, no really professional cameras.   Nowadays they make some color negative film for super 8 but it is so expensive and the quality is so much lower than 16mm due to the smaller size why would you use it?  I do like super8 though, especially black and white.  I guess this is major OT but I love talking about small film gauges.  Do you know that 9.5 mm is still made?  Now that would be super cool to use. 

Yes - I think I stand corrected. It was almost def shot on 16mm.

I think I'm so used to watching Duel on 8mm through my Elmo projector I got it into my head somehow that is was shot on Super8!

You view it over 2 reels! So me and my wee audience get an 'ice cream break' when we have Super 8 film nights!

Why can't they have ice cream breaks nowadays??!  I know it completely spoils the film, but hey, when I was little I used to look forward to the ice cream break soooooo much!  [pi][~][:D]

Did Dennis Hopper initially want to release a 12 hour version of Easy Rider though??!! With just hours of driving shots with cool music played over the top??! hehehe

You'd need lots of ice cream for that! 

(And lots of [ahem!] 'special cigarettes')

"Why can't they have ice cream breaks nowadays??! "

The break was the best part of Titanic [:D]

In some older films they still offer the traditional interruption even on DVD, e.g. Metropolis or 2001.

"it is the only Spielberg movie I like"

O.K., Schindlers Liste IMO should also be mentioned, because it is so anti Jurassic Parc and features a good plot, sensational actors and extremely atmospheric photography as well as an unbelievable soundtrack.

Even Jurassic Parc could have been such an interesting movie, because the book and the story is very nice. The SFX alone had been worth watching it, wouldn´t it be, that they insisted on these typical Hollywood family compatible actor half-comedy style.

Just throw out the children and everyone else asking for ketchup & Coke. Cast better actors and for christ´s sake no dogs to be saved.

At the same time fire the fat Burger eating programmer. What´s the use of such characters ?

Some marketing experts might have their reasons for going that way.

@knievel said:

I think I'm so used to watching Duel on 8mm through my Elmo projector I got it into my head somehow that is was shot on Super8!

You have a super 8 print of Duel?  

@knievel said:

I think I'm so used to watching Duel on 8mm through my Elmo projector I got it into my head somehow that is was shot on Super8!

You have a super 8 print of Duel?  

Yep!

Well... my friends copy really. We had stacks of Super 8mm movies at the time which we used to put on Super 8mm movie nights.

We even used to have a few 8mm reels of 'Pearl and Dean' UK movie adverts that we used to show before the films, just to create that nostalgic feeling of when we were kids going to the 'flicks'!!  [flicks = British term for movies!]

Did you used to get similar old cinema adverts like this in the U.S ??

Actually just thinking about it - I used to love the adverts just as much as the ice cream breaks!! hehehe and people nowadays actually go to watch the film ! How weird!  [;)]

WOW! I'M REALLY OFF TOPIC NOW!! I've ruined what was a good thread and am now just talking about ice cream and adverts!!  Ha! [:#]

Anyhoo William - perhaps try some Super 8mm forums if you need Super 8mm prints of fetures: http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=2

knievel

well that is interesting knievel. I remember the super8 prints of a long time ago - shortened versions of features that you could buy.  "Blackhawk Films" was a company that sold them.  I didn't realize that people were still using them so that is very cool.  Screening a film on your own projector is way different than watching a video.   btw I have a whole cabinet of super 8 equipment I would never get rid of, including a silent projector originally bought for home movies from a department store, but built like a tank better than pro equipment of today with a housing made of black STEEL.  They truly do not make them like that anymore!   It still works like a charm thirty-five years later.

Speaking of Herrmann, it is interesting to compare the two cues he wrote for Jason and the Argonauts - the battle with the skeletons - and the "fight" with the single skeleton in Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.   Here is a good example of how he was too good to simply repeat something, not only avoiding stealing from another composer BUT FROM HIS OWN MUSIC!  It is almost exactly the same scene - a fight with animated skeletons -  but done quite differently in musical terms and equally effectively.

The 'Hydra's Teeth' scene with the skeletons is sensational work from Ray Harryhausen and Bernard Herrmann. No one could get the woodwinds  to do that apart from Herrmann. It's the same old thing about sitting in front of a scene that has no music and putting that together and lifting what could have become the almost comical into the quite gripping.

On another note - I am deeply disturbed by Hollywood's obsessional output of romcoms. This is a cynical exploitation of the fucking obese and someone should ban them. And romcoms too, of course. 

Good evening!!!!

Romantic Comedy = Castration Ceremony. No exceptions. I always said to women I dated (briefly of course if they enjoyed such tripe), every time they dragged me to one of those flicks, they HAD to sit through a van Damme, Seagal, or (for the persistent ones) Norris video the following time. Yes, I had to sit through them as well, but this worked like a charm! After a couple of times, we always went to something we both wanted to see, and they resorted to seeing those bile-oozing cinematic masterstrokes with their girlfriends instead.

