Mobrien316

2nd Jun 2003

Shaft (2000)

Corrected entry: In the drug bust scene, just before Shaft meets Peoples, he introduces himself to the 2 corrupt cops. In real life, all cops on a drug bust would have known each other, thus avoiding accidental shootings of fellow cops.

Correction: This is simply not true. Narcotics investigations involving different agencies are common. There could be multiple local agencies, or local and state agencies, or different Federal Agencies, or any combination thereof. In such cases there is always some form of visual identifier (jacket, vest, etc...) that all officers/agents wear in order to let everyone recognize them. Even if everyone did meet prior to the raid it would be common for an officer not to recognize an officer from another jurisdiction that he met once for a few seconds.

Mobrien316

Corrected entry: After the cops have been informed that the demon is coming up the stairs, you can see that most of the cops have automatic weapons and not the pistols that cops from a small town would normally have. They might have had a few but not the ten to twelve they had in the movie.

Correction: Nonsense. Police in small towns around the country have semi-automatic pistols, semi-automatic shotguns, automatic and semi-automatic pistol-caliber carbines, and semi-automatic and automatic rifles. I work for a 31-person department and we have had all those things and I am personally aware of many other departments, some much smaller than 31 sworn officers, who have similiar armaments.

Mobrien316

24th Dec 2006

Jurassic Park (1993)

Corrected entry: Right towards the end of the film just after Lex manages to reboot the security system the raptor breaks through the glass into the control room. Dr Grant shoots three times whilst he's on the phone to Hammond. There are threes holes in the glass but the subsequent shot of the gun shows it is a shot gun, not a rifle (the red shotgun cartridges can be seen) which would make many holes, not one for each shot. Even using the choke on the end of the barrel there would still be many holes and a single bore shotgun is basically a musket so there would have to be more than one hole for each shot of the gun.

Correction: He was using rifled slugs, not shot shells. A rifled slug is a single projectile that would only leave a single hole. The shell casing that is ejected when using rifled slugs is identical in appearance to the shell casings seen when buckshot or birdshot is used.

Mobrien316

Correction: They just zoomed in on some of the holes caused by the shells. 12-ga slugs wouldn't make holes that small, and 4 shots wouldn't make 3 holes that clean.

Corrected entry: In the scene on top of the train, Jim Phelps is opening the clip on his harness by unscrewing it. But the cable attached to the helicopter is a clip that doesn't need an opening.

Correction: He is using a locking carabiner. There is a spring-loaded gate that swings open like a normal "D-ring" but it also has a locking nut at the end of the gate. He needs to unscrew it in order to open the gate on the "D-ring" and operate the clip normally.

Mobrien316

Corrected entry: When Ammon examines Perseus' new sword, he comments that it is neither bronze nor iron. Iron was not known to the Greeks until the Dorian invasion, which occurred at about 1150 BC - long after the period in which Perseus was supposed to have lived.

Correction: Iron weapons and iron tools were not commonly used until c. 1130 BC, but iron itself was hardly unknown. It was simply more difficult and expensive to obtain iron by refining iron ore than it was to mine workable tin and copper directly from the ground. For many years (4000 to 6000 years ago) iron was more valuable than gold because of the difficulty and expense of the refining process. Iron was widely known but rarely used.

Mobrien316

Corrected entry: In the invasion scene and throughout the film, the sniper expert is shown to be a left-handed shot. When the squad moves off the beach and is chatting its way up a hill in the open, bunched up and exposed to instant attack, the sniper is strolling along carrying his rifle in the way that only a right-handed shot would carry it. This would render his sniper skills useless in a firefight. No left-handed firer would ever transfer his weapon to his right side, especially a sniper-trained expert, but this guy does, which is a major error.

Correction: When moving in groups it is standard to stagger each man's weapon. Most people are right-handed, but if everyone was pointing their weapon to the left and an attack came from the right that would not be good. To ensure both sides are covered adequately every other man points his rifle to the right, and the rest point theirs to the left. The sniper just happened to be in place in line to point his rifle to the left. The squad is doing the same thing when Upham is trying to talk to them right after he joins the squad. It is standard procedure.

Mobrien316

16th Dec 2001

Shoot to Kill (1988)

Corrected entry: Near the end of the movie during the showdown between Syndey Poitier, the FBI agent, and Clancy Brown, the murderer, the latter places the barrel of his 9mm automatic into Poitier's eye and pulls the trigger. The result is a hollow click as the pistol is empty. That can only happen with a revolver. When an automatic fires the last round from the magazine the slide locks in the open position.

