Category: Trivia

Things You Probably Never Knew About “The Sopranos”

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Johnny Hughes and Goliath present Things You Probably Never Knew About The Sopranos.  Here are three of my favorites …

10. Mob Attention
The Sopranos was lauded for its authenticity but the show’s realistic depiction of mob activities attracted the attention of real-life gangsters. As writer and executive producer Terence Winter told Vanity Fair in a wide-reaching 2012 interview, one FBI agent told him that he’d heard real-life mobsters talking about the show over wire taps and that they were convinced The Sopranos writers had an informant on the inside because the show was too accurate.

“We would hear back that real wiseguys used to think that we had somebody on the inside. They couldn’t believe how accurate the show was.” Fortunately, no hits were ever carried out on Chase, Winter, or the rest of The Sopranos creative team!

8. Paulie Was Based on the Actor Who Played Him
Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri is one of the many brilliant characters on the show. But as it turns out, he is actually very similar to the actor that portrays him – Tony Sirico. Funny yet also extremely dangerous and violent, Sirico was also a criminal with 28 arrests at the time he was cast (with 27 acting jobs). Not only was it a life of crime that made these two similar, but Sirico also states that he is also a neat-freak and lived at home with his mother. This was also true of his character, and contributed to some of the comedy in the show. Due to his eccentricities and OCD but also violent streak, it made Paulie one of the most memorable characters on the show and you can hear his voice simply by looking at a picture of him. This is largely down to Sirico’s brilliant portrayal of the familiar character.

6. James Gandolfini Paid Each Actor After Contract Disputes
Tony Soprano may not have been the nicest of people, but James Gandolfini clearly was. Following the conclusion of Season Four, tensions ran high between the cast and the studio as there were disputes over payment. This resulted in delays before Season Five, after a staged sit-in shut down the set. To ease tensions and get everybody back to work, James Gandolfini (who had been paid) split his bonus with all the cast members, seeing them earn $33,333 each. Whilst Tony is undoubtedly the star a key reason why The Sopranos is deemed such an incredible show is that it has many expertly written characters who all contribute to the story – making each one hugely valuable. This generous act from Gandolfini is just one of many stories of his kindness and generosity.

10 Twisted Facts About “The Cabin in the Woods”

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Scott Beggs and Mental Floss present 10 Twisted Facts About The Cabin in the Woods.   If you haven’t seen The Cabin in the Woods, you’re in for a treat.  It is one of the most unusual horror films in recent years.  I loved how it was able to hit all of the expected genre cliches in a totally unexpected way.  With that said, here are three of my favorite Twisted Facts About The Cabin in the Woods.

1. THE OPENING SCENE WAS MEANT TO CONFUSE AUDIENCES.
“Opening the movie with this scene is one of my favorite things that we accomplished,” co-writer/producer Joss Whedon said in the DVD commentary about the early sequence where Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins chit-chat in a hallway about childproofing cabinets and an office betting pool. They purposefully wanted people to think they’d sat down for the wrong movie and had to convince the studio that people wouldn’t walk out.

5. DREW GODDARD AND JOSS WHEDON MADE IT AS A “LOVING HATE LETTER.”
The reason The Cabin in the Woods works for horror fans and non-fans alike is that it hews closely to the classic rules for the genre to deliver the scares, but also mocks them mercilessly. Whedon saw it as both an exercise in how much fun they could have (they wrote it over a single weekend) and as a serious critique of a genre they loved that had descended under a wave of needless torture and stupid characters crafted solely to be killed in terrible ways.

8. THE FULL LIST OF MONSTERS INCLUDES A NOD TO SIN CITY.

There are too many baddies to name here (so here’s a list), but among the witches, sexy witches, mermen, and unicorns, there’s Kevin. He’s a kind-seeming dude who might show you where the movie section is in Best Buy but dismembers people during his time off. It’s possible that he’s a reference to the relaxed, quietly sadistic slasher played by Elijah Wood in the movie version of Sin City.

Shark Tank – Which Shark Makes the Most Profitable Deals?

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Shark Tank, the show where regular folks pitch products to multi-millionaire investor “Sharks” is now in its tenth year.  The series has presented hundreds of budding entrepreneurs and many of them were able to make deals earning well over $100 million of the Sharks’ cash.

