Category: Movies

15 Painless Facts About “Road House”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Painless Facts About Road House. Here are three of my favorites…

12. SAM ELLIOTT SAID HE GETS RECOGNIZED MOST FROM ROAD HOUSE.

Though he has nearly 90 credits to his name, in 2007 Elliott told Collider that he’s most recognized from Road House. Earlier this year, he admitted to Vulture that he “wasn’t so good” in the film. Joel Silver cast him due to his “baggage.”

8. THE DIRECTOR TRIED TO MAKE THE FIGHTS A LITTLE FUNNY.

The movie’s humor is somewhat intentional; director Rowdy Herrington said he wanted to make the fights “like a Keystone Cops melee.”

15. THERE WAS A DIRECT-TO-DVD SEQUEL.

2006’s Road House 2: Last Call killed off Dalton, who was finally stopped by a bullet to the head. It starred Johnathon Schaech as Dalton’s son, D.E.A. agent Shane Tanner, who runs his uncle Nate’s bar the Black Pelican while trying to solve his father’s murder. In 2013, it was reported that a remake of Road House was in the works, directed by original Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen.

[Did anyone know about the Road House 2: Last Call movie?  Kill off Dalton? Really? – Craig]

16 Things You May Not Know About Rambo

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental_Floss present 16 Things You May Not Know About Rambo.   Here are three of my favorites…

5. KIRK DOUGLAS WAS SUPPOSED TO PLAY COLONEL TRAUTMAN.

The veteran movie star actually made it to set and appeared in early advertisements for First Blood, but left the production when he demanded the right to rewrite the script. Douglas favored the ending of the book, and felt that Rambo should die in the end. The actor gave the filmmakers an ultimatum: if the production didn’t let him do what he wanted with the script he’d quit. Kotcheff and Stallone wanted to leave the door open for the possibility for Rambo to live or die at the end of the movie, so they let Douglas quit.

Actor Richard Crenna was then cast with a single day’s notice to fill Douglas’ shoes as Rambo’s mentor and father figure, Colonel Trautman. Crenna would reprise his role in two more Rambo movies before he passed away in 2003. He is the only actor besides Stallone to appear in multiple Rambo movies.

The unused alternate ending of First Blood, in which Trautman shoots and kills Rambo, can be seen briefly in the dream sequence in the fourth film, Rambo.

7. FOR RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, JAMES CAMERON WROTE THE ACTION AND STALLONE WROTE THE POLITICS.

Initial drafts of the screenplay for the sequel to First Blood were written by James Cameron, who at the time was still looking for his big break. Cameron’s script, which was titled First Blood II: The Mission and was written simultaneously with the scripts for The Terminator and Aliens (two movies which ultimately gave him that big break), differed substantially from what ended up on screen.

According to Cameron: “I was trying to create a semi-realistic, haunted character, the quintessential Vietnam returnee, not a political statement.” Cameron’s draft picked up with Colonel Trautman finding Rambo in a psychiatric ward (a concept Cameron would recycle for his Sarah Connor character in Terminator 2), and also featured a sidekick role named Lieutenant Brewer that producers hoped would be filled by John Travolta, who Stallone had recently directed in the 1983 Saturday Night Fever sequel, Staying Alive (yes, you read that correctly, Sly directed the sequel to Saturday Night Fever). Eventually Stallone took over scriptwriting duties, and excised the first half of Cameron’s screenplay to add the film’s prominent POW/MIA message and the love story beats with the character Co-Bao.

Rambo: First Blood Part II is the only Rambo movie to be nominated for an Oscar. It received a nod for Best Sound Effects Editing in 1986 but lost to Back to the Future.

10. TO BECOME RAMBO, STALLONE HAD A RIDICULOUS WORKOUT SCHEDULE.

First Blood required Stallone to be ripped (he shot Rocky III shortly before starring in the first Rambo movie, which helped), but for the second outing he really needed to pump some iron. The actor trained for eight months prior to the film’s start date in late 1984, but he maintained a strict regimen during shooting as well.

