Category: Trivia

15 Creepy Facts About “Carrie”

Posted on by

Jennifer M. Wood and Mental_Floss present 15 Creepy Facts About Carrie.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

5. THE STARS OF CARRIE COULD HAVE BEEN THE STARS OF STAR WARS.
Brian De Palma ended up casting for Carrie at the same time his good friend George Lucas was doing the same for a little sci-fi film he was making called Star Wars. So the two made the rather unorthodox decision to hold joint auditions, which ended up becoming a bit confusing. De Palma liked Amy Irving for the lead in Carrie, but she was also considered for Princess Leia in Star Wars. William Katt also auditioned for Star Wars, alongside Kurt Russell.

7. BRIAN DE PALMA DIDN’T SEE SISSY SPACEK AS CARRIE.
Though De Palma was a fan of Spacek’s work, he was convinced that he had already found his Carrie in another actress. His decision to let Spacek audition at all was mostly out of courtesy to her husband, Jack Fisk, the film’s art director. “He told me that if I wanted to, I could try out for the part of Carrie White,” Spacek recounted to Rolling Stone. “There was another girl that he was set on and unless he was really surprised, she was the one. I hung up and decided to go for it.”

Spacek showed up at her audition in an old dress she hadn’t worn since grade school and with her hair slicked back with Vaseline. When she was done, she waited in the parking lot while her husband reviewed her audition with the rest of the production team. After Fisk came out to tell her that the part was hers, “We sped off before anybody could change his mind,” Spacek said.

13. SPACEK LOVED TO WITNESS MOVIEGOERS’ REACTIONS TO THE ENDING.
“When I was in New York, and Carrie came out, I would go to theaters just for the last five minutes of the film to watch everyone jump out of their chairs,” Spacek recalled. “People are all relaxed. The music is really beautiful and relaxing, and all of a sudden that comes up, and people just go crazy.” [I saw Carrie at a midnight movie during the original theatrical release and had no  idea of the shocking ending.  I jumped out of my seat and probably scared others around me worse than the movie. – Craig]

10 Starry Facts About “Contact”

Posted on by

Marc Mancini and Mental_Floss present 10 Starry Facts About Contact.  Here are three of my favorites for a movie that I really like and feel is totally under-rated… [Beware of Spoilers!]

1. ITS OPENING SHOT SET AN INDUSTRY RECORD.

Contact begins with a close-up of our home planet. At first, a babel of ’90s radio broadcasts nearly deafens the audience. But as the camera pulls back and Earth grows smaller and smaller, iconic audio clips that were recorded 20, 30, and even 100 years ago greet our ears—only to fade seconds later. By the time our galaxy recedes into an endless cosmic backdrop, there’s nothing left but silence.

This is one of the most ambitious sequences in cinema history. The completely digital intro lasted for 4170 uninterrupted frames, making it the longest computer-generated shot that had ever appeared in a live-action film at the time. Great pains were taken to capture the look of deep space. On the special edition DVD commentary, visual effects supervisor Stephen Rosenbaum recalls getting started by gathering “absolutely incredible” Hubble snapshots of “distant galaxies and stars and other interstellar phenomenon … We laid out what we liked and said, ‘Okay, how can we pass through some of this? How can we combine it together into something [that’s] visually stunning?’”

Brilliant as it is, however, the moment ignores physical law. Just ask Neil deGrasse Tyson. If one could really overtake the radio signals, he argues, “you would hear them in reverse.” Still, the good doctor acknowledges that—for artistry’s sake—everything needed to sound intelligible. “[They] couldn’t have gotten it right and still had the scene work,” Tyson concedes, “so they had to do it the way they did.”

8. MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY REFUSED TO DELIVER A CERTAIN LINE. 
Late in the final script, McConaughey’s character—a self-described “man of the cloth without the cloth” named Palmer Joss—says “My God was too small.” Though Druyan really liked this line, McConaughey called it sacrilegious and wouldn’t say it. Later on, the two talked at length about faith and became good friends (despite differences of opinion).

9. NASA FLATLY DENIES ONE OF THE FILM’S INSINUATIONS. 
In the movie’s third act, a stunned Arroway receives a cyanide pill before entering the pod. According to Zemeckis, Sagan swore that this just-in-case practice was observed “on every single [NASA] mission.” However, Apollo 13 veteran James Lovell has dismissed the idea, writing “many people have asked me ‘Did you have suicide pills on board?’ We didn’t, and I never heard of such a thing in the 11 years I spent as an astronaut and a NASA executive.”

