MikeH

11th Mar 2015

Goodfellas (1990)

Continuity mistake: When we see the close-up of Tommy pulling the ice pick out of Morrie's head, there's lots of blood on the ice pick. But in the next shot, there's no blood on the ice pick. The next shot is a little quick and blurry, but we can still easily see the ice pick's silver when it should be red.

MikeH

11th Mar 2015

La Confidential (1997)

Continuity mistake: When White shoots Fitch in the chest, at first there's only a little blood around the bullet hole, but in the next shot there's instantly much more blood.

MikeH

10th Mar 2015

La Confidential (1997)

Revealing mistake: When the two men in the car are shot with machine guns, there's a bump on each of their foreheads even before they're shot in the head. This bump was so it could disappear and reveal the bullet holes when the bullet hits their heads.

MikeH

Question: Why is Sean happy that Will rejected the job interview to go to California? I know he thinks love is important, but his goal was to stop Will from wasting his potential.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Will is not wasting his potential. Sean knows that Will has overcome many of his emotional difficulties and with his exceptional abilities, there will be many other job opportunities, regardless of where he lives. Sean believes it is far more important for Will to pursue a lasting relationship with a woman for the first time in his life.

raywest

Will had multiple job offers - someone of his intelligence could pick up any job he wanted hence he wasn't disappointed.

Question: Why did Will lie about having twelve brothers? What did he think it would achieve? And why would someone as smart as Skylar believe it?

MikeH

Chosen answer: It's just part of his personality. He had become used to keeping people at a distance and made up stories so they didn't know what he was actually like. There's no reason for Skylar not to believe him at first. Large families with ten or more children are not unheard of, particularly if the parents have been married more than once.

raywest

Answer: The judge pointed out that Will "went through several foster homes." Whether the foster parents had their own biological children and/or other foster kids, Will could have easily had twelve "brothers" who were the functional equivalent of biological brothers. Using his own operational definition of "brother", Will had twelve, so was not lying. However, using a more common definition of "brother", Will was not exactly telling the truth. Will can be said to have told her a "white lie" - only telling her what he wanted to and omitting the details. This can be a type of defense mechanism, giving her the impression that he - like almost everyone else - grew up in a family with his siblings. In a way, he was protecting himself by hiding the way in which he was raised. Because it wasn't typical for Will to become attached to whatever girl he was seeing, he saw no need to reveal his past (although, unknown to him at the time, this relationship would turn out differently than previous ones).

KeyZOid

Why would she think that he was making up something like how many brothers he has? Not only did Will go through the names of his twelve "brothers", he was able to convincingly repeat the twelve names after she asked him to. IF he had not been able to quickly repeat a sequence of twelve boys' names, it would have been a giveaway that he was lying. Common sense was more significant than intelligence in discerning whether or not Will was telling the truth. (But common sense often does not match reality).

KeyZOid

5th Mar 2015

The Dark Knight (2008)

Question: How can you die instantly from a small quick cut to the cheek?

MikeH

Chosen answer: Because the camera cuts away before we see the slash, we don't know how ferocious the Joker cuts him. Mind you, the knife was halfway inside his mouth and it did seem like a deep cut, so he possibly died due to the knife slashing an essential artery or vessel.

Dra9onBorn117

5th Mar 2015

The Dark Knight (2008)

Chosen answer: There was not enough time. Only the Batmobile was fast enough to save one of them, hence the police being late to the other location. The Joker made sure one would die.

MasterOfAll

Assuming they sent all the other units to find Dent (Rachel instead), wouldn't it have been helpful and faster to send some cop patrolling near that location to save her? As fast as Batman was with his technology, another cop who might have been close to the location could have gotten there in time I would guess. Or am I missing something?

Paradox Rastafa

I think several things are in play (but me speculating). First, the cops were busy trying to safeguard Dent and then apprehend the Joker. Think Die Hard 3 were all the cops were so busy "you could steal City Hall." So while there might be some cops on patrol, not close enough. But given the level of precision in Joker's plan, it seemed like the explosion was going to go off when the cops got there, so even if they got there sooner, the place would still explode.

Bishop73

But I will admit that the Joker's "precision" really seems to be sheer dumb luck that we're suppose to accept as his criminal mastermind plan.

Bishop73

Yes, it could be indeed or maybe like Nolan said: Joker is a mysterious unstoppable force (resourceful one at that) that suddenly appeared. Gotham's extreme corruption at the time allowed for a psychotic (or anarchist if you will) one like Joker to play his cards with more freedom as well, which I think some people forget to consider. In that sense, Bane had to do things differently because the aforementioned aspect was highly reduced after TDK events.

Paradox Rastafa

True. With many things at play, possible situations and Joker's preparation, there can be multiple reasons why everything happened the way it did (the film makes a wise decision to not over explain this and leave it to imagination), specially because Joker most likely wanted one of them to die, or they would have both died anyway since explosion occurred either way. Based on everything Joker did, maybe it was always supposed to be Rachel. He wanted to make a point with Dent and Bats after all.

