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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Rian Johnson's best and worst rated films, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and The Brothers Bloom (2008), respectively. Nate felt like he was watching The Brothers Bored, Austin misses shirtless Kylo, and Tyler knocks Rian Johnson off his top directors list after being subjected to his lowest rated film. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and Seven Psychopaths (2012), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Rian Johnson about making Star Wars: The Last Jedi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQCRFXVoM38  

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Robert Rodriguez's best and worst rated films, Sin City (2005) and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005), respectively. Nate plays the role of Boredboy, Austin is still confused, and they're both tired from watching 5 of the same credit sequences in Sin City. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST for our milestone 90th episode where we will compare Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and The Brothers Bloom (2008), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Fritz Lang about his life and career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QgLyyYEEnA

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The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A young boy is recruited by his imaginary friends Sharkboy and Lavagirl to help save their planet.

• Ratings: IMDb 3.5 | RT 20% C / 31% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: Robert Rodriguez
• Writer(s): Robert Rodriguez and Marcel Rodriguez (written by), Racer Rodriguez (story)
• Cinematographer: Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids 3, Machete Kills)
• Notable actors: Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, George Lopez, David Arquette, Kristin Davis, Jacob Davich
• Budget: $50 million
• Box office: $69.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Taylor Lautner, ironically, has a fear of sharks.
  • The story was conceived by Robert Rodriguez's then seven-year-old son Racer Rodriguez, who receives an on-screen "Story By" credit. Max is named after Racer's middle name (Racer and Robert also provide the audio commentary for the DVD and Blu-ray together).
  • The movie was shot and completed so quickly that by the time Robert Rodriguez was ready to ship it, the advertisements weren't finished.
  • Taylor Lautner's martial arts skills helped him to obtain the role of Sharkboy. "When I auditioned for the film, Robert Rodriguez, the director, didn't know that I had my martial arts background, and while we there in Austin, TX he saw a DVD of me and asked me to choreograph my own fight scenes", said Lautner.
  • George Lopez plays and voices 4 of the movie's characters.

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Sin City Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.0 | RT 77% C / 78% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
• Writer(s): Frank Miller (graphic novels)
• Cinematographer: Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids 3, Machete Kills)
• Notable actors: Jessica Alba, Devon Aoki, Alexis Bledel, Powers Boothe, Cara D. Briggs, Jude Ciccolella, Jeffrey J. Dashnaw, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Jason Douglas, Michael Clarke Duncan, Tommy Flanagan, Rick Gomez, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Rutger Hauer, Michael Madsen
• Budget: $40 million
• Box office: $158.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Because of the way the movie was shot, Mickey Rourke (Marv) and Elijah Wood (Kevin) never met until after the film was released.
  • The swords used by Miho (Devon Aoki) in this film are the same ones used by some of the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). That film's director, Quentin Tarantino, had been keeping them in the back of his garage.
  • Robert Rodriguez has said that he does not consider this movie to be an adaptation so much as a translation. This is why there is no screenwriting in the credits. The only mention of writing is Frank Miller as the creator of the graphic novels.
  • Guest director Quentin Tarantino directed the scene involving Dwight (Clive Owen) and Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) in the front of the car, before Dwight is pulled over by a police officer.
  • The film, and many of its effects and scoring, were all done in Robert Rodriguez's studio, which is immediately across the street from his house, because he refuses to work anywhere else, and shuns other Hollywood traditions. It took his friendship with Miramax honchos Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein to make the production of this film possible, as no other studios would take a chance on either Rodriguez's methods or such a bizarre film.
  • While the three stories in the film are based on "The Hard Goodbye," "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bastard" as well as the short "The Customer is Always Right" there is a very brief scene taken from the story "A Dame to Kill For," in which Dwight (Clive Owen) thinks in a voice over in Kadie's Bar how Marv "would have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago."
  • The scene in which Marv climbs out of the manhole, and staggers up against a wall, was acted out in reverse, then shown forwards, to give an otherworldly appearance to Marv.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Fritz Lang's best and worst rated films, M (1931) and The Return of Frank James (1940), respectively. Nate doesn't have much to say about Frank James, Austin really appreciates child murders, and they both fawn over their boy Rogey D. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Robert Rodriguez's Sin City (2005) and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D (1940), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Fritz Lang about his life and career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYk0qzqqjmQ

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The Return of Frank James Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Frank James continues to avoid arrest in order to take revenge on the Ford brothers for their murder of his brother Jesse.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.7 | RT 83% C / 48% A
• Released: 1940
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Writer(s): Sam Hellman (original screenplay)
• Cinematographer: George Barnes (Rebecca, Spellbound, The War of the Worlds)
• Notable actors: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Jackie Cooper, Henry Hull, John Carradine, J. Edward Bromberg, Donald Meek
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • The original treatment had Frank romantically interested in the reporter played by Gene Tierney, but the studio became fearful of a possible lawsuit by Frank's widow and/or son, so it was eliminated from the script.
  • The studio bought the rights to the James Brothers but changed the facts for entertainment. Although Frank surrendered 6 months after Jesse James' murder, both Ford brothers were already dead and Frank had nothing to do with their deaths.
  • Film debut of Gene Tierney.
  • Jackie Cooper and Matthew "Stymie" Beard shared the same screen for the first time since their last appearances together in Bargain Day (1931) (as Hal Roach's Rascals).

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M Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.4 | RT 100% C / 95% A
• Released: 1931
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Writer(s): Theo von Harbou and Fritz Lang (script), Egon Jacobson (article)
• Cinematographer: Friz Arno Wagner (Nosferatu, Spies, Destiny)
• Notable actors: Pete Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke, Theodor Loos, Gustaf Grundgens, Friedrich Gnab, Fritz Odemar, Pual Kemp, Theo Lingen, Rudolf Blumner, Georg John
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • Fritz Lang's cruelty to the actors was legendary. Peter Lorre was thrown down the stairs into the cellar over a dozen times. When Lang wanted to hire Lorre for Human Desire (1954) over two decades later, the actor refused.
  • Fritz Lang asserted that he cast real criminals for the court scene in the end. According to biographer Paul Jensen, 24 cast members were arrested during filming.
  • Contrary to popular belief, Fritz Lang did not change the title from "The Murderers are Among Us" to "M" due to fear of persecution by the Nazis. He changed the title during filming, influenced by the scene where one of the criminals writes the letter on his hand. Lang thought "M" was a more interesting title.
  • Director Fritz Lang said this is his favorite of all of his films.
  • Although he was thrilled to play such a major part, Peter Lorre came to hate it later as people tended to associate him with being a child murderer in real life.
  • In Germany, the Nazis banned the movie in July 1934.
  • The film is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter Kürten, called "The Vampire of Düsseldorf", whose crimes in the 1920s horrified Germany. However, director Fritz Lang has expressly denied that he drew any inspiration from the case. Nevertheless, he and his wife Thea von Harbou researched the crimes carefully, consulting with German police, visiting murder scenes, interviewing sex offenders in prison and even talking to detectives in Scotland Yard in London. According to Lang biographer Paul Jensen, the director spent eight days doing field research in a mental institution.
  • The organization of beggars mentioned in the film actually did exist in Berlin at the time.
  • Two-thirds of the film was shot with sound, the remaining third was shot silent. At the time the license fees for sound equipment were quite prohibitive, so this was a move to try to keep costs down. However, Fritz Lang liked the eerie, unnerving quality that arose from going from a sound world to one where there is no noise at all.
  • MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg assembled his writers and directors for a private screening of this film, telling them that they needed to be making films of this power and caliber. He also admitted that if anyone had brought a story of a child killer to him, he would have rejected it.
  • The use of voiceover narration was a groundbreaking new technique at the time.
  • Before making this, Peter Lorre had mainly been a comedic actor.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Charlie Kaufman's best and worst rated films, Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Anomalisa (2015), respectively. Nate is excited for the Oscars, Austin doesn't know what the hell is going on, and they both continue their love affair with Charlie Kaufman. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Fritz Lang's M (1931) and The Return of Frank James (1940), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director John Ford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u2DDjKKR10

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Anomalisa Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.2 | RT 91% C / 70% A
• Released: 2015
• Director: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson
• Writer(s): Charlie Kaufman (written by)
• Cinematographer: Joe Passarelli (Marrying God, Beatdown, Skyler)
• Notable actors: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan
• Budget: $8 million
• Box office: $5.5 million

• Fun Facts:
  • This film was crowd-funded through Kickstarter.com.
  • Michael stays at the Fregoli hotel. The Fregoli delusion, or the delusion of doubles, is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise. The syndrome may be related to a brain lesion and is often of a paranoid nature, with the delusional person believing themselves persecuted by the person they believe is in disguise.
  • With the exception of the two leads, every character (male or female) is voiced by Tom Noonan.
  • The first R-rated animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
  • In earlier stages, this film was planned to be only a short film, with 40 minutes in length.
  • David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan are the same actors that voiced the original "sound play" on which the movie is based.
  • The song Lisa sings to Michael was originally supposed to be Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", but was changed to Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" when the Titanic (1997) theme song could not be licensed for the movie.
  • The classic movie the protagonist puts on TV, reenacted with puppets, was originally supposed to be Casablanca (1942), but the production could not afford to license it so it was changed to My Man Godfrey (1936), which was in the public domain.
  • At 8:47, Michael enters the Fregoli Hotel. Except for a brief shot of Michael's face (9:27 to 9:29), the shot remains unbroken until 12:29, following Michael from the front desk of the hotel, into the elevator, up to the tenth floor and to his hotel room, where the last image of the shot is Michael urinating in his room's toilet.
  • The movie takes place in 2005.
  • Co-director Duke Johnson stated it took six months for him to animate the sex scene because of technical reasons and making the scene realistic as opposed to comedic.
  • Michael is in every scene of the film, except the last one.
  • In the last scene with the girls in the car, the camera briefly focuses on Marie's face and you can see she is a different person to the face that Michael sees everyone as.

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Synecdoche, New York Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A theatre director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he creates a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.5 | RT 69% C / 71% A
• Released: 2008
• Director: Charlie Kaufman
• Writer(s): Charlie Kaufman (written by)
• Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Night on Earth)
• Notable actors: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Sadie Goldstein, Tom Noonan, Peter Friedman, Charles Techman, Josh Pais, Daniel London, Robert Seay, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh
• Budget: $20 million
• Box office: $4.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • At the start of the film, when 'Phillip Seymour Hoffman' is reading the news at the breakfast table, he reads out that "Harold Pinter has died.... wait.... no - he's won the Nobel prize". This is a reference to a famous Sky News clip whereby Sky, in their rush to be first with breaking news, accidentally announced that Harold Pinter was dead. In fact it had just been announced that he was to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature.
  • The article that Caden reads while in the doctor's waiting room, about his wife, is titled: "It's Good To Be Adele". The intro paragraph reads: "Six months ago, Adele was an under-appreciated housewife in Eastern New York. Stuck in a dead-end marriage to a slovenly ugly-face loser, Adele Lack had big dreams for her and her then four-year-old daughter, Olivia. That's when her paintings got small."
  • The name next to the buzzer of Adele's apartment reads "Capgras." Given the subject of the film - a man has actors play the real people in his life - this is almost certainly a reference to a psychological phenomenon called the Capgras delusion, where the sufferer believes that everyone in his or her life has been replaced with an identical-looking impostor.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman's character's last name is a reference to the Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, which is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs.
  • Roger Ebert named this film the best of the 2000s.
  • Christopher Evan Welch, according to Charlie Kaufman, was cast at the last minute. Welch only had less than a day to rehearse and perform his scene, delivering a monologue.
  • In a radio interview, director Charlie Kaufman revealed that while scouting for a location, he and a few other crew members became stuck in an elevator late at night and were afraid it would plummet. They had to open the doors and jump out to escape. In the same interview, Kaufman discussed a recurring and claustrophic dream he has about being stuck in an elevator, and that the movie was purposefully structured like a dream (it has double the number of scenes than an average movie of its length).

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare John Ford's best and worst rated films, The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Tobacco Road (1941), respectively. Nate hates old people, Austin has a crush on Henry Fonda, and they both are surprised at the lack of western. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Anomalisa (2015), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director John Ford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P2fY75Qlxs

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Tobacco Road Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A poor family in rural Georgia struggles to make ends meet as the clan's father proudly refuses help at every turn.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.6 | RT N/A C / 36% A
• Released: 1940
• Director: John Ford
• Writer(s): Erskine Caldwell (based on the novel by), Jack Kirkland (stage play), Nunnally Johnson (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Arthur C. Miller (Anna and the King of Siam, The Song of Bernadette)
• Notable actors: Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy, Elizabeth Patterson, Dana Andrews, Slim Summerville, Ward Bond
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $1.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews get barely 5 minutes of screen time each. Gene gets just half a dozen lines to speak
  • The Broadway play by Jack Kirkland based on Erskine Caldwell's novel opened 4 December 1933 and set a record for longevity on Broadway when it closed on 31 May 1941 after 3,281 performances. It was revived on Broadway twice in the next two years, bring its total running time there to nearly ten years (1933-1943). Opened at the Theatre Masque and then moved to the 48th Street Theatre followed by the Forrest Theatre for the original production. The play was revived in 1942, 1943 and 1950. The original Broadway production is the seventeenth longest running show ever as of February, 2013.
  • The early-1941 Ford Super De Luxe Convertible Club Coupe, driven by Harvey Parry, survived its ordeal. During filming it had been crashed into a 100-year-old sycamore tree, then backed out of the debris and driven fast to jump over a 20-foot stream (with the aid of a ramp), and thereafter smashed through several fences, sideswiped a two-ton truck (forcing the truck off the road), rammed through a tool shed (cut from final release), jumped a curb, splintered a park bench, rammed a station wagon, ran into two other trees and skidded until finally overturning. Following this, the car was set right by the crew and driven back to the studio by Parry. A studio employee, Arthur Webb, purchased the badly-damaged convertible from 20th Century-Fox and, with his brother Don, commenced to repair it with hundreds of hours of personal labor and $125 in new parts from a Beverly Hills dealership.
  • The movie was banned in Australia for unspecified reasons, but generally had few censorship problems.

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The Grapes of Wrath Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A poor Midwest family is forced off their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.1 | RT 100% C / 88% A
• Released: 1940
• Director: John Ford
• Writer(s): Nunnally Johnson (screenplay), John Steinbeck (based on the novel by)
• Cinematographer: Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, Wuthering Heights, The Best Years of Our Lives)
• Notable actors: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon, Russell Simpson, O.Z. Whitehead, John Qualen, Eddie Quillan, Zeffie Tilbury, Frank Sully
• Budget: $800 thousand
• Box office: $2.5 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Prior to filming, producer Darryl F. Zanuck sent undercover investigators out to the migrant camps to see if John Steinbeck had been exaggerating about the squalor and unfair treatment meted out there. He was horrified to discover that, if anything, Steinbeck had actually downplayed what went on in the camps.
  • John Steinbeck loved the movie and said that Henry Fonda as Tom Joad made him "believe my own words".
  • John Ford banned all makeup and perfume from the set on the grounds that it was not in keeping with the tone of the picture.
  • John Steinbeck was particularly enamored with the performance of Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, feeling that he perfectly encapsulated everything he wanted to convey with this character. The two became good friends. Indeed Fonda did a reading at Steinbeck's funeral.
  • Henry Fonda kept the hat he wore in the movie for the rest of his life, until before he passed away in 1982 he gave it to his old friend Jane Withers. Apparently he and Withers, when she was an 8 year old girl and he a young man, did a play together before Fonda made movies. Fonda was so nervous to go onstage that little Jane took his hand, said a little prayer to ease his nerves, and the two of them became good friends for life.
  • The pro-union stance of the film led to both John Steinbeck and John Ford being investigated by Congress during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era for alleged pro-Communist leanings.
  • While filming the Joads' car traveling down the highway, John Ford wanted to add a shot showing the large number of caravans heading west, so the film's business manager stopped actual cars making the trek and paid the drivers five dollars to escort the Joads' jalopy for the cameras.
  • Noah Joad simply vanishes after the scene of the family swimming in the Colorado River. In the book, Noah tells Tom he has decided to stay by the river. In the film, his disappearance is never explained.
  • The production had a fake working title, "Highway 66", so that the shoot of the controversial novel would not be affected by union problems. Much of the dire straits portrayed in the film continued during and after the release of the movie.
  • When Darryl F. Zanuck suggested to John Ford that, to create an upbeat ending, he use Ma Joad's "we're the people" monologue for a closing scene, Ford told Zanuck to direct it himself - which he did.
  • The film was one of the first to be voted onto the National Film Registry (1989).
  • Although John Carradine hated John Ford's bullying style of direction, he nevertheless made eleven films with him over a period of 28 years. Ford was particularly keen on Carradine's unusual look.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Jonathan Demme's best and worst rated films, The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and The Truth About Charlie (2002), respectively. Nate talks bad about Markie Mark, Austin wishes he were Buffalo Bill, and they both record the podcast with some fava beans and a nice Chianti -- thfthfthfthf. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Tobacco Road (1941), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Jonathan Demme about his work on The Silence of the Lambs: https://vimeo.com/226660031

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The Truth About Charlie Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A woman returns from holiday to find her husband has been murdered, and several groups of people are pressuring her to unravel the mystery of his true identity and activities during his final days.

• Ratings: IMDb 4.8 | RT 33% C / 27% A
• Released: 2002
• Director: Jonathan Demme
• Writer(s): Peter Stone (Charade screenplay), Jonathan Demme & Steve Schmidt and Peter Stone and Jessica Bendinger (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto (The Sixth Sense, Star Wars: A New Hope, Signs)
• Notable actors: Stephen Dillane, Thandie Newton, Sakina Jaffrey, Mark Wahlberg, Christine Boisson, Simon Abkarian, Joong-Hoon Park, LisaGay Hamilton, Ted Levine, Tim Robbins
• Budget: $60 million
• Box office: $7.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Mark Wahlberg considers this his worst film.
  • Peter Stone, the writer of Charade (1963) (the basis for the movie) was so against this remake, that in some releases of this movie, his screenwriting credit was changed to Peter Joshua, the name of Cary Grant's character in Charade.
  • The part of Joshua Peters was originally intended for Will Smith, but due to the extended production on Ali (2001), he was unable to make the start of filming on Charlie, so Demme had to move forward with Mark Wahlberg instead, losing the Thandie Newton and Will Smith "double-act" he had imagined watching the original movie Charade (1963).
  • The movie contains numerous connections to French New Wave films. Reference is made to Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and its star, Charles Aznavour, has a singing role at the end of this movie. Anna Karina, featured in several Jean-Luc Godard films, has a bit part.

