zephalis

1st Jan 2011

Manhunter (1986)

Factual error: When Reba is in the darkroom with Dollarhyde she mentions that he speaks very well but avoids fricatives and sibilants. In linguistics sibilants are a form of fricative and Reba would have known that since she'd obviously studied linguistics. The writers likely meant that he just avoids sibilants (to avoid sounding homosexual) but wanted it to sound more technical. Sibilants in English are the 's' in "see", 'sh' in "shout", 'z' in "zoo", and the 's' in "pleasure". Fricatives would include sibilants as well as the 'f' in "fine", 'v' in "vine", 'th' in "that", and 'th' in "thing" (01:17:30)

zephalis

Factual error: When Novalee is locked inside Wal-mart during a storm she looks out the front. Water is streaming down the front doors. The problem with this is that the doors of the Wal-mart are very far under an awning and would never see that sort of rain. The awning is shown a minute or so before and is a standard Wal-mart feature. (00:16:45)

zephalis

15th Jul 2008

Because I Said So (2007)

Factual error: In the scene when Milly is on the phone with her mom and sisters while at the architect's house, she hangs up on the party call and her mom hears a dial tone before lowering the phone which anyone with a cell phone knows won't happen. (00:41:40)

zephalis

6th Apr 2008

Numb3rs (2005)

Counterfeit Reality - S1-E7

Factual error: The Secret Service agent says the bills are counterfeit because you can see the watermark under a uv light, which is completely wrong. The uv reactive strip is not a watermark, it's a plastic strip embedded between the two layers of the bill and fluoresces under uv as a security measure. In older bills, it glows blue as in the film. In newer ones, it glows yellow to orange and is on the right half of the bill. A fake bill would be the one that does not glow. (00:07:20)

zephalis

Factual error: The second time Frank speaks with Booth, the line is being traced. When Frank switches over, Okura tells him to keep Booth on the line until they get the ANI (automatic number identification). Assuming the secret service has access to the phone company's internal computer (since you have to have toll-free service or be a customer of an ANI outsourcing company to receive the subscription based info), ANI only says who the phone is registered to and since the call was being tapped they would've had the ANI information before the call was picked up. This still holds true if the ANI is faked by a well built PBX system (as said later). (00:24:10)

zephalis

Factual error: When Frank talks to Booth the first time on the phone and realizes he's at the phone outside, he runs to find him, only to find the handset swinging and the phone emitting the periodic screech that is heard after 1 minute of leaving a phone off hook. Seeing as how the apartment is three stories max, there's no way that sound would be playing by time he got there even if Booth somehow hung up first. Furthermore, even if it did take that long, the handset wouldn't still be swinging. (00:14:45)

zephalis

Factual error: The nickel from the phone booth is fake. Unless it was a special minted edition. It doesn't look like any nickel I've ever seen from that era. It is also reflectively discolored compared to the proper coin to its left. It actually looks more like an '01 coin. (00:31:20)

zephalis

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