But did you ever wonder which of the Sharks: Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, Kevin (“Mr. Wonderful”) O’Leary, Daymond John, Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner made the most profitable deals?

Gary Levin at USAToday recently posted ‘Shark Tank’ Exclusive: These are the 20 Best-Selling Products Ever Featured on the Show and the results weren’t even close.

  • Lori Greiner made 6 of the most profitable deals (all 6 in the top ten; in fact the top 3 most profitable deals were hers) in the top 20.
  • Barbara Corcoran had 2 deals in the top ten and 3 in the top 20.
  • Robert Herjavec had 1 deal in the top ten and 2 in the top 20.
  • Daymond John had 1 deal in the top ten and 2 in the top 20.
  • Mark Cuban had 0 deals in the top ten and 3 in the top 20.
  • Kevin O’Leary had 0 deals in the top ten and 4 in the top 20.

 

I was a bit surprised how Lori Greiner dominated the best-selling items.  While Kevin O’Leary may be Mr. Wonderful, Lori Greiner is definitely Ms. Profitable!

 

 

11 Fascinating Facts About Sam Elliott

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 11 Fascinating Facts About Sam Elliott.  I actually met Sam Elliott before he made the big time.  He was in Daytona Beach during Spring Break to promote Lifeguard.  Mr. Elliott was extremely down-to-Earth and easy to talk with.  Who knew that Lifeguard would lead to the career he’s had?  (And if you click over to the original post, you’ll learn it almost didn’t.)  At any rate, here are three of my favorites…

HE PLAYED EVEL KNIEVEL IN AN UNSOLD TV PILOT.
After moving to Hollywood in the late 1960s, Elliott scored a small role in a big film: 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (He’s glimpsed only fleetingly during a card game.) In 1974, he had the opportunity to be the featured star, portraying daredevil legend Evel Knievel in a CBS television pilot. The series never went into production but wound up airing as a one-off special that March. Elliott went on to guest star in several series, including Hawaii Five-0 and Gunsmoke, before landing a lead role in a feature, 1976’s Lifeguard.

HE GOT PROPOSITIONED. A LOT.
Going from audition to audition early in his career, Elliott told syndicated columnist Rex Reed in 1980 that the proverbial casting couch was real. “You cannot believe the casting couch stories I could tell you, man,” he said. “The clichés are all true. I’ve had propositions from men and women, and I’ve turned them all down. It’s probably hurt me, but I’m the one who has to live with that guilt. My conscience is clear, even though my career is still not setting the world on fire.”

HE DOESN’T REALLY GET THE FASCINATION WITH HIS MUSTACHE.
For most of his roles, Elliott sports a soup strainer of a mustache: Thick, plush, well-weathered. When he goes without—as in his turn as a villain on FX’s Justified—it can be a little disarming, in the same way Superman looks a little odd without his cape. But Elliott doesn’t quite understand the cult of hair around his facial style choices. “The whole mustache thing is a mystery to me,” he told Vanity Fair in 2017. “I’m working on this thing now, A Star is Born—somebody showed me on their cell phone one day that there was this contest online between me and [Tom] Selleck about who had the best mustache. It’s so bizarre.” (For the record, Elliott won’t comment on who has the better lip warmer.)

25 Things You Might Not Know About Thomas Jefferson

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 25 Things You Might Not Know About Thomas Jefferson.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. HIS GREATEST WORK WAS A STUDY IN CONTRADICTION.
As a member of the Second Continental Congress and the “Committee of Five” (a group consisting of John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson brought together for this purpose), Jefferson was tasked with writing the Declaration of Independence, an argument against the 13 colonies being held under British rule. While the Declaration insisted that all men are created equal and that their right to liberty is inherent at birth, Jefferson’s plantation origins meant that he embraced the institution of slavery. In any given year, Jefferson supervised up to 200 slaves, with roughly half under the age of 16. He perpetuated acts of cruelty, sometimes selling slaves and having them relocated away from their families as punishment. Yet in a book titled Notes on the State of Virginia (which he began writing during his stint as governor and published in 1785), Jefferson wrote that he believed the practice was unjust and “tremble[d]” at the idea of God exacting vengeance on those who perpetuated it. Though Jefferson acknowledged slavery as morally repugnant—and also criticized the slave trade in a passage that was cut from the Declaration of Independence “in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia”—he offered no hesitation in benefiting personally from it, a hypocrisy that would haunt his legacy through the present day.