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The Silence of the Lambs Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.6 | RT 95% C / 95% A
• Released: 1991
• Director: Jonathan Demme
• Writer(s): Thomas Harris (novel), Ted Tally (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto (The Sixth Sense, Star Wars: A New Hope, Signs)
• Notable actors: Jodie Foster, Kasi Lemmons, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Frankie Faison, Don Brockett, Anthony Hopkins, Brooke Smith, Ted Levine
• Budget: $19 million
• Box office: $272.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • In preparation for his role, Sir Anthony Hopkins studied files of serial killers. Also, he visited prisons, and studied convicted murderers, and was present during some court hearings concerning gruesome murderers and serial killings.
  • Jodie Foster claims that during the first meeting between Lecter and Starling, Sir Anthony Hopkins' mocking of her southern accent was improvised on the spot. Foster's horrified reaction was genuine, she felt personally attacked. She later thanked Hopkins for generating such an honest reaction.
  • Jame Gumb is the combination of three real-life serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims, Ted Bundy, who used the cast on his hand as bait to convince women to get into his van, and Gary Heidnick, who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his basement. Gein was only positively linked to two murders, and suspected of two others. He gathered most of his materials through grave robbing, not murder.
  • When Sir Anthony Hopkins found out that he was cast as Hannibal Lecter, based on his performance as Dr. Frederick Treves in The Elephant Man (1980), he questioned Director Jonathan Demme, and said, "But Dr. Treves was a good man." To which Demme replied, "So is Lecter, he is a good man too. Just trapped in an insane mind."
  • When Sir Anthony Hopkins' agent called him in London, to tell him that he was sending him a script called "The Silence of the Lambs", Hopkins immediately thought he might be going up for a children's movie.
  • With twenty-four minutes and fifty-two seconds of screentime, Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance in this movie is the second shortest to ever win an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, with David Niven in Separate Tables (1958) beating him, at twenty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds.
  • Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster only share four scenes throughout the course of the film.
  • After Lecter was moved from Baltimore, the plan was to dress him in a yellow or orange jumpsuit. Sir Anthony Hopkins convinced Jonathan Demme and Costume Designer Colleen Atwood that the character would seem more clinical and unsettling if he was dressed in pure white. Hopkins has since said he got the idea from his fear of dentists.
  • One of the inspirations, from whom Sir Anthony Hopkins borrowed, for his interpretation of Hannibal Lecter, was a friend of his in London who never blinked, which unnerved anyone around him.
  • Jodie Foster spent a great deal of time with F.B.I. Agent Mary Ann Krause prior to filming. Krause gave Foster the idea of Starling standing by her car crying. Krause told Foster that at times, the work just became so overwhelming that it was a good way to get an emotional release.
  • Jame Gumb's dance was not included in the original draft of the screenplay, although it appears in the novel. It was added at the insistence of Ted Levine, who thought the scene was essential in defining the character.
  • The Silence of the Lambs was inspired by the real-life relationship between University of Washington criminology professor and profiler Robert Keppel, and serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy helped Keppel investigate the Green River Serial Killings in Washington. Bundy was executed January 24, 1989. The Green River Killings were finally solved in 2001, when Gary Ridgway was arrested. On November 5, 2003, in a Seattle courtroom, Ridgway plead guilty to forty-eight counts of aggravated first degree murder.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Terrence Malick's best and worst rated films, Badlands (1973) and Knight of Cups (2015), respectively. Nate needs to watch more experimental films, Austin gets seduced by Martin Sheen, and neither of them have any idea what Knight of Cups is about. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Knight of Cups (2015), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with actor Christian Bale about working with director Terrence Malick on Knight of Cups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGzuSmrvZVA

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Knight of Cups Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.7 | RT 45% C / 37% A
• Released: 2015
• Director: Terrence Malick
• Writer(s): Terrence Malick (written by)
• Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman, The Revenant, Children of Men)
• Notable actors: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Wes Bentley, Isabel Lucas, Teresa Palmer, Imogen Poots
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $1.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • According to Christian Bale, Terrence Malick didn't tell the actors what the film was about.
  • There was no script. All of the scenes were improvised.
  • Christian Bale had no lines to learn and Terrence Malick only gave him the character description.
  • During filming Terrence Malick would use a technique he called "torpedoing" where he would unexpectedly send people into the scene to get a reaction from the actors who were performing.
  • Christian Bale said that at the start of each day's shoot he wouldn't know what would happen to his character.
  • During filming, Christian Bale thought Teresa Palmer was a stripper. It was not until about a week after working with her, he suddenly saw a billboard with her face on it and realized that she is an actress.
  • Christian Bale and Natalie Portman both said that they spent more days on the voice-over work for the movie than they did on the actual shooting of the film.

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Badlands Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 98% C / 91% A
• Released: 1973
• Director: Terrence Malick
• Writer(s): Terrence Malick (written by)
• Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto, Steve Larner, Brian Probyn
• Notable actors: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint
• Budget: $300 thousand
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • The actor originally cast as the architect that rings at the rich man's door did not show up, so Terrence Malick played the part himself. Malick later wanted to re-shoot the scene with another actor, but Martin Sheen refused to re-do the sequence with another person.
  • Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez's (Martin Sheen's sons) feature film debut. Uncredited, both play boys under a lamppost.
  • Sissy Spacek met her future husband, art director Jack Fisk, on the set of this movie. As of November 2015, they have collaborated on eight feature films.
  • The film's tag line ("In 1959 a lot of people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people") inspired the Zodiac Killer, who had been lying low for years, to write a letter to a newspaper denouncing their flippant attitude to violence in society by running such an ad.
  • The film's plot and lead characters are based on Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate. In 1958, they embarked on a murder spree that horrified the country.
  • Charles Starkweather had been executed by the time the film started production, but Caril Fugate was still alive and facing parole. The filmmakers changed the principal characters' names to avoid a lawsuit.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Yorgos Lanthimos' best and worst rated films, Dogtooth (2009) and Alps (2011), respectively. Nate feels like he's watching a porno, Austin exclusively watches Black Mirror, and they both sounding pretentious about experimental films. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Knight of Cups (2015), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Yorgos Lanthimos about his new film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOe5nfvLeM

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Alps Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A group of people start a business where they impersonate the recently deceased in order to help their clients through the grieving process.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.4 | RT 74% C / 52% A
• Released: 2011
• Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
• Writer(s): Efthymis Filippou (screenplay), Yorgos Lanthimos (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Christos Voudouris (Before Midnight, Love Is Strange)
• Notable actors: Angeliki Papoulia, Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris, Ariane Labed
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • The 15 Rules of the Alps: An Alps member: 1. Must declare in advance the things he or she is unwilling to do by filling out Form 1 (e.g. kissing, lifting weights, travelling, etc.). 2. Must also declare in advance the things he or she is good at by filling out Form 2 (e.g. dancing, waterskiing, discussing, etc.). 3. Must have some basic knowledge of psychology and sociology. 4. Is obliged to support, under all circumstances, the interests of the Alps group. 5. Must respect other Alps members. 6. Has the right to change their nickname only twice. They cannot choose a nickname belonging to another Alps member. The nickname must strictly be the name of a mountain in the Alps, and not something general or irrelevant (e.g. Blonde, Master, Dragon, etc.). 7. Can never talk about Alps activities with non-Alps members. 8. Is obliged to take the Gymnastics Club Test, if necessary. 9. Must be over 14 years of age. 10. Should always be smart, clean, punctual, and in complete control. 11. Must never get emotionally involved with clients, or have intimate relations with them. 12. Cannot change his or her physical appearance without the Leader's permission (e.g. dye their hair, lose or gain weight, wear coloured contact lenses, etc.). 13. Must be able to make convincing facial expressions (sadness, happiness, despair, etc.). 14. Must honor the title of their membership, and be ready to kill or die for it. 15. Must never attack another Alps member, and must believe in teamwork.
  • Efthymis Filippou, screenwriter, had to step in as the "owner of the lighting shop" two days before shooting of the film started.

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Dogtooth Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Three teenagers live isolated, without leaving their house, because their over-protective parents say they can only leave when their dogtooth falls out.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.3 | RT 92% C / 75% A
• Released: 2009
• Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
• Writer(s): Efthymis Filippou (writer), Yorgos Lanthimos (writer)
• Cinematographer: Thimios Bakatakis (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster)
• Notable actors: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Angeliki Papoulia, Hristos Passalis, Mary Tsoni, Anna Kalaitzidou
• Budget: $240 thousand
• Box office: $1.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The entire film was shot on only one lens: an anamorphic lens with 50mm focal length.
  • The inspiration for the film came about because of a discussion Yorgos Lanthimos was having with some friends who were about to get married. When Lanthimos expressed doubts about the institution and family itself, he was struck by the idea about what would happen to a man who went to the ultimate extreme of protecting his family.
  • The first film from Greece to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival in a decade.
  • Because the subject matter was so claustrophobic, the choice was made to set the film in as big and expansive a house as the production could find, complete with swimming pool and enormous garden.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare John Schlesinger's best and worst rated films, Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), respectively. Nate is not a Honky Tonk happy camper, Austin talks about his feelings on Dustin Hoffman, and they both confront their masculinity. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Yorgos Lamthimos's Dogtooth (2009) and Alps (2011), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview revisiting the cast and crew of Midnight Cowbow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGR_mD9nW6g

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Honky Tonk Freeway Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Ticlaw, a small town in Florida, has only one attraction: a safari park. The government constructs a freeway that passes near Ticlaw, but decides not to put an exit into the town. The people of Ticlaw, led by its Mayor, will do anything in order to convince the governor to alter the project.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.0 | RT N/A C / 51% A
• Released: 1981
• Director: John Schlesinger
• Writer(s): Edward Clinton
• Cinematographer: John Bailey (In the Line of Fire, Antitrust, Silverado)
• Notable actors: David Rasche, Paul Jabara, Howard Hesseman, Teri Garr, Jenn Thompson, Peter Billingsley, Beau Bridges, Beverly D’Angelo, Daniel Stern
• Budget: $24 million
• Box office: $2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The entire town of Mount Dora, Florida, was painted pink for this picture.
  • Due to delays in filming the movie, the Mount Dora section of the picture was was pushed back until the 1980 summer when it had meant to shoot there in spring.
  • When released, its $24 million budget made it the most expensive comedy ever produced. It was a major failure at the box office.
  • Director John Schlesinger's original cut was somewhere in the range of three hours.
  • Two thousand extras and background artists in Mount Dora, Florida were paid around US $35 per day to appear in the film.
  • According to Pulse the Magazine, "the film had been fraught with problems, from a disjointed script to its title - and marketing that implied it was just '...another car crash comedy romp'. This was compounded by the producers' decision to sell the video rights before Universal Pictures agreed to release the film. Angered by this, Universal minimized their marketing support and limited the number of theaters in which the film was shown. Withdrawn from theaters just a week after its release, the movie disappeared".

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Midnight Cowboy Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 90% C / 88% A
• Released: 1969
• Director: John Schlesinger
• Writer(s): Waldo Salt (screenplay), James Leo Herlihy (based on the novel by)
• Cinematographer: Adam Holender (Smoke, Twisted, Sea of Love)
• Notable actors: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Gilman Rankin
• Budget: $3.2 million
• Box office: $44.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Before Dustin Hoffman auditioned for this film, he knew that his all-American image could easily cost him the job. To prove he could do it, he asked the auditioning film executive to meet him on a street corner in Manhattan, and in the meantime, dressed himself in filthy rags. The executive arrived at the appointed corner and waited, barely noticing the "beggar" less than ten feet away who was accosting people for spare change. At last, the beggar walked up to him and revealed his true identity.
  • Dustin Hoffman put in so much effort portraying one of Ratso's coughing fits that one time he actually ended up vomiting.
  • According to Dustin Hoffman himself, the taxi incident *wasn't* scripted. During an L.A. Times interview in Jan. 2009, he said that the movie didn't have a permit to close down the NYC street for filming, so they had to set-up the scene with a hidden camera in a van driving down the street, and remote microphones for the actors. After 15 takes, it was finally going well, but this time, as they crossed the street, a taxi ran a red light. Hoffman wanted to say "Hey, we're SHOOTING here!", not only from fear of his life, but also from anger that the taxi driver might have ruined the take. Instead, being the professional that he is, he stayed in character and shouted "Hey, we're WALKING here!" and made movie history. Jon Voight also backs up this version of the incident, saying that seeing how well Hoffman was handling the situation, he likewise stayed in character.
  • Dustin Hoffman kept pebbles in his shoe to ensure his limp would be consistent from shot to shot.
  • The film was rated "X" (no one under 17 admitted) upon its original release in 1969, but the unrestricted use of that rating by pornographic filmmakers caused the rating to quickly become associated with hardcore sex films. Because of the stigma that developed around the "X" rating in the ratings system's early years, many theaters refused to run "X" films and many newspapers would not run ads for them. The film was given a new "R" (children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian) rating in 1971, without having anything changed or removed. It remains the only X-Rated film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture, be shown on network TV (although the R reclassification had taken place by then), or be screened by a sitting U.S. President, Richard Nixon.
  • Bob Dylan wrote the song "Lay, Lady, Lay" for the film, but didn't complete it in time to be included in the soundtrack.
  • This film contains the first recorded use of the word "scuzzy", as a description of Ratso Rizzo. At its root, "scuzzy" is apparently a combination of "scummy" and "fuzzy".

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Sam Raimi' best and worst rated films, Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), respectively. Nate goes on about horror films again, Austin has a nostalgia trip, and they both go off on tangents. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and The Brothers Bloom (2008), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Sam Raimi about his lowest rated film, Spider-Man 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnzoLtP8scQ

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Spider-Man 3 Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A strange black entity from another world bonds with Peter Parker and causes inner turmoil as he contends with new villains, temptations, and revenge.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.2 | RT 63% C / 51% A
• Released: 2007
• Director: Sam Raimi
• Writer(s): Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent (screenplay), Saim Raimi & Ivan Raimi (screen story), Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (Marvel comic book)
• Cinematographer: Bill Pope (The Matrix, The Jungle Book, Bound)
• Notable actors: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, James Cromwell, Theresa Russell, Dylan Baker, Bill Nunn, Bruce Campbell, Elizabeth Banks, Ted Raimi, Perla Haney-Jardine, Willem Dafoe, Cliff Robertson
• Budget: $258 million
• Box office: $890.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • On May 4th, 2007, while promoting the film on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), Thomas Haden Church revealed that he broke three knuckles during the subway scene where he swings to punch Spider-Man and ends up punching a chunk of the wall away. Church said that the effects crew had told him that the brick in the middle was fake while the upper and lower ones were real. Unfortunately, the foam brick had not actually been put in place yet, and when Sam Raimi yelled 'action', Church spun around and punched the real brick on the first take.
  • All of the screams Kirsten Dunst had for this film were recycled from Spider-Man 2 (2004).
  • Bryce Dallas Howard performed her own stunts during the crane accident scene, unaware that she was pregnant at the time of filming.
  • In total, the film took 2 years and 10 months to make.
  • There were many scenes that were shot but never released on DVD including a montage of Peter (in his black suit) taking down criminals and leaving them strung up, tons of character-building moments, a confrontation scene between Captain Stacy and Eddie Brock (where Gwen dumps him at her father's house) and Peter freaking out after he looks in a mirror and sees a nightmarish version of the Venom symbiote screaming at him.
  • It was considered at one point to split the movie into two films.
  • One of the sounds used for Venom is of a Tasmanian Devil.
  • According to James Franco, they had to go back and do some re-shoots just prior to the release, because test audiences felt that there was not enough action in the film.

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Evil Dead 2 Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: The lone survivor of an onslaught of flesh-possessing spirits holes up in a cabin with a group of strangers while the demons continue their attack.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.8 | RT 98% C / 89% A
• Released: 1987
• Director: Sam Raimi
• Writer(s): Sam Raimi & Scott Spiegel (written by)
• Cinematographer: Peter Deming (Twin Peaks, Oz the Great and Powerful, Mulholland Drive)
• Notable actors: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley DePaiva, Ted Raimi, Denise Bixler
• Budget: $3.6 million
• Box office: $5.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • During the scene where the severed head of Linda bites Ash's hand, Bruce Campbell says the single line "work shed". This line was later re-dubbed in post-production due to the quality of the audio, giving it a strange, slightly "disproportionate" sound to the audio. Nine years later, while filming his cameo in Escape from L.A. (1996), the first thing Kurt Russell said to Bruce Campbell on the set was, jokingly, "Say 'work shed'".
  • Stephen King was such a huge fan of The Evil Dead (1981) that he convinced producer Dino De Laurentiis over dinner (who was producing King's Maximum Overdrive (1986) at the time) to have his production company DEG (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group) finance Evil Dead II.
  • Often considered to be a remake of The Evil Dead (1981); however, this is not accurate. The rights to show scenes from the original could not be obtained to re-cap what happened, so the beginning was remade to explain how Ash got to the cabin, etc.
  • The recap of The Evil Dead (1981) includes a shot where the "evil force" runs through the cabin and rams into Ash. When this shot was filmed, Bruce Campbell suffered a broken jaw when Sam Raimi (who was operating the camera) crashed into him with a bicycle - or so people were led to believe. This was a story concocted by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell as a gag to see how many people would believe it actually happened.
  • Most of the film was shot on a set built inside the gymnasium of the JR Faison Junior High School in Wadesboro, North Carolina.
  • Ash's chainsaw appears to switch hands in one scene. This is because Sam Raimi decided Ash should walk the opposite way across the room in that scene, so he flipped the negative.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare George Lucas' best and worst rated films, Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999), respectively. Nate talks shit on Georgie, Austin thinks he may have gone too far in some places, and Zamar and Daniel argue about how bad the prequels really are. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST for our 81st episode where we will compare Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II (1987) and Crimewave (1985), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director George Lucas about the first prequel, The Phantom Menace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEEw8gZI-5s

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The Phantom Menace Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Two Jedi Knights escape a hostile blockade to find allies and come across a young boy who may bring balance to the Force, but the long dormant Sith resurface to claim their old glory.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.5 | RT 55% C / 59% A
• Released: 1999
• Director: George Lucas
• Writer(s): George Lucas
• Cinematographer: David Tattersall (The Green Mile, Die Another Day, Con Air)
• Notable actors: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Pernilla August, Oliver Ford Davies, Hugh Quarshie, Ahmed Best, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Terence Stamp, Brian Blessed, Andy Secombe, Ray Park, Lewis Macleod, Warwick Davis, Steve Speirs, Samuel L. Jackson, Sofia Coppola, Keira Knightley
• Budget: $115 million
• Box office: $1.027 billion

• Fun Facts:
  • During filming, Ewan McGregor made lightsaber noises as he dueled. It was noted and corrected during post-production.
  • 20th Century Fox released the first trailer, with strict instructions that it not be shown before a certain date. When a Canadian movie theater accidentally showed it a day early, they lost the rights to show the movie.
  • Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala) missed the premiere party in New York City, because she had to go home to study for her high school final exams.
  • After the film's end credits finish rolling, the sound effect of Darth Vader's breathing can be heard.
  • During the first week of the first trailer's release, many theaters reported up to 75 percent of their audiences paying full price for a movie, then walking out after the Star Wars: Episode I trailer was shown.
  • According to Star Wars canon, Obi-Wan's hanging braid is a Jedi tradition common to all Padawan Learners. When his Master feels that he has reached proper maturity, he cuts the braid with his lightsaber, signifying that the student is now a full Jedi Knight.
  • Natalie Portman's voice was digitally enhanced to distinguish between Padmé and Queen Amidala.
  • Sets were built only as high as the tops of the actors' heads and computer graphics filled in the rest. Liam Neeson was so tall, that he cost the set crew an extra 150,000 dollars in construction.
  • Qui-Gon Jinn's communicator is a redecorated Sensor Excel Razor for Women.
  • When fully dressed, and in make-up, Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley resembled each other so much, that even Knightley's mother Sharman Macdonald, who visited the set, had trouble identifying her own daughter.
  • The word lightsaber is never used in the film and is ultimately the only Star Wars film that does not have a single character to speak the word. When Anakin talks to Qui-Gon he calls it a "laser sword".
  • The sound of the underwater monsters growling near the beginning of the film was made by the main sound technician's three-year-old daughter. The sound of her crying was recorded, and the frequency lowered to obtain the sound heard in the film.
  • Benicio Del Toro was originally set to play Darth Maul. Del Toro left the film after George Lucas took most of Maul's lines out of the film.
  • At the time of the film's release, the producers ran a disinformation campaign to suggest that Natalie Portman played both Padmé and The Queen at all times. In fact, they are not always the same person. For many sections of the film, notably those where The Queen is wearing the black outfit with the huge feather headdress, she is actually a decoy, played by Keira Knightley. The real queen, Portman, is actually disguised as a handmaiden. Various conflicting public statements make it extremely difficult to figure out who is who. Whole websites are devoted to figuring out which actress is playing which handmaiden or The Queen at any given point.
  • Ewan McGregor studied many of Alec Guinness' films, including Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), to ensure accuracy in everything from his accent to pacing of his words.
  • Liam Neeson convinced George Lucas to keep a scene where Qui-Gon Jinn puts his hand on Shmi Skywalker's shoulder. Lucas felt this might be out of character for the monk-like Jedi, but Neeson thought there should be an emotional connection between the characters. In an interview with Premiere magazine, Neeson defended his action, saying, "It may be 'Star Wars', but we've got to have something in there for the adults."

