Taed

I caught this when it aired 17 years ago -- I seem to recall it being on outside of prime time and that I had recorded it by accident. Nonetheless, I remember that I really enjoyed it. The three (?) time periods shown meshed nicely, with some characters shared and some only in one period. I recall that 2001 (?) was slightly futuristic, of a form that probably won't be with us even 17 years from now (I don't recall exactly, but something along the line of electro-armor and hover-cycles).

Perhaps someone will have seen it more recently and can add some more detail.

First, for those who expect an adaptation of Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" that is true to the original source material, you're not going to find it here. A true adaption would only be only 20 minutes long, and has actually been attempted at least once before (on the new series _The Outer Limits_, I believe) that I've come across. To fill out a full feature film the plot would need to be expanded considerably, as is done here.

The most unfortunate part of this movie is that it violates the key feature of the time-travel genre, which is a semi-confusing but internally consistent logic once characters start moving about in time. Unfortunately, this movie's bout with time travel is not confusing at all, and lacks internal consistency for reasons that will become clear once you see the film. This is a problem with the extension of the plot from the original short story, not with the short story itself (though the effects of time travel in that story are trite by modern standards).

The special effects were barely of TV-quality, worse than one would see on those various dinosaur specials on The Discovery Channel or its ilk. The computer-generated backgrounds, which were done fairly well in _Sky Captain_, were lacking here in both imagination and quality.

The film itself is also poorly filmed; it was very grainy and seems that it was filmed by a college student on their super-8 home camera.

The actors, however, were reasonable, and I have no fault with them. I applaud the person doing the casting in not selecting from the usual bevy of "beautiful people".

Overall, this movie is something that I'd expect to find on The SciFi Channel on Saturday afternoon, not something released as a feature film.

On the other hand, I did give it a 5 out of 10 because despite all of its flaws, it's not a painful movie, but something that I wouldn't have minded watching if I were to have caught it on TV some afternoon on The SciFi Channel...

I keep a running tally of all the movies I see every year, and _Suckerfish_ was my best movie for the year 2000. However, let me say that it's "just" a very good move (I gave it an 8/10), not a great movie -- it's wasn't a very good year for movies. Nonetheless, it's a very enjoyable movie. I took two other people with me -- one of whom had never seen an independent movie -- and they both enjoyed it quite a bit. I get asked about it a lot -- due to it being at the top of my 2000 list -- and I usually describe it as "a black comedy about the high-stakes world of pet supplies."

I just finished watching this film. For me, the most outstanding work in this film was the music score. While many silent film scores work very well with their scenes, I feel that this is the best score I've come across. The mutiny scenes in particular worked extremely well.

When I first saw the previews for this movie, I had a guess as to the ending. However, when a co-worker said the ending was very clever, I assumed that there must be something more to it. Unfortunately, there wasn't. However, it is a decent movie, and my knowing the ending before seeing it is probably more due to my extensive viewing of science-fiction movies than a lack of cleverness on the part of the writer.

Simply put, I've seen all but one of the versions of this film (Ten Little Indians (1966, 1989), And Then There Were None (1945, 1974), and yes, even April Fool's Day (1986)), and this is by far the least interesting... I recommend the first (And Then There Were None (1945) as the best of the bunch.

While this movie is decent overall, there were two scenes that make it particularly interesting for movie buffs.

As a movie buff, there are some scenes in movies which I'll probably never forget. Some of them are the opening scene in _Touch of Evil_, and Glen Close crying in the shower in _The Big Chill_.

The "passage of time / change of seasons" scene in _Notting Hill_ is now among those. I was amazed with this scene, and the choice of music ("Ain't no sunshine" by Bill Withers) was perfect. The cuts blend perfectly together -- at least I'm assuming they were filmed separately, since it required clothing changes for some of the participants. Aside from the obvious change of seasons, the passage of time is shown to have an effect on other characters, such as the pregnancy/baby of one woman and the sister's meeting/breaking up with a man.

There is a second scene, that while not as awe-inspiring, it was certainly technically well-done, and again reminds me of a similar technical feat in _Touch of Evil_. In the park scene, the camera pulls up and angles down. At first, I thought that was a sweet touch, showing how they are just two people in their own little world. But as the camera continued to pull up to somewhere around 75 feet above the ground, I recognized the engineering that went behind it. My guess is that they mounted a camera via wires and remotely controlled the angles and focus. I think putting a person up there would have been a bit too much. Does anyone actually know how it was done?

So while this movie is sweet enough to see, I feel it's a must-see for anyone who likes well-constructed cinematography.