11. HIS WIFE HAD A CURIOUS CONNECTION TO HIS MISTRESS.
Jefferson was married for just 10 years before his wife, Martha Wayles, died in 1782 at age 33 of unknown causes. Curiously, Jefferson’s involvement with his slave, Sally Hemings, was part of Martha’s convoluted family tree. Martha’s father, John Wayles, had an affair with Sally’s mother, Elizabeth Hemings—meaning most historians think Sally and Martha were half-sisters.

18. HE PROBABLY HAD A FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING.
Without today’s methods of addressing the public—radio, television, and Twitter—Jefferson was largely free to succumb to his reported phobia of speaking in public. While working as a lawyer, he found himself unable to deliver orated arguments as eloquently as he could write them. When he did speak, it was apparently with a meek disposition. One listener to his inaugural address in 1801 described Jefferson’s speech as being in “so low a tone that few heard it.”

 

15 Things to Look For the Next Time You Watch “The Warriors”

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Paul Schrodt and Mental Floss present 15 Things to Look For the Next Time You Watch The Warriors.  Here are three of my favorites…

8. THIS IS ONE LONG CHASE FROM A CHASE MASTER.
The Warriors is one of the more exceptional works from director Walter Hill, who earned a deserved reputation for his hard-boiled tough-guy movies made with elegance. While he’ll always be most famous for 48 Hrs., the hit starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, his other features like The Driver and The Long Riders are worth seeking out. In particular, The Driver, featuring Ryan O’Neal and Bruce Dern, perfected the car-chase move long before Ryan Gosling’s Drive liberally took inspiration from it.

9. YOU’RE WATCHING REAL GANG MEMBERS.
The real action in The Warriors kicks off with an impressively epic meeting of various gangs in the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park (though it was actually filmed in Riverside Park). Cyrus, the leader of the city’s most powerful gang, invites everyone in an attempt to forge an alliance and increase the gangs’ leverage over police, before being abruptly shot and killed. Hill refers to it as “our big production number.” In order to pull off the sequence, the filmmakers asked real gangs to be extras. So The Warriors feels legit for good reason.

2. IT’S NOT A VERY FAITHFUL ADAPTATION, THOUGH.
After being handed Yurick’s novel, director Walter Hill immediately had an idea for a fun movie. “I felt very strongly that it certainly was not a very realistic book, and I wanted to make it even less so,” he told Esquire. “I wanted to take it into a fantasy element, but at the same time add some contemporary flash.” The Warriors in the novel are actually the Coney Island Dominators, a black and Hispanic gang. In Hill’s cinematic rendering, the main crew is a diverse group of white and nonwhite misfits.

10 Fascinating Facts About “Double Indemnity”

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Matthew Jackson and Mental Floss present 10 Fascinating Facts About Double Indemnity.  Not only is Double Indemnity one of my favorite noirs, it is one of my favorite films.  Period.  Speaking of favorites, here are three of my favorite Double Indemnity facts…

1. IT WAS INSPIRED BY A REAL MURDER.
Before he began making serious headway as a writer of fiction, Double Indemnity author James M. Cain worked as a journalist in New York, and it was there that he stumbled upon the real-life murder case of Albert Snyder, who was killed in 1927 by his wife, Ruth Brown Snyder, and her lover, a corset salesman named Henry Judd Gray. Before committing the murder, Brown took out a $100,000 life insurance policy on her husband, then tried to kill him several times, but was unsuccessful. She ultimately turned to Gray for help in the murder plot, and both were ultimately executed for the murder in 1928.

Cain used the case as the inspiration for two of his earliest and most famous stories. His first novel, 1934’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, is about a man who falls in love with a beautiful woman and then helps her—unsuccessfully, at first—murder her older husband. The novel quickly made its way to Hollywood, where the Hays Production Code—which provided moral oversight for movie production—was just beginning to be strictly enforced, so the story languished without a film adaptation for years.

In the meantime, Cain wrote Double Indemnity, another story of a man swept up in a plot to murder his lover’s husband, this time with an insurance scam added. The story was serialized in the pages of Liberty magazine in 1936, but was first submitted as a potential Hollywood property in 1935. Double Indemnity finally made it to the screen in 1944, and The Postman Always Rings Twice followed with its own well-received film version in 1946. (It was remade in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, from a script by David Mamet.)

