Top 5

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

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...

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

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

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

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

Re: Top Five Movies with Budgets under $10 million

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

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

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

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.