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#1
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 07:14:56 AM
I would say you are largely correct. Cameras were unwieldy and tough to move around, for one thing. It was definitely quicker and easier to just leave the darn thing in one place and stage everything on a 180-line in front of it. Melies did mix it up a bit in some of his other films.
#2
Bad Movies / Re: RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie...
Last post by Dr. Whom - Today at 01:23:20 AM
Quote from: zombie no.one on June 28, 2026, 01:02:07 PM
Quote from: Dr. Whom on June 28, 2026, 02:53:17 AMBloodbath at the House of Death (1984)

I didn't expect much of this and got even less. It is a slapstick parody of Hammer horror type movies, but it is painfully unfunny and unoriginal. I may have chuckled two or three times in the whole movie. Main character is Kenny Everett, who I never really liked, seconded by Pamela Stephenson of Not The Nine O'Clock News fame and Vincent Price. Both of these are completely let down by the lame script and predictable jokes. Pamela Stephenson does briefly get her clothes ripped off by a poltergeist

According to IMBD, this actually got an award at our very own BIFFF in 1984, tied with Videodrome. I can only imagine how drunk the jury must have been.



even being a major 80s slasher / horror nerd I have never had any desire to see this one... also never found K.E. funny but he is slightly before my time

Only watch this if seeing KE on screen sparks joy. Turns out that 1984 was only the second edition of the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film (BIFFF), which may explain why the movie got an award.
#3
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by Dr. Whom - Today at 01:17:07 AM
Quote from: M.10rda on June 28, 2026, 11:07:41 AMJEANNE D'ARC [JOAN OF ARC] (1900):

We see major tableau from the life of Joan in wide-shot for about 45 seconds each on average. If you know the Joan mythos then you know what's goin' on but sans dialogue or close-ups you lose a lot of the drama of later renditions. Also there's one scene (the Siege of Orleans, I think) that commits one of my pet-peeve film-crimes - staging an epic battle w/ about 10 dudes, including a few who have to be recycled on the opposing side. However, the homemade quality of the sets is oddly charming (instead of off-putting) and the static staging of each tableau likewise predicts the self-conscious pageantry of Peter Greenaway or Roy Andersson (or Wes Anderson for that matter). That's kinda' cool.


It is my firm conviction that early movies drew heavily on the existing tableau vivant tradition. Mind you, I haven't actually tried to find out if this is really the case
#4
Bad Movies / Re: Generate Movie Poster with...
Last post by claws - June 28, 2026, 10:16:36 PM
I had this issue once

 4. They're confusing "Copilot Chat" with "Copilot Image Creator"

Copilot also advised me to always start a new chat with "Generate Image of Theatrical Poster," and it worked.
#5
Bad Movies / Re: Generate Movie Poster with...
Last post by claws - June 28, 2026, 09:52:32 PM
Someone at the forum posted this. What do you think is going on?

"copilot has been down for me for about a week now and is unable to generate new posters

anyone else having  this issue"
Quote from: bob on June 28, 2026, 04:27:56 PMcopilot has been down for me for about a week now and is unable to generate new posters

 :bluesad:  :question:  :question:

anyone else having  this issue

I asked Copilot:

1. They're stuck in a "contaminated chat"

This is by far the #1 cause.

Once a chat has:

    generated a poster with certain visual elements

    repeated a layout

    hit a safety block

    or produced a malformed image

...the model tends to reuse the same internal visual state, even if the user changes the prompt.

That results in:

    no new posters

    repeated compositions

    or the model refusing to generate anything at all

People think Copilot is "down," but really the chat thread is corrupted.

The fix is simply to start a brand‑new chat, not reuse the old one.

 2. They're hitting a silent safety block

Copilot sometimes:

    refuses the request

    but doesn't say why

    and instead outputs nothing or a generic "unable to generate" message

This happens with:

    religious horror

    sexualized violence

    real actors

    real brands

    political imagery

    anything that looks like a real movie poster

Users often don't realize their prompt tripped a filter.

 3. They're using a prompt that used to work but now triggers new rules

You've seen this yourself — prompts that worked in April suddenly behave differently in June.

