The film schedule for "Night of the Comet" continues to decrease for the third week, and it is estimated that the box office for the whole week will be less than 3 million.
Surprisingly, the new movie released over the weekend, "The Man with Two Brains" starring comedy star Steve Martin and sexy porn star Kathryn Turner, did very poorly at the box office. It only received 350 tickets from 1,200 theaters.
Unbeatable box office.
"Psycho 2", which was released in nearly 1,500 theaters, was only average, with just over 8 million. A large number of viewers came to see the movie because of Hitchcock's name. It seems that they don't think highly of the movie. Everyone expected it to be released.
The weekly box office will not be good.
Even Roger Ebert, who often spoke for major studios, had to separate it from Hitchcock's original version at the beginning of the review, using a preface to lower the audience's expectations before saying good things.
"Those who go to the movie with Hitchcock in mind should get Hitchcock out of their minds. There is no way this movie can compare to the original."
Ronald laughed out loud when he read this. This guy is always eccentric, but he gave the movie three and a half stars, second only to the highest four stars. In the end, he put in a good word for the distributor, Universal Pictures.
Although the two new films, which had high hopes, all failed to meet expectations at the box office due to the power of Star Wars. However, the film schedule for Ronaldo's "Night of the Comet" next week is still not optimistic.
Because of a new dark horse, it has grabbed the third position with less than 800 theaters opening. With a box office of 6.2 million, the average revenue of a single theater is 7,300, which is a solid uppercut.
Hit the stomach of many movies.
In addition to Star Wars, film critics have also begun to discuss this newly released science fiction apocalyptic movie - "war games".
Ronald also wanted to see the quality of the movie. He went to the Sherman Oaks Department Store and bought a ticket for the evening show. Then he sat quietly in the pizza shop opposite and watched the cinema opposite.
The situation at the ticket gate.
The most popular one is of course the whole family coming out to watch Star Wars. There are still a lot of people coming to see "Night of the Comet", but gradually as word of mouth grows, there are more and more young women in the audience.
"We meet again." The fat man with glasses was still holding a sign last time, but this time it was changed to "misc.films - War Games." The same friends of his gathered together one by one.
Ronald put down the Coke cup and walked to the opposite side. It was about to start. Approaching the group of nerdy students, Ronald heard them discussing the plot of "War Games".
"As you said, there is a plot related to our bbs, of course we have to watch it. What do you think of it compared to 'Night of the Comet'?"
"I read the movie review, and it may be more realistic than Night of the Comet. I heard that there are many plots related to us playing BBS, and there are also plots about dialing up to the NATO Air Defense Command ARPANET, which is very exciting."
"Really? I don't believe that our modem can still connect to the NATO Air Defense Command? They use ARPANET () and we use UserNet (). They are basically two levels."
"I don't think you understand. Don't you know? At the beginning of this year, all network protocols have been unified into the TCP/IP protocol. As long as the phone can be dialed, you can see the login interface."
"What's the use? You can't get in. Are you a hacker? Can you crack their password?"
"hey-hey……"
"Really? You can really crack the code?"
"Actually, as long as you use a dictionary and exhaustively search, you can get a lot of passwords. Many people are careless when setting passwords. I will send you an email when I get back."
Ronald was confused and didn't know what they were talking about. But he heard a few words, user network (), newsgroup (newsgroup), as if they were connected to each other through this thing, about
Good to meet you here.
"Go back and ask someone." Ronald felt that these words were a bit familiar inexplicably.
The beginning of the movie is very gripping. In an intercontinental missile silo under the NATO Air Defense Command, several staff members were eating hamburgers and chatting as usual.
Suddenly a sharp alarm sounded, and the red warning light on the wall began to rotate and glow red. Instructions from superiors came from the confidential phone. The Soviet Union had launched hundreds of intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads towards America and its allies.
.
Many large cities and military targets were destroyed. These staff members were asked by their superiors to immediately initiate missile launch procedures to counterattack Suwei.
Two people who have the authority to press the launch button must turn the key in the opposite direction at the same time to turn on the launch switch, and then enter the launch code transmitted by the confidential line to start the missile in the silo.
When things came to a close, one of them was sweating. He could not bear the psychological pressure of pressing the launch button and sending hundreds of thousands of people to hell. He refused the order and asked his superiors to check whether the enemy missile incoming attack was a false alarm.
Suddenly, the alarm stopped. It turned out that this was just a stress test. The NATO Air Defense Command wanted to see how many staff would obey the instructions and launch the intercontinental missile under sudden pressure.
The results of the test were so unsatisfactory that the command finally decided to use the supercomputer wopr (meaning war action plan response) to activate the missile instead of a real person. This computer would decide whether a nuclear bomb should be launched to counterattack the opponent.