12 High Stakes Facts About “Casino”

Posted on by

Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 High Stakes Facts About Casino.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

1. IT ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE THE REAL GUY IT’S BASED ON WAS A BIG DE NIRO FAN.
The main character, Sam “Ace” Rothstein, is based on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who was retired and living in Florida when writer Nicholas Pileggi came around wanting to write a book about his career. Rosenthal didn’t actively oppose the project, but he had no interest in helping, either—until he found out that Martin Scorsese planned to make Pileggi’s eventual book into a movie, and that Robert De Niro would probably be the star. Then he perked up, asking Pileggi (who also wrote GoodFellas) if he could arrange a meeting with De Niro. Next thing Pileggi knew, formerly reticent associates of Rosenthal’s were coming out of the woodwork, offering their cooperation.

5. JOE PESCI LOOKED SO MUCH LIKE THE REAL GUY THAT SOME CASINO PIT BOSSES DID DOUBLE-TAKES.
Pesci bore some natural resemblance to Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, the violent psychopath who busted heads for Rosenthal, and upon whom his character—Nicky Santoro—was based. In makeup, he looked even more like Spilotro—so much so that, according to Pileggi, when Pesci entered the casino where the movie was being shot, some pit bosses who’d had personal dealings with Spilotro “almost fainted.”

6. ACCORDING TO SCORSESE, THE FILM HAS “NO PLOT AT ALL.”
“There’s no plot at all,” Scorsese said in an interview included on the Blu-ray. “It’s three hours, no plot. So you know this going in. There’s a lot of action, a lot of story, but no plot.”

14 Crazy Facts About “Psycho”

Posted on by

Scott Weinberg and Mental_Floss present 14 Crazy Facts About Psycho.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

5. HITCHCOCK FINANCED THE FILM.
Paramount had all sorts of cold feet regarding the project, which prompted Hitchcock to both pay for the film out of his own pocket and forgo his (rather substantial) director’s fee in exchange for 60 percent ownership of the film. This highly uncommon arrangement put a whole lot of money in Hitchcock’s pocket. (Bad move, Paramount.) Plus the film doesn’t even belong to Paramount anymore; it’s been a Universal title since 1968.

12. LATE MOVIEGOERS WEREN’T ALLOWED IN.
Not only was Hitchcock intent on keeping the film under wraps until the last possible minute—he also instructed theaters to not allow anyone in once the film had started. And they did it!

14. THE MOVIE EARNED HITCHCOCK HIS FINAL OSCAR NOMINATION.
Psycho marked the fifth and final time that Hitchcock would earn an Oscar nomination for Best Director. (The Academy gave him the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968.) Yes, you read that right: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for directing. Let that sink in for a bit. [Hard to believe, isn’t it? – Craig]

13 Fascinating Facts About “The Thing”

Posted on by

James L. Menzies and Mental_Floss present 13 Fascinating Facts About The Thing.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

4. A DOUBLE AMPUTEE WAS USED TO CREATE THE FILM’S QUINTESSENTIAL SPECIAL EFFECT.
One of the most memorable scenes in the movie (often referred to as the “chest chomp”) occurs when Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) attempts to revive Norris (Charles Hallahan) with a defibrillator. As he presses the paddles to his patient’s skin, Norris’ chest opens up and Copper’s forearms disappear into the cavity, where they are severed below the elbow by a set of jaws inside Norris’ chest.

In order to pull this off, special makeup effects designer Rob Bottin (known for his work onRobocop, Total Recall, Se7en, and Fight Club) found a man who had lost both of his arms below the elbow in an industrial accident. Bottin fit the man with two prosthetic forearms consisting of wax bones, rubber veins, and Jell-O. Then, for the wide-angle shot, he fit the man with a skin-like mask taken from a mold of Dysart’s face (à la Hannibal Lecter) and placed the ersatz arms into the chest cavity, where a set of mechanical jaws clamped down on them. As the actor pulled his arms away, the Jell-O arms severed below the elbows. The rest is practical effects history.

6. KURT RUSSELL ALMOST KILLED HIMSELF WITH A STICK OF DYNAMITE.
Russell threw an actual stick of dynamite during a scene toward the end of the film. He did not, however, anticipate it being so powerful. Russell was literally blown backwards after the device detonated; this take was left in the film.

