Brian Katcher

5th Jan 2021

The West Wing (1999)

The Cold - S7-E13

Continuity mistake: The fictional nation of Qumar, which maps have shown to be part of real-life Pakistan, has been the subject of many earlier episodes. When the generals are looking at a map of central Asia in preparation for the Kazakhstan deployment, Qumar is not on the map.

Brian Katcher

4th Jan 2021

The Simpsons (1989)

21st Oct 2020

Quantum Leap (1989)

Star-Crossed - June 15, 1972 - S1-E3

Question: Al tells Sam that he's there to prevent the professor and his undergraduate student from having a shotgun wedding and ruining both their lives. That implies she got pregnant. Sam succeeds in keeping them apart. Um, does that mean he prevented someone from being born?

Brian Katcher

Answer: He means he's there to prevent there ever being the need for a shotgun wedding-that is, to stop the affair before there is a possibility of the girl getting pregnant.

raywest

Which would erase the child from history. That's my point.

Brian Katcher

Not if there was never any pregnancy to begin with. There was only the chance of one.

raywest

Answer: Not necessarily; it could also mean that someone such as Jamie Lee's (the student) father discovered that the professor was having a sexual relationship with her and coerced the two into getting married.

zendaddy621

This doesn't answer the question. You just described what a shotgun wedding is.

Bishop73

I think their point is that the "shotgun" aspect might not be due to a pregnancy, simply a forced attempt to legitimise an otherwise scandalous relationship.

My point was that a "shotgun wedding" doesn't always happen because an unmarried girl becomes pregnant; it can also happen because someone "stole her virtue", i.e had sex with her without being married or at least engaged to her. There's no reason to believe that Jamie Lee was, or would become, pregnant as a result of the affair or subsequent marriage.

zendaddy621

The term "shotgun wedding" means a forced marriage due to unexpected pregnancy. It's sometimes even used when the woman is pregnant but it's planned or the wedding isn't "forced." In common colloquialism (especially in the 80's when the script was written), it doesn't refer to a force marriage just because of premarital sex (which the term "make an honest woman" is used for).

Bishop73

No, in the 1926 Sinclair Lewis novel 'Elmer Gantry', they talk about shotgun weddings, when a groom is forced to marry a woman because he took her virginity. Obviously, the term usually refers to a pregnant bride, but I see zendaddys point.

Brian Katcher

3rd Aug 2020

Noises Off... (1992)

Factual error: Lloyd mentions the show played in Cairo, Missouri. There have never been more than 300 people living in Cairo, and there are no venues large enough for a production of that scale.

Brian Katcher

29th Jul 2020

General questions

Anyone recognize this horror movie/TV show from 1990 or earlier? A surly preteen is walking down a street, when he's accosted by a strange man who says the boy is upset because it's his birthday and his parents forgot. The boy runs off, but obviously the comment hit home. He walks into an abandoned building to find a party with cake and presents all set up for him. He keeps calling for his family to come out, but instead, strange toy robots come clanking out of the darkness. When the boy opens the cake box, there's a severed human head inside which smiles and says 'hi', causing the boy to scream and run off. I was babysitting when I watched this and it was upsetting my charge so I turned it off, and I never got to see the ending, and it always bothered me.

Brian Katcher

Answer: The movie is called Spookies.

Thank you.

Brian Katcher

10th Jun 2020

The Simpsons (1989)

Answer: He was probably irrelevant to the plot so he was not included.

Then why would Homer bring it to our attention that Bart is absent?

Ssiscool

It's called lampshade hanging. By drawing our attention to it the producers are letting us know they are aware it is an issue.

Yes, but even when the family is having dinner together, he's not there.

Brian Katcher

15th May 2020

The Monuments Men (2014)

Answer: Preston was loosely based on the real-life Lincoln Kirstein. Prior to WWII, he was a noted writer and an influential person in the cultural arts in America. When the war broke out, he enlisted in the army with the rank of private. He eventually joined the Army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives unit, later known as the Monuments Men. He was selected for his abilities, regardless of his military rank. The movie reflected that.

raywest

26th Apr 2020

Tommy Boy (1995)

Deliberate mistake: Why would Richard, big Tom's 'right hand man,' have to drive his cherished vintage car on a business trip that would take him hundreds, if not a thousand miles? He surely could have taken a company vehicle. Of course, then they couldn't do the 'car slowly and humorously being destroyed' shtick.