Romantic Comedy = Castration Ceremony.

*LOL*

Women just love this kind of stuff, we can´t help it.

They always are on the search for either romantic or comedy elements in movies, even if there aren´t any, in the meantime missing what the story is about....

It is always funny to see that they have no clue when it comes to  Star Wars vs Star Trek . " Ah Star Trek , that was the movie with the ugly black guy ?.? "

" No, darling that´s the other one.....". [;)]

If we want to see comedy, we watch comedy, but usually that´s not Hollywood´s business.

Here´s a good one :

Otheriwse - Flashdance as a compromise - only the 5 minutes which count of course :)

Come on dudes! Embrace the Rom coms for what they are!!

Sorry folks... but film making is story telling. Rom Coms are just another way of telling a story - some of which [wait for it... shock! horror!!] are quite good.

Please don't look down your nose at films, while at the same time referencing Star Trek.

Perhaps a new term of 'film snobbery' could be used here?!

Perhaps I could quite easily have the same attitude towards your 'great films' because it's not classic film noir or hasn't been directed by Truffuat or Godard.

[H]

No, there is a difference between a "romcom" and a classic film.  A romcom is the new, ultimate conventionalization of what used to be a light love story.  There were many great examples of this.  But it is now been so watered down and assembly-line manufactured that it is meaningless drivel. 

 A classic film is absolutely different.  It exists in NO CATEGORY.  It is simply a great film of any kind. Truffaut and Goddard and other great filmmakers deliberately avoided these mindless conventionalizations.  What they did isn't simply another interchangeable category as you cynically suggest. 

Also, I am so tired of people saying "filmmaking is storytelling."  It is ANYTHING the filmmaker wants it to be - including pure abstraction,  avant garde animation, documentary realism, anti-storytelling, ANYTHING.  It is NOT merely storytelling even if the increasingly idiotic "industry" conceives of it that way.  

@William said:

Also, I am so tired of people saying "filmmaking is storytelling."  It is ANYTHING the filmmaker wants it to be - including pure abstraction,  avant garde animation, documentary realism, anti-storytelling, ANYTHING. 

And unfortunately, this "idiotic industry" has succedeed in categorized these types of films as well.  They're called 'Art Films.'  

Speaking of the idiotic industry isn't the Academy Awards on tonight?  Does anybody even pay any attention to the Academy Awards anymore? 

I'll be the first to admit that more than half the Star Trek films were a disappointment compared to the best TV episodes. But to compare the worst of them (say IV? At least that's the worst musically) to cinematic landmarks like: 'Never Been Kissed', 'Girl, Interrupted', 'Nine Months', 'Sex and the City', 'Look Who's Talking' series, 'What Women Want' etc.... please... I would rather sit through the Lorenzo Lamas film of your choice, a Bulgarian existential film without subtitles, or Warhol's 'Sleep' rather than any of the above. 

If you itch for castration or it has already been done for you - especially the younger generation - by all means get comfortable on the couch; otherwise, I agree; don't hold these movies under your nose; they stink!!

And let's take this away from Herrmann's thread. What sacrilege!

@jasensmith said:

Speaking of the idiotic industry isn't the Academy Awards on tonight?  Does anybody even pay any attention to the Academy Awards anymore? 

I hear this year instead of an orchestra they're using a three-fingered composer with his Anemato - Cinescamples - Scorephobia computer setup.

@Errikos said:

 I always said to women I dated (briefly of course if they enjoyed such tripe), every time they dragged me to one of those flicks, they HAD to sit through a van Damme, Seagal, or (for the persistent ones) Norris video the following time. 

You're an amateur Erik. I had one girlfriend who annoyed me so much I took her to the midnight showing of 10 Rillington Place and then made her walk back to her hotel alone. That's punishment for being mentally obese!!!!!  I admit I never had a girlfriend from Newcastle or even the north in general. Why?? Because I DIDN'T TO WANT TO DIE!!!!

Anyone interested in romantic films should start off with something like Bringing up Baby and work down from there.

 Yes, that would be a good one,  or perhaps It Happened One Night or The Philadelphia Story. 

@PaulR said:

I had one girlfriend who annoyed me so much I took her to the midnight showing of 10 Rillington Place 

That's nothing compared to what we guys have to go through... My erstwhile long-time girlfriend took me to see 'Sleepless in Seattle' which led to a massive quarrel afterwards, but much-much worse, another hopeful thought was doing us a favour by taking me to see an execrable, miserable, fully castrating and sex-changing misandrist (man-hating) cowpat of a film called 'Closer', starring Jude Law etc. There is no C-grade untranslated chinese action or slash horror flick that can possibly be deemed appropriate reprisal. Avoid at all costs!