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A New Hope Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.7 | RT 93% C / 96% A
• Released: 1977
• Director: George Lucas
• Writer(s): George Lucas
• Cinematographer: Gilbert Taylor (Dr. Strangelove, The Omen)
• Notable actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Phil Brown, Shelagh Fraser, Jack Purvis
• Budget: $11 million
• Box office: $775.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • George Lucas was so sure the film would flop that instead of attending the premiere, he went on vacation to Hawaii with his good friend Steven Spielberg, where they came up with the idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
  • In early drafts of the script, R2-D2 could speak standard English, and he had a rather foul vocabulary. Although all of R2's English speech was removed, many of C-3PO's reactions to it were left in.
  • The first film to make over $300,000,000.
  • George Lucas' decision to accept a lower salary on the film in exchange for full merchandising rights was considered a fool's gamble on his part. Toys based on movies had never been major money-earners (though some movie-toy combinations had done moderate retail returns) because of the long gap between when a movie would go through its theatrical run and when any products based on it would be available. Star Wars, however, was such a phenomenon that it reached the holiday 1977 sales period in full swing, and changed the way movies were merchandised forever.
  • The skeleton that C-3PO passes belongs to a Tatooine creature called a Greater Krayt Dragon. This artificial skeleton was left in the Tunisian desert after filming and still lies there. During filming of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), the site was visited by the crew once more and the skeleton was still there.
  • According to Harrison Ford, during the making of the film, he and Mark Hamill would usually fool around and not commit to their work whenever Alec Guinness was not on set. When Guinness was on set, they behaved much more professionally.
  • Harrison Ford didn't learn his lines for the intercom conversation in the cell block so that it would sound spontaneous.
  • James Earl Jones and David Prowse, who play the voice and body of Darth Vader respectively, have never met.
  • The actors found George Lucas to be very uncommunicative towards them, with his only directions generally being either "faster" or "more intense." At one point, when he temporarily lost his voice, the crew provided him with a board with just those two phrases written on it.
  • Prior to the film's release, George Lucas showed an early cut of the film to a group of his film director friends. Most, including Lucas himself, felt the film would be a flop; Brian De Palma reportedly called it the "worst movie ever." The only dissenter was Steven Spielberg, who correctly predicted the film would make millions of dollars.
  • Stunt doubles were not used for the scene where Luke and Leia swing to safety. Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill performed the stunt themselves, shooting it in just one take.
  • The scene of Darth Vader's TIE Fighter spinning out of control was added late in the film at the insistence of George Lucas. Other members of the film crew were opposed to including this shot, feeling that it set up a sequel (at the time sequels were generally regarded as inferior cash-in movies), but Lucas insisted upon its inclusion nonetheless.
  • Due to the limited budget, the American cast members and crew (including George Lucas) all decided to fly coach class to England, rather than first class. When Carrie Fisher's mother, Debbie Reynolds, heard about this, she called Lucas, complaining about how insulting it was for her daughter to be flying coach. Fisher was in the room with Lucas when he took the call, and after a few minutes, asked if she could talk to her mother. When Lucas handed her the phone, she simply said, "Mother, I want to fly coach, will you f**k off?!" and hung up.
  • While George Lucas was filming on location in Tunisia, the Libyan government became worried about a massive military vehicle parked near the Libyan border. Consequently, the Tunisian government, receiving threats of military mobilization, politely asked Lucas to move his Jawa sandcrawler farther away from the border.
  • The lightsaber sound effect is a combination of the hum of an idling 35mm movie projector and the feedback generated by passing a stripped microphone cable by a television.
  • Peter Mayhew and David Prowse were both given a choice as to which giant character they wanted to play, Chewbacca or Darth Vader. Mayhew wanted to play a good guy and Prowse wanted to play a bad guy, so they ended up playing the matching characters.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Andrew Dominik's best and worst rated films, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and Killing Them Softly (2012), respectively. Nate oozes over the lighting, Austin tries to get over a cold, and they're both surprised by how solid both of these films were. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST for our milestone 80th episode where we will compare George Lucas' Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with actor Ben Mendelsohn and director Andrew Dominik about Killing Them Softly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgLmjmpaaJY

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Killing Them Softly Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.2 | RT 74% C / 44% A
• Released: 2012
• Director: Andrew Dominik
• Writer(s): Andrew Dominik (screenplay), George V. Higgins (based on the novel “Cogan’s Trade” by)
• Cinematographer: Greig Fraser (Foxcatcher, Rogue One, Zero Dark Thirty)
• Notable actors: Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Vincent Curatola, Ray Liotta, Trevor Long, Max Casella, Sam Shepard, Slaine, Linara Washington
• Budget: $15 million
• Box office: $37.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The Turkish former minister of culture found the movie so offensive that he told the press that he wanted the age bar for this movie to be raised from 13 to 18 or, if possible, remove it from the theaters altogether.
  • Originally titled Cogan's Trade.
  • Richard Jenkins's character is never seen standing. He is either sitting in his car or sitting on a bar stool.
  • The first feature film to use Kodak's 500T 5230 film stock.
  • One of the three films that received an "F" CinemaScore from audiences upon their release in 2012, along with The Devil Inside (2012) and Silent House (2011).

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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Robert Ford, who's idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the reforming gang of the Missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.5 | RT 76% C / 75% A
• Released: 2007
• Director: Andrew Dominik
• Writer(s): Andrew Dominik (screenplay), Ron Hansen (novel)
• Cinematographer: Roger Deakins (Fargo, No Country For Old Men, Sicario)
• Notable actors: Brad Pitt, Mary-Louise Parker, Brooklynn Proulx, Dustin Bollinger, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, Sam Shepard, Garret Dillahunt, Paul Schneider, Joel McNichol
• Budget: $30 million
• Box office: $15 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Brad Pitt's personal favorite movie that he has acted in.
  • Of all the films made about Jesse James, his descendants have claimed that this is the most accurate. They were especially enthusiastic about Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck's performances.
  • Cinematographer Roger Deakins has called the arrival of the train in darkness is one of the high points of his career.
  • According to Andrew Dominik, Brad Pitt's contract stated that the movie's name could not be changed.
  • In reality, Jesse James suffered from a syndrome that made him blink much more than the average person. Although it's mentioned at the start of the film, Brad Pitt barely blinks during most of his scenes.
  • During filming, Sam Shepard was in his 60s and Brad Pitt was in his 40s. The characters they play are supposed to be in their 30s. Casey Affleck was in his early 30s, close to Robert Ford's age during the epilogue, but much older than Ford's age during the main plot.
  • Nick Cave's score was written before the film was shot.
  • The original cut of the movie was nearly four hours long. It was edited down to two hours and forty minutes at the studio's request. At one point, Pitt and exec producer Ridley Scott put together their own cut. When it tested poorly, they went back to Dominik's cut. The 4-hour version played at least once, most notably at the Venice Film Festival.
  • A scene at the beginning reveals that half of Jesse James' left middle finger is missing. The top half of Brad Pitt's left middle finger was digitally erased in every scene in which his hands appeared.
  • Ron Hansen, writer of the novel, spent about a week on the set. He helped with editing and even had a cameo in the film. During an interview, Hansen lauded Casey Affleck, who he thought added his own perspective to the complicated character of Robert Ford. Hansen then said, "In some ways it feels like he was born to play this role."
  • When Jesse goes looking for Jim Cummins, he introduces himself as Dick Turpin. A legendary English rogue and highway robber of the 1730s, Turpin was romanticized in English ballads and popular theatre of the 18th and 19th century. Dick Liddil introduces himself as Matt Collins, a play on Mattie Collins, Liddil's wife.
  • Jeremy Renner was originally considered for the role of Robert Ford. He was rejected as too old.
  • The film had two production designers, Patricia Norris and Richard Hoover. Only one name could be listed in the credits, so both decided to go uncredited.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare George Romero's best and worst rated films, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Survival of the Dead (2009), respectively. Nate hates that dumb teenager, Austin just wants to talk about U2 some more, and Spenser brought his notebook. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and Killing Them Softly (2012), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director George Romero about how he came up with the idea for Dawn of the Dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrnIaVs4jd4

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Survival of the Dead Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: On an island off the coast of North America, local residents simultaneously fight a zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure to return their un-dead relatives back to their human state.

• Ratings: IMDb 4.9 | RT 29% C / 19% A
• Released: 2009
• Director: George Romero
• Writer(s): George Romero
• Cinematographer: Adam Swica (The Haunting in Connecticut, Diary of the Dead, The Art of the Steal)
• Notable actors: Alan Van Sprang, Joshua Peace, Hardee T. Lineham, Dru Viergever, Eric Woolfe, Shawn Roberts, Scott Wentworth, Amy Lalonde
• Budget: $4 million
• Box office: $386 thousand

• Fun Facts:
  • The very same horse seen in this film is featured in the pilot of The Walking Dead (2010).
  • This was the least successful film in George A. Romero's Dead films series.
  • This film marks the first time that a character from a previous Living Dead film returns to star in a sequel, with Alan Van Sprang as Sarge "Nicotine" Crockett having been seen in Diary of the Dead (2007), and also playing Brubaker in Land of the Dead (2005). The only two other times this has come close to happening was Tom Savini reprising his role of Blades from Dawn of the Dead (1978) as a cameo in "Land of the Dead" in zombie form, and Joseph Pilato playing an unnamed police captain in "Dawn of the Dead" returning to play Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead (1985).
  • The cast are almost all Canadian, the exception being Julian Richings who is from London, England. Thee movie was shot entirely in Canada.

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Dawn of the Dead Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.0 | RT 93% C / 90% A
• Released: 1978
• Director: George Romero
• Writer(s): George Romero
• Cinematographer: Michael Gornick (Creepshow, Day of the Dead, Knightriders)
• Notable actors: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, Richard France
• Budget: $1.5 million
• Box office: $55 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Tom Savini choose the gray color for the zombies' skin, since Night of the Living Dead (1968) was in B&W and the zombie skin-tone was not depicted. He later said it was a mistake, because many of them ended up looking quite blue on film.
  • The two zombie children who attack Peter in the airport chart house are played by Donna Savini and Mike Savini, the real-life niece and nephew of Tom Savini. These are the only zombies in all of George A. Romero's "Dead" films that spontaneously run and never do the trademark "Zombie shuffle".
  • Filming at the Monroeville Mall took place during the winter of 1977-78, with a three-week reprieve during the Christmas shopping season (during which other footage, e.g. the TV studio, was shot). Filming at the mall began around 10 p.m., shortly after the mall closed, and finished at 6 a.m. The mall didn't open until 9, but at 6 the Music came on and no one knew how to turn it off.
  • Dario Argento was an admirer of George A. Romero's work, and vice-versa. When Argento heard that Romero was contemplating a sequel to Night of the Living Dead (1968) he insisted that Romero come out to Argento's native Rome to write the script without distractions. Romero knocked out the script in 3 weeks and, though Argento read the script as it came out, he left all the writing to Romero. Argento also provided most of the film's soundtrack and, in return for the rights to edit the European version of the film, assisted in raising the necessary funds.
  • Zombie actors took photographs of themselves dressed up in full zombie makeup inside a photo booth on the second floor. They then replaced the sample pictures on the front of the booth with the ghoulish ones.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Tobe Hooper's best and worst rated films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Night Terrors (1993), respectively. Nate is going to have night terrors after watching that movie, Austin wants to know where Zoe went, and they both decide to stay away from cannibalistic murderous families in Texas. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Survival of the Dead (2009), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Tobe Hooper about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeSwdk06-EU

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Night Terrors Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A young girl travels to Cairo to visit her father, and becomes unwillingly involved with a bizarre sadomasochistic cult led by the charismatic Paul Chevalier, who is a descendant of the Marquis de Sade.

• Ratings: IMDb 3.3 | RT N/A % C / 7% A
• Released: 1993
• Director: Tobe Hooper
• Writer(s): Rom Globus, Daniel Matmor
• Cinematographer: Amnon Salomon (The Mangler, The Milky Way, Infiltration)
• Notable actors: Robert Englund, Zoe Trilling, Alona Kimhi, Juliano Mer-Khamis, Chandra West, William Finley, Irit Sheleg
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • Director Gerry O'Hara left the project because he didn't want to shoot a screenplay which envisioned the De Sade character in the eighteenth century.

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Two siblings visit their grandfather's grave in Texas along with three of their friends and are attacked by a family of cannibalistic psychopaths.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.5 | RT 88% C / 82% A
• Released: 1974
• Director: Tobe Hooper
• Writer(s): Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper (screenplay by), Kim Henkel (story by)
• Cinematographer: Daniel Pearl (Friday the 13^th, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem)
• Notable actors: Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, John Dugan
• Budget: $300 thousand
• Box office: $30.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Marilyn Burns, whose character was chased by Leatherface through the undergrowth, actually cut herself on the branches quite badly, so a lot of the blood on her body and clothes is real.
  • Director Tobe Hooper claims to have got the idea for the film while standing in the hardware section of a crowded store. While thinking of a way to get out through the crowd, he spotted the chainsaws.
  • Surprisingly, this film is one of the least bloody horror films of all time. This is because Tobe Hooper intended to make the movie for a "PG" rating, by keeping violence moderate, language mild, and having most of the horror implied off-screen rather than shown in great detail onscreen. However, this plan had actually backfired, and made the film even more horrifying. Because despite cutting and repeated submissions, the Ratings Board insisted on an "X" rating, and it wasn't until the film received the "R" rating when Hooper gave up and released it. Hooper had a similar ratings problem with the sequel.
  • According to John Larroquette, his payment for doing the opening narration was a marijuana joint.
  • Even in his lift boots, Gunnar Hansen could run faster than Marilyn Burns, so he had to do random things when chasing her through the woods (you'll notice in one head-on shot that he starts slicing up tree branches in the background).
  • Leatherface had "lines" in the script that were gibberish with little side notes indicating what he was trying to say.
  • A still photo, taken during filming of the entire "Sawyer" family posing outside the house as a gag, was found and stolen from the set by a visiting German reporter, who took it back to West Germany with him, and the image of the family eventually became the advertising poster for the first release of the movie in West Germany.
  • The soundtrack contains no sounds from musical instruments (with the exception of some copyrighted music they had the rights to), instead they used sounds an animal would hear inside a slaughterhouse.
  • Tobe Hooper allowed Gunnar Hansen to develop Leatherface as he saw fit, under his supervision. Hansen decided that Leatherface was mentally handicapped and never learned to talk properly, so he went to a school for the mentally handicapped and watched how they moved and listened to them talk to get a feel for the character. He also tried his best to make his portrayal as non-offensive as he could. Many fans including those who are mentally handicapped, say he succeeded.
  • After getting into the old-age makeup, John Dugan decided that he did not ever want to go through the process again, meaning that all the scenes with him had to be filmed in the same session before he could take the makeup off. This entire process took about 36 hours (five of which which took to put the makeup on), during a brutal summer heat wave where the average temperature was over 100 degrees, with a large portion of it spent filming the dinner scene, with him wearing a heavy suit and necktie, sitting in a room filled with dead animals and rotting food with no air conditioning or electric fans. Everyone later recalled that the stench from the rotting food and people's body odor was so terrible that some crew members passed out or became sick from the smell. Edwin Neal who played the hitch-hiker claimed: "Filming that scene was the worst time of my life . . . and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was."
  • Gunnar Hansen wore three-inch heels so that he was taller than the rest of the cast, but it meant that he had to duck to get through the doorways in the slaughterhouse.
  • Gunnar Hansen said that, during filming, he didn't get along very well with Paul A. Partain, who played Franklin. A few years later he met Partain again and realized that Partain, a method actor, had simply chosen to stay in character even when not filming. The two remained good friends up to Partain's death.
  • Due to the low budget, Gunnar Hansen had only one shirt to wear as Leatherface. The shirt had been dyed, so it could not be washed; Hansen had to wear it for four straight weeks of filming in the hot and humid Texas summer. By the end of the shoot, no one wanted to stand near Hansen or sit next to him during breaks to eat lunch because his clothing smelled so bad.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare J.J. Abrams's best and worst rated films, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Mission Impossible III (2006), respectively. Nate's just there for the exposition, Austin thinks John Boyega is an amateur, and Zamar gets to nerd out for almost two hours. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Night Terrors (1993), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out these interviews with the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJT-bM8Tozs

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Mission Impossible III Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Agent Ethan Hunt comes into conflict with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer who threatens his life and his fianceé in response.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.9 | RT 70% C / 69% A
• Released: 2006
• Director: J.J. Abrams
• Writer(s): Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci & J.J. Abrams (written by), Bruce Geller (television series)
• Cinematographer: Dan Mindel (Star Trek, The Amazing Spider-Man)
• Notable actors: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q, Simon Pegg, Eddie Marsan, Laurence Fishburne, Bahar Soomekh, Jeff Chase, Michael Berry Jr., Aaron Paul
• Budget: $150 million
• Box office: $397.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • As the production could do nothing about inquisitive crowds watching them while they were filming in Rome, they actually set up a phony second unit a little further away, hired several girls in bikinis and several older women dressed as nuns and pretended to be filming takes for the film, while the main unit got on with their business largely undisturbed.
  • After the success of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Simon Pegg was asked whether he was going to be pursuing a career in Hollywood, to which he laughed and replied "It's not like I'm going to be in Mission: Impossible III".
  • With a budget of one hundred fifty million dollars, this is the most expensive movie ever undertaken by a first-time feature film director.
  • Tom Cruise did the vast majority of his own stunts in this film. Most of them were done without major injury. However, he cracked a couple of ribs once when he turned his upper torso too quickly.
  • Special Effects Technician Steven Scott Wheatley sued Paramount Pictures, and Tom Cruise's production company for gross negligence, after the pyrotechnics in a stunt in which he was involved, went wrong, and he was engulfed in a ball of flame. Wheatley suffered third-degree burns over sixty percent of his body.
  • Joe Carnahan worked on the film for a total of fifteen months before quitting over creative differences with the studio bosses. He even filmed the moment when he quit, as he figured that it signified the end of his Hollywood career. That was not to be the case, however. He came back the following year with the cult hit Smokin' Aces (2006).
  • At one point, Ricky Gervais was cast in the film as an ally to Ethan Hunt. But due to various production and casting changes, Gervais had to pull out of the film and was replaced by Simon Pegg.
  • In the original script of the opening scene, Brownway was supposed to do the "counting" but J.J. Abrams realized it would be much more dramatic if it was done by Owen Davien (Philip Seymour Hoffman) instead.

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Three decades after the Empire's defeat, a new threat arises in the militant First Order. Stormtrooper defector Finn and spare parts scavenger Rey are caught up in the Resistance's search for the missing Luke Skywalker.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.1 | RT 93% C / 89% A
• Released: 2015
• Director: J.J. Abrams
• Writer(s): Lawrence Kasdan & J.J. Abrams and Michael Arndt (written by), George Lucas (based on characters created by)
• Cinematographer: Dan Mindel (Star Trek, The Amazing Spider-Man)
• Notable actors: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Max von Sydow, Peter Mayhew, Gwendoline Christie, Joonas Suatoma, Pip Andersen, Simon Pegg
• Budget: $306 million
• Box office: $2.068 billion

• Fun Facts:
  • In a real-life parallel to the film Fanboys (2009), Mark Hamill and John Boyega successfully lobbied director J.J. Abrams to allow Star Wars fan Daniel Fleetwood to see the film before official release, as Fleetwood had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and was not expected to live to see the film's actual release date. Fleetwood was shown the film at a screening in his house, after Disney agreed. Fleetwood died November 10, 2015.
  • Mark Hamill claimed George Lucas nonchalantly told him over lunch a new Star Wars trilogy was going to be made by Disney, and if he did not want to be involved, Luke Skywalker would simply be written out of the script. However, Hamill immediately agreed to reprise the role. Hamill admitted, however, that he pretended to also be nonchalant about it, so it didn't seem like he was excited for the role. He also said within five seconds Carrie exclaimed she'd do it, and asked if there was a part for her daughter.
  • When Finn and Rey ask if he is THE Han Solo, the reply is "I used to be," which is a reply Ford regularly uses when fans ask if he is Harrison Ford.
  • The first J.J. Abrams film not to have a musical score by Michael Giacchino. Aptly enough, Giacchino stated in an interview that he would rather hear the music of John Williams in a new Star Wars film, than his own. Giacchino's name shows up in Episode VII's credits as a Stormtrooper.
  • The lightsaber battles are choreographed to be distinctly different from the ones in the first and second trilogies. Rather than the flashy, Force-assisted moves in the prequels or the formalized, kendo-like movements of the original trilogy, the fights are staged to appear less rehearsed, and more brutal and realistic. According to John Boyega and others, this was a deliberate choice to reflect the characters' inexperience with lightsabers as a weapon. Kylo appears to have had little experience in formal dueling, and Finn and Rey pick up lightsabers and use them with no training at all.
  • John Boyega was so nervous and frightened at the prospect of not getting the role, that he didn't tell his parents that he had been cast until after a cast photo was posted online by the official Star Wars Twitter page.
  • When the first trailer was released, there was much discussion about how it appeared to be getting back to the "grubbiness" ("dirty transporters, second-hand rockets, things that broke") of Episodes IV-VI, rather than the CGI cleanliness of Episodes I-III. British television star Phill Jupitus revealed in an interview that he "met an effects bloke in Essex, he drinks in my local coffee shop. He said (the makers of the new film) bought every gas-bottled air gun in England when they arrived, because they wanted the Stormtroopers' guns to have a kick when they fired them. You don't have to fake it; it looks real."
  • Only time Harrison Ford has received top billing in a Star Wars film, making him the first non-Jedi character to be credited first.
  • After he was cast, Oscar Isaac revealed to J.J. Abrams that his uncle is a huge Star Wars fan. As a result, arrangements for Isaac's uncle to visit the film set were made. To the great surprise of Isaac and his uncle, Abrams then asked if he would be interested in appearing in the film as an extra. Isaac's uncle quickly agreed, and appears as one of the villagers during the opening sequence on Jakku.
  • Kevin Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch visited the set. Smith, infamous for his open and talkative nature, was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and J.J. Abrams had World War II-style propaganda posters titled "Loose Lips Sink Starships" hung up around the set, as a reminder to Smith not to reveal spoilers for the film to the public. True to his word, the only tidbit Smith revealed about his visit was that he cried when he stood on the Millennium Falcon set, as it reminded him of how much he loved Star Wars as a child.
  • While filming in summer 2014, Harrison Ford broke his ankle on the door of the Millennium Falcon. About a year later, J.J. Abrams revealed that he hurt his back while trying to help get Ford out from under the door.
  • J.J. Abrams always wanted General Hux to be played by a young actor. He wanted the character to have a sense of tragedy and the fact that he appears to be too young to be in charge of a murderous group added to that. According to Abrams, the character's name was created after he noticed an old, abandoned grave site with the name Hux engraved on the stone.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Shane Black's best and worst rated films, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and Iron Man 3 (2013), respectively. Nate is tired of generic super hero films, Austin talks about RDJ, and they both can't believe how expensive some of these movies are. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare J.J Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Mission Impossible III (2006), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Shane Black about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdKap1z_9L4

