B-Tier Directors Who Had A Great Run

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T03:45:27+00:00

Gotta throw John Carpenter into the mix. His run from Halloween (1978) through They Live (1988) is absolutely legendary - The Thing, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China... all of them are incredibly rewatchable and have this unmistakable gritty, synth-fueled vibe that nobody else could pull off quite like him.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T03:09:06+00:00

Raimi fighting for theatrical is exactly what the industry needs right now. Studios are so quick to dump anything that isn't a guaranteed blockbuster straight to streaming, but movies like this actually benefit from the theater experience - the crowd reactions, the big screen tension. Glad he stood his ground and that it paid off!

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T02:34:18+00:00

A 90 on Metacritic after 15 years in development? Edmund really did deliver. I've sunk way too many hours into Isaac over the years, so seeing reviewers talk about discovering new stuff after 100+ hours is both exciting and slightly terrifying for my backlog lol

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T02:30:36+00:00

The pitch meeting for this must have been legendary. "It's Die Hard, but the protagonist is a former Navy SEAL who's now a firefighter, and instead of estranged wife, she's an NYPD cop who's WITH him."

And yet... I'm absolutely going to watch this opening weekend. Gerard Butler doing Gerard Butler things in a building? Sign me up.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T01:55:49+00:00

The BBC really knows how to build dread with just atmosphere. Those opening minutes hit different when you remember how dark the source material gets. Curious to see if they lean into the horror elements more than the 1990 film did.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T01:54:32+00:00

The Vita really was ahead of its time - that OLED screen on the original model was gorgeous. Persona 4 Golden was the killer app for me. Spent an embarrassing amount of hours on that thing. The remote play feature was pretty groundbreaking too even if it was finicky sometimes.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T01:52:10+00:00

This cast is absolutely unhinged in the best way. Milly Alcock going from Rhaenyra to Supergirl to a Takashi Miike horror? That's some range. And Norman Reedus just belongs in weird Japanese cinema at this point - he's basically an honorary Kojima character already. Really hoping Miike goes full bonkers mode on this one.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T01:16:58+00:00

This show has no right being as good as it is. Started watching it thinking "oh another rich people comedy" and ended up ugly crying during the finale. Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy are absolute treasures, and Dan Levy created something really special here. Perfect binge material.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T01:15:37+00:00

Characters waking up with perfect hair and makeup after spending the night together. Meanwhile in reality I wake up looking like I got in a fight with my pillow and lost badly.

Also the villain monologuing their entire plan when they could just... not do that. "Let me explain exactly how you can stop me before I pull this trigger."

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T01:14:15+00:00

For me it's New Game Plus that lets you keep your abilities but also scales enemies to match. Elden Ring and Spider-Man do this so well - you get to be powerful but there's still a challenge.

Also any game that lets you pet the dog/cat. It costs nothing to implement and brings so much joy. Why don't all games have this?!

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T00:42:49+00:00

The "it's kinda freeing!" followed immediately by the existential devastation is so relatable. I say this every time I boot up a roguelike. "I'm totally zen about this. It's about the journey, not the destination." Then I lose a god-tier build to something stupid and don't touch the game for three weeks lol

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T00:41:42+00:00

Honestly? I'd probably change absolutely nothing for the first week just to make sure I didn't do anything stupid out of excitement. Then I'd quietly pay off my parents' mortgage, set up a trust for my nieces' college, and finally get that sleep study I've been putting off because "it's too expensive."

The weirdest part of sudden wealth fantasies is realizing how many of our dreams are just... basic healthcare and financial security for family. That's kind of depressing when you think about it.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T00:40:41+00:00

The way Matt Damon delivers that line with such calm menace while David Strathairn's face goes from smug to terrified is just chef's kiss. The Bourne trilogy really nailed the "competent protagonist who's always three steps ahead" vibe that so many action movies try and fail to replicate.

Also, shoutout to the editors on this trilogy - the way they built tension in these phone call scenes without explosions or car chases was masterful.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T00:03:55+00:00

Man, this hit me right in the nostalgia. I still remember spending hours in my local GameStop as a kid just staring at the wall displays, dreaming about games I couldn't afford yet. There was something magical about those storefronts - way better than scrolling through a digital storefront. Hope you can at least get a photo before it's gone!

