Top 5

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

mercurial — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:09:18 GMT

I unintentionally listed movies with budgets less than a million dollars. Oh well.

Here we go:

1.) Pink Flamingos - The minimal budget definitely made this film better. Following a group of sick and perverted individuals doing some of the most vomit-inducing things is heightened by the cinema verite, filmed on the streets style employed.

2.) The Blair Witch Project - The bare bones budget adds to the build up of tension throughout the film.

3.) Brick - Outstanding cinematography, interesting dialogue and intricate (yet economical) sets weave together in this great little neo-noir.

4.) Monsoon Wedding - Filmed on the streets of New Delhi and an isolated home on the outskirts, the movie is amazingly vibrant, yet intimate; magical, yet based in reality.

5.) Halloween - Again, the limited budget gives the film an all too real feel that keeps you gripped with fear. And the score is undoubtedly one of the best.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

leeroy711 — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:42:46 GMT

I'm not sure what the budget was for these films but I'm sure it was low. I can't really explain why but I was a pretty big fan of the latest two Polish Bros films, Twin Falls Idaho and Northfork. It's wierd because I've never been a big fan of David Lynch and these guys' film are so obviously similar to his work. I loved The Elephant Man, but other than that, I've never really cared too much for his work.

Also, just to chime in, I loved Primer and I think it's because I had never seen a time-travel film tackle the obvious conflicts of time-travel before. (exept for possibly Donnie Darko, in a different way.) Such as what happens when your cell phone rings and what do you do with all the extras.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:30:18 GMT

Yeah the rules of Dogme 95 essentially eliminate most of the categories you would normally spend budget on like props, costumes, locations, special effects...

And Bad Taste took four years to shoot! You think if they had the money to spend they would have probably found a way to get it done sooner than that!

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

tmoney — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 02:32:14 GMT

I'm not sure I like the idea of listing below $10, because it seems like a random number. I'll just list some really low budget films that are some of my favorites. Like Rizzo said, probalby 90% of my favorite films fit this category. But here are some that are blatantly low budget

1. Once - I just saw this film, and I am so blown away.

2. The Celebration - Best of Dogme 95, highly recommended.

3. Bad Taste - not my favorite low budget, but must be commended for being made on a budget of about $200.

4. Night of the Living Dead - one of the best low budget films ever.

5. Gerry - I'm pretty sure this was low budget. I really have no idea. But it must be. It's great though

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:00:01 GMT

joem18b:
Jymkata:

1. 12 Angry Men - $350,000 in 1957, about $ 5.6 mil. in today's dollars according to your rules. This is one of my favorite films. Yeah, the setting is a couple of rooms, but the direction is taut and wow, what a cast!
Lumet's first puts me in mind of Kubrick's early career. "The Killing" was made in 1956 for $320,000.

And not only that, Kubrick and Lumet were making a movie at the same time that had pretty much the exact same plots. Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:54:55 GMT

joem18b:
I printed out a 12-page timeline from the web (http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html)

Holy balls. I didn't realize there were that many timelines that detailed and documented. I'm curios about how much on that timeline was actually specifically implied in the movie or how much was guessed or made up. Do you know if that jpg was created by the writer of the movie or just some fan?

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

tinokiev — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 04:44:20 GMT

El mariachi !! -- rodriguez spent 2.000 $

Clerks, The Blair Witch Project

The Idiots

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:39:15 GMT

#17 on the imdb list of 250 best movies.

Wonder if it's a lot cheaper to make a movie in Brazil?

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

tmoney — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:23:17 GMT

Jymkata:
3. City of God - This movie looks like it was made with $ 50 mil. thanks to the direction and cinematography, but can you believe it only cost Miramax $ 3.3 mil. ?

Wow. I love this movie, and it does look like a high budget film. $3.3 mil??!!

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:08:50 GMT

Hard to Google what he's doing today because of the thousands of Primer hits. His co-star David Sullivan is still working in movies.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 05:31:53 GMT

Jymkata:
1. 12 Angry Men - $350,000 in 1957, about $ 5.6 mil. in today's dollars according to your rules. This is one of my favorite films. Yeah, the setting is a couple of rooms, but the direction is taut and wow, what a cast!

Lumet's first puts me in mind of Kubrick's early career. "The Killing" was made in 1956 for $320,000.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Jymkata — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 03:15:16 GMT

interesting topic, I must admit I like a lot of films with higher budgets but here is my top 5 without spending too much time looking up the numbers-

1. 12 Angry Men - $350,000 in 1957, about $ 5.6 mil. in today's dollars according to your rules. This is one of my favorite films. Yeah, the setting is a couple of rooms, but the direction is taut and wow, what a cast!

2. Mad Max - est. $350,00 in 1979, about $ 2.8 mil. Amazing low budget film. They got a steal with an unknown Mel Gibson, but it's pretty gutsy to make a futuristic movie with this scale.

3. City of God - This movie looks like it was made with $ 50 mil. thanks to the direction and cinematography, but can you believe it only cost Miramax $ 3.3 mil. ?

4. Donnie Darko - This is another one that looks like it cost a lot, but it was made with $ 4.5 mil. and I loved it

5. Reservoir Dogs - I know it's hip to trash Tarantino as just a hip poser, but he made an outstanding debut for $ 1.2 millionin 1992. Big budgets, small budgets - the guy can direct.