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Iron Man 3 Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.2 | RT 79% C / 78% A
• Released: 2013
• Director: Shane Black
• Writer(s): Drew Pearce & Shane Black (screenplay by), Stan Lee and Don Heck and Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby (based on the Marvel comic by), Warren Ellis and Adi Granov (based on the “Extremis” mini-series illustrated by)
• Cinematographer: John Toll (Braveheart, The Last Samurai, Cloud Atlas)
• Notable actors: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, Ben Kingsley, James Badge Dale, Stephanie Szostak, Paul Bettany, William Sadler, Dale Dickey, Ty Simpkins, Miguel Ferrer, Xueqi Wang, Bingbing Fan
• Budget: $200 million
• Box office: $1.215 billion

• Fun Facts:
  • The first cut was three hours and fifteen minutes long. The final cut was two hours and ten minutes long.
  • (at around 5 mins) Near the beginning of the movie you see Tony Stark strike a mook jong or wing chun wooden dummy. Robert Downey Jr. has been training in Wing Chun for several years under Sifu Eric Oram, and has also used it in Sherlock Holmes (2009). He has also stated he will be testing for his black belt soon.
  • The ring on the Mandarin's right pinkie is the same one Raza wears in the first Iron Man (2008) film.
  • The idea that "Happy" Hogan's favorite television show is Downton Abbey (2010), was at the suggestion of Jon Favreau, who is actually a big fan of the British series.
  • The Mandarin bears a tattoo on the back of his neck of Captain America's shield with an anarchist "A" symbol in the center instead of a star.
  • Robert Downey Jr. pushed to get Gwyneth Paltrow to have some action scenes, and Kevin Feige approved: "We are bored by the damsel in distress. But sometimes we need our hero to be desperate enough in fighting for something, other than just his own life. So, there is fun to be had with 'Is Pepper in danger, or is she the savior?' over the course of this movie."
  • This is the first film in the Iron Man franchise not to be directed by Jon Favreau, who turned down the offer for this movie, in order to direct Magic Kingdom and Jersey Boys (2014). He later admitted that not directing allowed him to have more fun with his character "Happy" Hogan, saying that he was like "a proud grandfather, who doesn't have to change the diapers, but gets to play with the baby."
  • The first Iron Man movie to gross over one billion dollars, and the second Marvel movie to reach this mark, with The Avengers (2012) being the first.
  • The first day Robert Downey Jr. and Sir Ben Kingsley met on-set, they snapped a photo together to send to Director, and mutual friend, Sir Richard Attenborough.
  • The film was originally budgeted at one hundred forty million dollars, but after The Avengers (2012) became a huge hit, Marvel Studios and Disney upped it to two hundred million dollars, in order to allow Shane Black to make the best movie he could.

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A murder mystery brings together a private eye, a struggling actress, and a thief masquerading as an actor.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.6 | RT 85% C / 87% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: Shane Black
• Writer(s): Brett Halliday (novel) (in part), Shane Black (screen story), Shane Black (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Michael Barrett (Ted, Bobby, Zookeeper)
• Notable actors: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Dash Mihok, Larry Miller, Rockmond Dunbar, Shannyn Sossamon, Angela Lindvall, Indo Falconer Downey, Ariel Winter
• Budget: $15 million
• Box office: $15.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • As a sign of support to Robert Downey, Jr.'s recovery from alcohol and drugs, Val Kilmer refused to drink during the entire production.
  • Val Kilmer met Robert Downey, Jr. for the first time at a Hollywood party. A week later, he received the screenplay for this film, and agreed to do it before he'd even finished reading it. Upon agreeing, and much to his delight, he was informed that Downey had already been cast.
  • The film was given a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.
  • Val Kilmer had to quickly lose the fifty pounds gained for his plump role in Alexander (2004), in order to play his fit GQ character for this film.
  • The film was originally titled "L.A.P.I.", then "Bang!", but Val Kilmer suggested to Director Shane Black that "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" would have more appeal.
  • Val Kilmer's depiction of Gay Perry is generally considered to be the first openly gay character to front a Hollywood action movie.
  • Val Kilmer walked around in a five hundred dollar pair of Louis Vuitton driving shoes, and wore nail varnish, while experimenting with several variations of speech patterns for the role. Kilmer also noted this was done much to his son Jack's chagrin.
  • Shane Black had been suffering from writer's block. It ultimately took him over a year and a half to write the script for this film. He then had enormous trouble trying to sell it. His former cachet, as being the highest paid screenwriter, meant nothing when he was shopping his screenplay around. Eventually, he took it to Producer Joel Silver, who gave him his first break back in 1987 when he bought Lethal Weapon.
  • The film grossed far more outside the U.S., accounting for just over seventy percent of the film's worldwide gross.
  • Co-Producer of the film, Susan Downey (Susan Levin), is Robert Downey, Jr.'s wife.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Spike Lee's best and worst rated films, Do The Right Thing (1989) and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), respectively. Nate hates vampires, Austin wants to let Spike Lee do his thing, and they both think racism is bad (so brave). Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and Iron Man 3 (2013), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Spike Lee about the impact of Do The Right Thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNpI-VIlONw

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Da Sweet Blood of Jesus Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Dr. Hess Green becomes cursed by a mysterious ancient African artifact and is overwhelmed with a newfound thirst for blood. He however is not a vampire. Soon after his transformation he enters into a dangerous romance with Ganja Hightower that questions the very nature of love, addiction, sex, and status.

• Ratings: IMDb 4.0 | RT 43% C / 17% A
• Released: 2014
• Director: Spike Lee
• Writer(s): Spike Lee (screenplay), Bill Gunn (original screenplay), Vinnie Lewis
• Cinematographer: Daniel Patterson (Gun Hill Road, Evolution of a Criminal, Out of the Night)
• Notable actors: Stephen Tyrone Williams, Zaraah Abrahams, Rami Malek, Elvis Nolasco, Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Joie Lee, Felicia Pearson, Jeni Perillo, Katherine Borowitz, Donna Dixon
• Budget: $1.4 million
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • Filming was completed in 16 days.
  • The Kickstarter funded Spike Lee joint Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014) is a modern reinterpretation of Bill Gunn's cult classic blaxploitation film Ganja & Hess (1973).
  • According to cinematographer Daniel Patterson 90 percent of the film was shot with two and sometimes three cameras rolling simultaneously.
  • Marks the first film appearance of Donna Dixon in 19 years. Dixon retired from acting with her last appearance in a feature film being Nixon, which was released in 1995.

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Do The Right Thing Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 93% C / 90% A
• Released: 1989
• Director: Spike Lee
• Writer(s): Spike Lee (written by)
• Cinematographer: Ernest R. Dickerson (Bulletproof, Juice, The Walking Dead)
• Notable actors: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Paul Benjamin, Frankie Faison, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Miguel Sandoval, Rick Aiello, John Savage, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosie Perez, Roger Guenveur Smith, Steve White, Martin Lawrence, Leonard L. Thomas, Frank Vincent, Luis Antonio Ramos
• Budget: $6 million
• Box office: $37.3 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Spike Lee originally wanted Robert De Niro for the role of Sal (Salvatore Fragione). But De Niro turned down the part, saying that it was too similar to many of the parts he had played in the past. In the end, the part went to Danny Aiello.
  • Spike Lee wrote the script in two weeks.
  • This film was inspired by an actual incident in New York City, where some black youths were chased out of a pizzeria by some white youths in a section of New York City known as Howard Beach.
  • According to Rosie Perez, her face is not shown in her nude scene, because she felt exploited and was crying. She later decided she didn't mind, and appeared nude again in other movies.
  • Graffiti on the wall behind Mookie and Jade reads "Tawana told the truth" in reference to the Tawana Brawley alleged rape and abduction case of 1987.
  • All of the scenes of the corner men (Robin Harris, Paul Benjamin, and Frankie Faison) were improvised.
  • Martin Lawrence's feature film debut.
  • The title comes from a Malcolm X quotation that goes, "You've got to do the right thing."
  • The key scene when Danny Aiello and John Turturro talk alone, approximately midway through the film, was partly improvised. The scripted scene ended as the character Smiley approached the window. Everything after that, until the end of the scene, was completely ad-libbed.
  • Radio Raheem's explanation of the love and hate rings he wears, is an homage to the speech that The Preacher gives in The Night of the Hunter (1955). Robert Mitchum's preacher has tattoos on his hands that say "Love" and "Hate."
  • Danny Aiello admitted that he almost turned down the part of Sal when he saw that he'd be playing the owner of a pizzeria, believing it to be a lazy stereotype of Italian-Americans despite the high number of pizzerias that are owned by Italian-Americans.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Danny Boyle's best and worst rated films, Trainspotting (1996) and A Life Less Ordinary (1997), respectively. Nate thinks all UK directors are the same, Austin gets hooked on drugs, and they both have another talk about Mrs. Diaz. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with the filmmakers of Trainspotting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYhmdaLq_N8

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A Life Less Ordinary Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Ewan McGregor stars as a cleaning man in Los Angeles, who takes his boss' daughter hostage after being fired and replaced by a robot. Two "angels", who are in charge of human relationships on Earth, offer some unsolicited help to bring this unlikely couple together.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.4 | RT 39% C / 59% A
• Released: 1997
• Director: Danny Boyle
• Writer(s): John Hodge (written by)
• Cinematographer: Brian Tufano (Billy Elliot, Shallow Grave)
• Notable actors: Holly Hunter, Delroy Lindo, Dan Hedaya, Cameron Diaz, Ian McNeice, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, K.K. Dodds, Tony Shalhoub, Ian Holm
• Budget: $12 million
• Box office: $4.3 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The scene where Robert (Ewan McGregor) almost hits O'Reilly (Holly Hunter), who is laying in the road, was shot backwards and then reversed in post-production.
  • Ewan McGregor sings "Round Are Way" by Oasis. He was a big fan of the band at the time.
  • Although Brad Pitt met with Director Danny Boyle and Producer Andrew Macdonald, the lead part was written with Ewan McGregor specifically in mind.
  • In Gabriel's (Dan Hedaya's) final lines, he declares "Amaratus pathum laborium", which translates as: "Love is a path of labors".
  • Shot over a period of fifty days.
  • The author of the romantic novel read by Celine (Cameron Diaz) and O'Reilly (Holly Hunter) is Jennifer Hodge. This is the name of the wife of Screenwriter John Hodge.
  • The overhead shot, when Robert is pulling the bag of money along the road with rope, was computer generated.

 

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Trainspotting Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.2 | RT 90% C / 93% A
• Released: 1996
• Director: Danny Boyle
• Writer(s): John Hodge (screenplay), Irvine Welsh (novel)
• Cinematographer: Brian Tufano (Billy Elliot, Shallow Grave)
• Notable actors: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner
• Budget: 1.5 million Euros
• Box office: 48 million Euros

• Fun Facts:
  • Danny Boyle used creative methods while directing, necessitated by the film's low budget. For example, in the scene where Renton shoots a dog with a BB gun and it then goes crazy and attacks its owner, Boyle got the dog to freak out simply by positioning himself just outside of camera range and screaming at it.
  • Ewan McGregor read books about crack and heroin to prepare for the role. He also went to Glasgow and met people from the Calton Athletic Recovery Group, an organisation of recovering heroin addicts. He was taught how to cook up heroin with a spoon using glucose powder. McGregor considered injecting heroin to better understand the character, but eventually decided against it.
  • Kelly Macdonald got the part when the production crew were handing out flyers across Glasgow, for anyone eager to audition. When Danny Boyle first laid eyes on her, in a corridor with a plain hairdo surrounded by many glamorous girls, he knew she was the one. He wanted someone unknown, so no-one would guess a 19-year-old is playing a schoolgirl. Macdonald still has the promotional flyer at home.
  • For the close-up shots of Ewan McGregor injecting himself with heroin, a prosthetic arm was constructed by the make-up department, complete with pulsing veins, smack tracks and small pockets of blood that would appear when the skin was punctured by a hypodermic needle.
  • Although it looks thoroughly off putting, the feces in the Worst Toilet in Scotland scene was actually made from chocolate and smelled quite pleasant.
  • The whole film was shot in just seven and a half weeks.
  • In 2009, Robert Carlyle, who played Begbie, told a BAFTA interviewer that he played Begbie as a closeted gay man whose outbursts of violence were due to his "fear of being outed". Irvine Welsh, who wrote the movie's source novel, confirmed that he wrote the Begbie of the book to have an ambiguous sexuality, and agreed with Carlyle's interpretation of the film's version of the character.
  • To play the skinny heroin-addicted Renton, Ewan McGregor lost 26 pounds. It only took him two months to reach Renton's desired size. He achieved this by grilling everything and by drinking wine and gin instead of beer.
  • Due to the skimpy budget, most scenes had to be shot in just one take.
  • Danny Boyle used twins to play the part of baby Dawn, which meant neither of the babies were forced to be in front of the camera for too long. All of the cast used to play with the two babies in between takes so they could break the tension of the often difficult scenes they were about to shoot.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Francois Truffaut's best and worst rated films, The 400 Blows (1959) and Fahrenheit 451 (1966), respectively. Nate talks about the fight between the French and Austrian, Austin talks future tech, and they both try to look smart and fail. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996) and A  Life Less Ordinary (1997), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out the first audition director Francois Truffaut did with actor Jean-Pierre Leaud for The 400 Blows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hfdXIW73-M

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Fahrenheit 451 Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.3 | RT 81% C / 72% A
• Released: 1966
• Director: Francois Truffaut
• Writer(s): Francois Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard (screenplay), Ray Bradbury (novel), David Rudkin and Helen Scott (additional dialogue)
• Cinematographer: Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Witches)
• Notable actors: Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring, Jeremy Spenser, Alex Scott
• Budget: $1.5 million
• Box office: $1 million US

• Fun Facts:
  • Oskar Werner cut his hair for the final scene to purposely create a continuity error. This was due to his hatred for the director.
  • The film's credits are spoken, not read, in keeping with the film's theme of destruction of reading material.
  • According to producer Lewis M. Allen, François Truffaut and Oskar Werner hated each other by the end of filming. For the last two weeks, they didn't speak to one another.
  • Author Ray Bradbury never did any fact-checking in regards to the title. He asked a fire chief what temperature book paper burned at, and was given the answer "451 degrees Fahrenheit." He liked the title so much, he didn't bother to see if it was the correct temperature. Actually, The Chief went to burn an actual book, because he didn't know the answer when Bradbury asked him; he read the temperature with a thermometer.
  • The location filming of the final sequence with the "Book People" took place in poor weather. It was hoped that the weather would improve for the final days of shooting. Instead, they discovered that it had begun snowing during the night. The filming of the final shots while it was snowing was an unplanned contribution to the film's memorable ending.
  • François Truffaut said that this was his only film in which he clashed with an actor - Oskar Werner. Truffaut asked Werner to forgo heroics and act with a level of modesty, but Werner chose to play it with arrogance. Truffaut disliked the stilted performance Werner gave and insisted he play it like a monkey discovering books for the first time, sniffing at them, wondering what they are; Werner argued that a science fiction film called for a robotic-like performance.
  • Producer Lewis M. Allen said the studio's legal department requested that only books in the public domain be shown burning for fear of being sued by offended authors. Director François Truffaut and Allen ignored the request, believing that anyone would be flattered to have their book included.
  • François Truffaut reportedly said that he found science fiction films uninteresting and arbitrary. Because of this, a friend of his told him the story of Ray Bradbury's novel 'Fahrenheit 451'. Immediately afterward, Truffaut wanted to make a film from the novel and subsequently spent years raising the financing.

 

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The 400 Blows Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Moving story of a young boy who, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.1 | RT 100% C / 94% A
• Released: 1959
• Director: Francois Truffaut
• Writer(s): Francois Truffaut (scenario), Marcel Moussy & Francois Truffaut (adaptation), Marcel Moussy (dialogue)
• Cinematographer: Henri Decae (Le Samourai, The Boys from Brazil, Elevator to the Gallows)
• Notable actors: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Remy, Guy Decomble, Georges Flamant, Patrick Auffay, Daniel Couturier
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $30.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • All the young actors who unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Antoine were used in the classroom scenes.
  • So pleased with Jean-Pierre Léaud and his screen test (an informal conversation with the film's director being off-camera), François Truffaut doctored it into the finished film by using fade-outs and substituting his voice with off-camera female psychiatrist's voice.
  • The English title of the movie "400 Blows" is a gross misinterpretation of the original title. The Finnish and Swedish translations of the title, roughly translatable to "400 practical jokes" are closer to the original meaning, albeit not perfect. The Swedish title: "De 400 slagen" means "The 400 blows" and make no sense. The original title stems from the French expression "Faire les quatre cents coups", meaning "to live a wild life", as the main character does. Literal translation of the expression would be "to do the 400 dirty tricks".
  • Jean-Pierre Leaud's answers to the questions given to him by the psychologist at the camp near the end of the film were not scripted. Francois Truffaut told Leaud in advance about the scene for what to expect to a certain extent, and did provide some minor coaching when Leaud answered the question in between takes as to what was working and what was not, but at large, Leaud's answers are unscripted and ad-libbed, per Truffaut's wishes, who wanted the scene to feel spontaneous and believable.
  • The title of the film comes from the French idiom "faire les quatre cents coups", meaning "to raise hell".
  • All spoken lines in the film are dubbed over again by the actors themselves, save for a few minor and trivial parts. For instance, during the last scene, the sound of Antoine's footsteps was added during editing - the truck that the camera rested upon produced too much noise. Shooting on the streets of Paris, as many films of the French New Wave did, was often hectic and re-dubbing everything allowed François Truffaut to not have to worry about lugging bulky and expensive sound equipment around, and more importantly he would not have to worry about a street scene having too much background noise. This made shooting faster and easier.
  • François Truffaut's first major motion picture.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Brian De Palma's best and worst rated films, Scarface (1983) and Home Movies (1979), respectively. Nate was bored to death, Austin hates on cinematography, and they both explain what's happening with the livestreams. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Brian De Palma about Scarface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G5o4M3BIsw

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Home Movies Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Keith Gordon is a creative young man who films the oddball doings of his family and peers.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.2 | RT N/A C / N/A A
• Released: 1979
• Director: Brian De Palma
• Writer(s): Kim Ambler, Brian De Palma(story), Dana Edelman, Robert Harders, Stephen Le May, Charlie Loventhal, Gloria Norris
• Cinematographer: James L. Carter (Ladder 49, My Dog Skip, Tuck Everlasting)
• Notable actors: Nancy Allen, Mary Davenport, Kirk Douglas, Vincent Gardenia, Keith Gordon, Gerrit Graham, Captain Haggerty, Therese Saldana
• Budget: $400,000
• Box office: $89,134

• Fun Facts:
  • Shot by students of De Palma's Independent Filmmaking course at Sarah Lawrence College. Intended to be a "learn by doing" experience for the students and grad students, the goal was to budget, finance, shoot, and edit the film using primarily students, with De Palma overseeing.
  • Kirk Douglas was brought on after much debate, mostly concerning costs, but Douglas ended up becoming an investor in the film as well.
  • From an interview in the January 1979 issue of Take One, De Palma said the movie was originally budgeted at $50,000, but then went to $100,000, $150,000 and finally settled at a cost he calls "under a million".
  • Co-Directed by De Palma with a rotating set of student directors; he defined their contribution of roughly 5 percent of the shots in the film.