Copilot's image model has been tightening:

    text hallucination

    real‑person likeness

    gore

    satanic symbolism

    "prestige poster" formatting

If their prompt relied on older behavior, it may now fail silently.

 4. They're confusing "Copilot Chat" with "Copilot Image Creator"

Some forum users don't realize:

    the chat model can generate images

    the image creator is a separate interface

    and one can be updated while the other is not

If they're using the wrong entry point, it will look "down."

5. They're on a browser/device that cached a broken state

This is surprisingly common.

A bad cached script can cause:

    the image button to disappear

    the generation to hang

    the output to fail

Refreshing or switching browsers fixes it instantly.

The phrasing — "down for me for about a week" — almost always means their chat thread is stuck in a bad generation loop, not that Copilot is globally broken.

If Copilot were actually down:

    the forum would be flooded

    multiple users would report it

    other features would fail too

But only their posters are failing, which points to:
a corrupted chat + a prompt that now triggers safety.

If you want, I can help craft a clean, "reset‑safe" poster prompt that avoids the new filters
#6
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by bob - June 28, 2026, 08:15:29 PM


Why do people recycle?
#7
Games / Re: Movie Title Chains
Last post by bob - June 28, 2026, 08:13:14 PM
#8
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by M.10rda - June 28, 2026, 07:42:32 PM
FRANKENSTEIN (1914):
You've almost certainly seen a still from this one - most likely the one famous still I and tons of other people saw and knew this film for, through the 20th century. IIRC that still was all that was known to survive for many years, and then at some point some amount of this film was recovered. Maybe what I watched (14 minutes) was all of it, but it's hard to tell as the story feels pretty truncated (more or less "complete", but highly simplified) and the famous, haunting, indelible aforementioned still doesn't actually appear in the movie. :bluesad:

That famous still is fuh-ire :hot: and the Monster never looks as cool or scary in the extant 14 minutes - actually it looks kinda' lame much of the time........ but there are a couple cool things about this FRANKENSTEIN. One is the creation scene, which is unlike any I've seen in another Frank movie. It's clearly reversed footage of the upper-half of a puppet of the Monster burning up - and it looks quite "metal" (to quote a Letterboxd user). The other cool thing is how the director (J. Searle Dowley) uses a mirror in the film's final sequence. It's highly effective and it's not immediately clear how it was pulled off - which I appreciate in a primitive genre film!    3.5/5    Thomas Edison produced it.
#9
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by indianasmith - June 28, 2026, 07:14:22 PM
SUPERGIRL (2026)  Caught this one in the theaters this afternoon with my wife.  While it's not as positive and grin-inducing as James Gunn's SUPERMAN, it's a fun story that starts with Kara, Superman's Kryptonian cousin, out celebrating her 23rd birthday with a drinking binge on a red-star planet (alcohol on earth doesn't affect her).   Suddenly she gets dragged into the revenge quest of 13-year-old Ruthye, whose parents and brother were murdered by a ruthless marauder named Krem.  Kara doesn't really want to help out, but when Krem poisons Krypto, her mischievous Kryptonian dog, Supergirl is all in!   Lots of great fight scenes, and Millie Alcock is both powerful and poignant as a girl who watched her planet die around her, only to find herself without a real home. Definitely worth the ticket price!  4.5/5
#10
Bad Movies / Re: Generate Movie Poster with...
Last post by bob - June 28, 2026, 04:27:56 PM
Quote from: claws on June 28, 2026, 11:54:58 AM
Quote from: Rev. Powell on June 28, 2026, 11:17:36 AMThat's a really nice looking one.

That's from ChatGPT, and they have been killing it the last few weeks. I usually give Copilot and ChatGPT the same prompt, and 4 out of 5 times ChatGPT just does a better job. They add little things that makes a huge difference. Copilot seems lazy and less creative most of the time. Also, Copilot still has a habit of writing gibberish text, something that annoys me to no end.

I'd say ChatGPT is a bit more edgy than Copilot.


copilot has been down for me for about a week now and is unable to generate new posters

 :bluesad:  :question:  :question:

anyone else having  this issue