Ioreth

21st Mar 2016

General questions

I'm looking for a movie about a magical circus. The main character is an old man with long beard and his daughter who might be 18 to 20 years old? And two other younger men.

Answer: While it's not strictly speaking a circus, the cast suggests this is "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" by Terry Gilliam. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/.

Ioreth

29th Apr 2014

General questions

What is the movie where a woman is accused for murder and is either in jail or a mental asylum. Right at the end you see the real murderer outside where he flicks his cigarette lighter three times (this being the signature move of the murderer throughout the movie)?

Shannen Bartlett

Chosen answer: This sounds like "Under Suspicion" with Liam Neeson and Laura San Giacomo: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105691.

Ioreth

9th Nov 2013

Flash Gordon (1980)

Question: Why did Prince Barron hate Flash so much? His burning desire to kill this complete stranger left me somewhat baffled.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Prince Barin was the fiance of Princess Aura, who took a shine to Flash. He was quite simply jealous.

Ioreth

12th Mar 2013

General questions

Movie help: I cannot remember the title or any actors. All I remember is a teenage girl runs away from home. A man picks her up hitchhiking, they talk for a while, I think he is about to drive her home, then a truck hits them in an accident and she is killed. The man now knows where she lives and he goes to see her mom. That's all I can remember, if anyone knows what it is called please help me.

alfinchison

Chosen answer: The film is "Snow Cake". The man is Alan Rickman, the mother is played by Sigourney Weaver, her character is suffering from autism.

Ioreth

22nd Aug 2012

Brave (2012)

Question: It's now clear why Angus is found in the circle of stones, even though he was afraid to enter it in the first place. There's one part of that matter I don't quite understand, though. Why is he afraid to enter that circle in the first place? Is there something in that circle frightening him? Is there a special effect?

Answer: The stone circle is like a gateway to the spirit world, something slightly supernatural. Angus senses this, and it makes him freak out.

Ioreth

22nd Aug 2012

Mirror Mirror (2012)

Question: Why were the dwarves names changed for this movie? I was trying to find a correlation of each dwarf to the original dwarves, but couldn't. It seems like it was changed for no reason.

Answer: There are no "original" names for the dwarves, they are unnamed in the fairy tale. If you are referring to the names they had in the Disney movie, well, those were inventions by the Disney people. It might not even be legal to use them.

Ioreth

24th Jul 2012

General questions

Hi, I'm looking for a foreign film (I think) about two teenage girls who become friends. One is rich and promiscuous and the other is poor. The poor girl sleeps with an older man, and her brother (or dad, I don't remember well) is a drunk, but he turns religious and says he's saved. The rich and the poor girl become involved romantically but the rich one is only playing with her while the poor one I think does fall for her. At the beginning, the poor girl uses this beat up motorized scooter and that's how she gets around the desolated city. The father of the rich girl cheats on her mom and they follow him one time to where he's sleeping with the mistress. It might be French; not sure.

Answer: It's actually British: My Summer of Love http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382189/.

Ioreth

24th Jul 2012

General questions

I watched half of a movie; it was kind of a dark comedy. It had an English setting and characters, about a house that hired an English nanny or maid, and she had this large old luggage trunk. The movie constantly implied that she had a body hidden in it, but since I never saw the end, I never got to find out!

Answer: "Keeping Mum" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0444653/.

Ioreth

25th Jul 2012

General questions

Late 80s movie. Fantasy genre? Cigar-smoking men in suits seem to need them to survive. At some point, one of them is "executed". He climbs onto some place, for his trial or something. His cigar is removed from him, and then he looks down. The floor is full of cigar butts. He starts to disappear when the cigar is removed from him. It seems that these pale men in suits were after children, specifically a girl and a couple of friends. I recall a trunk popping open with toys in it. There is some "amphitheater" in the movie (that's where I learned the word). Probably the children were running away and going to hide in it. It's not "Bugsy" or "City of Lost Children" Could be some obscure B movie? European? I did watch it in a normal theater, for what it's worth.

jorge.manuel@gmail.com

Chosen answer: That just might be "Momo", a film of a book by Michael Ende (Neverending Story). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091537/.

Ioreth

5th Sep 2011

Source Code (2011)

Question: Why does the train where the action takes place have the locomotive as the last car? When two trains pass each other at one moment, the others locomotive is at the beginning.

Billcow

Chosen answer: Trains that shuttle back and forth on shorter stretches don't usually turn around at the terminus. They simply go "backwards". So, in one direction the loco is in the front, on the way back it's at the end of the train.

Ioreth

9th Jun 2011

General questions

I saw a European movie circa 1970. It was a comedy about a henpecked husband who unexpectedly becomes a widower when his slave driving wife dies. He decides to go to bed and stay there which he does for the majority of the movie. He sends his dog to the store to get supplies and has ropes set up to get things around his room without having to actually get out of bed. The name of the movie was the name of the character and I can remember neither. It was a single word like "Arthur" but it wasn't that.

Answer: The film is "Alexander", original title "Alexandre le bien-heureux" with Philippe Noiret. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061343/.