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Scarface Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: In Miami in 1980, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.3 | RT 82% C / 93% A
• Released: 1983
• Director: Brian De Palma
• Writer(s): Oliver Stone (screenplay), Armitage Trail (based on the novel by), Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht (1932 screenplay)
• Cinematographer: John A. Alonzo (Chinatown, Star Trek: Generations, Harold and Maude)
• Notable actors: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, Miriam Colon, F. Murray Abraham, Paul Shenar, Harris Yulin, Angel Salazar, Pepe Serna
• Budget: $25 million
• Box office: $65.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • When Scarface (1983) was re-released in theaters in 2003, the studio wanted Brian De Palma to change the soundtrack so that rap songs inspired by the movie could be used. De Palma refused.
  • Oliver Stone wrote this film while fighting a cocaine addiction. He had moved to Paris to be away from a plentiful supply of the drug in the U.S.
  • When director Brian De Palma submitted the film to the MPAA, they gave it an "X rating". He then made some cuts and resubmitted it a second time; again the film was given an "X rating" (one of the reasons apparently being that Octavio the clown was shot too many times). He yet again made some further cuts and submitted it a third time; yet again it was given an "X". De Palma refused to cut the film any further to qualify it for an R. He and producer Martin Bregman arranged a hearing with the MPAA. They brought in a panel of experts, including real narcotics officers, who stated that not only was the film an accurate portrayal of real life in the drug underworld, but ultimately it was an anti-drug film, and should be widely seen. This convinced the arbitrators that the third submitted cut of the film deserved an "R rating" by a vote of 18-2. However, De Palma surmised that if the third cut of the film was judged an "R" then the very first cut should have been an "R" as well. He asked the studio if he could release the first cut but was told that he couldn't. However since the Studio execs really didn't know the differences between the different cuts that had been submitted, De Palma released the first cut of the film to theaters anyway. It wasn't until the film had been released on videocassette months later that he confessed that he had released his first unedited and intended version of the film.
  • In the scene where Tony is in the bathtub watching TV, he says to Manny, "Look at dem pelicangs fly." This line was what Al Pacino practiced with a language coach to get the Cuban accent right.
  • Robert De Niro was offered the lead role but turned it down.
  • The word "yeyo" is used by Tony Montana (Al Pacino) as a slang word for cocaine. This word was not in the script, and was ad-libbed by Pacino during the first drug deal scene (chainsaw scene), and Brian De Palma liked it enough to keep using it throughout the film. Pacino learned the word while learning the Cuban accent.
  • Al Pacino reportedly stated that Tony Montana was one of his favorites of all the characters he's played.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3

In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Peter Jackson's best and worst rated films, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and The Lovely Bones (2009), respectively. The show has its first official livestream on twitch.tv/bwbpod, Hannah watches LOTR for the first time, and Eric tries out his best Gollum impression. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983) and Home Movies (1979), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out the behind the scenes footage from the making of The Fellowship of the Ring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSRfHizrDoQ

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The Lovely Bones Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.7 | RT 31% C / 52% A
• Released: 2009
• Director: Peter Jackson
• Writer(s): Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson (screenplay), Alice Sebold (novel)
• Cinematographer: Andrew Lesnie (The Hobbit, King Kong, The Last Airbender)
• Notable actors: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Michael Imperioli, Saoirse Ronan, Rose McIver, Christian Ashdale, Reece Ritchie
• Budget: $65 million
• Box office: $93.6 billion

• Fun Facts:
  • For his role as George Harvey, Stanley Tucci had his skin lightened, his chest and arm hair dyed to match his blondish-brown comb-over wig, and wore false teeth to alter his jaw line. He also wore blue contact lenses and a lentil-filled fat suit to widen his girth, all topped off with square-frame eyeglasses, a fake mustache and sideburns. Since Tucci was uncomfortable playing a child molester, he wanted to alter his appearance for the role as much as possible.
  • The mother, Abigail's, major storyline from the book--her affair with the detective, and her reasons for leaving the family--was filmed, but cut out of the movie.
  • In Alice Sebold's original novel, a disturbing rape scene is recounted in great detail, an experience that Sebold herself had had as a young woman. Director Peter Jackson chose to omit this section of the story, feeling that the re-enactment of the ordeal would have not just overwhelmed the film, but been too traumatic a sequence for the young Saoirse Ronan to endure. Alice Sebold reportedly disagreed with this omission. Stanley Tucci, for his part, claimed that it was difficult enough for him to play scenes in which George was thinking about molesting Susie, and that he never would have agreed to perform an actual rape scene.
  • The main reason Ryan Gosling quit his role as Jack before filming started, was that during read-through sessions with Peter Jackson and the rest of the cast, he felt that, at 26, he was too young for the role. Jack was supposed to be in his late 30s. Despite repeated assurances from Jackson that he could portray Jack with proper make-up, Gosling insisted that, as a method actor, he would not be able to portray the character well enough, and was finally let go. Mark Wahlberg was brought in only one day before shooting started.
  • Saoirse Ronan landed the role of Susie Salmon based on an audition tape she sent in. They were so impressed by the tape, that no meetings or further auditions were necessary before offering her the lead role in the film.
  • Despite the fact that the violence in the novel had been toned down for the film, Stanley Tucci still had a hard time portraying Mr. Harvey.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Gandalf and Aragorn lead the World of Men against Sauron's army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.9 | RT 95% C / 86% A
• Released: 2003
• Director: Peter Jackson
• Writer(s): J.R.R. Tolkien (novel), Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Andrew Lesnie (The Hobbit, King Kong, The Last Airbender)
• Notable actors: Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Alistair Browning, Bernard Hill, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Harry Sinclair, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, Elijah Wood, Miranda Otto
• Budget: $94 million
• Box office: $1.12 billion

• Fun Facts:
  • The movie made a one thousand four hundred eight percent profit for New Line Studios on their initial outlay.
  • The dead oliphaunt carcass, used in this film, is reportedly the largest prop ever built for a movie. According to members of the Prop Department, Director Peter Jackson still thought it could have been bigger.
  • Andy Serkis and Elijah Wood were each given prop rings by Peter Jackson, used in the movie. They both thought they had the only one.
  • Great caution was taken for the scene where Faramir is dragged back to Minas Tirith on his horse. The filmmakers were afraid that the horse might suddenly start to run, dragging David Wenham behind it, so a release system was built into the saddle. Wenham held a handle in his right hand, and if the horse started to run, he could simply pull it and be released from the stirrup. Fortunately, they ended up not needing it.
  • Each of the cast members was given a gift on their last day of shooting, usually a prop that was significant to their roles. Miranda Otto received one of Eowyn's dresses and her sword, Liv Tyler received Arwen's "dying dress", Orlando Bloom got one of Legolas' bows.
  • Peter Jackson is arachnophobic, and based the Shelob design on the types of spiders he feared the most.
  • Since John Rhys-Davies suffered constant rashes from wearing the Gimli make-up, the Make-up Department gave him the opportunity to throw his Gimli mask into the fire on his last day of pick-up photography. He didn't hesitate a moment to grab and burn it.
  • A normal movie averages about two hundred visual effects shots. This film had one thousand four hundred eighty-eight.
  • Horses owned by the production company were placed up for auction to the cast and crew after the film was shot. Viggo Mortensen purchased two horses, the one he rode for most of the film, and one for Liv Tyler's riding double.
  • The Lord of the Rings trilogy became the most nominated film series in Academy Award history with thirty nominations, surpassing both the Godfather trilogy (twenty-eight) and the Star Wars franchise (twenty-one).
  • To get enough extras for the Battle at the Black Gate, a few hundred members of the New Zealand Army were brought in. They apparently were so enthusiastic during the battle scenes, that they kept breaking the wooden swords and spears they were given.
  • Fans of the film often speculate why the characters didn't just fly on the giant eagles into Mordor and drop the ring into Mount Doom. This is not, in fact, a plot hole. This was explained in the book, but the filmmakers didn't think there would have been a need to, because they felt it was obvious why they didn't do this. The Eye of Sauron would have been a major obstacle. Even Professor Tolkien vetoed the abuse of eagles' intervention, when presented an early project of a movie from his book, also it is explained that the eagles are very proud creatures, and did not take sides in the War of the Ring until the end, so they would not have assisted.
  • Viggo Mortensen estimates that during the course of filming the entire trilogy and including all takes, he "killed" every stuntman on the production at least fifty times.
  • The final day of filming on the trilogy actually happened over a month after this movie was theatrically released, and three weeks after the 2004 Academy Awards. Peter Jackson arranged to film one final shot of skulls on the floor in the tunnel of the Paths of the Dead, which was included in the Extended Edition DVD. He thought it was funny to be doing filming on a movie that had already won the Best Picture Oscar.
  • It has the highest perfect score at the Academy Awards, with eleven wins out of eleven nominations. Its wins also means that The Lord of the Rings franchise has won every category, for which it was nominated, except one (Best Actor in a Supporting Role).
  • In the scene when Denethor attempts to burn Faramir on the pyre, the pyre could not truly be on fire, because Gandalf's horse would not go near it. To solve this, the crew reflected a real fire onto a pane of glass in front of the camera, so that it looks as though the pyre is burning.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Neill Blomkamp's best and worst rated films, District 9 (2009) and Elysium (2013), respectively. Nate becomes a programmer, Austin feels better prepared for the future, and they both want to fight some fookin' prawns. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (2009) and Elysium (2013), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Neill Blomkamp and actor Sharlto Copley about the making of District 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyIgbEKypdg

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Elysium Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth. A man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.6 | RT 67% C / 58% A
• Released: 2013
• Director: Neill Blomkamp
• Writer(s): Neill Blomkamp
• Cinematographer: Trent Opaloch (Captain American: Civil War, Chappie)
• Notable actors: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, William Fichtner, Brandon Auret, Josh Blacker, Emma Tremblay, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Maxwell Perry Cotton, Faran Tahir, Adrian Holmes
• Budget: $115 million
• Box office: $286.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The biography of John Carlyle displayed by the computer indicates that he was born in 2010, which makes him about 144 years old.
  • When Kruger retrieves the rocket launcher from his vehicle, the name of the agency he is working for is seen-- the "Civil Cooperation Bureau." The South African Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) was a government-sponsored under cover direct action intelligence agency during the apartheid era.
  • Kruger and his men incorporate numerous Afrikaans slang words into their dialogue. Examples include "Boet," an informal derivative of "brother," "Boykie," meaning "little boy," and "lekker," a slang for approval.
  • The main role was first offered to Ninja, a South African rapper, who despite being a fan of District 9 (2009) (he has a D9 tattoo on his inner lip) did not take the role. The role was then offered to rapper Eminem, who also turned it down. So Neill Blomkamp moved on to Matt Damon as his next choice.
  • The line, "Don't breathe on me... Cover your mouth!" spoken by John Carlyle to the Plant Manager was ad-libbed by William Fichtner.

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District 9 Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.0 | RT 90% C / 82% A
• Released: 2009
• Director: Neill Blomkamp
• Writer(s): Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell (written by)
• Cinematographer: Trent Opaloch (Captain American: Civil War, Chappie)
• Notable actors: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt, John Sumner, William Allen Young, Nick Blake
• Budget: $30 million
• Box office: $210.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • After the feature film based on the Halo (2001) video game series (which was to be directed by Neill Blomkamp) fell through, producer Peter Jackson went to Blomkamp and offered him $30 million to make whatever he wanted. The result was District 9 (2009).
  • Around six different endings were created during filming.
  • The language used by the aliens (clicking sounds) was created by rubbing a pumpkin.
  • The first documentary-style film to be nominated for Best Picture Oscar.
  • The title is a nod to a real place and a real incident. District 6 was a mixed race neighborhood of Cape Town which the apartheid government demolished in 1966 to make room for whites.
  • Star Sharlto Copley had not acted before and had no intention of pursuing an acting career. He stumbled into the leading role as director Neill Blomkamp placed him on-camera during the short film.
  • All the shacks in District 9 were actual shacks that exist in a section of Johannesburg which were to be evacuated and the residents moved to better government housing, paralleling the events in the film. Also paralleling, the residents had not actually been moved out before filming began. The only shack that was created solely for filming was Christopher Johnson's shack.
  • As part of the marketing campaign in North America and the United Kingdom, posters were put up in major cities on bus stops, the sides of buildings, etc., designating areas that were restricted for humans only, with a number to call (866.666.6001 in the U.S., 0207 148 7468 in the U.K.) in order to report non-humans. The title of the film was generally not included, although the URL address for the film's official website was.
  • The idea of the prawns being obsessed with cat food came from two inspirations. In impoverished areas of Johannesburg, director Neill Blomkamp would see people selling cheese poofs and other snack foods out of large three-foot tall bags and wanted the aliens to have a similar cheap food. The decision to make them cat food came from one of the producers who used canned cat food to bait traps when fishing for prawns in Vancouver.
  • The creatures used in the small fighting arena were meant to be rodents/pests which were aboard the ship.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Kathryn Bigelow's best and worst rated films, The Hurt Locker (2008) and Blue Steel (1990), respectively. Nate goes on a rant about Alien: Covenant, Austin has a problem with female directors, and they both hate incompetent people. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (2009) and Elysium (2013), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Kathryn Bigelow about the making of The Hurt Locker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6I1-C0nX1I

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Blue Steel Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A female rookie in the police force engages in a cat and mouse game with a pistol wielding psychopath who becomes obsessed with her.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.6 | RT 71% C / 36% A
• Released: 1990
• Director: Kathryn Bigelow
• Writer(s): Kathryn Bigelow & Eric Red (written by)
• Cinematographer: Amir Mokri (Man of Steel, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Lord of War)
• Notable actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ron Silver, Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Pena, Louise Fletcher, Philip Bosco, Kevin Dunn, Richard Jenkins, Markus Flanagan, Mary Mara, Tom Sizemore
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $8.2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Tom Sizemore's film debut.
  • Was originally set to be released by Vestron Pictures and its offshoot label Lightning Pictures but ultimately acquired by MGM due to Vestron's financial problems and eventual bankruptcy at the time.
  • Philip Bosco plays the father of policewoman Jamie Lee Curtis. In real life, he's the son of policewoman.
  • In Germany, it was distributed as "a film from Oliver Stone", even though Stone was only one of the movie's producers.

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The Hurt Locker Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.6 | RT 98% C / 84% A
• Released: 2008
• Director: Kathryn Bigelow
• Writer(s): Mark Boal (written by)
• Cinematographer: Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker, Captain Phillips, The Big Short)
• Notable actors: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly, Christian Camargo
• Budget: $15 million
• Box office: $49.2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The film was shot on location in Jordan. Part of the shoot (one week) was to take place in Kuwait on a U.S. Military Base; however, access was denied.
  • Kathryn Bigelow claims that no scene filmed was left out of the final cut.
  • The expression "the hurt locker" is a preexisting slang term for a situation involving trouble or pain, which can be traced back to the Vietnam War. According to the movie's website, it is soldier vernacular in Iraq to speak of explosions as sending you to "the hurt locker."
  • It was James Cameron who convinced his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow to direct this film. She originally had planned on doing another project and wasn't sure about doing this film. Cameron read it and told her to do this film, and it ended up earning her an Oscar nomination and award for Best Director. In fact, the film was nominated in nine categories against Cameron's Avatar (2009), and won six awards, including Best Picture. Cameron himself had said, "I wouldn't bet against her."
  • Jeremy Renner tripped and fell down some stairs while carrying an Iraqi boy on the film's set. Shooting was stopped for several days while Renner's ankle healed.
  • During filming, three, four or more hand-held super 16mm cameras were used to film scenes in documentary style. Nearly two hundred hours of footage was shot at an eye-popping 100:1 shooting ratio (a higher ratio of expended film than the notorious Francis Ford Coppola epic, Apocalypse Now (1979)).
  • Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award, the BAFTA, and the DGA for Best Director, with this film. This is also the first film to win Best Picture that was directed by a woman.
  • Jordan is such a safe location that the actors didn't want to have bodyguards, as was first intended. There was no Jordanian military acting as security for the film. Security, set dressing and onset, was provided by a private company.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Luc Besson's best and worst rated films,  Leon: The Professional (1994) and Arthur and the Revenge of the Maltazard (2009), respectively. Nate hates Malt Lizards, Austin thinks Natalie Portman peaked in Phantom Menace, and they both are HITMEN for GARY OLD-MAN. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Kathrn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2008) and Blue Steel (1990), her best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this behind the scenes footage from the making of Leon: The Professional: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMF7e98gPJc

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Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Arthur answers a distress call from Princess Selenia, who is menaced by the nefarious Maltazard.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.6 | RT 14% C / 32% A
• Released: 2009
• Director: Luc Besson
• Writer(s): Patrice Garcia (characters and universe), Luc Besson (screenplay) (dialogues), Luc Besson & Celine Garcia (characters)
• Cinematographer: Thierry Arbogast (The Fifth Element, Lucy, La Femme Nikita)
• Notable actors: Freddie Highmore, Selena Gomez, Logan Miller, Omar Sy, Mia Farrow, Fergie, Jimmy Fallon, Snoop Dogg, Will.i.am, Cem Yilmaz, Robert Stanton, Penny Balfour, Lou Reed
• Budget: $90 million
• Box office: $78.5 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Arthur and the Great Adventure is actually a UK only release, an edit of the second and third films, Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard and Arthur and The War of The Two Worlds

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Leon: The Professional Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl, is reluctantly taken in by Léon, a professional assassin, after her family is murdered. Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the assassin's trade.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.6 | RT 71% C / 95% A
• Released: 1994
• Director: Luc Besson
• Writer(s): Luc Besson (written by)
• Cinematographer: Thierry Arbogast (The Fifth Element, Lucy, La Femme Nikita)
• Notable actors: Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman, Danny Aiello, Peter Appel, Willi One Blood, Don Creech, Michael Badalucco, Ellen Greene, Elizabeth Regen
• Budget: $16 million
• Box office: $46.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • During the scene when Stansfield 'interrogates' Mathilda's father, he smells the father, and gets extremely physically close to him. According to Michael Badalucco, he had no idea that Gary Oldman was going to smell him, nor that he was going to get as close as he did. Badalucco says that in the film, his look of discomfort during the scene is completely genuine, as he felt decidedly intimidated by Oldman, and the physical proximity between the two made him very nervous.
  • According to Jean Reno, he decided to play Léon as if he were a little mentally slow and emotionally repressed. He felt that this would make audiences relax and realize that he wasn't someone who would take advantage of a vulnerable young girl. Reno claims that for Léon, the possibility of a physical relationship with Mathilda is not even conceivable, and as such, during the scenes when such a relationship is discussed, Reno very much allowed Mathilda to be emotionally in control of the scenes.
  • The scene in which Stansfield talks about his appreciation of Ludwig van Beethoven to Mathilda's father was completely improvised. The scene was filmed several times, with Gary Oldman giving a different improvised story on each take.
  • This is Natalie Portman's motion picture debut. She was 11 when she was cast.
  • Keith A. Glascoe, who played the enormous Benny, or 3rd Stansfield Man, later became a member of the New York Fire Department, Ladder Company 21 in Hells Kitchen. Courageously he died in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
  • In a 2014 Playboy interview, Gary Oldman said his screaming of the now iconic line 'Bring me everyone!' was improvised to make director Luc Besson laugh "in previous takes, I'd just gone, "Bring me everyone," in a regular voice. But then I cued the sound guy to slip off his headphones, and I shouted as loud as I could." The yelled take is the one used in the film.
  • When the film was first tested in LA, the version that was screened incuded a short scene where Mathilda asks Léon to be her lover. However, the audience became extremely uncomfortable and began to laugh nervously, completely destroying the tone of the film. The film received terrible test scores at the screening, and as such, producer Patrice Ledoux and writer/director Luc Besson decided to cut the scene for theatrical release.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 We've got a special mid-week bonus episode! Nate and Austin interview Brandon Calvillo about his entrance to podcasting, Vine, and Tommy Wiseau. Find more of Brandon's work on his YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, and subscribe to his podcast on iTunes. Check back this Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Luc Besson's Leon: The Professional (1994) and Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009), his best and worst rated films.

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Terence Young's best and worst rated films, Wait Until Dark (1967) and Inchon (1981), respectively. Nate is seeing in black and white, Austin flirts with Audrey Hepburn, and they both watch one of the worst movies ever made. Spoiler alert: it sucked. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Luc Besson's Leon: The Professional (1994) and Arthur and the Revenge of the Maltazard (2009), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this segmented series of behind the scenes footage from the making of Inchon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWsmCVhq9XQ

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Inchon Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: During the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur masterminds the amphibious invasion of Inchon in September 1950.

