Category: Movies

Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Things You Might Not Know About Thelma & Louise. Here are three of my favorites…

3. GEORGE CLOONEY AUDITIONED FIVE TIMES TO PLAY J.D.

Clooney was on the short list for the role that eventually went to Brad Pitt, and became his big break. “The funniest thing is, I didn’t watch that movie for a long time,” Clooney admitted during a Q&A at the Telluride Film Festival. “I was really stuck doing a lot of bad TV at that time. And I had auditioned and auditioned, and it got right down to Brad and I, and he got it. And I just couldn’t watch that movie for a couple of years … When I saw it, I thought actually that was the right choice. [Brad] was really good in it…”

4. BRAD PITT WAS PAID $6,000 FOR HIS WORK IN THE FILM.

That was in 1991. Just five years later, he earned $10 million for his work in Barry Levinson’s Sleepers.

8. HOLLY HUNTER, FRANCES MCDORMAND, JODIE FOSTER, MICHELLE PFEIFFER, MERYL STREEP, AND GOLDIE HAWN WERE ALL CONSIDERED FOR THELMA OR LOUISE.

In its early stages, Khouri pictured her movie as a low-budget affair, with Hunter and McDormand as the leads. (In what was probably a coincidence, Hunter and McDormand knew each other from when they were roommates at the Yale School of Drama.) With Ridley Scott as producer, Foster and Pfeiffer were attached, but eventually moved on to do other work. Streep and Hawn met with Scott, with Streep wanting either Thelma or Louise to survive the movie.

Michael Arbeiter and Mental_Floss present 15 Things You Might Not Know About Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. SPIELBERG MADE LAST CRUSADE TO APOLOGIZE FOR TEMPLE OF DOOM.

After the masterpiece of spirited adventure that was Raiders of the Lost Ark, some critics and audience members felt betrayed by the grim and gruesome sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Director Steven Spielberg was hardly a defender of the movie—in 1989 he admitted, “I wasn’t happy with the second film at all. It was too dark, too subterranean, and much too horrific. I thought it out-poltered Poltergeist. There’s not an ounce of my own personal feeling in Temple of Doom.“

Spielberg’s involvement in a third Indiana Jones film sprang from his desire to apologize to viewers for the series’ disappointing second outing, and to revive the earnest spirit of the original. He rehired supporting stars Denholm Elliott and John Rhys-Davies to double down on the Raiders ambiance.

7. A RENOWNED PLAYWRIGHT SECRETLY PENNED THE INDY/HENRY MATERIAL.

Since the relationship between Indy and his estranged father, played by Sean Connery, provided the emotional meat of the story, Spielberg and Lucas hired a ghostwriter to bolster the gravity of the characters’ interactions. Celebrated playwright Tom Stoppard contributed the bulk of the Jones boys’ material but didn’t receive a writing credit.

6. SPIELBERG WAS AFRAID THE MOVIE WOULD REMIND PEOPLE OF MONTY PYTHON.

Last Crusade’s eventual screenwriter Jeffrey Boam held onto the Holy Grail element despite Spielberg’s uncertainty about how it might be received. His apprehensions came from the association of the sacred cup with the 1975 comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “Of course, I was worried that people would hear ‘Holy Grail,’ and they would immediately think about a white rabbit attacking Monty Python,” Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly. “My first reaction was to say, ‘Everybody run away! Run away!’”

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]

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.

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.”