"This concept of computers causing the apocalypse is really popular now." Ronald thought of Cameron's "Terminator" and it was the same.
The scene suddenly changed and we came to a high school in Seattle. High school students David and his girlfriend Jennifer were detained by the teacher in class and both failed.
When David returned home, he used his phone to dial into the school's computer where students' scores were stored. After hacking into the database, he modified his and his girlfriend's scores so that they would not have to take make-up exams during the summer vacation.
David saw a discounted computer game written in a computer magazine. You can also play online with other people, but you need to dial a phone number provided by the game company. Out of confidence in his hacking skills, he compiled a small program to start from scratch.
I went through all the phone numbers under the area code of the address where the game company is located, trying to find out which number can play games for free.
The game company is in a small town in Colorado. Who knew that the person David called was actually the supercomputer wopr of the NATO Air Defense Command. Wopr can play many games with people, and the last one is the "Global Thermonuclear War Game"
”.
David started this game, and wopr started to play with himself. Every time he assumed that the Soviet Alliance had upgraded its situation, and also raised the alert level on NATO's side in response, scaring a group of generals and experts in the Air Defense Command.
It's quite annoying.
The wopr computer does not understand the difference between games and reality. It successfully made the generals and experts of the NATO Air Defense Command think that the alliance was really preparing to launch a nuclear bomb raid.
David discovered the problem and finally found Falcon, the designer of the WoPR computer. It turned out that Falcon was expelled from the NATO Air Defense Command after designing the computer.
They went to the headquarters together to prevent their own country from launching intercontinental ballistic missiles. Only one general in the Air Defense Command recognized their theory.
Finally, the designer wrote a Tic-Tac-Toe Flag game on the spot and taught Wopr computer how to play it. Every time he played it, it was a draw. Wopr Computer discovered that not all games have winners. Finally, Wopr Computer cut off the war game and played
One line of words.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Then the wopr computer cut off the raised alert state and also cut off the intercontinental nuclear missile that had been mounted on the launcher.
Finally he extended an invitation to David, "How about a game of chess?"
The story of the whole movie is very good, and the plot is also very intense. The best thing is the two young leading actors. The male protagonist Matthew Brodick is very handsome and really has a nerdy temperament. The female protagonist Ellie Sheedy is
She is young and beautiful, and looks like an American beauty.
In addition, the new generation of teenagers have more or less come into contact with computers. Those who have money at home have played on IBM's personal computers or Apple's old version of Apple II. Those who have no money have at least played the same as Ronald.
That computer is actually a game console.
For a normal teenager, with a phone line and a modem, he can enter the NORAD computer, or hack into the school computer and modify his own grades. This is a very cool thing.
No wonder those fat students with glasses came together to watch this movie this time.
Ronald feels that he has learned a little trick from this "War Game". No matter how impossible it is in reality, he must make the audience feel that if they have the same equipment as him, they can do the same thing as the protagonist.
When he was waiting for the show to end, he stopped the guy with glasses holding the sign, "Excuse me, I saw what user network and news group you were talking about just now. What does this mean? Is it the same as David in the movie?
Communicate with other people who have computers.”
The guy with glasses was jumpy at first, hearing that Ronald asked about his strengths, and he immediately started talking non-stop.
It turns out that this started with bulletin board bbs. With a modem added to a personal computer, you can connect to someone else's home phone line. If that person also has a modem, then the two parties can communicate with each other through email.
"Wait, what is email?"
"Why don't you understand anything? Emails are emails that can be sent through a computer."
"Ah? Then no need for stamps?"
"Of course, but your monthly phone bill will go up."
, many people have started to set up a platform by themselves, allowing many people to call him, so that everyone can discuss issues through email. All people who call can see all the information that has been posted since the last call.
New discussion.
However, one node can accommodate too few people. In order to connect with more people, several schools, led by Berkeley University, began to establish a protocol that can synchronize emails in different BBSs with each other, so that you only need to connect to one node.
, you can see the responses from all people on the North American continent.
It is divided into eight forums in total, such as .misc on his brand, which is the "other" forum, .soc for discussing hot social issues, .talk for discussing various controversial topics, etc.
"All you need is an email address, a phone line, and a modem to join this 'poor man's ARPANET.' You know ARPANET, right? It's the real NATO Air Defense Command and everywhere
The network connected to the intercontinental missiles is very fast and advanced, but we can only use the poor version and only synchronize discussions once a day."
Ronald was a little moved by what he said. Wouldn't it be possible to discuss movies with other people? He could also talk about some topics he didn't know about.