13. AN ALTERNATE ENDING WAS FILMED, JUST IN CASE.
John Carpenter and editor Todd Ramsay shot and cut an alternate ending to the film that was never used. Ramsay was concerned that the bleak, ambiguous ending would not test well with audiences, so he suggested that Carpenter cover his bases and have a spare ending ready to go. They filmed an additional scene where lead character MacReady (Kurt Russell) is rescued and appears in a room where he is given a blood test to determine whether he has been assimilated, which he passes. Fortunately for fans of the film, this alternate finale was not needed as Carpenter stood firmly behind the movie he had made—ambiguous ending and all

17 Wonderful (and Not So Wonderful) Facts About “The Wizard of Oz”

Posted on by

Sareen Leeds and Mental_Floss present 17 Wonderful (and Not So Wonderful) Facts About The Wizard of Oz.   Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

2. GETTING DOROTHY HOME TO KANSAS WAS AN EASIER FEAT THAN MAINTAINING A DIRECTOR FOR THE WIZARD OF OZ.
Victor Fleming may be the one officially credited onscreen, but The Wizard of Oz can boast four directors. The first, Richard Thorpe, was fired after less than two weeks. George Cukor was brought in next, but he was summoned away to go work on—of all projects!—Gone With the Wind. Then Fleming stepped in, until he too was called over to assist with Gone With the Wind, and King Vidor was hired to complete the movie.

6. FRANK MORGAN PLAYED NOT ONE, NOT TWO, BUT FIVE CHARACTERS IN OZ.
Most of the main actors in The Wizard of Oz played two roles: A Kansas character and his or her Oz counterpart. This meant Ray Bolger (Scarecrow), Jack Haley (Tin Man), and Bert Lahr (Cowardly Lion) doubled as farmhands, and Margaret Hamilton got wicked in both Kansas (Miss Gulch) and Oz (the Witch). But Frank Morgan, who portrayed the shady Professor Marvel in the Kansas scenes (and was only billed for that role in the credits), not only showed up in Oz as the Wizard, but also as the uppity Doorman to the Emerald City, the Horse-of-a-Different-Color-owning Cabbie, and the snippy (later, sobbing) Wizard’s Guard.

12. MOVIE-MUSICAL VIRTUOSO BUSBY BERKELEY CHOREOGRAPHED AN EXTENDED (AND DELETED) VERSION OF “IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN.”

Another casualty of the cutting room floor, this extended “If I Only Had a Brain” sequence showcased Ray Bolger’s deft control over his seemingly elastic body. It is also extremely trippy and gave the Scarecrow the inexplicable ability to fly—which wasn’t going to gel with the rest of the movie (if the Scarecrow could fly, then why didn’t he go one-on-one with the Wicked Witch?). Luckily for Berkeley, the decision to delete this part of the scene in no way hurt the legendary director-choreographer’s place in the annals of movie musical history.

18 So Cool Facts About “True Romance”

Posted on by

Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 18 So Cool Facts About True Romance.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

2.TONY SCOTT WANTED TO DIRECT BOTH TRUE ROMANCE AND RESERVOIR DOGS.
Because he was still new to the business, Tarantino knew he couldn’t direct both movies. So he gave both scripts to Tony Scott and told him to pick one. Though Scott wanted both of the films, he ended up choosing True Romance, leaving Tarantino to make Reservoir Dogs.

7. TOM SIZEMORE GOT JAMES GANDOLFINI IN THE MOVIE.
Sizemore was initially cast as Gandolfini’s character, Virgil. But he wasn’t comfortable with a scene that required him to beat up Patricia Arquette, so he asked to play Cody Nicholson instead. When Scott asked Sizemore who should play Virgil instead, he suggested Gandolfini, a then-unknown actor whom he knew from the New York theater world.

16. SCOTT CHANGED TARANTINO’S ENDING.
Quentin had Clarence die; Scott decided that the movie deserved a happier ending. The only other difference between Tarantino’s script and Scott’s interpretation was presenting the movie linearly; Tarantino wrote True Romance as a nonlinear adventure, similar to the style ofReservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

15 Infamous Facts About “The Three Amigos”

Posted on by

Anna Green and Mental_Floss present 15 Infamous Facts About The Thrree Amigos.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

6. JOHN LANDIS’S FAVORITE MOMENT WHILE SHOOTING WAS AN ARGUMENT WITH CHEVY CHASE.
Landis told Movies.com, “Probably the funniest moment for me when shooting was when I had the Three Amigos on horseback in the desert and I was shooting while they were wearing those ridiculous outfits and after having been shooting for three weeks, Chevy objected to a line of dialogue and he said, ‘I don’t think I should say this.’ And, remember, Chevy plays a character named Dusty Bottoms. So I said, ‘Well, why not?’ He said, ‘Because my character would have to be a moron to say this.’ All I could think was, What movie has Chevy been making? So I said, ‘OK, I’ll give it to Marty because it’s a laugh.’ Then Chevy said, ‘I’ll say it!’ It’s one of my favorite moments with an actor.”