Brian Katcher

17th Mar 2020

Cheers (1982)

Show generally

Question: Was Sam supposed to have been married and divorced before the first episode? I swear I remember him saying something about having been married in an early episode, but I can't remember specifics.

Brian Katcher

Answer: In S01E02, "Sam's Women", Carla tells Diane that Debra was Sam's ex-wife.

Bishop73

12th Mar 2020

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Question: Why did Blackthorn have Reordan killed? The man was an evil genius and would have been a huge help with Blackthorn's plans.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Blackthorn was an egomaniac, there was only room for one diabolical madman.

2nd Feb 2020

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Question: Wouldn't Watson have noticed that Blackthorn's neck wasn't broken after he was 'hanged'?

Brian Katcher

Answer: There are two types of hanging - the long drop which is intended to break the neck causing a quick death, and a short drop which doesn't break the neck and causes slower death by asphyxiation. There is no reason to check for a broken neck, just whether the person is dead.

Answer: He didn't check the neck, he only checked the pulse.

lionhead

Question: When the Joneses crash land the plane they stole from the zeppelin and steal that guy's car, where are they? Turkey? Hatay?

Brian Katcher

Answer: It's never stated, but they must be somewhere close to, or in, Hatay, since in the next scene they are with Sallah and are going after the Nazis, who are already en route to the Holy Grail. Pretty lucky, considering Indy just booked them on "the first available flight out of Germany."

3rd Nov 2019

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Answer: Cole is screaming "Stop!" so you can't hear what the soldier is saying. If you mean all of it, it's in the line of asking what he is doing there, calling the captain to have a look, ask him where his clothes are, and telling him to speak French.

lionhead

12th Oct 2019

Joker (2019)

Question: Does Arthur kill Sophie when he realises he's hallucinated their relationship? I know there may not be a concrete answer to this.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Yeah it's completely up to the viewer to believe he killed her or not. I don't think he did, he liked her, just like Gary. I think he visited to see if it was all in his head, with that confirmed he just left.

lionhead

Answer: Todd Philips actually answered this in an interview on IndieWire; "As the filmmaker and the writer I am saying he doesn't kill her. We like the idea that it's almost like a litmus test for the audience to say, 'How crazy is he?' Most people that I've spoken to think he didn't kill her because they understand the idea that he only kills people that did him wrong. She had nothing to do with it. Most people understood that, even as a villain, he was living by a certain code. Of course he didn't kill this woman down the hall."

Sammo

18th Sep 2019

General questions

There was a movie about a mad scientist who was trying to create a clone of his dead wife. He had a handsome young lab assistant. When the assistant's girlfriend falls into a coma after an accident, the scientist offers to clone her as well. The assistant declines, saying a clone wouldn't be the woman who fell in love with him; the girlfriend later recovers. The scientist realises he'll never be able to recreate the past and ends up marrying a much younger woman.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Sounds like the 1985 film "Creator", starring Peter O'Toole, although I can't be certain about the lab assistant and his girlfriend. But a young woman who agrees to donate her egg and the scientist fall in love. There's also the 2017 film called "Andover" where a scientist clones his dead wife, although that film has less in common with your description than the first.

Bishop73

Yep, 'Creator' was it. Thank you.

Brian Katcher

16th Sep 2019

Eureka (2006)

19th Jul 2019

Good Omens (2019)

19th Jul 2019

Good Omens (2019)

19th Jul 2019

Doc Hollywood (1991)

Question: Why do the Owens go to the doctors to have their mail read? Even a small town like Grady would have a librarian, not to mention they certainly have friends who can read.

Brian Katcher

Answer: That's just the long-standing relationship they had with Doc Hogue and assumed it would continue with Dr. Stone. Hogue was more than a doctor to the town folk. He was a strong father-figure that everyone felt they could go to for a variety of reasons. Also, this is a comedy film, so the characters and their situations are deliberately cliched and quirky.

raywest

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