Trivia: The various nose sculptures in the temple of the Great Green Arkelseizure are based on Douglas Adams' own nose.
Moose
2nd May 2005
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
21st Mar 2005
The Simpsons (1989)
1st Mar 2005
The Incredibles (2004)
Question: At the very end, when the boy walks up to Violet, Violet is talking to another girl and saying something that sounds like "Why do they even have to have cheerleaders." Given the film's many political correctness references, is this also a reference to something?
Chosen answer: Traditional cheerleaders are very un-pc for many reasons. They are basically popularity contests, promote beauty/thinness as an ideal, etc.
3rd Feb 2005
General questions
In many films where the makers wish to show a character as having gymnastic skill, they include a shot of them doing a sequence. In many films this sequence is the same: a cartwheel, followed by a back handspring, followed by a back somersault. Is there any reason why this sequence is used so often (is it well-rehearsed by stuntmen or something)?
Chosen answer: As a gymnast I can tell you why - it's one of the first (and easiest) things to learn that still looks hard to do.
3rd Feb 2005
Team America: World Police (2004)
Question: I know that the musical being called 'Lease' is a reference to 'Rent', but what's the joke behind the song being called 'Everyone has AIDS'?
Chosen answer: The musical "Rent" is based on the opera "La Boheme" in which the main character Mimi dies of consumption (tuberculosis). In the updated story for "Rent", the disease is AIDS rather than TB. Several characters in Rent have AIDS or are HIV positive.
19th Jan 2005
Team America: World Police (2004)
18th Oct 2004
Super Size Me (2004)
Question: UK screenings of this film begin with a 'UK Film Council' credit. Why would this appear when it's an American film?
Chosen answer: Because it probably got some funding from the UK Film Council.
18th Oct 2004
Super Size Me (2004)
Question: Is there a list somewhere of exactly what Morgan Spurlock ate on each day? It seems that on several days, he ate more than a standard meal (you often see multiple sodas visible on desks, or he carries bags larger than a typical McDonalds' meal bag), which rather hurts the point he's trying to make.
Chosen answer: If you were going to eat at McDonald's three meals a day for 30 days, would you actually make 90 separate trips to the restaurant? I'm sure there were times that he got 2 or 3 (or more) meals at the same time and simply reheated them. As for the cups, I know lots of people with old soda cups on their desk and tons of them in their car. The crew may have had food too.
28th Sep 2004
Hero (2002)
Continuity mistake: When the army attacks the calligraphy school, the school leader continues writing at his desk as the wall behind him becomes riddled with arrows. After Snow and Nameless go out to deflect the arrows, the camera cuts back to the school leader, and there are far fewer arrows in the wall behind him than there were before. (00:23:10 - 00:25:40)
16th Sep 2004
Blackadder (1986)
Question: Can anyone hear the (heavily slurred) words of the ending song in this episode - or is it just random garbage?
Chosen answer: Black Adder couldn't hold his beer. The art of boozing he's not mastered. And I, your merry balladeer, Am also well and truly plastered. Black Adder, Black Adder, a bit like Robin Hood. Black Adder, Black Adder, but nothing like as good. Black Ad(hic), Black Adder, I thought that he had died. Black Adder, Black Adder, our writers must have lied.
2nd Sep 2004
Trainspotting (1996)
2nd Sep 2004
Shrek 2 (2004)
Question: A follow-up from a previous question: OK, Best Costume is an Oscar category. However, would the "Costume Designer" for Shrek 2 be eligible to win - given that they didn't design any real costumes, just parts of the animated 3D models?
Chosen answer: Probably not. As stated in the rules (see below), there must be a costume designer who is recognized as such by other costume designers. The Shrek artists are not likely to be considered costume designers. From the official Oscar rules at www.oscar.org: "To be eligible for the Costume Design Award, the costumes for the picture must have been conceived by a costume designer. It is the intention of this rule to recognize the designing of costumes for their special use in motion pictures. Eligibility shall be determined by the costume designer members of the Art Directors Branch present at a meeting called specifically for that purpose prior to the mailing of nominations ballots."
2nd Sep 2004
Hellboy (2004)
Trivia: The soundtrack for this film includes a very unusual instrument: a precision-played theremin. The theremin was traditionally used to create spooky sound effects, but it this film it's actually used for playing melody, which requires exceptional playing skill. It's most heard in the scene where the portal closes and Rasputin dies.
1st Sep 2004
Shrek 2 (2004)
11th Aug 2004
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Question: During the gambling game at the beginning, one of the rules is 'an open man can't see a blind man'. This seems an insane rule - it means that as soon as one player has their first win, and thus has more money than everyone else at that instant, he should always play blind. If others play open, they can't call him (that would be 'seeing' him), they lose if they fold, so all they can do is raise - and since he has more money, he can then raise back, and keep going until they are unable to raise further (and have to fold, because they still can't 'see' him). The only way to prevent this is to play blind themselves, so after the first win, EVERYONE would play blind. Is this really what's intended?
Chosen answer: If you are playing blind, you obviously aren't allowed to see your cards, nor exchange any cards. So if I'm playing open, I've seen my cards (and only me) and after the first round of betting I can exchange some or all of my cards. Statistically I'm now going to have a much greater chance of having a better hand than the blind man. Both players know who's likely to have the best hand, so it's a very brave gambler that plays blind for more than a couple of rounds. Imagine betting hundreds or thousands of pounds on cards that you haven't seen versus a hand that your opponent has managed look at and change. The rule an open man can't see a blind man tries to even up the odds, and make the game more interesting. It's literal seeing, rather than poker terminology.
They are playing 3 card brag. Nobody can exchange cards regardless of whether they see or not.
Answer: The open player can still "cover the pot", which means they bet all the money they have left and then place their cards face down on top of all that has been bet so far (hence cover the pot). The rest of the players then open a new pot and place their bets there. Once the new pot has been resolved, the player who won it compares their hand with the cards covering the old pot - the better hand wins the covered pot. This means if you keep playing blind you will likely lose those covered pots.
11th Aug 2004
Daredevil (2003)
Question: Is the braille text that appears at the start of the film (then transforms into the opening credits) correct?
Chosen answer: In short, yes, it is.
22nd Jul 2004
Shrek 2 (2004)
13th Jul 2004
Shrek 2 (2004)
Trivia: When Fiona beats up several people at the very beginning of the film, the moves she does are carbon copies of Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick and Ken's Dragon Punch from the video game series "Street Fighter 2."
6th Jul 2004
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Question: When Hermione is using her Time Turner to attend multiple classes scheduled at the same time, she appears out of nowhere in the middle of the lessons. For this to happen, she must be travelling to the classroom after the lesson and then using the Time Turner in the empty classroom to send herself back. Is there any reason why she does it this way (rather than just travelling back to before the lesson and then entering the classroom with the others)?
Chosen answer: This is probably because she can't control exactly when she gets to class (she can only go back a number of hours), so she ends up slightly late for the lesson.
6th Jan 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Question: The Witch King says "No man can kill me", and Eowyn replies "No man am I" when she kills him. Is the Witch King actually somehow protected against the attacks of males (or male humans, since a male hobbit hit him just fine) but not females, or was he just trash talking and she scored the payoff line? (With reference to the book if necessary).
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: Actually it looks like many are large characters but I guess it's a quick way to show as many of the characters as possible. If you freeze frame the shots you can see the characters Milhouse, Nelson, Jimbo, Patty and Selma, Grampa Simpson, Dr Hibbert, Flanders and his wife and many more.
Lummie ★