Category: Trivia

The 10 Best Movie Monologues

Posted on by

Coming Soon posted their choices for The 10 Best Movie Monologues and it got me thinking.  Movie monologues are rare, but when we happen to get a good one, they’re memorable and fun.  Sometimes they’re what we remember most from the movie.

I looked at Coming Soon’s list and picked my top three movie monologues, listed my rationale for choosing each and added one that they left out and my rationale for including it.

Blade Runner (1982) That ending monologue. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a lot of great things, but this final showdown-turned-speech might be one of the best parts.  (I couldn’t agree more.  Hauer’s monologue made the movie for me.  I’ve thought a lot about Blade Runner over the years and it always comes down to how that scene was the soul of the movie. – Craig)

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) A gripping drama with an all-star cast, Glengarry Glen Ross is a monologue showcase for the ages. No wonder so many aspiring actors take a page from this David Mamet script.  (I remember watching GGR for the first time and the scene with Alec Baldwin’s monologue had me smiling from ear to ear.  That scene set everything in motion. – Craig)

Pulp Fiction (1994) Samuel L. Jackson still appears in plenty of films well into the 2010s, but he was just getting started back in the early 90s. His iconic monologue in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction helped solidify his status as a true movie star. (The monologue that made Samuel L. Jackson a star.  “Say ‘What’ again!”  – Craig)

I was tempted to find a spot for Robert Shaw from Jaws and Gregory Peck from To Kill a Mockingbird, but ultimately felt that the other monologues slightly edged them out.  I would not have been surprised to find entries for Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, or Clint Eastwood from Dirty Harry.

Stallone’s monologue from Rocky Balboa should have made the list.  It became an inspirational quote / meme for so many folks and it came from Stallone.  Nuff Said.

“Avengers: Endgame” Trivia

Posted on by


Film School Rejects posted 57 Things We Learned from the Avengers: Endgame Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

7. The Russos praise the writers for crafting dialogue that continually feels true to the character speaking it. “If you find yourself having your character say something anybody in the room could have said then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.”

20. Some online have clearly been unhappy with Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) descent into depression and weight gain, but the filmmakers love it. They praise his performance as it’s difficult to portray pathos and humor simultaneously, but they also think it’s a fantastic balance of comedy and sadness that work to build emotion. “What’s great about this character is we commit to it, and he doesn’t change by the end of the film.”

28. “This is, as declared by himself on set, Robert Redford’s last movie role.” The legendary actor declared this was his final acting performance the day he arrived for filming.

50 Facts About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Posted on by

In honor of the mission to put the first man on the moon’s 50th anniversary, Mental Floss posted 50 Facts About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. THE APOLLO 11 ASTRONAUTS WERE ODDLY CALM DURING LIFTOFF.
The average resting heart rate of an adult human is somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute (bpm), depending on the individual’s age, size, heart conditions, and other factors. Throw a little excitement into the mix and one’s heart is likely to beat much faster. Yet the Apollo 11 astronauts, whose heart rates were monitored throughout the expedition, remained surprisingly normal. At liftoff, Armstrong was the most excited of the bunch with a rate of 110 bpm. Collins, meanwhile, was clocked at 99, while a clearly calm Aldrin logged a rate of just 88 bpm.

32. ARMSTRONG AND ALDRIN HAD TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO LOCK THEMSELVES OUT OF THE MODULE.
If their heart rates were any indication, Armstrong and Aldrin were pretty calm, cool, and collected when they landed on the Moon. And it’s a good thing: Had they been overwhelmed by the cosmic wonder of it all, they could have easily locked themselves out of their lunar module, as Eagle’s door had no outer handle.

45. ARMSTRONG, ALDRIN, AND COLLINS WERE QUARANTINED FOR MORE THAN TWO WEEKS UPON THEIR RETURN TO EARTH.
On July 24, the Apollo 11 crew reentered Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean after more than a week in space. In order to ensure the men hadn’t brought back any sort of weird Moon diseases or other microbes, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were quickly placed into a mobile quarantine unit, which was then transported to the NASA Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. They were released from quarantine on August 10, 1969.

Things Learned from Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ Commentary

Posted on by

Film School Rejects presents 26 Things We Learned from Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites and some of my thoughts at the end…

3.  People expected him to take a goofy tone with the film, “but that was the furthest thing from my mind.” He wasn’t a big comic book fan, but he loved Batman and the psychology of the character meaning he knew he wanted to stay true to that idea.

5.  He met with numerous actors for the title role who fit the traditional “square-jawed” and heroic look, but he eventually realized “there’s a reason why a guy dresses up as a bat, he’s trying to create a menacing persona.” Michael Keaton has the crazy eyes, but physically he’s someone who would need costuming to make him seem scarier.

24.  He took older films like The Man Who Laughs (1928), vampire movies, and the work of Val Lewton as inspirations for Batman.

I wasn’t a fan of Michael Keaton being cast as Batman.  I get now why Burton went with MK after reading #5 above.