I can't find info on his budgets, but a master at making the money stretch was Samuel Fuller. I'd love to find out the numbers on my favorites like Pickup on South Street, The Steel Helmet, The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, Forty Guns, and The Big Red One.

I think a great director can make a masterpiece out of a small budget but a hack can't make a decent movie out of Titanic's budget. An interesting case is Sam Raimi who made low-budget horror masterpieces with the Evil Dead series, but I feel like every increased budget yielded a worse film. The Spiderman movies are among some of the most expensive ever made and I think they suck.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:42:34 GMT

I printed out a 12-page timeline from the web (http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html)

and taped all the pages together and then sat there with it in my hand and followed along with the movie and this time I liked it even more. It cost $7,000 to make and covered more time-travel territory than any big-budget film I can think of. Checked IMDB but Shane Carruth hasn't done anything else. Too bad.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:43:30 GMT

This is one of those movies like, say, Mullholland Drive, where you watch and everything seems to be progressing normally and then all of a sudden you go, huh? where did that come from? and from then on it's a guessing game.

So after watching Primer, I went to the Web and read a few threads about what I had just seen. Because if you have Guy #1 and Guy #2 and they each start coming back again and again, trying to get one up on each other, after a while you've got Guy #1 (1), Guy #1 (2), Guy #2 (1), ..., etc., and it becomes a puzzle trying to figure out who is doing what to whom, and why. So yes, the movie becomes a puzzle. With time travel, the potential for paradox is unlimited. If the viewer is in the mood, that can be fun. Otherwise, forget it.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:13:52 GMT

Seems like you figured the movie Primer out well enough to me.

You recognize the ambiguity. Are you taking it as some kind of challenge that you have to look for clues to try to piece it all together? I'm not sure if you would be able. I think there was ambiguity on purpose. Honestly, with such a good premise like this I would have rather there was something where you could piece it all together and really show some of the outrageous situations that might arise if this really could happen. But it seems like time travel movies never really go that far. I guess the science really isn't exciting enough for people.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 07:01:28 GMT

I'm going to watch Primer again. Then I'm going to write and post a review about it which includes any unresolved questions that I have.

As I recall, the tricky thing about Primer is that it starts at point A in time and proceeds forward to point B (the end). The movie is about two men who go back repeatedly in time within the A to B span, sometimes with the purpose to deceive the other, so that you can't be sure at any point as the movie unfolds which iteration of each man you're actually seeing. Whereas in a movie like Back to the Future or Timecop, you follow the protagonist backward and forward in time and don't have to deal with that ambiguity.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:52:14 GMT

Well, I don't know what you were confused by, so I don't know what to explain.

Basically a group of friends get together and accidentally build a time machine. They start using it and experimenting with it and things don't go as planned of course.

What else do you want me to explain?

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:12:17 GMT

Explain it to me.

If you haven't watched it in a while, we might both need to watch it again before you do, and take notes.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 04:58:33 GMT

Joe, what exactly where you puzzled by?

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:51:51 GMT

My wife and I watched it and sat there scratching our heads afterwards with like what was that? Then I read some explanations on the web and I think that's what made me think it was cool. I've meant to watch it again to see whether knowing what's going on will make it seem better or worse. Either way, we could use more low-budget films that encourage being puzzled over, imho.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:11:30 GMT

joem18b:

There is a certain amount of hand-waving and skull-duggery around cinema finances; makes it hard to find hard numbers.
btw, I like to mention Primer whenever I get the chance. Smart moviemaking on the cheap.

I dunno, I've seen Primer because I heard great stuff about it and it sounded like something I could really get into. But I think they set up a fantastic scenario that they totally squandered. It could have gotten a lot more exciting and convoluted in a good way. Instead it just sort of hinted at things but not in any satisfying way, to me at least.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:22:38 GMT

There is a certain amount of hand-waving and skull-duggery around cinema finances; makes it hard to find hard numbers.

btw, I like to mention Primer whenever I get the chance. Smart moviemaking on the cheap.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Risselada — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:49:49 GMT

I'm guessing if I made a list of my top 20 favorite movies of all time over half of them would fit this criteria. I'm not sure where to look for accurate budget information for a lot of them to confirm though.

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

joem18b — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:49:22 GMT

I'm starting with Hollywood Boulevard (1976) - Budget around 10K. Joe Dante using Roger Corman film.

There are many, many for a top 5 list on the list you provide. Challenge would be to name a Top 5 that aren't on that list? But then I guess we wouldn't know their budget.

I'd start with stars who will work cheap once in a while, like Lily Taylor, Steve Buscemi, Janeane Garofalo, Morgan Freeman. I wonder how much Trees Lounge or Living in Oblivion or even 10 Items or Less cost?

Then directors like Corman and you.

Then genres like Mumblecore and documentaries. I notice that most of the 90+ movies in Rotten Tomatoes are docs.

And then just little movies I liked. I'm thinking of a little flick called Pressure (2002). Worked well and couldn't have cost much. Or Monster Man (2003).

And hey, Death Proof looked cheap...