He would begin with a two- to three-hour morning workout, then he’d move on to the 10- to 12-hour shooting day on the movie. After that, instead of going home like the rest of the cast and crew, he’d cap off the day with another two- to three-hour workout. After six hours of sleep or so he’d be up and ready to do it all again. Maintaining that physique definitely helped Stallone for his next movie as well: he began shooting Rocky IV immediately after First Blood Part II.

17 Action-Packed Facts About “Crimson Tide”

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Roger Cormier  and Mental_Floss present 17 Action-Packed Facts About Crimson Tide.  Here are three are my favorites…

2. QUENTIN TARANTINO WAS AN UNCREDITED WRITER.

Though Michael Schiffer earned the film’s sole screenplay credit (based on a story by Schiffer and Richard P. Henrick), Tarantino contributed some words to the script as well. He wrote the scene in which members of the crew talked about their favorite submarine movies. Tarantino and Tony Scott had worked together two years earlier, when Scott directed Tarantino’s script for True Romance.

3. DENZEL WASHINGTON CONFRONTED TARANTINO ON THE SET.

Washington was very open with his anger about Tarantino’s use of racial slurs. The Pulp Fiction writer-director’s request that they have their argument privately was reportedly denied by Denzel. In a 2012 interview with GQ, Washington said that he has since apologized to Tarantino, and pointed out that his own daughter had just acted in Tarantino’s Django Unchained.

14. HACKMAN ACCIDENTALLY PUNCHED WASHINGTON.

Though Hackman insisted to Larry King that it was an accident, he said it made things tense.

10 Times Art Imitates Life in Coppola’s “The Godfather”

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David Hunter and Flickchart The Blog present The Annotated Godfather: 10 Times Art Imitates Life in Coppola’s Classics.  Godfather fans and history buffs alike will enjoy this piece.

Here are three are my favorites [click over to the article for full details of each]…

1. “Make Him An Offer He Can’t Refuse”: Johnny Fontane and Frank Sinatra

2. “Jack Dempsey’s joint”: Crooks and Crooked Fighters

4. “I’ve loved baseball ever since…”: The 1919 World Series

 

27 Things We Learned from George Miller’s “The Road Warrior” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 27 Things We Learned from George Miller’s The Road Warrior Commentary. Here are three are my favorites…

3. For as much as the film is known for its vehicular action, Semler says they simulated a lot of travel too. “If you can see the road moving behind, we’re moving. If you don’t see anything moving behind, we’re not moving.”

16. Miller loves the bit with the mechanic (Steve J. Spears) in the swing evaluating the truck the engine and the blond guy repeating it much louder. It wasn’t planned, and the pair just started doing it on their own. “This is nice,” says Semler. Miller agrees saying it’s one of the lighter moments in the movie. On that same topic the duo count how many times Max smiles throughout the film, and they get as high as three.

22. The compound explosion was so big that they had to notify airlines in advance in case of any jets passing overhead.

15 Epic Facts About “Gladiator”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Epic Facts About Gladiator. Here are three are my favorites…

1. STEVEN SPIELBERG GREENLIT THE MOVIE AFTER ASKING THREE QUESTIONS.

Screenwriter David Franzoni received a three-picture deal with Dreamworks SKG after writing the script for Amistad. During a “surprisingly brief” pitch meeting with Spielberg for what would become Gladiator, Franzoni told the Writers Guild of America that the director “really had three basic questions. My gladiator movie, it was about ancient Roman gladiators—not American, Japanese, whatever else? Yes, I said. Taking place in the ancient Coliseum? Yes. Fighting with swords and animals to the death and such? Yes. Great, let’s make the movie.”

10. CROWE WASN’T THRILLED WITH THE SCRIPT (OR LACK THEREOF).

While appearing on Inside the Actors Studio, Crowe said that only 32 pages of the script were completed when shooting commenced. Co-writer William Nicholson recounted how Crowe once told him, “Your lines are garbage but I’m the greatest actor in the world, and I can make even garbage sound good.” Initially, Crowe didn’t care for the now-famous line “And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next,” but repeatedly failed to ad-lib anything better.