7. STUDIO EXECUTIVES HATED STANWYCK’S WIG.
Stanwyck’s performance in Double Indemnity was hailed as one of her best even in 1944, when critics and executives were finally seeing the completed film, but there was one complaint that kept going around, and that some viewers still notice: her hair. Though it may seem like an immovable part of the film now, the blonde wig Phyllis wears was a noticeable change to Stanwyck’s overall look at the time, and some viewers complained that it looked too cheap and fake. One executive at Paramount, after seeing some early footage, commented: “We hire Barbara Stanwyck and here we get George Washington.”

Having Stanwyck go blonde for the film was Wilder’s idea, and while he told people for years that the wig was chosen to intentionally convey something showy and even trashy about Phyllis, he later admitted that was just the answer he made up after realizing he made a mistake with the choice of wig a bit too late.

“But after the picture is half-finished, after I shot for four weeks with Stanwyck, now I know I made a mistake. I can’t say, ‘Look tomorrow, you ain’t going to be wearing the blonde wig.’ I’m stuck … I can’t reshoot four weeks of stuff. I’m totally stuck. I’ve committed myself; the mistake was caught too late. Fortunately it did not hurt the picture. But it was too thick, we were not very clever about wig-making. But when people say, ‘My god, that wig. It looked phony,’ I answer ‘You noticed that? That was my intention. I wanted the phoniness in the girl, bad taste, phony wig.’ That is how I get out of it.”

8. THE ORIGINAL ENDING FEATURED NEFF’S EXECUTION.
Cain’s original novella ends with the two lovers committing suicide together, but since suicide was forbidden by the Production Code, Wilder and Chandler had to develop an alternate ending, and came up with the notion that Neff would shoot Phyllis after she wounds him, and he would then return to the insurance office to record his confession, only to be discovered by Barton Keyes, a claims adjuster and co-worker. The film famously ends with Walter collapsed on the floor, with Keyes lighting a cigarette for him as sirens approach outside, but the original script actually went further, showing Neff’s arrest and his eventual execution in a gas chamber. Wilder even shot the gas chamber ending, but cut it for two reasons: The PCA was concerned the details were too gruesome, and Wilder himself felt that it was ultimately unnecessary to the story.

“I shot that whole thing in the gas chamber, the execution, when everything was still, with tremendous accuracy. But then I realized, look this thing is already over. I just already have one tag outside that office, when Neff collapses on the way to the elevator, where he can’t even light the match,” he recalled. “And from the distance, you hear the sirens, be it an ambulance or be it the police, you know it is over. No need for the gas chamber.”

12 Things to Know About Crazy Horse

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Lucas Reilly and Mental Floss present 12 Things to Know About Crazy Horse.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. “CRAZY HORSE” WAS NOT HIS FIRST GIVEN NAME.
Born around 1840 to Lakota parents, Crazy Horse was originally named Cha-O-Ha, or Among the Trees. (His mother, however, insisted on calling him “Curly.”) When Cha-O-Ha reached maturity, he was given the name held by his father and grandfather—Ta-Sunko-Witko, or Crazy Horse.

9. HIS PERFORMANCE AT THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN WAS LEGENDARY.
And we mean legendary—nobody is sure what, exactly, Crazy Horse did. But there are rumors. An Arapaho warrior named Water Man said Crazy Horse “was the bravest man I ever saw. He rode closest to the soldiers, yelling to his warriors. All the soldiers were shooting at him, but he was never hit.” Another Native American soldier said, “The greatest fighter in the whole battle was Crazy Horse.”

12. IF COMPLETED, THE CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL COULD BE THE WORLD’S LARGEST SCULPTURE.
Under construction since 1948, the Crazy Horse Memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, the Oglala Lakota chief in the late 1930s, as a response to Mount Rushmore. Today, the memorial—built by a non-profit that refuses government funding—is still incomplete. When it is finished, the monument carved into the side of South Dakota’s Thunderhead Mountain will stand 563 feet high.

10 Things You May Not Know About Harry S. Truman

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 10 Things You May Not Know About Harry S. Truman.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE “S” DOESN’T REALLY STAND FOR ANYTHING.
Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri on May 8, 1884 to mule trader and farmer John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Truman. After some deliberation, John and Martha realized they couldn’t decide on a middle name for their first child, so they settled on “S.” His maternal grandfather was named Solomon, while his paternal grandfather had a middle name of Shipp. “S” was his parents’ compromise. (And, since his S is a name of sorts rather than an initial, it can stand alone without a period, though stylistically, it’s most often seen with one.)