Correction: When an automatic fires it is supposed to lock the slide to rear, true. However, if the magazine follower is worn, or the shooter accidently covers the slide lock with his or her thumb, or the recoil spring is worn or broken, or the ammo is under powered, the slide will not lock to the rear. This is not a mistake any more than turning the ignition key on a car and the car not starting would be a mistake. It just happens sometimes.

Mobrien316

28th Dec 2005

The Untouchables (1987)

Corrected entry: When Ness shoots the white-suited gangster in the shack at the border shoot-out, he shoots him with a shotgun in the chest so therefore there should be exit wounds visible on his back, but when Malone picks him up and pushes him against the window there is not a tear or a blood stain on the back of his white coat.

Correction: The shotgun blast contained up to one dozen .32 caliber pellets. It would be normal for the pellets to expend all of their energy in the torso of the gunshot victim, rather than penetrating through. Each pellet just isn't that heavy and doesn't contain that much kinetic energy. It would be more a mistake if the filmmaker had made them go all the way through and out the victim's back.

Mobrien316

12th Sep 2004

Road House (1989)

Corrected entry: When Dalton, Jeff Healey, and Dalton's girlfriend drive by the car dealership, the big bouncer announces that Brad Wesley is putting something down on a new car. When Wesley's thug runs over and destroys the cars in the monster truck, they're all older - early 70's models, hardly "new".

Leonard Hassen

Correction: The bouncer was making a joke - "putting something down on a car" would have sounded odd.

Mobrien316

21st Mar 2002

Navy SEALS (1990)

Corrected entry: As they are parachuting they are seen free falling with combat boots on. After the parachutes have opened and they are about to drop into the sea they have fins on.

Correction: They all had swim fins taped to their lower legs. You can see one of the SEALs taping the fins to his leg while still on the aircraft. After deploying their parachutes, they put on the fins.

Mobrien316

8th Nov 2004

The Godfather (1972)

Corrected entry: Prior to killing the mob leader and cop in the restaurant Michael tries out a Colt .38 Spl pistol in the basement. There is a close-up of the pistol being fired; there is no recoil and one spark is seen coming from the barrel. This pistol had significant recoil and a substantial muzzle blast would have been visible in the close-up.

Correction: The pistol used was .22 caliber, not .38 caliber. A .22 has significantly less muzzle blast and recoil than a .38 caliber pistol.

Mobrien316

Corrected entry: When the first gunfight begins, everyone dives for cover while firing but Brynner is the only one who stands his ground and fires. Yet, in such an exposed position, none of the bandits shot him.

Correction: He wasn't hit but he was fired at. In the modern world, trained police officers in combat hit what they aim at only 12-15% of the time. It is entirely accurate to have a group of bandits unable to accurately shoot back at a person who is shooting at them.

Mobrien316

26th Aug 2003

Batman (1989)

Corrected entry: In the shot where Batman crashes in on Joker's dinner in the museum, you can see the wire he's hooked to (as he crashes through the skylight).

Correction: This is not a mistake. Batman can't fly on his own and needs a wire or rope to make it seem like he is flying. Sometimes the people around him would see the wire and sometime they wouldn't, but in either case it's not a mistake.

Mobrien316

Corrected entry: The whaling station should have been totally covered in snow after 100 years.

Correction: Antarctica is technically one of the driest deserts on the planet, averaging less than one inch of precipitation annually. With windspeeds on the coast (where the movie was set) reaching up to 198 MPH, most of the tiny amount of snow that does fall is simply blown around; very little of it accumulates.

Mobrien316

21st Mar 2002

JFK (1991)

Corrected entry: When David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) is ranting to Jim Garrison (right before Ferrie is killed), his hair piece goes from being on the top of his head to right above his eyes, and back.

Correction: The wig moving around during this scene is not a mistake. David Ferrie suffered from alopecia and was totally bald. He made his own wigs and they were known to be poorly constructed and ill-fitting. Having the wig move around when he is under extreme stress and rambling on and on was intentional, to show how upset and distracted he was.

Mobrien316

27th Aug 2001

The Shadow (1994)

Corrected entry: The film is set in the 1930's, but one of the guards outside Reinhardt Lane's lab refers to ordering a pizza. Pizzas were not generally available in the US until after World War II.

Correction: The first pizzeria opened in America in 1905, at 53 1/2 Spring Street in New York City, where the movie is set.

Mobrien316

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