7. SEVERAL FILMS THAT CAME OUT AFTER ¡THREE AMIGOS! SHARED ITS PREMISE.
Like ¡Three Amigos!, films like Galaxy Quest (1999) and Tropic Thunder (2008) have featured movie stars accidentally ending up in real danger. Vulture outlined the many similaritiesbetween Tropic Thunder and ¡Three Amigos!, which include everything from similar catchphrases and movie star cameos (Tom Cruise plays Jewish film producer Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder while Joe Mantegna plays Jewish film producer Harry Flugleman in ¡Three Amigos!) to characters eating bats when they’re short on food. Galaxy Quest meanwhile featured a group of washed up sci-fi stars who end up cavorting with real aliens.

Referring to the spate of movies that borrow from the ¡Three Amigos! premise, John Landis said, “They completely ripped it off! The first Pixar movie about the ants, A Bug’s Life, took the same plot. It’s amazing how often the plot has been used. If Galaxy Quest weren’t so funny, it would probably bother me more.”

13. STEVEN SPIELBERG ALMOST DIRECTED THE FILM.
Spielberg considered making the film in the early 1980s with Martin, Robin Williams, and Bill Murray as the leads. Ultimately, he decided to make E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) instead.

15 Smart Facts About “The Big Bang Theory”

Posted on by

Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 15 Smart Facts About The Big Bang Theory.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

2. IT TOOK TWO PILOTS FOR THE SHOW TO GET PICKED UP TO SERIES.
The show filmed two different pilots, because CBS didn’t like the first one but felt the show had potential. The first pilot began with a different theme song and featured Sheldon, Leonard, and two female characters, including a different actress playing what would become the Penny role. Chuck Lorre thought the initial pilot “sucked” but is open to having the unaired pilot included as part of a DVD.

5. SHELDON PROBABLY DOESN’T HAVE ASPERGER’S.
Because of Sheldon’s anti-social nature, viewers have often assumed that Sheldon has Asperger’s syndrome. But Prady has stated that “We write the character as the character. A lot of people see various things in him and make the connections. Our feeling is that Sheldon’s mother never got a diagnosis, so we don’t have one.”

Parsons himself isn’t totally sure, though. “Asperger’s came up as a question within the first few episodes. I got asked about it by a reporter, and I had heard of it, but I didn’t know what it was, specifically,” he told Adweek in 2014. “So I asked the writers—I said, ‘They’re asking me if Sheldon has Asperger’s’ and they were like, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ And I went back and I said, ‘No.’ And then I read some about it and I went, OK, well, if the writers say he doesn’t, then he doesn’t, but he certainly shares some qualities with those who do. I like the way it’s handled … This is who this person is; he’s just another human.”

10. WIL WHEATON GOT THE “EVIL WIL WHEATON” GIG THROUGH TWITTER.
Wheaton, who plays a “delightfully evil version” of himself on the show, tweeted about The Big Bang Theory. Wheaton told Larry King, “I was talking on Twitter about how much I loved the show and how I thought it was really funny.” One of the show’s executive producers, Steven Molaro, saw the tweet and told Wheaton to let him know if he wanted to come to a taping. A few days later Wheaton received an email from Bill Prady’s assistant about appearing on the show. “I just thought the email was a joke from one of my friends, so I just ignored it,” Wheaton said.

When Wheaton realized that the email was legit he phoned up Prady, who explained they wanted a nemesis for Sheldon. “It’s always more fun to be the villain,” Wheaton said. Even though the character has evolved into Sheldon’s ally, Wheaton said, “I still call him Evil Wil Wheaton.”

17 Fascinating Facts About “Apocalypse Now”

Posted on by

Sean Hutchinson and Mental_Floss present 17 Fascinating Facts About Apocalypse Now.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

6. COPPOLA LITERALLY PUT EVERYTHING HE HAD INTO THE MOVIE.
The director invested $30 million of his own money into the project to get the budget to the amount required to execute his vision. That total included the valuations of his house and his winery, which he signed over to Chase Bank as collateral on the amount. The interest rate for the amount began at seven percent, but when production ended it was up to 29 percent. If the movie tanked, Coppola faced financial ruin, which understandably made the filming process fairly stressful. Coppola suffered an epileptic seizure while shooting, had a nervous breakdown, and allegedly threatened to commit suicide at least three times.