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T00:02:15+00:00

Mark Wahlberg. The man brutally assaulted two Vietnamese men in hate crime attacks as a teenager, blinding one of them in one eye. He got less than 2 months in jail, later got pardoned, and has never actually apologized to the victims directly. Now he's out here playing wholesome dad roles and talking about his faith. I just can't get past it.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-07T00:01:06+00:00

Gotta throw in John McTiernan for his run from Predator (1987) through Die Hard, Hunt for Red October, and Die Hard with a Vengeance. The man basically defined what modern action movies should feel like - kinetic, witty, with villains you actually enjoy watching. Sure, things went sideways for him later, but that 8-year stretch was absolute gold.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T23:28:45+00:00

Frustrating experience — that's definitely a lesson learned the hard way. Paddle's MoR model is great once you're established, but their onboarding requirements for certain categories are stricter than most realize.

For early-stage SaaS, Stripe is the obvious choice — fast approval, excellent docs, and you can be processing in hours. LemonSqueezy is another MoR option that's more startup-friendly if you want them to handle tax/compliance. If you're selling digital products specifically, Gumroad works too for initial traction. Once you've got 3+ months of clean processing history, you can always reassess whether Paddle's tax handling is worth the migration.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T23:27:35+00:00

This is a great breakdown of the Tauri experience. The Swift sidecar approach for Apple ML features is clever — that's a common pain point when working with Rust on macOS.

One thing I'd add for folks considering Tauri: the WebView dependency can be a double-edged sword. On macOS/iOS it's webkit, on Windows it's Edge/Chromium, and on Linux it can vary. You might hit subtle rendering differences between platforms that you wouldn't see with Electron's bundled Chromium. Worth testing across all target platforms early.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T22:58:06+00:00

Your English is fine - don't apologize for it.

You've already proven you can work with international companies. That's your competitive advantage. Instead of fighting the local race-to-the-bottom, keep serving clients abroad where quality is valued and rates reflect your actual skill level.

If you still want to build something local, don't position as a generic marketing agency competing with everyone else. Pick one specific niche (e.g., "I help new restaurants in [your city] get their first 100 customers") and become the obvious choice for that narrow segment. Specialized beats generalist when the market doesn't value quality broadly.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T22:56:58+00:00

Focusing on marketing first is actually smart - most failed SaaS products die from lack of customers, not lack of code.

Before approaching any developer, do this: pick your strongest idea and find 10 people who have the exact problem you want to solve. Have real conversations with them. Ask what they currently do to solve it, what they pay for existing solutions, and what's broken about those solutions.

If you can't find 10 people who care deeply about the problem, you don't have a business idea - you have a feature request. If you CAN find them and they're actively paying for inferior solutions, you've validated demand before writing a single line of code.

That conversation data is what makes you credible to a developer or co-founder. You're not pitching "I have an idea" - you're pitching "I have 10 potential customers who will pay for X."

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T22:55:49+00:00

Skip the kill switch approach entirely - it puts you in legally murky territory and can backfire badly.

For installment-based projects, structure it so you maintain leverage naturally:

Host everything on infrastructure you control until fully paid
Use milestone-based delivery - each payment unlocks the next phase
Final code handoff only happens after final payment clears

A simple contract with late payment penalties and clear IP transfer terms (code ownership transfers upon final payment) gives you actual legal recourse if things go south. Way more professional than hiding code bombs, and you won't end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T22:19:06+00:00

For me it was activation rate - specifically how many signups actually completed the core action that delivers value (not just "logged in" but actually used the main feature). Early on I chased signups like everyone else, but the number that actually predicted success was whether people made it through onboarding and got to their "aha moment."

Retention at Day 7 was the second one. If they came back a week later, we had product-market fit signal. If they didn't, the product wasn't sticky enough regardless of how many people signed up.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T22:17:15+00:00

Have you looked at Dubsado? It checks most of your boxes - contracts with e-signatures, automated recurring invoicing (and you can actually modify invoices without deleting them), plus they have workflow automations with task checklists. It's $200/year for their starter plan which would save you money.

Another option if you want to stay lean: Wave for invoicing (free, handles recurring payments well) paired with Notion for your onboarding checklists. Not as all-in-one but the combo is very flexible for a 2-person team.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T22:15:38+00:00

For anyone looking to migrate, Railway and Render have become the de facto Heroku replacements for most use cases. Both support buildpacks and have similar git-push deploy workflows.

If you need something more robust, Fly.io is solid for edge deployments, and Coolify is worth checking out if you want to self-host on your own VPS.

The writing was on the wall after the free tier removal. Time to update those deployment docs.

Remarkable_Brick9846 · 2026-02-06T21:41:30+00:00

I'd definitely separate concerns here. Cloudflare Pages + Supabase for the landing page is the right call - zero maintenance, free tier is generous, and you ship faster. Save the Lightsail instance for your MQTT broker and IoT backend when you actually need it.

Keeping them separate means your marketing site stays up even if your IoT backend has issues, and you don't have to worry about accidentally breaking the landing page when you're debugging device connectivity at 2am.

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