13. JOHNNY CASH WAS A FAN OF THE FILM.

Before he was hired to play the legendary singer in Walk the Line, Phoenix recalled to The Guardian how he once met Johnny Cash by pure coincidence, and how he “started quoting to me the most sadistic dialogue from Gladiator with obvious relish.”

15 Things You Might Not Know About “The Green Mile”

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Michael Arbeiter and Mental_Floss present 15 Things You Might Not Know About The Green Mile.   Here are three are my favorites…

2. BRUCE WILLIS HELPED CAST A STARRING ROLE.
The character John Coffey’s unique blend of imposing stature and gentle demeanor made casting the part a tricky task. Luckily, Bruce Willis had the right man for the job. Upon hearing of the casting search for the character, Willis was sure his friend and Armageddon costar Michael Clarke Duncan was a perfect fit for the role. Willis used his A-list pull to contact Darabont and suggest his greenhorn friend for the film.

7. DUNCAN WASN’T ACTUALLY THAT TALL.   At 6 feet 5 inches tall, Duncan was a large man by anyone’s measure. However, he was practically average height on the set of The Green Mile, alongside costars David Morse (6 feet 4 inches) and James Cromwell (6 feet 6 inches). Blocking tactics gave Duncan the appearance of towering over his costars.

13. THE GREEN MILE WAS THE HIGHEST GROSSING STEPHEN KING MOVIE.

While The Shining claims the longstanding cult esteem and The Shawshank Redemption might top the lot in basic cable omnipresence, the somewhat less heralded The Green Mile that managed to hit an impressive $136.8 million in domestic ticket sales and $286.8 million worldwide.

Star Trek: 57 Nerdy Things About the Original Crew Films

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Sven Harvey and Den of Geek present Star Trek: 57 Nerdy Things About the Original Crew Films.  Here are three are my favorites…

13. Khan Noonian Singh is, of course, the same character as the Khan from the original series second season episode, “Space Seed.” His wife was Lt McGivers, who became enamoured with him in the original episode.

The late Ricardo Montalban reprised his role from the original episode, and as a genetically enhanced human or “augment” it was these performances that led to more episodes on the same theme.

14. The character of Lt Marla McGivers was supposed to originally be in Star Trek II, but the actress, Madyln Rhue, had been confined to a wheelchair.

Rather than recasting, which executive producer Harve Bennett thought unfair, the character was written out. That said, the filmed line confirming her as Khan’s dead wife was cut.

31. Hello computer?!? The Apple Mac wasn’t supposed to be in the factory, and the original Commodore Amiga model was originally supposed to be in its place. Commodore Business Machines refused to send a sample machine for filming and simply told the film crew that they had to buy one. Apple just sent a machine and a member of staff to help out.

Commodore also stated it didn’t want to be associated with Star Trek. Facepalm…

15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About “American History X”

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental_Floss present 15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About American History X.   Here are three are my favorites…

2. TONY KAYE [Director] TRIED TO DISOWN THE FILM.

Kaye was unsatisfied with the final cut of the movie, so he tried to use Alan Smithee—the official pseudonym (coined in 1969 and discontinued in 2000) for directors looking to disown their projects—in the credits. The Directors Guild of America blocked the effort, however, because DGA guidelines stipulated that directors could only use the Smithee pseudonym if they agreed not to publicly disparage the film, something the overly vocal Kaye had already done.

5. EDWARD NORTON WAS ALLEGEDLY CAST WITHOUT KAYE’S APPROVAL.

Norton stepped in when Phoenix passed on the project—reportedly against Tony Kaye’s wishes. Kaye wanted to find another actor, but let Norton keep the part because Kaye simply couldn’t find anyone better prior to the start of shooting.

9. NORTON TURNED DOWN A ROLE IN SAVING PRIVATE RYAN FOR AMERICAN HISTORY X.

He would have played Private Ryan (Matt Damon got the part instead).