5. HE PUSHED FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
Truman anticipated much of the contemporary debates over health care spending. Just seven months into office, he began advocating for care facilities in underrepresented rural areas and more public health services. He wanted Americans to pay monthly fees that would go toward health care that would cover costs if and when they fell ill. It would not be “socialized medicine,” he argued, since the doctors weren’t government employees. But the American Medical Association resisted, instead promoting private insurance. With Democrats losing power in the Senate and the House, Truman’s plans withered. He later referred to his failed attempt for national health insurance to be one of the biggest defeats of his presidency.

7. TWO ASSASSINS TRIED TO KILL HIM OUTSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE.
The morning of November 1, 1950 could have been the last of Truman’s life. Two members of the Puerto Rican National Party, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, traveled from the Bronx to Washington with plans to assassinate the president. They believed the move would bring attention to Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence. Both wielding guns, the two idled outside Blair House, the residence across the street from the White House where Truman and his family were staying during renovations. A gun fight ensued—a guard killed Torresola but later died of gunshot wounds himself. Collazo was shot but survived and later had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by Truman (President Carter would later commute that sentence, too, and Collazo was released in 1979). Truman was napping upstairs at the beginning of the altercation; he woke up, went to the window, and was shouted at to get down.

10 Things You Might Not Know About Columbo

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental Floss present 10 Things You Might Not Know About Columbo.  Here are three of my favorites…

9. THE SERIES DIDN’T FOLLOW A STANDARD MYSTERY FORMAT.
The premise of Columbo was the “inverted mystery,” or a “HowCatchEm” instead of a “WhoDunIt.” Every episode began with the actual crime being played out in full view of the audience, meaning viewers already knew “WhodunIt.” What they wanted to know is how Lt. Columbo would slowly zero in on the perpetrator. This sort of story was particularly challenging for the series’s writers, and they sometimes found inspiration in the most unlikely places. Like the Yellow Pages, for example. One of Peter Falk’s personal favorite episodes, “Now You See Him,” had its genesis when the writers were flipping through the telephone book looking for a possible profession for a Columbo murderer (keep in mind that all of Columbo’s victims and perps were of the Beverly Hills elite variety, not your typical Starsky and Hutch-type thug).

A page listing professional magicians caught their eye, and that led to a classic episode featuring the ever-suave Jack Cassidy playing the role of the former SS Nazi officer who worked as a nightclub magician. When the Jewish nightclub owner recognized him and threatened to expose him, well, you can guess what happened. But the challenge is to guess how Lt. Columbo ultimately caught him.

7. STEVEN SPIELBERG GOT AN EARLY BREAK ON COLUMBO.
“Murder by the Book” was the second Columbo episode filmed, but it was the first one to air after the show was picked up as a series. Filming was delayed for a month, though, when Falk refused to sign off on this “kid”—a 25-year-old named Steven Spielberg—to direct the episode. Finally he watched a few of Spielberg’s previous credits (all of them TV episodes) and was impressed by his work on the short-lived NBC series called The Psychiatrist. Once filming was underway, Falk was impressed by many of the techniques employed by the young director, such as filming a street scene with a long lens from a building across the road. “That wasn’t common 20 years ago,” Falk said. He went on to tell producers Link and Levinson that “this guy is too good for Columbo.”

6. THE CHARACTER’S TRADEMARK RAINCOAT CAME FROM FALK’S CLOSET.
The initial wardrobe proposed for Columbo struck Peter Falk as completely wrong for the character. To get closer to what he wanted for Columbo, the actor went into his closet and found a beat-up coat he had bought years earlier when caught in a rainstorm on 57th Street. And he ordered one of the blue suits chosen for him to be dyed brown. The drab outfit would become one of the trademarks of the character for decades.