Ioreth

11th Nov 2010

General questions

I am trying to find the name of a movie. I know a bit of the plot: it is set in some fantasy world and there is this teenage girl talking to this teenage boy and they are watching these unicorns. The girl ends up petting the unicorns and she is then chased by goblins or something and winds up being captured by a devil dude.

toby1kenobi

Chosen answer: The film is "Legend", from 1985. The girl is Mia Sara, the boy Tom Cruise, the devil dude Tim Curry. All of whom probably want to forget they were in it...

Ioreth

2nd Dec 2009

General questions

Looking for the name of a British comedy film that starts with a woman going to jail for murder. In jail she has a girl child which is removed and raised elsewhere. Plot starts when woman shows up at her 30's something daughters home. Bothersome barking dogs disappear, bothersome neighbors disappear, the woman is really psycho.

Answer: The film is "Keeping Mum" with Maggie Smith as the Psychomom and Kristin Scott-Thomas as her daughter.

Ioreth

23rd Jan 2009

Tristan & Isolde (2006)

Question: Does anyone know if makeup/cosmetics or other beauty practices, such as women plucking eyebrows and facial hair, existed during this time period? I know that this is just a movie and the actresses are supposed to look attractive, but I'm curious if it would have really been around back then.

Answer: For Dark Age beauty hints look at the website of historical novelist Octavia Randolph, on https://octavia.net/ Your question is brilliantly answered in the section https://octavia.net/early-cosmetics/ The Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons and Vikings were buried with grave goods, items they used in everyday life. Archaeologists often uncover burials of men and women who were buried with elaborately carved combs for hair care, tweezers for plucking out surplus hair, ear scoops and small wash basins. There is good evidence that people processed herbs and flowers as cosmetics and make-up.

Rob Halliday

Answer: The historical sources from the time in question are scant - it's not called "the dark age" for nothing. Having said that, beauty practices like plucking eyebrows and make-up have existed since ancient times. We can safely assume that there were certain ideals of beauty, and ladies of all times strove to meet them. These ideals have changed frequently over the times, so plucked eyebrows may or may not have been the fashion in early medieaval Britain.

Ioreth

1st Sep 2009

Kyle XY (2006)

Show generally

Question: This might be a silly question, but is Jessi really the person who attacked Lori? Even though Jessi had Lori's necklace and then the necklace reappeared in Lori's locker at school, the attacker wasn't actually shown. I think that Declan even mentions in one episode that the "evidence" is questionable. Is this one of the things that was left unanswered, like many other things in the show's last episode?

Answer: Later in the series Jessi is reproached for attacking Lori several times. Her answer usually is something like "Yes, but I have changed since then". Not once does she deny doing it, once the truth is out. So, most likely, she did it.

Ioreth

31st Jul 2009

Coraline (2009)

Question: Is there any significant reason that Other Father becomes fatter and deeper-voiced towards the end of the movie?

Answer: Other Father is one of Other Mother's creations, in fact, he is an enchanted pumpkin. Other Mother's magic is fading and Other Father is turning back into a pumpkin.

Ioreth

That's actually because the other mother's magic depends on her food. She didn't get to eat Coraline when she had planned therefore causing her magic to fade and become weak.

Answer: He becomes this way because it's all a part of the Beldam's magic - the whole other world is Beldam's magic including the characters, but the other father could have maybe come from a squash or a pumpkin?

Answer: In the book he turns into this smelly clay or sop. She describes it as being this "thing" and not being even recognizable as the "other father." This shows how the other neighbors and other beings in this world are just puppets. (Besides the cat of course).

Answer: The other father is just another one of the other mother's puppets and so she probably made him out of squash or pumpkin, since she thought capturing a child wouldn't take too long.

27th Jul 2009

Coraline (2009)

Question: After Other Wybie frees Coraline from the mirror and is helping her escape, he takes off his glove and blows away his hand. Is something happening to him?

HulkObsessedChick

Chosen answer: Coraline urges Other Wybie to escape with her. He shows her that he can't - he is not a person, just another puppet of the Other Mother. What is blowing away is the sawdust Other Mother fills her puppets with.

Ioreth

He's just a temporary distraction.

Answer: It's because the other Wybie isn't real, he is just one of the other mother's creations. The other world is full of magic, so if he tries to go to the normal world he will turn into sawdust or sand because the normal world has no magic.

2nd Feb 2008

General questions

What film from the 1940s features a teenage girl who marries a much older male writer to keep her from being sent to a sort of institution, but the two end up falling in love?

Answer: The film is called "Susan Slept Here". Debbie Reynolds played the teenager.

Ioreth

Question: In the scene where Hellboy breaks Johann Krauss' suit in the locker room, Johann walks away in his "gaseous" shape, merrily singing a song in German. What song is that, and what does its lyrics mean?

Answer: It's not an existing song - at least I never heard it, and I'm a pretty old German - but he sings about finding himself a cute little nurse.

Ioreth

23rd Nov 2008

General questions

I'm trying to figure out the name of a movie and, and only have a few parts of it it work with. It is set during WWII I believe and is about two people in love, when the male character is sent off to war, the female character has to resort to prostitution to survive. I believe it ends with her death. I know this is really general and it probably could be a dozen different movies, but I also think that it is black and white, if that helps. Thanks.

Answer: That sound a lot like "Waterloo Bridge", see www.imdb.com/title/tt0033238/synopsis.

Ioreth

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