The 50 Best Zombie Movies of All Time

Posted on by

Jim Vorel at Paste came up with his list of The 50 Best Zombie Movies of All Time.  Vorel’s list is a good one.  Here’s his top ten and mine (using just the films on his list).

The 50 Best Zombie Movies of All Time

Jim Vorel

Craig

10.  Dawn of the Dead (2004) 

10.  Day of the Dead (1985)

09.  Zombi 2 (1979) 

09. Planet Terror (2007)

08.  Night of the Living Dead (1968)

08.  28 Weeks Later (2007)

07.  Evil Dead 2 (1987) 

07.  Shaun of the Dead (2004) 

06.  Shaun of the Dead (2004) 

06. Zombieland (2009)

05.  Day of the Dead (1985) 

05. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

04.  28 Days Later (2002)

04. Train to Busan (2016)

03.  Re-Animator (1985) 

03. 28 Days Later (2002) 

02.  Return of the Living Dead (1985) 

02. World War Z (2013)

01.  Dawn of the Dead (1978) 

01.  Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Although it didn’t make the list, I’d have added The Crazies.

“Alfred Hitchcock Presents” Trivia

Posted on by

Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 10 Facts About Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  I love AHP… especially the half hour episodes.  Here are my top three facts from a very good list…

5. IT COULD HAVE BEEN TITLED HENRY SLESAR PRESENTS.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents drew primarily from published short stories it optioned from writers. One such author, Henry Slesar, was a frequent contributor to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, the monthly short story collection that had the director’s endorsement. When producer Norman Lloyd realized the prolific Slesar and three other authors had a story in the magazine every month, he invited all four of them out to California for a meeting about writing teleplays based on their stories. According to Lloyd, only Slesar showed up. This was because the other three writers were all his pseudonyms. Slesar ended up writing 55 scripts for the series, the most of any contributor.

3. HITCHCOCK’S DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN THE SERIES WAS VERY LIMITED.
In style and substance, Alfred Hitchcock Presents shares a lot in common with Hitchcock’s films, particularly the scheming characters with murder on the mind in 1948’s Rope and 1951’s Strangers on a Train. Despite the Hitchcock aesthetic, his direct involvement in the show was limited. Because he was so busy with his movie career, he was convinced by MCA executive Lew Wasserman that lending his name and likeness to the series would not take up much of his time. Producers and frequent Hitchcock collaborators Joan Harrison and Norman Lloyd handled most of the production chores, though Hitchcock did direct 17 episodes over the course of the series. The director later said his supervision of the show extended to delivering “fatherly words of advice without trying to usurp their position.”

Viewers, however, seemed to infer he wrote and directed much of what they saw, sending fan letters to the director stating as much. While his effort was not as significant as they believed, it proved to be lucrative. Hitchcock drew a reported $129,000 per episode from CBS and sponsor Bristol-Myers.

8. ONE EPISODE WAS DEEMED TOO GRUESOME TO AIR.
While none of the criminal deeds depicted in Alfred Hitchcock Presents were explicit, one episode in season 7 written by Psycho author Robert Bloch inferred something so disturbing that it was kept off the air by NBC. (Spoilers follow.) In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a boy who dreams of becoming a magician is coerced into murdering his stage idol by the performer’s cheating spouse. She convinces him to do it by telling the boy—who is none too quick of mind—that he will absorb her husband’s “powers” once the deed is done. He believes it, and proceeds to saw her in half despite not having much of an idea about how the illusion is actually supposed to work. At the conclusion, Hitchcock makes a characteristically grim observation that the scheming widow must be “beside herself.” The episode later ran in syndication.

The 50 Best Sports Movies of All Time

Posted on by

Tim Grierson & Will Leitch and Vulture.com present The 50 Best Sports Movies of All Time.  I’m happy to report that Creed came in at #28 and Rocky at #3.

The list is a good one, but I’d have included The Set-up, Requiem for a Heavyweight and a couple more from the Rocky series and Paradise Alley. (Would you expect any less?)

Here’s what Grierson and Leitch said about Rocky and Creed:

28. Creed (2015)
The Rocky series had run out of gas several times by the time Ryan Coogler got together with his Fruitvale Station star Michael B. Jordan to inject the whole franchise with adrenaline and soul … and even liven up old Rock himself in the process. The best scenes of Creed aren’t even about boxing at all, as we see young Adonis Creed struggle with his identity, his purpose in life, and the power of his feelings for a young, hearing-impaired musician (played wonderfully by Tessa Thompson). Putting Rocky Balboa in the Paulie role is a brilliant idea, and the relationship between the young boxer and his trainer works … and even manages to transcend the whole 40-year-old enterprise.

3. Rocky (1976)
Roger Ebert famously wrote, in his initial review of Rocky, that Sylvester Stallone reminded him of a young Brando, and while that classification hasn’t, uh, aged so well, you can understand what he was thinking. Before all the sequels, before the montage sequences, before Stallone became a muscled, chiseled ode to misguided masculinity, he was just a guy who wanted to tell a story about a past-his-prime palooka who met a girl and then suddenly finally got his chance at the big time. This is a big hokey underdog story, but it’s told with a grit and realism that matches the era; Rocky’s just a good-hearted schmo from the neighborhood who doesn’t have the stomach to break thumbs for the mob but isn’t sure what else the world has for him either. But he’s got heart, kid. This series is more than 40 years old now, but, as Creed showed, this story remains eternal. It’s probably going to outlive us all. Even Stallone.