10 Things That Will Shock You About King Henry VIII

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Rob Hunter and Listverse present 10 Things That Will Shock You About King Henry VIII.  Here are three of my favorites…

8.  Henry Ate A Shocking 5,000 Calories Every Day Before He Died
While we know that Henry VIII was overweight in his later years, it’s hard to imagine just how big he was. However, a quick look at his daily diet makes it easy to see just why the king was so big. Every single day, he would eat about 13 different courses, mainly made up of meats like chicken, lamb, pork, rabbit, swans, peacocks, and venison. Not only did he eat excessively, but he also drank as many as 70 pints of ale every week, together with sweetened red wine. The total amounts to about 5,000 calories per day, twice today’s recommended allowance for an active man.[3] It’s no wonder that one of his surviving suits of armor, which is displayed at the Tower of London, has a waist size of 132 centimeters (52 in)!

6.  Henry Was The Very First English Monarch To Write A Book
There is no doubt whatsoever that Henry VIII was an extremely intelligent and well-educated man. The fact that he was fluent in at least three languages is well-known, and he had an impressive knowledge that spanned everything from theology to medicine. Yet most people are completely unaware that he was the first king of England to write and publish his own book. In 1521, Henry VIII published the rather confusingly titled Defense of the Seven Sacraments, or, to give it its Latin title, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, as a response to Martin Luther’s challenge to the pope’s authority in publishing the Ninety-five Theses. At 30,000 words long, Henry’s book became a top seller in its day, and he was actually awarded the title of “Defender of the Faith” by the pope as a reward for his efforts.[5]

1.   Henry Turned Beards Into A Status Symbol
Portraits of England’s best-known monarch usually depict him wearing an impressive set of whiskers. However, it isn’t widely known that Henry introduced a tax which was levied on the wearing of beards and which turned facial hair into a status symbol overnight.[10] There have been some seriously bizarre taxes over the years, but Henry’s beard tax has to be one of the strangest. In 1535, the king demanded that taxes be paid by any man who chose to wear a beard, and the amount charged varied depending on the social status of its wearer, meaning that every man who wanted to be viewed as high-status immediately decided to grow their facial hair.So, there you have it—ten amazing things that you never knew about England’s not-so merry monarch. The next time you see a movie or TV show featuring this Tudor king, you’ll know a little more about what made him tick!

31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s Manhunter Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

9. Brian Dennehy “very much wanted to play Hannibal Lecktor,” but told Mann that despite his own interest in the role there was someone who would actually be better for it. He then directed Mann to go see a play in NYC called Rat in the Skull featuring a British actor named… Brian Cox.

5. One of the key things that drew him to Thomas Harris‘ novel Red Dragon was Graham’s path of self-destruction in the service of catching and stopping the killer. “It fascinated me so much it made this, to me, a totally unique detective story and one that had dynamics and complexities that I had never seen before.”

8. Mann says there was an impulse during production to increase Hannibal Lecktor’s (Brian Cox) screen-time, but he resisted the urge. “I wanted the audience to almost not quite get enough of him.” The first meeting between Graham and Lecktor is extended for the director’s cut.

The 25 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time

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Gem Seddon and GamesRadar.com present The 25 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time. Here are three of my favorites and some after thoughts…

17. The Terminator
As played by: Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (1984)

The villain: Sure, the T-1000 might be deadlier, but there’s no doubting the intimidation factor of Skynet’s original robot enforcer. Opting to shoot first and ask questions later, he’s a robust killing machine that won’t stop until you are dead.

Meanest moment: When he blazes a trail through the local police station, turning his weapons on anything that moves.

Nicest quality: If he’s on your side, he’s lovely! See Terminator 2 for details.

15. Hans Gruber
As played by: Alan Rickman in Die Hard (1988)

The villain: One of the first of a new breed of urbane, continental terrorists, the unflappable Gruber is the perfect counterpoint to rough and ready cop John McClane. He isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – he’d just rather not rumple his suit unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Meanest moment: “You know my name but who are you?” sneers Gruber. “Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?”

Nicest quality: He’s a bright boy. “And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer,” he quotes.

4. Anton Chigurh
As played by: Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men (2007)

The villain: A psychotic gun-for-hire with a slavish devotion to the laws of chance. There’s nothing more terrifying than a nutcase with a code and an obsession for murdering people with a cattle bolt gun. It’s as horrible as it sounds.

Meanest moment: The way he taunts the store owner is pretty bad (you don’t know what you’re talking about) but there’s nothing to top the unyielding bloody-mindedness that leads him to kill Carla Jean.

Nicest quality: He’s good with kids. He doesn’t kill those two boys, does he?