• Ratings: IMDb 2.7 | RT 0% C / 9% A
• Released: 1981
• Director: Terence Young
• Writer(s): Robin Moore and Laird Koenig (screenplay), Robin Moore and Paul Savage (story)
• Cinematographer: Bruce Surtees (Dirty Harry, Beverly Hills Cop, Escape from Alcatraz)
• Notable actors: Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, Toshiro Mifune, Richard Roundtree, David Janssen, Kung-won Nam, Gabriele Ferzetti, Rex Reed, Sabine Sun, Dorothy James, Karen Kahn, Lydia Lei, James T. Callahan
• Budget: $46 million
• Box office: $5.2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • When location filming ran past the original production schedule, Laurence Olivier insisted on being paid his "bonus salary" in weekly cash payments, delivered to him as briefcases full of money, flown to the location by helicopter.
  • The movie had an estimated loss of $44,100,000.
  • The recreation of the Inchon lighthouse was destroyed by a typhoon during filming, and had to be rebuilt.
  • Most of the cast and crew were paid in cash, which furthered suspicions that it was funded by the controversial Unification Church.
  • The film has never officially been released on home video or DVD. It was broadcast on cable TV during the early 2000s.
  • The climactic scene of the fleet coming into harbor had to be re-shot when an assistant director misinterpreted instructions and ordered the ships to head out of camera range.
  • The United States Department of Defense supplied 1,500 American troops (stationed in Korea) as extras. When they found out the Unification Church was one of the financial backers, they withdrew support and asked that credit be removed.
  • Initial footage of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's final limo scene was rejected because the crowd was too small. The scene was re-shot in Korea, but the shots of the crowds and the limo didn't match. Finally, the crew rented a studio in Dublin and put the limo against a rear projection of the crowds. The three-minute scene cost over $3 million.

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Wait Until Dark Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A recently blinded woman is terrorized by a trio of thugs while they search for a heroin-stuffed doll they believe is in her apartment.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 95% C / 91% A
• Released: 1967
• Director: Terence Young
• Writer(s): Frederick Knott (play), Robert Carrington & Jane-Howard Hammerstein (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Charles Lang (Some Like It Hot, The Magnificent Seven, Charde)
• Notable actors: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Jack Weston
• Budget: $3 million
• Box office: $17.5 million

• Fun Facts:
  • In an interview, Alan Arkin talked about the Oscar nominations he received for his early major film roles (The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966) and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). When asked if he was surprised that he was overlooked for "Wait Until Dark", his second movie, he replied: "You don't get nominated for being mean to Audrey Hepburn!"
  • During World War II, 16-year-old Audrey Hepburn was a volunteer nurse in a Dutch hospital. During the battle of Arnhem, Hepburn's hospital received many wounded Allied soldiers. One of the injured soldiers young Audrey helped nurse back to health was a young British paratrooper - and future director - named Terence Young who more than 20 years later directed Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (1967).
  • In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, Stephen King declared this to be the scariest movie of all time and that Alan Arkin's performance "may be the greatest evocation of screen villainy ever."
  • The role that eventually went to Alan Arkin was difficult to cast because the producers couldn't find actors willing to be cast in such a villainous role - not only terrorizing a blind woman, but terrorizing beloved Audrey Hepburn to boot! Alan Arkin later went on to say how easy it was for him to get the role because of the reluctance of other actors to take it.
  • During the credits there is no credit for costumes, this is because Audrey Hepburn herself picked the clothes she wore from the stores in Paris.
  • Audrey Hepburn's only horror film, despite it more commonly being categorized as a suspense-thriller.
  • As a way to get people to see the movie, the filmmakers made a print ad and cautionary trailer that read: 'During the last eight minutes of this picture the theatre will be darkened to the legal limit, to heighten the terror of the breathtaking climax which takes place in nearly total darkness on the screen. If there are sections where smoking is permitted, those patrons are respectfully requested not to jar the effect by lighting up during this sequence. And of course, no one will be seated at this time.' It worked and the film became a huge success because of it.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 Austin's out of town this weekend, so we've cooked up something to fill the space. Austin interviews Nate about his interests in cinematography, goals, and looking towards the future. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terence Young's Wait Until Dark (1967) and Inchon (1981), his best and worst rated films.

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Tony Kaye's best and worst rated films, American History X (1998) and Detachment (2011), respectively. Nate actually finds a film too depressing, Austin is at a loss for words, and they both talk about diva directing. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terence Young's Wait Until Dark (1967) and Inchon (1981), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Tony Kaye about Detachment: https://vimeo.com/106120041

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Detachment Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A substitute teacher who drifts from classroom to classroom who finds a connection to the students and teachers during his latest assignment.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.7 | RT 57% C / 74% A
• Released: 2011
• Director: Tony Kaye
• Writer(s): Carl Lund
• Cinematographer: Tony Kaye
• Notable actors: Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden, James Caan, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner, Tim Blake Nelson, William Petersen, Bryan Cranston, Sami Gayle
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $1.48 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Betty Kaye, who plays Meredith, is a daughter of the director of this film (Tony Kaye).
  • The film cast includes two Oscar winners: Adrien Brody and Marcia Gay Harden; and two Oscar nominees: James Caan and Bryan Cranston.

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American History X Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.5 | RT 83% C / 96% A
• Released: 1998
• Director: Tony Kaye
• Writer(s): David McKenna
• Cinematographer: Tony Kaye
• Notable actors: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D’Angelo, Jennifer Lien, Ethan Suplee, Fairuza Balk, Avery Brooks, Elliott Gould, Stacy Keach, William Russ, Guy Torry, Joe Cortese
• Budget: $20 million
• Box office: $23.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Edward Norton turned down Saving Private Ryan (1998) to do this film.
  • Before filming began, Edward Norton and Edward Furlong shaved their heads for their roles. Edward Norton also gained 30 pounds of muscle.
  • Seth wears a shirt during the basketball game featuring the number 88. This is a Nazi skinhead code for HH, or "Heil Hitler," H being the 8th letter of the alphabet. It also refers to a set of 88 precepts written by the neo-nazi leader David Lane. The 88 precepts are rules and concepts that all White Supremacists lived by.
  • The diner that Danny and Derek go to get breakfast at before Danny goes to school in the morning is the same diner that is used in The Big Lebowski (1998), during the infamous "toe" scene. It's located at Wilshire and Fairfax in Los Angeles and is called Johnie's Coffee Shop and is only open for filming.
  • The character Derek Vinyard is based on real life skinhead Frank Meeink.
  • During the party scene the swastika on the back of Seth's jacket is counter-clockwise. In the skinhead world the counter-clockwise swastika indicates that the person bearing it leads, not follows.
  • Marlon Brando was considered for the role of Cameron Alexander.
  • Edward Furlong and Edward Norton constantly changed around the script and made Tony Kaye's vision of American History X not what he envisioned and made him not want to make the movie anymore. He was so unsatisfied with Norton's performance that he still, to this day feels the movie is unfinished.
  • This film uses the word "fuck" 214 times.
  • Joaquin Phoenix was offered the role of Derek Vinyard but found the subject matter of the film distasteful and passed on the project.
  • In the midst of the dispute about the time he was taking to edit the film, Director Tony Kaye attended a meeting with Michael De Luca (then New Line's senior product president). Kaye arranged for a Jewish Rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Buddhist monk to be present at the meeting to support his argument and "make the meeting a more spiritual one".

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Clint Eastwood's best and worst rated films, Unforgiven (1992) and The Rookie (1990), respectively. Nate disses fake babies, Austin thinks it's Martin Sheen, and random people yell into the mic. Happy 4th of July! Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Tony Kaye's American History X (1998) and Black Water Transit (2009), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Clint Eastwood about Unforgiven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHQdSCDJhaU

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The Rookie Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Clint Eastwood plays a veteran detective who gets stuck with a rookie cop to chase down a German crook.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.8 | RT 31% C / 36% A
• Released: 1990
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• Writer(s): Boaz Yakin & Scott Spiegel (written by)
• Cinematographer: Jack N. Green (Serenity, The 40-Year-Old Virgin)
• Notable actors: Clint Eastwood, Charlie Sheen, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Tom Skerritt, Lara Flynn Boyle, Pepe Serna, Marco Rodriguez
• Budget: $10 million
• Box office: $21 million

• Fun Facts:
  • According to the book "Clint Eastwood A Cultural Production" by Paul Smith, during the early stages of principal photography, actor Charlie Sheen had substance abuse problems. Eastwood reportedly took on a father-figure role in disciplining Sheen into responsible behavior.
  • The previous picture of Clint Eastwood, White Hunter Black Heart (1990), was entered into competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990 and screened there whilst The Rookie (1990) was in production. To attend that movie's Cannes screenings, Eastwood halted production on The Rookie (1990) for five days. Reportedly, this cost an estimated 1.5 million dollars.
  • The movie was controversial for its depiction of a provocative and unconventional woman-on-man rape sequence with it garnering much publicity.
  • The film featured over twice as many stuntmen as it did actors. Held the world record for the biggest ratio of stuntmen/actors. Reportedly, over eighty stuntmen worked on the movie.
  • Clint Eastwood agreed to do this movie in exchange for Warner Brothers letting him make his personal film project, White Hunter Black Heart (1990).

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Unforgiven Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner and a young man.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.2 | RT 95% C / 93% A
• Released: 1992
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• Writer(s): David Webb Peoples (written by)
• Cinematographer: Jack N. Green (Serenity, The 40-Year-Old Virgin)
• Notable actors: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, Anna Levine
• Budget: $14 million
• Box office: $159.2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The final screen credit reads, "Dedicated to Sergio and Don", referring to Clint Eastwood's mentors, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.
  • Although the score was arranged by Lennie Niehaus, the main theme was written by Clint Eastwood himself.
  • This film put to rest Clint Eastwood's longstanding statement why he would never win an Oscar. Eastwood reckoned he would never be in the running because "first, I'm not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money. Thirdly, and most importantly, because I don't give a fuck". Since his double Oscar win for Unforgiven (1992), Eastwood has gone on to win two more Oscars, as well as an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, and has been nominated an additional six times.
  • Clint Eastwood's mother Ruth Wood toiled through an uncomfortable day (wearing a heavy dress) as an extra, filming a scene where she boards a train; but the scene was eventually cut, with her son apologizing that the film was "too long and something had to go." All was forgiven when he brought her to the Academy Awards and thanked her prominently in his acceptance speech.
  • The script floated around Hollywood for nearly twenty years, during which time Gene Hackman read and rejected it, only to be later convinced by Clint Eastwood (who had owned the rights to the script for some time) to play a role.
  • To maintain the authentic atmosphere, no motor vehicles were allowed on the Big Whiskey set.
  • Only the third western to ever win the Best Picture Oscar. The other two being Dances with Wolves (1990) and Cimarron (1931).
  • The film was shot in 39 days, coming in four days ahead of schedule. The town had to be built very quickly, with a relatively short run-up time (two months) to the start of filming; the construction period was used by the stunt coordinator to work on actors' riding skills and stunt choreography.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Mel Brooks' best and worst rated films, Young Frankenstein (1974) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), respectively. Nate is meh'd to death, Austin can't do his job right, and they both go Wilder. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) and The Rookie (1990), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Gene Wilder about Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks, and his career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezfVc5MGmIU

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Dracula: Dead and Loving It Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Mel Brooks' parody of the classic vampire story and its famous film adaptations.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.8 | RT 11% C / 49% A
• Released: 1995
• Director: Mel Brooks
• Writer(s): Mel Brooks & Rudy De Luca & Steve Haberman (screenplay), Rudy De Luca & Steve Haberman (story), Bram Stoker (characters)
• Cinematographer: Michael D. O'Shea (Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Big Momma's House)
• Notable actors: Leslie Nielsen, Pete MacNicol, Steven Weber, Amy Yasbeck, Lysette Anthony, Harvey Korman, Mel Brooks, Mark Blankfield, Megan Cavanagh, Clive Revill, Chuck McCann, Avery Schreiber
• Budget: $30 million
• Box office: $10.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • For the scene in which Harker puts a stake in Lucy's heart, Mel Brooks did not tell Steven Weber that he would be subsequently covered in two hundred gallons of blood, so that his reaction would appear natural. This led him to ad-lib, "She's dead enough."
  • Much of the dialogue from the original classic Dracula (1931) picture is repeated here and spoofed. This includes the film's star Leslie Nielsen doing a spoof-impersonation of the famed Bela Lugosi.
  • Final theatrical feature film directed by Mel Brooks.
  • When Mel Brooks and the rest of the filmmakers gathered together for the first time to discuss the making of the movie, one of the early questions was should the picture be made in black-and-white, mainly because Brooks' earlier film Young Frankenstein (1974) was made in black and white in order to give the movie the feeling of the old Universal Frankenstein films. This idea was dropped, mainly because, as Steve Haberman said in the audio commentary of the film in DVD, a lot of the great Dracula movies were in color, specifically the Hammer pictures starring Christopher Lee and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
  • The character of the gypsy woman Madame Ouspenskaya, who was portrayed by Mel Brooks' wife actress Anne Bancroft, was named after Maria Ouspenskaya, who played the character of Maleva in both The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).
  • The bat transformations of Dracula were inspired by the cartoonish transformations of Bela Lugosi into a bat in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

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Young Frankenstein Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: An American grandson of the infamous scientist, struggling to prove that he is not as insane as people believe, is invited to Transylvania, where he discovers the process that reanimates a dead body.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.0 | RT 93% C / 92% A
• Released: 1974
• Director: Mel Brooks
• Writer(s): Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks (screen story and screenplay), Mary Shelley (based on characters in the novel “Frankenstein”)
• Cinematographer: Gerald Hirshfeld (Fail-Safe, My Favorite Year, To Be or Not to Be)
• Notable actors: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn, Gene Hackman
• Budget: $2.78 million
• Box office: $86.2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The Blind Man's parting line "I was gonna make espresso" was not in the script, but was ad-libbed by Gene Hackman during shooting. This is the reason for the immediate fade to black as the crew immediately erupted into fits of laughter. Hackman was uncredited when the movie was originally released in theaters. When Mel Brooks was preparing this film, he found that Ken Strickfaden, who had made the elaborate electrical machinery for the lab sequences in the Universal Frankenstein films, was still alive and in the Los Angeles area. Brooks visited Strickfaden and found that he had saved all the equipment and stored it in his garage. Brooks made a deal to rent the equipment for his film and gave Strickfaden the screen credit he'd deserved, but hadn't gotten, for the original films.
  • The shifting hump on Igor's back was an ad-libbed gag of Marty Feldman's. He had surreptitiously been shifting the hump back and forth for several days when cast members finally noticed. It was then added to the script.
  • Mel Brooks usually appeared in his own films but Gene Wilder insisted that Brooks should not appear in the film. He felt that Brooks' appearance would ruin the illusion and would only make the film if Brooks promised not to appear in it. Brooks didn't mind in the least, but did however make off-camera appearances as the howling wolf, Frederick's grandfather and the shrieking cat.
  • Mel Brooks initially thought that the "Walk this way" gag was too corny and wanted it cut from the film. But, when he saw the audience's reaction to it one night at a screening, he decided to leave it in.
  • Supposedly the scene which required the most takes to be filmed was the one in which Igor bites Elizabeth's animal wrap. The reason was because each time he did it he was left with a piece of fur in his mouth which caused the other actors to laugh hysterically.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare John Boorman's best and worst rated films, Deliverance (1972) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), respectively. Nate finally rates a film 1/10, Austin is possessed by Pazuzu, and they both squeal like a pig. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with the cast of Deliverance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnqGa3ffq4I

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Exorcist II: The Heretic Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A teenage girl once possessed by a demon finds that it still lurks within her. Meanwhile, a priest investigates the death of the girl's exorcist.

• Ratings: IMDb 3.7 | RT 20% C / 13% A
• Released: 1977
• Director: John Boorman
• Writer(s): William Goodhart (written by), John Boorman and Rospo Pallenberg (uncredited)
• Cinematographer: William A. Fraker (Rosemary's Baby, Tombstone)
• Notable actors: Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, Kitty Winn, Paul Henreid, James Earl Jones, Ned Beatty
• Budget: $14 million
• Box office: $30.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • William Friedkin, director of the first film, told a story, recalled to by a Warner Bros. executive, at the Chicago Critics Film Festival in April 2013. Studio heads came to the sneak preview of "Exorcist II" in a limo, and told the drivers to go get fast food. They entered the auditorium, and within 10 minutes into the film, an audience member stood up, glanced into the crowd, and proclaimed: "The people who made this piece of shit are in this room!" 10 or 12 other audience members gathered to find the executives. The heads rushed out of the theater and realized that there were no cars to make their escape. They were subsequently chased down the street by a group of angry audience members.
  • The original cast and crew of The Exorcist (1973) were very much opposed to a sequel. William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty actually met to discuss ideas at one point, but when they failed to develop a suitable premise, they abandoned the project. Both Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn turned down repeated offers by the studio, though Blair eventually agreed to return when presented with what she considered a good script. However, according to Blair, due to various rewrites the script ended up a total mess. By that point, however, she was contractually bound to a sequel, and unable to drop out of the project.
  • The original, opening night version of this film was so poorly received that the audience at a theater on Hollywood Blvd. actually threw things at the screen to express their disgust when it was over.
  • Stanley Kubrick turned down the offer to direct. When John Boorman accepted, Kubrick warned him that the only way a sequel to "The Exorcist" would succeed is if it were to be more graphic and horrific than the original.
  • Linda Blair has said that Richard Burton started out sober, but frequently became drunk during the middle and end of filming. She also says that tensions were high among the cast.

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Deliverance Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.7 | RT 93% C / 82% A
• Released: 1972
• Director: John Boorman
• Writer(s): James Dickey (screenplay), James Dickey (novel), John Boorman (additional dialogue)
• Cinematographer: Vilmos Zsigmond (The Deer Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
• Notable actors: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Billy Redden, Bill McKinney, Herbert Coward
• Budget: $2 million
• Box office: $46.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • In the year after the film's release, more than 30 people drowned in the Chattooga River while trying to replicate the characters' adventures.
  • To minimize costs, the production wasn't insured, and the actors did their own stunts. Jon Voight actually climbed the cliff.
  • The rape scene was filmed in one take, largely because Ned Beatty didn't want to film it repeatedly.
  • To save costs and add to the realism, local residents were cast in the roles of the hill people.
  • According to director John Boorman, the gas station attendant's jig during "Dueling Banjos" was unscripted and spontaneous.
  • Burt Reynolds broke his coccyx while going down the rapids when the canoe capsized. Originally, a cloth dummy was used, but it looked too much like a dummy going over a waterfall. While Reynolds recovered, he asked, "How did it look?" Boorman replied, "Like a dummy going over a waterfall."
  • Much of the film had to have its color desaturated because the river looked too pretty.
  • "Dueling Banjos" was the first scene shot. The rest of the movie was almost entirely shot in sequence.
  • The rape scene as originally scripted consisted mainly of swearing. The "squeal like a pig" phrase was an attempt to "clean up" the scene for TV viewing. John Boorman liked the "cleaner" version, and used it in the film.
  • Much of the dialogue is taken almost verbatim from the source novel.
  • Burt Reynolds breakthrough role, transforming him from an actor to a film superstar.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3

In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Sidney Lumet's best and worst rated films, 12 Angry Men (1957) and Gloria (1999), respectively. Nate has beef with Sharon Stone, Austin leaves the country, and Kyle keeps getting interrupting by a barking dog. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare John Boorman's Deliverance (1972) and The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Francis Ford Coppola about The Godfather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrMXC_X2HU8

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Gloria Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A street-wise, middle-aged moll named Gloria stands up against the mobs, which is complicated by a six-year-old urchin with a will of his own who she reluctantly takes under her wing after his family has been gunned down.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.1 | RT 17% C / 30% A
• Released: 1999
• Director: Sidney Lumet
• Writer(s): John Cassevetes (1980 screenplay), Steve Antin (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: David Watkin (Out of Africa, Chariots of Fire, Moonstruck)
• Notable actors: Sharon Stone, Jean-Luke Figueroa, Jeremy Northam, Cathy Moriarty, George C. Scott, Mike Starr, Bonnie Bedelia, Barry McEvoy, Bobby Cannavale
• Budget: $30 million
• Box office: $4.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • When asked why he decided to direct this film, Sidney Lumet frankly replied that he liked to work all the time, and if he couldn't find a good script he'd take a fair one.
  • This was George C. Scott's final film before his death on September 22, 1999 at the age of 71.