Paradox Rastafa

Chosen answer: When they left the L Street Tavern, Skylar said she wanted to meet Will's brothers and Chuckie gave him a curious look which she picked up on.

Sierra1

25th Feb 2015

American Reunion (2012)

Question: Can someone please explain the photos in the yearbook? It seems like it was the gang in 1999, but they never posed for those photos in the first American Pie.

MikeH

Chosen answer: They have been friends for a long time. They had plenty of time to take pictures. We only see them on screen for a few hours of their lives spread over a short while.

Greg Dwyer

Chosen answer: In a nutshell, tax evasion. He's running the prison like a company doing building work with, as its described by the builder in the movie, a pool of slave labour to allow him undercut other contractors. He is skimming profit for his own pockets, along with taking bribes, etc. that Andy's creative book keeping is hiding from the IRS.

25th Feb 2015

La Confidential (1997)

Question: Was the police force in the 50s really that corrupt and brutal?

MikeH

Chosen answer: Yes.

Answer: Yes indeed. Example: "Bloody Christmas," which takes place in the beginning of the film, was based on a real incident, when on Christmas Day, 1951, some 50 officers, many of them drunk (in violation of the LAPD's alcohol policy), beat six prisoners to a bloody pulp in revenge for an assault on a fellow officer. At least 100 people knew about or witnessed the beatings.

25th Feb 2015

Pay it Forward (2000)

Question: I might be mistaken, but I think I saw the bullies at Arlene's house at the end. Were they there, and if so, why?

MikeH

Chosen answer: The one who stabbed him was not. The others were there because they did not mean for Trevor to get stabbed and killed so now they feel guilty. They were showing Arlene they were sorry.

They were sorry for killing him.

Only one of the bullies killed him. The others were bullying, but didn't think the other would kill him. However, they still had remorse and were showing that remorse to the mother.

Question: What was the point of the ending? What message was it trying to send? We have a whole movie sending an anti-racist message, but then a black guy kills Danny for blowing smoke in his face. I'm sure this wasn't the movie's intention, but it kinda seems like we're supposed to believe Derek was originally right and shouldn't have changed.

MikeH

Chosen answer: No, the message is absolutely not that Derek was originally right. The last part just shows there is evil on both sides and not only the neo-nazis need change. Danny changed, but too late to be saved from being murdered for racist reasons. Its a classic Shakespearean tragedy.

lionhead

Answer: In the original unaired ending of the movie, it shows Derek staring in the mirror at his home. He takes his shirt off exposing his swastika, then you see hair falling into the sink as he shaves his head.

Anywhere to find that alternate ending?

lionhead

25th Feb 2015

22 Jump Street (2014)

Question: In the "My name is Jeff" videos where they actually show the video from the movie as well as the voices, sometimes they show a close-up of his face, but sometimes it's from more of a distance. Which one do they use in the movie, and where's the other one used?

MikeH

21st Feb 2015

Up (2009)

Question: How did the movie get nominated for Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for animated films.

MikeH

Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for animated films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to foreign movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.

Question: How come Hadley was arrested for Tommy's murder but nobody cares about Fat Ass's murder? There were hundreds of witnesses.

MikeH

Chosen answer: 1) This is almost twenty years down the road. Many of those witnesses are either gone from the prison, dead, or may have forgotten any details. 2) Hadley beat Fatass because he wouldn't stop talking, breaking the rules. Tommy was just standing there talking to the warden. It's cold blooded murder vs. Simple brutality. 3) Prisoners are often reluctant to testify against guards because of fear of retribution from other guards.

Greg Dwyer

Question: How did the movie win Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for foreign films.

MikeH

Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for foreign films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to animated movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.

Question: If the police were so sure Jamal cheated, why are they so desperate to find out how?

MikeH

Chosen answer: It's not enough to be sure about a crime or other wrongdoing. It has to be proven with facts. They want to show how he did it.

raywest

Question: Why was Oz considered a con man? He was simply doing magic tricks, which everyone should know aren't real.

MikeH

Chosen answer: I believe you are taking a very modern day perspective. In our era of technology, scientific advancement, and general skepticism about everything, we are pretty jaded and cynical about things like magic and paranormal phenomena. At that time and place, audiences were far more willing to accept the possibility of true magic and sorcery, and weren't as prone to disbelieving what their eyes tell them. A "con" (short for "confidence") man is one who attempts to gain the trust of another, subsequently using deception, fraud and/or trickery for their own personal gain. I don't think it's unfair to label Oz this way, particularly at the beginning of the film.

Michael Albert

13th Feb 2015

Scarface (1983)

Revealing mistake: When Tony shoots Hector in the head, you can tell they stuck a red sticker to his head to simulate a bullet hole. You can tell this because there's a little bit sticking out, which is what they'd use to take it off.

MikeH

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