Charles Austin Miller

Question: If Frederick picked the party members himself, without his wife's input, how did Dr. Trent (spoiler alert, his wife's lover) manage to get Frederick to pick him?

Chosen answer: Frederick knew that Trent was his wife's lover. That's why Trent was invited. The party was supposed to be an opportunity for Frederick to take revenge.

Charles Austin Miller

6th Nov 2016

General questions

What usually happens with movie/TV show scenes that involve food (i.e., a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner)? Is fake food used, real food, etc.?

Answer: Having worked in food photography and videography, I can tell you that the majority of the food you see in film is completely inedible. Items such as roast turkey and cakes, while real enough to carve and slice on camera, are usually airbrushed with paint for a "perfect" appearance; meats and fruits, in particular, are often sprayed with commercial furniture polish to achieve a high gloss. Static side dishes adorning the table are often wax or plastic. The only edible foods are small prepared portions seen in closeups of actors actually eating.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: What object was in the gorilla mother's hand when she died?

Answer: It was a small, polished stone (probably a raw diamond) that Tarzan subsequently kept as a keepsake of his ape mother. You see him looking at it in a box at the beginning of the film, also.

Charles Austin Miller

Diamonds are not red, orange, and cream in color. To me, it looks like Carnelian.

Diamonds are found in a whole spectrum of colors from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, steel gray, brown, white and black.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: It was some type of egg.

26th Sep 2016

General questions

There was a movie that took place at a military academy. The only scene I saw was of a cadet standing in the office of a military instructor with a high ranking officer standing right beside the cadet. From what I could make out, the high ranking officer gave the cadet full authority to handle a situation that had plagued the academy. When the officer leaves, the cadet then tells the instructor that him and some students are to graduate with full honors as well as given some graduation rings or some other item. The second thing the cadet wanted was for the instructor to quietly resign from his post. At first the instructor refuses but, the cadet tells him to look out his office window. When the instructor does, he sees another cadet holding some envelopes in his hand. The cadet then says that in the other cadets hand are some letters that, if the instructor fails to comply to the requests, will be mailed out to newspapers and other media exposing what happened at the academy. The instructor is left with no choice but to agree. This is not the movie Taps.

Answer: You are describing the end of the 1983 film "The Lords of Discipline, " based on the book by Pat Conroy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lords_of_Discipline_ (film).

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: Dr. Zaius did know the true history of man and ape, but he deliberately hid the truth from the other apes. For Zaius (and other high-ranking apes who were guarding the secret), it would be shameful and demoralizing to ever admit that humans were far superior to apes in the past and that they could, potentially, conquer the apes. In more than one scene (such as the paper airplane scene in the first film), we see Zaius obviously frustrated that Taylor's very existence threatens to expose the truth.

Charles Austin Miller

30th Aug 2016

The Blob (1988)

Question: For the original, the sequel and the remake, what materials did the crew use to create the blob and how did they get it to move?

Answer: In both the the 50's original and 70s sequel, the majority of the Blob effects were created using a thick silicone gel colored with red vegetable dye; its movement was essentially controlled by gravity, just letting the goop run downhill and angling the camera to provide the illusion that it was moving horizontally, vertically, or straight at the audience. The original film also employed a large barrage balloon (or weather balloon) covered in the colored silicone goop for shots where people are actually consumed by the Blob. The 1972 sequel additionally used a preposterous rotating spit covered in red plastic, mounted in front of the camera, to provide the Blob's point-of-view as it steamrolled toward its victims. The 1988 remake used much more sophisticated practical effects such as robotics, latex prosthetics, pneumatic tentacles, et cetera, which were directly inspired by John Carpenter's 1982 special-effects-heavy horror flick, "The Thing." For the last couple of decades, there has also been talk of a major CGI reboot of "The Blob," but it has yet to materialize.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: 1955 Doc doesn't believe there is going to be rain and neither does the weatherman as a matter of fact. Why then do we see everything wet long before the big storm?

Answer: One of the running gags in the BTTF movies is the dependability of weather forecasts. Obviously, in the first movie, the 1955 weather predictions were completely wrong, and it had already showered even before the big storm. In the second movie, weather forecasts of the future had advanced so much that storms were accurately predicted down to the second.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: That's known as a "wet down" and has become a running gag of itself. It can be seen in many movies, even if there's no rain involved. A movie set can be wet down to improve the visual appearance and help the lighting, the dull grey concrete will turn dark so anything else will stand out, especially at night, and it also disguises shadows of booms, cranes and the likes.

5th Dec 2013

Charley Varrick (1973)

Question: Who played Al Dutcher? He was the bank robber in the clown mask who was killed in the first few minutes.

Answer: The Internet Movie Database lists actor-stuntman Fred Scheiwiller as the cast member who played Al Dutcher. Scheiwiller had a fairly impressive filmography as a supporting actor before his death in 2001. http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0069865/fullcredits/cast.

Charles Austin Miller

7th Aug 2016

John Wick (2014)

Question: What exactly is the "Cardinal Rule" that Marcus broke that got him killed by Viggo?

Answer: Viggo put out a contract on John Wick (meaning Viggo offered a large bounty for somebody to kill John Wick). Marcus accepted the contract. The "Cardinal Rule" was that, if you accept the contract, you must kill your target. No ifs, ands, or buts. Marcus broke that Cardinal Rule because he did not kill John Wick when he had the chance.

Charles Austin Miller

28th Jun 2016

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Question: How did Nicolas Cage manage to keep his job for so long? You'd think he'd get fired for coming to work drunk the first time.