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12 Angry Men Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A jury holdout attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.9 | RT 100% C / 97% A
• Released: 1957
• Director: Sidney Lumet
• Writer(s): Reginald Rose (story), Reginald Rose (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Boris Kaufman (On the Waterfront, Splendor in the Grass)
• Notable actors: Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Henry Fonda, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, Robert Webber
• Budget: $340 thousand (equivalent to $2.9 million in 2016)
• Box office: $1 million (rentals)

• Fun Facts:
  • At the beginning of the film, the cameras are all positioned above eye level and mounted with wide-angle lenses to give the appearance of greater distance between the subjects. As the film progresses the cameras slip down to eye level. By the end of the film, nearly all of it is shot below eye level, in close-up and with telephoto lenses to increase the encroaching sense of claustrophobia.
  • Sidney Lumet had the actors all stay in the same room for hours on end and do their lines over and over without filming them. This was to give them a real taste of what it would be like to be cooped up in a room with the same people.
  • Because the film failed to make a profit, Henry Fonda never received his deferred salary. Despite this setback, he always regarded this film as one of the three best he ever made, the other two being The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).
  • Henry Fonda disliked watching himself on film, so he did not watch the whole film in the screening room. However, before he walked out he said quietly to director Sidney Lumet, "Sidney, it's magnificent."
  • The ethnic background of the teenaged suspect was deliberately left unstated. For the purposes of the film, the important facts were that he was not of Northern European ancestry, and that prejudice (or lack of it) from some jurors would be a major part of the deliberation process.
  • Henry Fonda immediately complained to Sidney Lumet about the cheap backdrops outside the jury room windows when he walked on set. "They look like shit. Hitch had great backdrops, you could walk right in them," said Fonda, referring to the previous film he made with Alfred Hitchcock, The Wrong Man (1956). Lumet assured him that director of photography Boris Kaufman had a plan to make them work.
  • The movie is commonly used in business schools and workshops to illustrate team dynamics and conflict resolution techniques.
  • With the death of Jack Klugman (Juror #5) on December 24, 2012, none of the 12 stars are still alive.
  • Shot in a total of 365 separate takes.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 We got ourselves a second interview with actor Jim Meskimen (@jimrossmeskimen), who appeared in There Will Be Blood and Magnolia as well as almost 200 other live action and voice acting roles over his career. He talks about working with director Ron Howard, his life in show business, and the stress of auditions. Enjoy!

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Francis Ford Coppola's best and worst rated films, The Godfather (1972) and Tonight for Sure (1962), respectively. Nate experiences one of the worst films he's ever seen, Austin isn't a fan of Part III, and Jairo takes on another Coppola. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Sydney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) and Gloria (1999), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Francis Ford Coppola about The Godfather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGXBR5e6Bpw

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Tonight for Sure Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: On the Las Vegas strip, two unlikely men rendezvous: Samuel Hill, an ill-kempt desert miner, and Benjamin Jabowski, a John Birch Society dandy from the city.

• Ratings: IMDb 3.2 | RT N/A C / N/A A
• Released: 1962
• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Writer(s): Jerry Shaffer and Francis Ford Coppola (written by)
• Cinematographer: Jack Hill
• Notable actors: Karl Schanzer, Don Kenney, Marli Renfro
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • Director Francis Ford Coppola shot the film in a motel room in two days and slept in the same room after filming was done for each day.
  • Cast member Marli Renfro had earlier appeared as Janet Leigh's nude body double in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

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The Godfather Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

• Ratings: IMDb 9.2 | RT 99% C / 98% A
• Released: 1972
• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Writer(s): Mario Puza and Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay), Mario Puzo (novel)
• Cinematographer: Gordon Willis (Annie Hall, All the President's Men)
• Notable actors: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard S. Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, Al Lettieri, Diane Keaton, Abe Vigoda, Talia Shire, Gianni Russo, John Cazale
• Budget: $7 million
• Box office: $245.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Lenny Montana (Luca Brasi) was so nervous about working with Marlon Brando that in the first take of their scene together, he flubbed some lines. Director Francis Ford Coppola liked the genuine nervousness and used it in the final cut. The scenes of Luca practicing his speech were added later.
  • During an early shot of the scene where Vito Corleone returns home and his people carry him up the stairs, Marlon Brando put weights under his body on the bed as a prank, to make it harder to lift him.
  • Animal rights activists protested the horse's head scene. Francis Ford Coppola told Variety, "There were many people killed in that movie, but everyone worries about the horse. It was the same on the set. When the head arrived, it upset many crew members who are animal lovers, who like little doggies. What they don't know is that we got the head from a pet food manufacturer who slaughters two hundred horses a day just to feed those little doggies."
  • Marlon Brando wanted to make Don Corleone "look like a bulldog," so he stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool for the audition. For the actual filming, he wore a mouthpiece made by a dentist. This appliance is on display in the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York.
  • James Caan improvised the part where he throws the FBI photographer to the ground. The extra's frightened reaction is genuine. Caan also came up with the idea of throwing money at the man to make up for breaking his camera. As he put it, "Where I came from, you broke something, you replaced it or repaid the owner."
  • The scenes in which Enzo comes to visit Vito Corleone in the hospital were shot in reverse, with the outside scene shot first. Gabriele Torrei, the actor who plays Enzo, had never acted in front of a camera before and his nervous shaking, after the car drives away, was real.
  • There was intense friction between Francis Ford Coppola and Paramount, in which [Paramount] frequently tried to have Coppola replaced, citing his inability to stay on schedule, unnecessary expenses, and production and casting errors (Coppola actually completed the film ahead of schedule and budget).
  • Marlon Brando did not memorize most of his lines and read from cue cards during most of the film.
  • The cat held by Marlon Brando in the opening scene was a stray the actor found while on the lot at Paramount, and was not originally called for in the script. So content was the cat that its purring muffled some of Brando's dialogue, and, as a result, most of his lines had to be looped.
  • The smack that Vito gives Johnny Fontane was not in the script. Marlon Brando improvised the smack and Al Martino's confused reaction was real. According to James Caan, "Martino didn't know whether to laugh or cry."
  • According to Al Pacino, the tears in Marlon Brando's eyes were real, in the hospital scene when Michael pledges himself to his father.
  • The scene where Sonny beats up Carlo (Connie's husband) took four days to shoot and featured more than 700 extras. The use of the garbage can lid was improvised by James Caan.
  • Cinematographer Gordon Willis earned himself the nickname '"The Prince of Darkness," since his sets were so underlit. Paramount executives initially thought that the footage was too dark, until persuaded otherwise by Willis and Francis Ford Coppola that it was to emphasize the shadiness of the Corleone family's dealings.
  • According to Richard S. Castellano, he defended Gordon Willis during a disagreement Willis was having with Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola got revenge on Castellano by making him do twenty takes of the shots of Clemenza walking up four flight of stairs.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Terry Gilliam's best and worst rated films, Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Brothers Grimm (2005), respectively. Nate doesn't hate the worst movie for once, Austin forgets our segment, and they both sound exhausted. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST for our 60th milestone episode where we will compare Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and Tonight for Sure (1962), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Terry Gilliam about Twelve Monkeys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzmrh43NJM

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The Brothers Grimm Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Will and Jake Grimm are traveling con-artists who encounter a genuine fairy-tale curse which requires true courage instead of their usual bogus exorcisms.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.9 | RT 38% C / 39% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: Terry Gilliam
• Writer(s): Ehren Kruger
• Cinematographer: Newton Thomas Sigel (Drive, Three Kings, The Usual Suspects)
• Notable actors: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Mackenzie Crook, Richard Ridings, Peter Stomare, Jonathan Pryce, Lena Headey, Monica Bellucci
• Budget: $88 million
• Box office: $105.3 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Matt Damon and Heath Ledger were originally cast in opposite roles. They petitioned and switched their roles.
  • Because of problems with the Writers Guild of America, Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni were not able to credit themselves as writers of the screenplay, despite the many changes they made to Ehren Kruger's original script. They invented a credit for themselves as "Dress Pattern Makers" and were quoted as saying that the film was made from a "dress pattern," not necessarily made a "screenplay."
  • Robin Williams turned down the part of Woodsman, eventually played by Tomás Hanák.

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Twelve Monkeys Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.0 | RT 88% C / 88% A
• Released: 1995
• Director: Terry Gilliam
• Writer(s): Chris Marker (film La Jetee), David Webb Peoples & Janet Peoples (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Roger Pratt (Troy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
• Notable actors: Bruce Willis, Jon Seda, Vernon Campbell, Bob Adrian, Simon Jones, Bill Raymond, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, Frederick Strother, Frank Gorshin, David Morse, Christopher Plummer
• Budget: $29.5 million
• Box office: $168.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Bruce Willis took a lower salary than his star-status would normally entitle, partly because of budget restrictions, but mostly because he wanted to work with Terry Gilliam. Actually Bruce did the movie for free. It was only after the movie was released that he was paid.
  • Terry Gilliam was afraid that Brad Pitt wouldn't be able to pull off the nervous, rapid speech. He sent him to a speech coach but in the end he just took away Pitt's cigarettes, and Pitt played the part exactly as Gilliam wanted.
  • Terry Gilliam gave Bruce Willis a list of "Willis acting clichés" not to be used during the film, including the "steely blue eyes look".
  • When Cole is drawing blood from himself, the shadow of a hamster in a hamster wheel can be seen on the wall. This scene would normally be shot in 5 minutes, but took a whole day because the hamster would not move, and Terry Gilliam is such a perfectionist, that he insisted that even this detail should work as intended. For the rest of the production, Gilliam's perfectionism was nicknamed "The Hamster Factor".
  • Director Terry Gilliam first met Bruce Willis while casting his film The Fisher King (1991). He was impressed by the sensitivity shown by Willis in the scene from Die Hard (1988) where McClane (Willis) talks about his wife while pulling glass from his feet. Talking to Willis, Gilliam discovered that this part was ad-libbed by Willis. Gilliam remembered this, and was convinced to cast him in this film.
  • A tagline originally suggested for this film was; "The future is in the hands of a man who has none." This was considered to be a confusing tagline, as it made it sound as though he had no hands, as opposed to having no future.
  • Terry Gilliam's first choice for the lead role was Jeff Bridges, whom he had enjoyed working with on The Fisher King (1991), but the studio wanted a bigger star, so he cast Bruce Willis. Ironically, Willis had originally auditioned for "The Fisher King", but lost out to Bridges.
  • Most of the actors took a pay cut just so they could get the chance to work with Terry Gilliam.
  • Brad Pitt was signed to this movie for a relatively small salary, when he was still an "up and coming" actor. By the time of the movie's release, however, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Legends of the Fall (1994), and Se7en (1995) had been released, making Pitt a top-salary actor.
  • Brad Pitt received his first Golden Globe for his performance as Jeffrey Goines.
  • The final cut didn't do too well in the test screenings and so those involved discussed making major changes to the movie, but Terry Gilliam eventually decided to keep it as it was. When released, it went on to make over five times its budget.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Peter Weir's best and worst rated films, The Truman Show (1998) and Green Card (1990), respectively. Nate was completely taken by surprise with every twist and turn of Green Card, Austin hates the French, and they both oggle over Jim Carrey some more. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (1995) and The Brothers Grimm (2005), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out these interviews with the cast of The Truman Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqDPQUAU528

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Green Card Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A man wanting to stay in the US enters into a marriage of convenience, but it turns into more than that.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.2 | RT 56% C / 51% A
• Released: 1990
• Director: Peter Weir
• Writer(s): Peter Weir (written by)
• Cinematographer: Geoffrey Simpson (Shine, The Sessions, Little Women)
• Notable actors: Gerard Depardieu, Andie MacDowell, Bebe Neuwirth, Gregg Edelman, Robert Prosky
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $29.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Star Andie MacDowell was totally surprised when Peter Weir asked her to gain weight. She had always been asked to do the opposite.
  • First American film for and first film shot in the USA of French actor Gérard Depardieu.
  • The picture was Oscar nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Peter Weir but lost out to Bruce Joel Rubin for Ghost (1990). The film remains Weir's only ever Oscar nomination for screen-writing. Of Weir's six nominations [to date, June 2015], four are for directing, and one each for producing and for writing (Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen) the latter being for Green Card (1990).
  • Green Card (1990) was the first cinema movie helmed by director Peter Weir after his critically acclaimed film Dead Poets Society (1989).

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The Truman Show Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: An insurance salesman/adjuster discovers his entire life is actually a television show.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.1 | RT 94% C / 88% A
• Released: 1998
• Director: Peter Weir
• Writer(s): Andrew Niccol (written by)
• Cinematographer: Peter Biziou (Life of Brian, In the Name of the Father)
• Notable actors: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Brian Delate, Peter Krause, Ted Raymond, Judy Clayton, Ed Harris, Paul Giamatti, Harry Shearer, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Glass
• Budget: $60 million
• Box office: $264.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Ed Harris and Jim Carrey never met during filming.
  • In an interview, director Peter Weir stated he wanted to have cameras installed in every theater the film was shown in, having the projectionist at one point cut the power, cut to the viewers, and then cut back to the movie.
  • The Trumania bit, where Truman draws on the mirror with soap and acts strange, was completely improvised by Jim Carrey. In another take, he drew long curly hair and a dress.
  • People on the set were forbidden from uttering phrases from Jim Carrey's past "silly" movies.
  • In an early scene, a bottle of vitamin D is on on Truman and Meryl's kitchen table, needed for those without exposure to the (real) sun.
  • According to a 2008 New York Times article, psychologists in Britain and the U.S. reported a number of people experiencing "Truman Syndrome" or "the Truman Show delusion," the belief that they are the unwitting star of their own reality TV show. Reportedly, many of those afflicted have specifically mentioned the film while in therapy. More recently, on September 16, 2013, the detailed account of one Ohio student who suffered for years from the Truman-Show delusion is documented in the New Yorker magazine article, "Unreality Star," by Andrew Marantz.
  • The film is studied in Media Ethics courses, particularly focusing on the characters of creator Christof, best friend Marlon and the "prostituting" of Truman's wife, Meryl.
  • Jim Carrey was Peter Weir's first choice to play Truman from the outset.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Ron Howard's best and worst rated films, A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Great Expectations (2011), respectively. Nate wakes up a new person and doesn't hate the afternoon killer, Austin hates Jennifer Connelly, and Ramsey wished he was invited onto the Tyler Perry episode, his favorite director. You can find out more about Ramsey's Road Cinema Reviews show on his Facebook here. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998) and Green Card (1990), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with Ron Howard discussing A Beautiful Mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlIHtqJ5z8M

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The Dilemma Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A man discovers that his best friend's wife is having an affair.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.3 | RT 24% C / 29% A
• Released: 2011
• Director: Ron Howard (Rush, Apollo 13)
• Writer(s): Allan Loeb (written by)
• Cinematographer: Salvatore Totino (The Da Vinci Code, Cinderella Man, Frost/Nixon)
• Notable actors: Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Channing Tatum, Queen Latifah, Amy Morton, Chelcie Ross
• Budget: $70 million
• Box office: $69.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The film's trailer caused an almighty fuss because of one line where Vince Vaughn's character says "Electric cars are gay. I mean, not homosexual gay, but my-parents-are-chaperoning-the-dance gay". Universal contacted the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to see how they felt about it; not surprisingly GLAAD were not keen on it. Sure enough, the trailer attracted a lot of criticism for this one line when it was released, even being publicly criticized by Anderson Cooper. Universal were forced to release a new trailer without the offending line. Ron Howard, however, refused to cut the line from the film itself as he felt it was tantamount to censorship.
  • During shooting in the United Center for the "Shoot the Puck" scene, Kevin James actually made it into the net while practicing for the scene. The extras in the United Center erupted with "Chelsea Dagger" to commemorate his accomplishment.

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A Beautiful Mind Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: After John Nash, a brilliant but asocial mathematician, accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.2 | RT 75% C / 93% A
• Released: 2001
• Director: Ron Howard (Rush, Apollo 13)
• Writer(s): Akiva Goldsman (written by), Sylvia Nasar (book)
• Cinematographer: Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men, Sicario)
• Notable actors: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, Jason Gray-Stanford, Judd Hirsch
• Budget: $58 million
• Box office: $313 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The equations seen on the classroom chalk boards are actual equations written by the real life John Nash.
  • John Nash visited the set, and Russell Crowe said later that he had been fascinated by the way he moved his hands, and he had tried to do the same thing in the movie. He thought it would help him get into the character.
  • Nash's mutterings after he loses the board game (along the lines of "the game is flawed," "I had the first move, I should have won") are in reference to "Game Theory," the economic theory that John Nash is probably most famous for.
  • The film was shot in sequence in order to help Russell Crowe develop a consistently progressing manner of behavior.
  • The Riemann Hypothesis mentioned throughout the movie is a real and famous problem in mathematics that has gone unsolved (it has not been proved yet) for nearly 150 years. Many other important theories have been proved on the condition that the Riemann Hypothesis holds, hence its importance. In the year 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts listed the Riemann Hypothesis as one of seven "Millennium Prize Problems" and offered a $1,000,000 reward to the person that proves it.
  • The scene towards the end of the film, where John Nash contemplates drinking tea, is based on a true event when Russell Crowe met the real John Nash. He spent fifteen minutes contemplating whether to drink tea or coffee.
  • To create the "golden" look of the campus scenes early in the film, the filmmakers took a low-contrast stock (Fuji F-400 8582) and exposed it to an orange light before loading it into the camera for shooting.
  • John Nash is shown smoking in the film. In reality, he was a militant anti-smoker.
  • Barnard College professor Dave Bayer served as the math advisor on the film, and also was Russell Crowe's hand double for the scenes where he is writing equations on windows, etc.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Alfonso Cuaron's best and worst rated films, Children of Men (2006) and Great Expectations (1998), respectively. Nate came with low expectations and was still disappointed, Austin decides he he's not a fan of the book either, and they both oggle over Children of Men. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001) and The Dilemma (2011), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this behind the scenes footage of how they shot the car scene in Children of Men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBfsJ7K1VNk

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Great Expectations Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Modernization of Charles Dickens classic story finds the hapless Finn as a painter in New York pursuing his unrequited and haughty childhood love.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.8 | RT 38% C / 78% A
• Released: 1998
• Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Y Tu Mama Tambien)
• Writer(s): Charles Dickens (novel), Mitch Glazer (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity, The Revenant, Birdman)
• Notable actors: Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hank Azaria, Chris Cooper, Anne Bancroft, Robert De Niro
• Budget: $25 million
• Box office: $55 million

• Fun Facts:
  • In his book, "What Just Happened?", producer Art Linson reveals that the narration in the movie was written by David Mamet. It was done for free, on the condition that nobody ever find out he did it.
  • The main character is named "Pip" in Charles Dickens's novel. But it was felt that the name would sound strange in modern times. The character was named "Finn" after Ethan Hawke's dog.
  • Alfonso Cuarón always uses green (he even auditioned green eyed girls for A Little Princess (1995)) as the main color of his movies. He uses red and orange (complimentary and opposite colors) to make some remarks.
  • Ethan Hawke later dissed the film, calling it "a lousy experience". He added that he felt he had been talked into making the movie, something he realized about a month into shooting which was then too late for him to pull out.

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Children of Men Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 92% C / 85% A
• Released: 2006
• Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Y Tu Mama Tambien)
• Writer(s): Alfonso Cuaron & Timothy J. Sexton (screenplay), David Arata (screenplay), Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby (screenplay), P.D. James (novel)
• Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity, The Revenant, Birdman)
• Notable actors: Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julianna Moore, Charlie Hunnam, Danny Huston
• Budget: $76 million
• Box office: $70 million

• Fun Facts:
  • In the movie, the infertility crisis is the result of all women being infertile. In the original novel by P.D. James, it's the result of all men producing no sperm.
  • The street battle where Clive Owen has to take cover in a battered building caused concern for the studio as it took fourteen days to prepare this one shot, with a delay of five hours every time it had to be reshot. It was shot over the course of two days, but only one complete take was actually captured on film. In the middle of one take, some blood spattered on the camera lens. Alfonso Cuarón nearly ruined this take by shouting "Cut!" but his voice was obliterated by the sound of tank and gunfire. Looking at the footage, Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki persuaded Cuarón to leave it in, and that is the shot that appears in the final film.
  • Sir Michael Caine based his performance on John Lennon.
  • When Miriam is taken off the bus in the refugee camp you can hear the song "Arbeit Macht Frei" by The Libertines. "Arbeit macht frei," meaning "Work shall set you free," was written above the entrances of all Nazi death/concentration camps of World War II (with the exception of Buchenwald, where the entrance read "Jedem das Seine", engl.: "to each his own").
  • Theo never gets to smoke an entire cigarette.
  • Almost every shot contains an animal, usually a dog.
  • Clive Owen's character, Theo, does not use or even touch a gun at any point throughout the entire movie.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 Today we interviewed acclaimed filmmaker, photographer, professor, and author about his current projects and his experiences out in the Arctic. Find out more information about Harun and his films at skyglowproject.com.

