Oh, yes, Dark Star is a definite. I sometimes lump it in with Dr. Strangelove and that Dennis Hopper movie where they were in a propaganda plane that was still flying...hmm, need to go look that one up. But anyway, yeah, Dark Star counts, as does Silent Running.

Excellent. Knew this was where to ask.

Now my next question - I need to cite year and studio for each film. IMDb has the years, but not the studios, at least not that I can find. Any idea where to look, for the movies I don't own?

Note to self: 80% of the way through the movie, you really, really like Garden State.

Take that to heart the next time you're thinking about it.

ETA: The ending is still pretty heavy-handed and not-so-great. Still, Zach Braff could definitely have a future as a director.

ETA2: Discussion. Why is the ending unsatisfying? It's a classic case of telling instead of showing. I have no problem with the actual plot points of the last ten minutes, I just don't need them to TALK about it so much. Yes, he changed. That's great. Stop talking about it, because we can SEE it. Gonna stay with Sam? Excellent. I approve. Good choice. Don't explain why: we know why. It's obvious. Just do it, like you did everything else, and let us feel the understated romance. See: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Overall, though, I liked it much better this time than last time. Lower expectations of 100% brilliance, so I was more willing to accept the 90% brilliance I got instead.

great huge wodges of stuff went missing

Dear GOD. Me, as a non-historian, felt that for a story, wodges could have been left out, and I'd have liked it more. I have no interest in a Howard Hughes documentary.

Raquel, does the Company credits page not have what you want?

Raquel, I think Silent Running is a transitional film to the era you're describing. It even has them hauling a bit of earth out into space and then deciding that the green stuff is better off without man's pernicious influence. It's the first movie I remember that really made space look big and empty and emphasized human alienation.

All that AND the main character gives a moral lecture to a couple of air-conditioners at one point. Brilliant!

(Seriously, I was going to mention Silent Running too, but Hec beat me to it.)

It's a classic case of telling instead of showing.

The funny thing is that all of Zach's student films (that I saw) were show-not-tell, almost to a fault -- gorgeous pacing and composition, very very very sparse writing. I think he just got carried away here.

If the movie is in print, you can probably find the studio name on the packaging (or on the Amazon page). If it's not in print, I bet that movie dictionaries like Leonard Maltin's will list the studio. (Although, come to think, Matlin's book lists only movies in print.)

Alienation, as an SF trope, or alienation-in-space? Because, I can think of a couple of "the future sucks, and it's all our fault" movies (some of them true shlock, like Soylent Green ) but they don't take place in space. There are a bunch of evil-corporation-future-societies that just didn't have the budget for space ships, from THX-1138 on down.

Thanks, ita - a case of too many interface options, and a too-impatient Raq. I didn't see that choice at all.

OK, Silent Running definitely on the list.

Alienation-on-a-ship for preference. The idea being that the setting needs to be off Earth, or at least away from civilization (the farther the better), isolated, and fragile in and of itself. Horror and death are key players also.

I can't decide about 2001. It's got some aspects of this, but it's also got this feeling that we are all cosmically connected.

What if the last 2 minutes of 2001 hadn't happened? Because, that's the only part where we're-all-connected hoodoo predominates, in my mind. Cut that, and you've got a beautiful, massively inefficient, austere version of Cabin Fever going on.

It's been years since I saw it, but the loneliness of space was always the foremost emotional hit for me.

And HAL really puts it in this category.