8. HARRISON FORD APPEARS IN A (TECHNICALLY) PRE-STAR WARS ROLE.
Coppola hired a young actor named Harrison Ford to appear as Colonel Lucas (a nod to George), one of the military officers who gives Willard his orders to assassinate Kurtz. Ford had previously appeared in Lucas’ American Graffiti and Coppola’s The Conversation, but was still relatively unknown when the filming of Apocalypse Now began in 1976.  He would later become a megastar after appearing as Han Solo in Star Wars when it was released in 1977.Apocalypse Now, which was shot before Star Wars, was released afterwards. Ford was apparently so nervous when shooting his scenes that Coppola added a story beat for his character to drop his dossier about Kurtz as a way to incorporate the then young actor’s anxiety into the scene.

5. HARVEY KEITEL WAS FIRST HIRED TO PLAY WILLARD.
Coppola held exhaustive audition sessions for his primary cast, but the part of Willard proved to be a problematic one for Coppola. He first offered the part to actor Steve McQueen, who turned down the role because he didn’t want to shoot in the jungle on location. Al Pacino, James Caan, and Jack Nicholson all turned down successive offers from Coppola until he gave the role to Harvey Keitel. Coppola fired Keitel six weeks into production because he thought the actor’s performance wasn’t as introspective as he needed for the character. So he called Martin Sheen, who had previously auditioned for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather and passed on Apocalypse Now because he was shooting The Cassandra Crossing in Rome.

11 Clever Moments of Movie Foreshadowing You May Have Missed

Posted on by

Rudie Obias and Mental_Floss present 11 Clever Moments of Movie Foreshadowing You May Have Missed.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

1. PSYCHO (1960)
After Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) checks into the Bates Motel, she overhears the motel’s owner, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), get into an argument with his mother, who is emotionally abusive toward him. Nevertheless, Norman defends her when Marion suggests that their relationship might be toxic. Norman explains that his mother is “as harmless as one of those stuffed birds.” The line foreshadows the film’s twist when it is revealed that Norman killed and taxidermied his mother.

4. TOTAL RECALL (1990)
Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 science fiction film Total Recall is full of clever clues that keep audiences guessing as to whether Doug Quaid’s (Arnold Schwarzenegger) adventure as a secret agent on Mars was real or merely a memory implanted into his brain. One of the biggest hints comes at the beginning of the film, when Quaid visits Rekall and one of the engineers tells him that he will experience “blue skies on Mars.” At the end of Total Recall, the Red Planet is terraformed and there is now a blue sky on Mars.

5. RESERVOIR DOGS (1992)
Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs follows a small group of criminals brought together to pull off a diamond heist. But when the police show up in the midst of the job, it’s clear that one of the men is an informant. The criminals are unknown to each other and are only referred to by colorful aliases (i.e. Mr. White). However, if you pay close attention to the opening scene, you can figure out that Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) is the police informant who set up the rest of the gang.

During the breakfast scene, when Joe (Lawrence Tierney) leaves the table to pay the bill, everyone contributes a dollar for the waitress’ tip—everyone except for Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), who refuses to tip based on principle. When Joe comes back to the table, he notices that the tip is short and asks who didn’t contribute. Without hesitation, Mr. Orange rats out Mr. Pink.

Additionally, when Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn) rushes to the hideout after the heist-gone-wrong, there’s an orange balloon following his car, which is a nod to the fact that Mr. Orange is after him.

17 Things You Never Knew About “The Shawshank Redemption”

Posted on by

Hollywood.com presents 17 Things You Never Knew About The Shawshank Redemption.   Here are three of my favorites…

3. Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, and even Robert Redford were considered for the part of Red, who is a middle-aged Irishman in the original story… Darabont had Freeman in mind all along because of his presence, demeanor, and, of course, that voice.

16. When the cut-out hiding space for his digging tool was discovered in Andy’s Bible, it’s clear the book is open to Exodus.

Shawshank Redemption
Columbia Pictures

The word literally means “to escape or depart.”

5. The mugshot of Red attached to his parole papers looks just like a young Morgan Freeman for a reason: it’s Freeman’s son, Alfonso in the photos.

Shawshank Redemption
Columbia Pictures

Alfonso Freeman also appears in the film as a convict yelling, “Free fish! Free fish today!”

15 Fascinating Facts About “The Departed”

Posted on by

Sean Hutchinson and Mental_Floss present 15 Fascinating Facts About  The Departed.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. IT’S BASED ON A REAL-LIFE GANGSTER.
Jack Nicholson’s character is based on infamous Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger. Before he was captured in 2011, he was second only to Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and had a reward of $1 million for his capture.

6. MARK WAHLBERG WASN’T THE FIRST CHOICE TO PLAY DIGNAM.
Ray Liotta (who was also in Scorsese’s Goodfellas) and Denis Leary were initially considered for the role, which eventually went to Wahlberg. Wahlberg was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

8. THE FILM TAKES A WHILE TO GET GOING.
The title card doesn’t appear until 18 minutes after the movie starts.