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare James Wan's best and worst rated films, Saw (2004) and Dead Silence (2007), respectively. Nate thought Dead Silence needed more CGI tongues, Austin talks about his time marathoning the Saw franchise, and Spencer and Matthew are both terrified of dolls. Check back Sunday, March 26 at 7pm PST where we will compare Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men (2006) and Great Expectations (1998), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview of James Wan and Leigh Whannell on making Saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5m-SvhbYoQ

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Dead Silence Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A young widower returns to his hometown to search for answers to his wife's murder, which may be linked to the ghost of a murdered ventriloquist.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.2 | RT 21% C / 51% A
• Released: 2007
• Director: James Wan
• Writer(s): Leigh Whannell (screenplay), James Wan & Leigh Whannell (story)
• Cinematographer: John R. Leonetti (The Conjuring, The Mask, Insidious)
• Notable actors: Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg, Michael Fairman, Joan Heney, Bob Gunton, Laura Regan
• Budget: $20 million
• Box office: $22 million

• Fun Facts:
  • During the climax, in the storage area with all 101 dolls, you can see Jigsaw's doll from the "Saw" films sitting on the floor, and Edgar Bergen's doll Charlie McCarthy on one of the shelves. The doll that Detective Lipton throws over his shoulder in this scene is a replica of ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson's doll, Danny O'Day.
  • There are two different versions of the "Mary Shaw" poem. In the movie the poem goes, "Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children only dolls. And if you see her in your dreams, be sure you never, ever scream." On the trailer it was, "Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children, only dolls. And if you see her do not scream, she'll rip your tongue out at the seam."
  • "Billy" was not only the name of one of the dummies in this movie, but also the name of the puppet used by the Jigsaw killer in the "Saw" movies, also created by Leigh Whannell and James Wan.
  • The film was made into a haunted house at Universal's "Halloween Horror Nights" in 2007 in Florida.
  • The film is dedicated to producer Gregg Hoffman. He died 2 years before the film had its theatrical release.
  • Leigh Whannell was so unhappy with the finished product, due to studio interference, that he decided to write all future scripts on spec, as opposed to pitching an idea to a studio and then being paid to write the screenplay, as was the case with this film.

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Saw Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there or why, and soon discover they are pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.7 | RT 48% C / 84% A
• Released: 2004
• Director: James Wan
• Writer(s): Leigh Whannell (written by), James Wan and Leigh Whannell (story)
• Cinematographer: David A. Armstrong (Pawn, On the Inside)
• Notable actors: Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer, Paul Gutrecht, Michael Emerson, Benito Martinez, Shawnee Smith, Makenzie Vega, Monica Potter
• Budget: $1.2 million
• Box office: $103.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • According to the DVD commentary director James Wan points out that many of the scare scenes in the film were nightmares he and Leigh Whannell had as kids.
  • All of the bathroom scenes were shot in chronological order in order to make the actors feel more what the characters were going through.
  • One of the most profitable horror films of all time.
  • Filmed in 18 days.
  • Director James Wan took a gamble and took no "up front" salary for the movie and opted for a percentage instead.
  • James Wan did not intend to make a torture porn film. It's not really until the sequels got into gear that the films got what he describes as "more explicitly nasty".
  • The sequel Saw II (2005) was approved for production the weekend this film opened.
  • Casting director Amy Lippens chose her ex-husband in the role of Mark, the man who burns himself alive.
  • Film's pre-production was only five days; it was shot and cut at the same time in 18 days (all of the bathroom scenes were shot in six days). The actors had absolutely no rehearsals. The rehearsal takes were actual footage for the film.
  • James Wan wanted the camera movements to reflect the two main characters emotions and personality. He filmed Dr. Gordon with steady controlled shots and Adam as hand-held shots to capture their emotions of the situation.
  • Jigsaw's puppet was completely made from scratch by the films creators (it was not bought at a store or a puppet that was altered).
  • The MPAA originally rated the film NC-17, due to the film's tone; director James Wan had to remove some content to secure an R rating.
  • In post-production, James Wan discovered that he didn't have enough shots or takes to fill out most of his scenes. So he and editor Kevin Greutert created their own filler shots by doctoring some of them to make them look as if they were filmed through a surveillance camera.
  • Originally intended for a straight-to-video release. After positive screenings, it was given the nod to become a premier movie.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Bong Joon-Ho's best and worst rated films, Memories of Murder (2003) and Snowpiercer (2013), respectively. Nate wanted to find out who the damn killer was, Austin wants Eric to soar, and Eric has to change his rating on Snowpiercer. Check back Sunday, March 26 at 7pm PST where we will compare James Wan's Saw (2004) and Dead Silence (2007), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview of Bong Joon-ho about his film Snowpiercer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsWhqpKBwG0

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Snowpiercer Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.0 | RT 95% C / 72% A
• Released: 2013
• Director: Bong Joon-ho
• Writer(s): Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterston (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Kyung-pyo Hong (Mother, The Wailing)
• Notable actors: Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Ah-sung Ko, Alison Pill, Luke Pasqualino
• Budget: $40 million
• Box office: $86.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • There was no other light than the torch itself while the torchlight scene was filmed.
  • Joon-ho Bong had reservations about casting Chris Evans in the lead role because of his muscular physique. He felt that as a resident of the extremely poverty-stricken tail section, Curtis should not be especially physically fit. Costuming and careful camera angles kept Evans' physique from showing.
  • Chris Evans thought the scene where he slips on a fish was ridiculous. Joon-ho Bong had to persuade him that it is one of his twists.
  • Director Joon-ho Bong explained that the 'protein block' from the movie was really made by combining seaweed, tangle, sugar and gelatin. Jamie Bell hated it, while Tilda Swinton liked it.
  • The drawings in the tail section of Snowpiercer were illustrated by Jean-Marc Rochette, the original comic artist of the graphic novel Le Transperceneige.
  • According to the filmmakers, train-babies like Yona developed animalistic hearing skills.
  • Joon-ho Bong first wrote the part of Mason with John C. Reilly in mind, but then adapted the character for Tilda Swinton, though he intentionally left lines of Mason being referred to in the masculine-form in the script, which show up in the movie.

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Memories of Murder Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: In a small Korean province in 1986, three detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.0 | RT 89% C / 93% A
• Released: 2003
• Director: Bong Joon-ho
• Writer(s): Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterston (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Hyung-ku Kim (The Host, The Warrior, Together with You)
• Notable actors: Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim, Jae-ho Song
• Budget: $2.8 million
• Box office: $86.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Beginning in June 2000, it took Joon-ho Bong a year to write the script for Memories of Murder (2003), yet he has stated that: "For the first six months, I didn't write a line of the script. I just did research."
  • Joon-ho Bong has stated that the script for Memories of Murder (2003) was directly influenced by Alan Moore's comic book From Hell, and that he was also "a bit disappointed with the Hughes brothers' film of it."
  • When Kwang-Ho was investigated in the basement of the police station, the two police officers and a suspect watched a TV program while eating their meals. The title of this program is "Soo Sa Ban Jang" which can be loosely interpreted as "Investigation Squad" in English. It was a famous TV detective drama which was aired for almost twenty years. The opening music was also very popular during that time.
  • Despite the film being based on a series of real murders in the Korean provincial town of Hwaeseong during the 1980s, Joon-ho Bong also drew a lot inspiration from a play called 'Come See Me' which dramatized the incidents, to the extent that he stated in an interview: "If it weren't for KIM Gwang-rim's play [Come See Me], I would have had a lot of problems establishing the structure." While he also gained the idea for the depiction of the era from the graphic novel 'From Hell' by the writer Alan Moore, which was given to Bong by the journalist Tony Rayns as a gift.
  • Director Quentin Tarantino named it, along with Bong's The Host (2006), as one of his Top 20 favorite movies since 1992.
  • In order to make his character Detective Seo look properly worn-out by the stress of the case, actor Kim Sang-kyung deliberately limited his food intake and slept fewer hours.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare John Huston's best and worst rated films, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Phobia (1980), respectively. Nate thought Phobia was fulling of surprising and exhilarating twists, Austin can't seem to get anything right, and Peter Lorre and Omar Sharif are the same person. Check back Sunday, March 26 at 7pm PST where we will compare Bong Joon-ho's Memories of a Murder (2003) and Snowpiercer (2013), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out a recording of John Huston's 1949 Best Director Oscar win for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsTbRRIxSxs

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Phobia Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A psychiatrist involved in a radical new therapy comes under suspicion when his patients are murdered, each according to their individual phobias.

• Ratings: IMDb 3.7 | RT N/A C / 20% A
• Released: 1980
• Director: John Huston
• Writer(s): Gary Sherman & Ronald Shusett (story), Lew Lehman, Jimmy Sangster, Peter Bellwood
• Cinematographer: Reginald H. Morris (A Christmas Story, Porky's, Black Christmas)
• Notable actors: Paul Michael Glaser, Susan Hogan, John Colicos, David Bolt, Patricia Collins, David Eisner, Lisa Langlois, Kenneth Welsh
• Budget: $5.1 million
• Box office: $59 thousand

• Fun Facts:
  • Gladys Hill, for years John Huston personal assistant and co-writer, contributed greatly to the preparation of the final shooting script for Phobia uncredited. She was given a credit as assistant to Mr. Huston.
  • Melvyn Hill (no relation to Gladys) was also a major contributor to the development of the script. Professor Hill, a psychologist whose knowledge about the criminally insane as well as his credible creative writing skills also advised Mr. Huston with the preparation of the script, uncredited.

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.3 | RT 100% C / 93% A
• Released: 1948
• Director: John Huston
• Writer(s): John Huston (screenplay), B. Traven (based on a novel by)
• Cinematographer: Ted D. McCord (The Sound of Music, East of Eden)
• Notable actors: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane, Alfonso Bedoya
• Budget: $3 million
• Box office: $4.3 million

• Fun Facts:
  • John Huston was fascinated by mysterious author B. Traven, who was a recluse living in Mexico. Traven approved of the director and his screenplay (by letter, obviously), and sent his intimate friend Hal Croves to the location to be a technical advisor and translator for $150 a week. The general consensus is that Croves was in fact Traven, though he always denied this. Huston was happy not to query him on the subject but his then-wife Evelyn Keyes was certain Croves was the mysterious author, believing that he was continually giving himself away, saying "I" when it should have been "he", and using phrases that were exactly the same as those to be found in Traven's letters to Huston. All very ironic, especially considering that Traven was offered $1000 a week to act as technical advisor on the film. It is known that "B. Traven" was a pen name, and Traven's true identity remains a mystery to this day.
  • On seeing the depth of Walter Huston's performance, Humphrey Bogart famously said. "One Huston is bad enough, but two are murder."
  • One of the first American films to be made almost entirely on location outside the USA.
  • Humphrey Bogart started losing his hair in 1947, round about the time he was making Dark Passage (1947), partly because of hormone shots he was taking to improve his chances of having a child with wife Lauren Bacall (although his excessive drinking and lack of vitamin B were probably also factors in his hair loss). He was completely bald by the time he arrived in Mexico. Once on location, Bogart started taking vitamin B shots, and some of his hair grew back. But he did sport a wig throughout the entire shoot, albeit one that was artfully muddied and matted to cover up the joins.
  • John Huston played one of his infamous practical jokes on Bruce Bennett in the campfire scene in which he eats a plate of stew. Bennett knew that his character was starving so he wolfed down the food as quickly as possible. Huston then demanded another take. And another. In both extra takes the rapidly filling-up Bennett again had to eat a large plate of stew. Unbeknownst to him, Huston had been happy with the first take. The cameras weren't even rolling for the second and the third. He just wanted to see how much food Bennett could lower before he became too stuffed. As soon as the joke was revealed, Huston added insult to injury by calling for a lunch break.
  • A doctor was assigned to the unit in Mexico and one night he had to attend to John Huston, who had an adverse reaction to marijuana, having smoked it for the first time with his father. He never touched the stuff again.
  • To lend authenticity to his role, Walter Huston was persuaded by his son John to perform without his false teeth.
  • John Huston stated that working with his father on this picture and his dad's subsequent Oscar win were among the favorite moments of his life.
  • In his Oscar acceptance speech, Walter Huston said, "Many, many years ago, I brought up a boy and I said to him, 'Son, if you ever become a writer, try to write a good part for your old man sometime'. Well, by cracky, that's what he did!"
  • There were scenes in which Walter Huston had to speak fluent Spanish, a language he did not know off camera. To fill this need, John Huston hired a Mexican to record the lines, and then the elder Huston memorized them so well that many assumed he knew the language like a native.
  • Initially thrilled at Walter Huston's scene-stealing performance, as the shoot wore on producer Henry Blanke started to have second thoughts about Huston upstaging the film's star, Humphrey Bogart, and so John Huston started to get notes from the studio telling him to tone down his father's performance.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare James Mangold's best and worst rated films, Walk the Line (2005) and Knight and Day (2010), respectively. Nate hates afternoon killers, Austin essentially financed Knight and Day, and they both continue their love affair with Joaquin Phoenix. Check back Sunday, March 26 at 7pm PST where we will compare John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Phobia (1980), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director James Mangold discussing Knight and Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74eO7-fBrw

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Knight and Day Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A young woman gets mixed up with a disgraced spy who is trying to clear his name.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.3 | RT 52% C / 49% A
• Released: 2010
• Director: James Mangold
• Writer(s): Patrick O'Neill (written by)
• Cinematographer: Phedon Papamichael (The Pursuit of Happyness, 3:10 to Yuma)
• Notable actors: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jordi Molla, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Falk Hentschel, Marc Blucas, Lennie Loftin, Maggie Grace, Rich Manley, Dale Dye, Celia Weston, Gal Gadot
• Budget: $117 million
• Box office: $261.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz did a majority of the stunts on their own. Cruise and Diaz are avid drivers, and have experience in doing sharp turns and 180s.
  • Tom Cruise wanted to do another spy thriller, but he thought Salt (2010) and The Tourist (2010) were too similar to his Mission: Impossible (1996) franchise. He ultimately chose this project once it became an espionage thriller with comic elements.
  • With the exception of Roy Miller falling off during the rooftop chase in Austria, Tom Cruise did most of the running and jumping without any wire works.
  • Chris Tucker, Adam Sandler, and Gerard Butler were all considered for the lead role before Tom Cruise signed on.
  • All the car crashes were recorded on studio lots and digitally imposed in the film.
  • Over twelve writers worked on the film but the Writers Guild of America ruled that only one of them, Patrick O'Neill, should be credited. Some of the other uncredited writers were Scott Frank, Laeta Kalogridis, Ted Griffin, Dana Fox, and Simon Kinberg.
  • Eva Mendes was cast as the female lead when Chris Tucker was attached to the project.

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Walk the Line Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 82% C / 90% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: James Mangold
• Writer(s): Johnny Cash (book), Gill Dennis & James Mangold (written by), Patrick Carr (book)
• Cinematographer: Phedon Papamichael (The Pursuit of Happyness, 3:10 to Yuma)
• Notable actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin,, Dallas Roberts, Dan John Miller, Larry Bagby, Shelby Lynne, Tyler Hilton, Waylon Payne, Shooter Jennings, Sandra Ellis Lafferty
• Budget: $28 million
• Box office: $186.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • When Cash wakes up on the tour bus, just after the Folsom Prison performance, he walks past guitarist Luther Perkins, who is passed-out with a lit cigarette in his mouth, and puts the cigarette out. Perkins died a few months after the 'At Folsom Prison' recording/performance. He fell asleep in his Tennessee home with a lit cigarette in his mouth, and died from injuries sustained in the resulting fire.
  • During one scene Johnny Cash is high and performing "I Got Stripes", he walks right up to June Carter and glares at her for an uncomfortably long period of time on stage. According to the director, James Mangold, this was unscripted and improvised by the actors. Mangold said that he simply told Joaquin Phoenix to do what he would do in real life if he were angry at his girlfriend and then had to perform on stage with her. Much to Phoenix's surprise, this backfired and Reese Witherspoon responded to his actions by simply rolling her eyes, and continuing to perform the song. Phoenix later said that her reaction threw him off because his goal had been to make her as uncomfortable as possible on stage.
  • Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon performed all of the songs themselves, without being dubbed. They also learned to play their instruments (guitar and auto-harp, respectively) from scratch.
  • The film was screened for the inmates of Folsom Prison, 38 years after Johnny Cash's landmark performance.
  • The director said that Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon developed a very codependent relationship during filming. According to him, after the filming wrapped, Phoenix admitted to him that he and Witherspoon had relied on each other so much that they made a secret pact. The deal was that if one of them left or dropped out, the other would leave as well.
  • The scene in which Johnny Cash pulls the sink off the wall was not scripted; Joaquin Phoenix actually pulled it off the wall.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Jean-Pierre Jeunet's best and worst rated films, Amélie (2001) and Alien: Resurrection (1997), respectively. Nate spoils the entire Alien franchise, Austin got too hyped over  Amélie, and they both just wanted Alien: Resurrection to not exist. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare James Mangold's Walk the Line (2005) and Knight and Day (2010), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet discussing Amélie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ukTd3BIDoU

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Alien: Resurrection Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Two centuries after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone who must continue her war against the aliens.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.3 | RT 54% C / 40% A
• Released: 1997
• Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
• Writer(s): Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett (characters), Joss Whedon (written by)
• Cinematographer: Darius Khondji (Se7en, Midnight in Paris)
• Notable actors: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Dominique Pinon, Ron Perlman, Gary Dourdan, Michael Wincott, Kim Flowers, Dan Hedaya, J.E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, Raymond Cruz, Leland Orser
• Budget: $60-75 million
• Box office: $160.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Sigourney Weaver made the behind-the-back half-court basketball shot successfully after 3 weeks of basketball practice, tutored by a basketball coach. Her conversion rate during this time was 1 of overt 6 shots. When the day came to shoot the scene, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to have the ball dropped in from above, rather than wait for Weaver to sink the shot herself, which "would probably take about 200 takes." Weaver insisted she could get the shot in herself, and was allowed to do. Though it is commonly said that she sunk the basket on her first attempt, it actually took her endless takes to complete the stunt. Jean-Pierre Juenet gave her one last try to sink the basket before they would give up and use CGI or a second ball. The very next take, Sigourney Weaver successfully managed the trick. Ron Perlman was completely stunned (and thoroughly impressed), and turned directly at the camera and broke character, saying; "Oh my God!" The editors looked at the shot, and decided there was "enough room to get the scissors in." Weaver was excited about making the shot, but Jeunet was concerned audiences would believe the shot to be faked due to the ball leaving the frame. Upon Weaver's insistence, he kept the shot as it was. Weaver described the miracle shot as "one of the best moments in her life", after her wedding day, and the birth of her daughter.
  • Actor Ron Perlman nearly drowned while filming the underwater sequence. At one point, when trying to surface, he hit his head on a sprinkler in the ceiling, knocking him out cold. He was rescued by nearby film crew members.
  • When pre-production was underway, the original 'Alien Queen' could not be located and the molds that were used to build the original were damaged beyond usefulness. Fortunately, the original life-size puppet was located... in the personal collection of an avid Alien (1979) fan.
  • The opening shot of Ripley cloned, albeit as a young girl, was based on photographs which Sigourney Weaver had given the special effects crew of herself as a child.
  • Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to have a scene where a mosquito stings Ripley, then vanishes into smoke because of her acid blood. Eventually, he dropped the idea after the SFX team told him how much it would cost.
  • Sigourney Weaver signed on to the film largely because of one scene in particular - when Ripley 8 encounters her previous 7 aborted genetic incarnations.

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Amélie Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Amélie is an innocent and naive girl in Paris with her own sense of justice. She decides to help those around her and, along the way, discovers love.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.4 | RT 89% C / 95% A
• Released: 2001
• Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
• Writer(s): Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (scenario), Guillaume Laurant (dialogue)
• Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dark Shadows)
• Notable actors: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Jamel Debbouze, Dominique Pinon, Yolande Moreau, Maurice Benichou, Michel Robin
• Budget: $10 million
• Box office: $173.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Whenever this film was shot on location, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the crew would clean the area of debris, grime, trash and graffiti, so that the film would match his fantasy more so. This was an especially difficult task when it came time to shoot at the huge train station.
  • The main colors in the film (green, yellow and red) are inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado.
  • The traveling gnome was inspired by a rash of similar pranks played in England and France in the 1990s. In 1997, a French court convicted the leader of Front de Libération des Nains de Jardins (Garden Gnome Liberation Front) of stealing over 150 gnomes. The idea was later used in an advertising campaign for an Internet travel agency.
  • It was in 1974 that Jean-Pierre Jeunet began collecting the memories and events that make up the story of Amélie.
  • Jean-Pierre Jeunet originally wanted Michael Nyman to score the film, but was unable to get him. Someone then gave Jeunet a CD by Yann Tiersen, who composes in a similar minimalist style, but with an extremely quirky, eclectic mix of instruments. Jeunet fell in love with the music and scored the film largely with existing pieces by Tiersen, for which he bought the rights. In addition, Tiersen wrote an original main theme, "La Valse d'Amelie," which was recorded in numerous variations and used throughout the film.
  • Audrey Tautou doesn't know how to skip stones; the stone-skipping scenes were made with special effects.
  • With the exception of brief exchanges on the phone at Sacre Coeur and in person in the Deux Moulins; Amélie and Nino do not exchange a single line of dialogue during the course of the entire film.

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Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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