7 Things We Learned About “Breaking Bad” from Vince Gilligan

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Jennifer M. Wood and Mental_Floss present 7 Things We Learned About Breaking Bad from Vince Gilligan’s AMA. Here are three of my favorites.

1. ON THE SET OF BREAKING BAD, BRYAN CRANSTON WOULD REGULARLY TELL AARON PAUL THAT JESSE PINKMAN WAS BEING KILLED OFF.

“He loved to tease Aaron Paul mercilessly,” explained Gilligan. “This came about after I told Aaron Paul early in the series that I had planned to kill off his character. From then on, every time a new script came out, Bryan would hurry to read it first so he could put on a sorrowful face and say to Aaron, ‘Gee buddy, I’m so sorry. You’re going out with a bang, at least.’ And Aaron, God bless him, seemed to fall for it every time.”

3. WALTER WHITE WAS THE HARDEST CHARACTER TO KILL OFF.

“I have to say the death of Walter White affected me the most,” admitted Gilligan, “because what it represented was the end of the story and the completion of this seven-year journey we had taken together—the cast, crew, writers and directors of Breaking Bad. That was the most affecting death to write. I actually teared up when I wrote it. I think a close second was the death of Mike Ehrmantraut.”

4. YOU MAY VERY WELL BE ABLE TO EAT AT LOS POLLOS HERMANOS IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

Gus Fring’s fictional chicken joint may become a nonfictional chicken joint. “Believe it or not, there is talk of a Pollos Hermanos becoming a real restaurant,” confirmed Gilligan. “This is not an idea that I generated personally. But it’s one that’s been presented to me, through the good folks at Sony, and the idea came to them from a businessman who has an interest in doing just that. Speaking for myself, I’d love to see that happen!”

27 Groovy Facts About “Austin Powers”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 27 Groovy Facts About Austin Powers.  Here are three of my favorites, baby.

1. MIKE MYERS STARTED THINKING UP THE AUSTIN POWERS CHARACTER DRIVING HOME ONE DAY.

Burt Bacharach’s “The Look of Love” was playing on the car radio, leading Myers to think about where the “swingers” of the world went off to. This inevitably led to the comedian asking his then-wife Robin Ruzan if she “swung” and if he was “making her horny.” Told to stop and to just write this new character down somewhere, Myers wrote the first draft of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery in three weeks.

2. IT’S WIDELY BELIEVED THAT DR. EVIL IS BASED ON LORNE MICHAELS.

Anonymous former writers and actors from the legendary sketch show claimed that Dr. Evil did an excellent job of mimicking SNL‘s head honcho, from his overall control-freak behavior to the physical mannerisms, including the famous upturned pinkie. It was even rumored that Dana Carvey was angry with Myers for more than a decade because he felt that Myers stole his Lorne Michaels impression for Dr. Evil. A few months after The Spy Who Shagged Me came out, Myers appeared in an SNL sketch insisting to Michaels that Dr. Evil was not based on him.

15. ROB LOWE GOT THE ROLE OF YOUNG NUMBER TWO BY DOING A SPOT-ON ROBERT WAGNER IMPRESSION.

He did the impersonation for Myers one day while the two were golfing. A couple of months later, he was presented with a script with him already cast in the role. Lowe actually appeared in, but was cut out of, the first movie; he played a friend of John Smith, one of Dr. Evil’s henchman, who gets “decapitated by an ill-tempered mutated sea bass.” Lowe is forced to deliver that news at Smith’s bachelor party.

15 Things You Might Not Know About “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

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Michael Arbeiter and Mental_Floss present 15 Things You Might Not Know About One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Listed below are three of my favorites…

7. MANY SCENES WERE SHOT WITHOUT THE ACTORS’ KNOWLEDGE.

To complete this realistic immersion, Forman led his performers in unscripted group therapy sessions in which he directed the actors to develop their characters’ psychological maladies organically. He would often capture footage of the actors, both in and out of character, without explicitly mentioning that the cameras were rolling. The film’s final cut includes a shot of a visibly irritated Fletcher reacting to a piece of direction fed to her by Forman.

8. FORMAN AND NICHOLSON HAD A TREMENDOUS SPAT OVER THE FILM’S PLOT.

While the intensity of the turmoil varies from rumor to rumor, reports from the set were consistent on one fact: The star refused to speak with Forman for a large chunk of the production process. Nicholson took issue with Forman’s suggestion that the hospital inmates would be an unruly bunch upon the initial arrival of McMurphy. Instead, the actor insisted that such disavowal of the medical staff’s authority should only begin after the introduction of McMurphy into their lives and routines.

Although the version of the story that we see in the film today is more closely associated with Nicholson’s alleged reading, suggesting that Forman ultimately took his advice, Nicholson refused to interact with his director from that point forward. When the star and Forman needed to communicate with one another, they used cinematographer Bill Butler as a middleman.

13. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST WAS THE FIRST FILM TO WIN ALL “BIG FIVE” ACADEMY AWARDS IN 41 YEARS.

Not since 1934’s It Happened One Night swept the Oscars had a film walked away with awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest took home the lot, with Nicholson and Fletcher winning the top acting awards. The feat would not be matched again for another 16 years, with Silence of the Lambs becoming the next (and last to date) movie to earn the distinction.

“The Nightmare” Trailer – Night Terrors Are Real

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Check out the trailer for the documentary The Nightmare and then let’s meet below.

The Nightmare is a documentary that…

… chronicles eight different people who suffer from night terrors and sleep paralysis, that finds them trapped in awakened states of semi-consciousness, where they witness truly horrific visions, but are unable to move.

Night terrors are a real and fairly common.  I used to have them but haven’t in years.  It’s frightening to feel that someone is in the room and worse you can’t move.  I was surprised to see the “shadow man” with the “Undertaker” hat in the trailer because one of my worst night terror dreams had the same guy standing over me.

Creepy.

Source: i09.

Oral History of Pro Wrestling’s 1995 Historic Excursion into North Korea

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In 1995, Muhammad Ali joined Ric Flair, Eric Bishoff and other WCW superstars to journey to North Korea to take part in the “International Sports and Cultural Festival for Peace.”

The trip had highs (wrestling before the largest crowds in professional wrestling history – a record that still stands, traveling with Muhammad Ali) and lows (tapped phones, terrible food and US pro wrestlers getting into a real fight) but remains largely unknown to fans who haven’t read… Dan Greene and Sports Illustrated’s an Oral History of Pro Wrestling’s 1995 Historic Excursion into North Korea.

21 Facts About “The Matrix” That Will Blow Your Mind

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Hollywood.com presents 21 Facts About The Matrix That Will Blow Your Mind.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. The film differentiates the Matrix and the real world through color.

The scenes that take place within the Matrix are tinted green; those that happen in the real world have more of a normal coloring. The fight scene between Neo and Morpheus has a yellow tint, since it takes place in neither.

7. Morpheus, in Greek mythology, is the god of dreams.

GIPHY/reddit.com

Which is ironic, since he’s the man who wakes people from their dream states and introduces them to reality.

8. Keanu Reeves only has 80 lines in the first 45 minutes of the film.

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Of those 80 lines, 44 are questions. That’s over his half his dialogue, and it amounts to about one question per minute.