Fun and Random Trivia of the Day

Trivia for today, 4-3-09 is from Beetlejuice. Still a great movie to this day.

When Adam and Barbra are in the office, a voice on the PA systems announces the arrival of Flight 409 ("Flight 409 is arriving at Gate 3"). On October 6, 1955 United Airlines Flight 409 crashed into a mountain over Wyoming killing all passengers and crew aboard. It was the worst crash in history to that point. To this day, no one knows why it crashed.

From Natural Born Killers:

Director Oliver Stone calls the frequent cuts to black and white, where dialogue is often repeated with a slightly different intonation, "vertical cutting". Stone explains that the idea behind the technique is to create an outer moment (the color footage) and an inner moment (the black and white footage) at the same time. For example, he explains this in relation to the waitress in the opening scene (O-Lan Jones), who whilst taking Mickey's order in the 'outer' scene is actually flirting with him (or thinking about flirting with him) in the 'inner' scene. Also in the opening scene, when the cowboy ('James Gammon') refers to Mallory as "pussy", there is a flash cut to Mickey covered in blood; this is Mickey's 'inner' moment.

And another interesting fact...

Took only 56 days to shoot.

The editing of the film took 11 months.

11 months to edit a shitty movie? Wow, Oliver Stone must have really been trying to salvage the bullshit he accidentally shot.

He takes 11 months to edit NBK and shoots the entire W film and releases it in about 3 months. LOL Oh Olly, you deranged erratic half genius/ half retard.

I found some cool stuff so I will post at least Saturday's trivia today.

Trivia for 4-4-09 is from Waking Life. Congrats to NSpan and Aly as their hometown makes the trivia for the first time.

This film was shot primarily in Austin, Texas. Not Houston, Texas.

The man in the car shouting through the loudspeaker is Alex Jones who has a public television and radio talk show in Austin, Texas, as well as a shortwave radio show, where he expresses similar and even sometimes harsher viewpoints.

IPKI$$ wrote:11 months to edit a shitty movie?

What are you talking about? NBK is badass as all hell. And it was pretty groundbreaking as far as editing is concerned. We just read a bit about it in my editing class.

mfrendo wrote:

IPKI$$ wrote:11 months to edit a shitty movie?

What are you talking about? NBK is badass as all hell. And it was pretty groundbreaking as far as editing is concerned. We just read a bit about it in my editing class.

yeah, prior to NBK, movies didn't look like they were shot and edited at MTV

That is true NSpan. That was one point discussed in the editing book, was that the film was very self-reflective. It basically is a narrative that has many music videos (I mean, the editing is made to be set to whatever song is playing) telling the story, while commenting on the impact of video's, cartoons, tv in general, and the media's glorification of violence. The whole movie is about media manipulation.

It's also just another mediocre movie that could have been excellent in Oliver Stone's lengthy repertoire of good-intentioned, yet heavy-handed preach fests of how everybody's stupid except for those who believe what he does.

Another interesting fact about Natural Born Killers: Trent Reznor watched the film 30 times before creating his contributions for the soundtrack.

Yes. 30 times. And he didn't go psycho and start killing people in the process.

Yet. Or that we know of.

Trivia Of The Day (4/4/2009)

Predator

According to an interview with director John McTiernan, the "hole in the jungle" appearance of the Predator was played by Jean-Claude Van Damme in a "blue screen" (actually red) suit. Van Damme quit after two days, unhappy with being cast as an uncredited special effect. The alien was scrapped, redesigned and was eventually played by 7'2" Kevin Peter Hall.

Wow, what a change. From the 5'10" Van Damme to the 7'2" Hall. Definitely for the better.

My favourite piece of trivia from 'The Descent':

"The appearance of the creatures was kept secret from the cast members until the first scene in which they encounter them was filmed. When the cast were finally filming the scene where the girls encounter the crawlers, the girls were genuinely scared and screamed the building down, running off set and laughing."

A buddy and I were watching it with our ladies and he and I are pretty desensitized to horror films (I shouldn't say that proudly) but the girls aren't. It was hilarious in 'The Descent' because he and I both jumped at the creatures appearance but the girls were ice cold. Then they saw us jump and so they jumped and started screaming. That in turn scared the heck out of us. We had to pause the movie for ten minutes until we could stop laughing at each other, *lol*

yeah, Descent wasn't a great movie--but it sure had some killer "Gotcha!" scares

NSpan wrote:yeah, Descent wasn't a great movie--but it sure had some killer "Gotcha!" scares

I really enjoyed it but I think that has as much to do with a great movie memory as it does with anything else.

Trivia today from 'The Green Mile':

"Harry Dean Stanton appears in the film. There is a character named Harry, and another named Dean Stanton. This is merely a happy coincidence since the characters' names existed in the book long before Harry Dean Stanton was cast in the movie."

Trivia Of The Day (4/5/2009)

Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs

Was the first of many Disney films to have its premiere engagement at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. At the end of the film's initial engagement there, all the velvet seat upholstery had to be replaced. It seems that young children were so frightened by the sequence of Snow White lost in the forest that they wet their pants, and consequently the seats, at each and every showing of the film.

How the times have changed, eh? Back then, they'd wet their pants because Snow White was lost, now we have GTA and mowing down innocent pedestrians.

Also, back then they changed the upholstery if a kid peed on it...now they would just dry it and not tell anyone...

Trivia Of The Day (4/6/2009)

Bambi

Bambi was originally supposed to go back to his mother after she was shot and find her in a pool of blood. This idea was scrapped.

So they wanted to traumatize children even more? That crazy Walt.

From 'Ultimate Avengers: The Movie"

"The original idea was for Captain America to appear during the first Gulf War, not World War II. Writer Mark Miller reconsidered, and kept Captain America's origin as it was in order to provide richer story opportunities."

Trivia for Sunday 4-05-09 is from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Oh the lengths movies will go while filming...

There were no White Castles in the filming location so a building was trucked in.

Kal Penn, who plays Kumar, is a vegetarian, so technicians made veggie Castles for him.

Trivia for Monday, 4-06-09, is from Big Fish in the previously seen in category.

The Banjo Man is played by Billy Redden who played the boy playing the banjo in Deliverance (1972).

The breakfast machine that Young Ed Bloom shows off at the science fair is the same machine used in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).

The twins played by Ada Tai and Arlene Tai previously appeared as extras in Ed Wood (1994) (they're standing by Vampira when Ed Wood first meets her at a party).

So it isn't just Johnny and Helena that he recycles...

Trivia Of The Day (4/7/2009)

Sleeping Beauty

The little-known second half of the original Sleeping Beauty fable involves the Prince's attempts to protect Sleeping Beauty and their children from his mother who is an ogress. In the end, of course, she is thwarted and jumps into a pot of live serpents to avoid being killed by her own son.

I know that most Disney animated sequels suck....but I'd love to see that idea get made!

That sounds like a way cooler Sleeping Beauty.

As a kid I was quite seriously addicted to reading (well, still am), and since I wasn't allowed to read fantasy novels, I spent a great deal of time reading classic fairy tales. For the most part almost every culture has horribly terribly morbid fairly tales, that for some unknown reason Disney decided to adapt into happy fluff.
Cinderella for instance really ends with the wicked step sisters having their eyes picked out by birds as they walk on either side of Cinderella in her bridal procession, and Snow White ends with the wicked step mother being forced to dance at the wedding of Prince Charming & Snow White in red hot iron shoes until she dies. Both much more interesting, if you ask me. Supposedly, The Last House on the Left and The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman) are both based on the same swedish folk tale.