27 Things We Learned from Brian Helgeland’s ‘Payback’ Commentary

Posted on by

Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 27 Things We Learned from Brian Helgeland’s ‘Payback’ Commentary.  But first some background…

Payback is one of the very rare films that has more than one version available.  Brian Helgeland was fired from the film when he refused to make changes ordered by the studio.  The studio then ordered additional scenes changing the tone and ending of the film.  That version was released to great success both theatrically and on video/dvd.  And thanks to the video/dvd market, Helgeland was able to have his version released and it was also successful.  I have both versions in my collection and like both.

With all that said, here are my three favorites from Helgeland’s commentary:

12. He was in post-production on this film the night of the Academy Awards, and having been nominated for his L.A. Confidential (1997) script he really hoped he would be named the winner. “I knew that they were getting close to finally removing me off this movie,” and he thought winning the Oscar would mean they couldn’t fire him. He won, Sean Connery tussled his hair backstage while congratulating him, and that was his Sunday night. “And on Tuesday I got fired. So much for the magic of an Academy Award.”

13. Walter Matthau handed him his Oscar. Matthau starred in Charley Varrick (1973). The restaurant scene at 32:53 was filmed in a place called Varricks.

17. An early teaser strung together the film’s funnier scenes, and both audiences and the studio responded favorably. He protested and was told by the marketing department that “what it is is one thing, and selling it is another thing.” The studio clearly wished the movie “was more like our trailer, and I didn’t know it at first but it became this struggle for what the heart of the movie was about.” Re-shoots began leaning heavily toward the teaser’s tone, and the writing was on the wall.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Toughest Characters

Posted on by

Sid Natividad and ScreenRant take a look at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s toughest characters.  Here are his rankings and mine: 

Natividad

Zablo

10. Ray Owens (The Last Stand)

10. Ben Richards (The Running Man)

09. Emil Rottmayer (Escape Plan)

09. Ray Owens (The Last Stand)

08. Jack Slater (The Last Action Hero)

08. Jack Slater (The Last Action Hero)

07. Ben Richards (The Running Man)

07. Dennis Quaid (Total Recall)

06. Dennis Quaid (Total Recall)

06. Emil Rottmayer (Escape Plan)

05. Harry Tasker (True Lies)

05. Harry Tasker (True Lies)

04. John Matrix (Commando)

04. John Matrix (Commando)

03. Conan (Conan the Barbarian)

03. Conan (Conan the Barbarian)

02. Dutch Schaefer (Predator)

02. Dutch Schaefer (Predator)

01. T-800 (Terminator 2)

01. T-800 (Terminator 2)

I would have also included John Wharton from Sabotage in the 6th spot had he been on Natividad’s list.

Source: ScreenRant.

Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, from Worst to Best

Posted on by

Riley Jones at Goliath has ranked Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, from Worst to Best.

Ok.  I’ll play along.

For those interested, here’s my ranking of Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, from Worst to Best episodes…

09.  Grindhouse: Death Proof (2007)

08.  Inglourious Basterds (2009)

07.  Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

06.  Django Unchained (2012)

05.  The Hateful Eight (2015)

04.  Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

03.  Jackie Brown (1997)

02.  Pulp Fiction (1994)

01.  Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Every Episode of The Twilight Zone, Ranked from Worst to Best

Posted on by

Oktay Ege Kozak at Paste took on the monumental task for Every Episode of The Twilight Zone, Ranked from Worst to Best.  While I’ve never ranked every episode of The Twilight Zone, I have Z-Viewed every TZ episode.

For those interested, here’s my ranking of The Top 10 Twilight Zone episodes…

10.  The Eye of the Beholder (Season 2, Episode 6)

09.  The Howling Man (Season 2, Episode 5)

08.  Time Enough at Last (Season 1, Episode 8)

07.  The Invaders (Season 2, Episode 15)

06.  The Midnight Sun (Season 3, Episode 10)

05.  The Shelter (Season 3, Episode 3)

04.  Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up (Season 2, Episode 28)

03.  To Serve Man (Season 3, Episode 24)

02.  The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (Season 1, Episode 22)

01.  Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Season 5, Episode 3)

Very Rare “First Blood” Poster by Drew Struzan with Stallone & Kirk Douglas!

Posted on by

This comes to us from my collection. It is a rare advertisement for First Blood from when the project was first promoted. Yep, Kirk Douglas was set to play Colonel Trautman. 

Douglas left the production when he learned that the original ending (in which Douglas’ character killed Rambo) had been changed to allow Rambo to live.  Richard Crenna was brought in and the rest, as they say is history.

The great Drew Struzan did the poster!

– Craig

Click on the photo to see a bigger version.