MikeH

Chosen answer: On the contrary, the social contacts at work typically tolerate, sympathize with, and even enable alcoholics and other substance abusers, because many of the other employees are also similarly (and secretly) engaged in addictive behavior of their own to varying degrees. Usually, no action is taken until the addictive behavior starts affecting company income, insurance and morale. So, some substance abusers can lead lengthy careers within a company before the hammer falls.

Charles Austin Miller

28th Jun 2016

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Chosen answer: Like any cinematic depiction of ANY behavior, "Leaving Las Vegas" is a depiction of extremes of behavior. Keep in mind that Nic Cage wasn't merely trying to catch a buzz in this film, he was trying to commit suicide-by-alcohol, which is extreme. If anything, Nic Cage's performance was far too animated and articulate for someone dying of alcoholism. Seldom are the final, terminal stages of alcoholism worthy of depiction in a feature film. So, the answer is no.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: According to the author, Anthony Burgess, the term "a clockwork orange" refers to a person who is full of life and juice, like an orange, but who is wound-up like a mechanical device with programmed responses. As the term pertains to the story's narrator and lead character, Alex, he is a prime example of humanity, brimming with life, lust, cruelty and violence. The system then reconditions Alex with predictable mechanical responses and behavior. Hence, Alex becomes a clockwork orange.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: When Pericles is sent out into space, he enters the wormhole, Leo next and then the Oberon. So how did the Oberon land first, then Leo and Pericles last?

Answer: The anomaly they encountered was not merely a spatial wormhole, it was a rift in time. The order in which they entered the time-rift didn't matter; they could exit the rift in any random order, minutes or months or millennia apart.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: It is understood the order-of-exit is reversed to the order of Entry, although not stated.

dizzyd

Question: When the historical figures are arrested for causing chaos at the mall, it's clear what most of them did; i.e. Billy the Kid fired his gun, Genghis Khan wrecked the sporting goods store, etc. So what exactly did Sigmund Freud and Socrates do to get arrested?

zendaddy621

Chosen answer: It was critical to the storyline to keep all of the historical figures together, which is the primary reason they were all arrested at once. We might speculate that mall security received a number of reports of "odd" characters wandering around the mall. In addition to the shenanigans of Billy and Genghis, Beethoven was pounding out a raucous keyboard performance, Joan of Arc essentially hijacked a dancercize session, and Abraham Lincoln was accused of theft and fled from a vintage photography studio. Importantly, Socrates and Freud made rather strange advances on a couple of (probably underage) teenage girls in the food court, which would surely be enough to get two elderly men arrested in this day and age.

Charles Austin Miller

Also, Socrates with Billy when he was shooting up the mall.

Brian Katcher

Question: Is the doctor carrying a double barrel shotgun but his ammo belt has rifle bullets?

Answer: He's carrying a Holland and Holland "Royal" Double Rifle (popularly known as an "elephant gun"), which was introduced in 1918 using large-caliber rim-fire rifle cartridges. The H&H Royal Double Rifle was (and still is) available in a variety of calibers, the largest of which is a truly enormous.700 cal, typically used by big-game hunters on African safaris.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Since the destruction of Cyberdyne in the end of the movie, even considering that "Pops" is from the original (now alternate) timeline, wouldn't that fact alone delete the existence of the Terminator?

Movie Nut

Chosen answer: If we accept the theory that alternate timelines even exist, branching off every time there is deliberate interference through time travel, then it becomes entirely possible for time travelers to continue existing in alternate timelines, even if they erased their own origins.

Charles Austin Miller

10th Oct 2013

The Thing (1982)

Question: Was any member of the team aware that they were infected by the creature, or did they not know they were until they began changing?

Answer: The death of Fuchs is probably the best answer to this question, as it appeared that Fuchs burned himself alive before the Thing could assimilate him. It's also possible that Norris suspected he was infected before he transformed. There is a scene in which we see Norris, who is alone, suddenly wince in pain, surprised, and grab at his chest, but he continues functioning normally thereafter. Following the altercation with Mac, Norris collapses and becomes unresponsive, until his chest cracks wide open and bites off Copper's arms. Also, in the blood test scene, Palmer's facial expressions appear to betray his secret, but he was already fully transformed at that point.

Charles Austin Miller

7th Jun 2016

Men in Black (1997)

Chosen answer: He was an NYPD Detective. Police Detectives, while high-ranking, typically dress in more discreet civilian clothing when on duty.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: How far down was Anakin's left arm cut off? His right arm was cut down to just the elbow.

Answer: Anakin's rage drives him to make a deadly blunder, and he tries to attack Obi-Wan uphill; whereupon, Obi-Wan handily amputates both of Anakin's legs above the knee and amputates his left arm above the elbow.

Charles Austin Miller

30th May 2016

Fight Club (1999)

Chosen answer: A simple question with a complex answer. When Ed Norton's narrator character mercilessly beats Jared Leto's Angel Face to a pulp in the film, Norton only explains that he "wanted to destroy something beautiful"; in the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, however, he gives a more psychotic reason: "What Tyler says about being the crap and slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale and dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground. Don't think of it as extinction. Think of it as downsizing. For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born. I held the face of Mister Angel like a baby or a football in the crook of my arm and bashed him with my knuckles, bashed him until his teeth broke through his lips. Bashed him with my elbow after that until he fell through my arms into a heap at my feet. Until the skin was pounded thin across his cheekbones and turned black. I wanted to breathe smoke. Birds and deer are a silly luxury, and all the fish should be floating. I wanted to burn the Louvre. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now. This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead." - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The simpler answer is: from the Narrator's point of view Tyler appeared to favoring Leto, since the Narrator hadn't come to terms with the split personality yet he obviously felt deep seated jealousy. It says right in the scene beforehand that "I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection."

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