Kevin Hall

27th Sep 2005

Iron Eagle II (1988)

Corrected entry: The F-16 does not have a special Gravity meter projected over the rest of the HUD info like in the movie's beginning. Furthermore, a human body dies around 10 G's so for the pilots to push 10 and not even suffer temporary loss of consciousness or blackout, is highly ridiculous.

Correction: I won't dispute what gauges the heads-up display does or does not have. However, the human body has been documented to have survived over 40 g's. Loss of consciousness can occur in conditions as low as 4-5 g's depending on the position of the body, the length of the g-force exposure, and the rate at which the g-forces increase. However, spikes of 10 g's that occur in very short durations (less than 5 seconds) are not only survivable, but typically do not result in either loss of consciousness, or even changes in vision. Furthermore, the use of G-suits (which use air pressure to "squeeze" the lower extremities during high g-forces to avoid LOC) make it possible for pilots to sustain forces as high as 8 g's for longer periods of time. (See http://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/voshell/gforce.pdf).

Kevin Hall

21st Oct 2003

Splash (1984)

Corrected entry: Madison spends a significant amount of time in the north. She meets Allen in Cape Cod when he is a boy and rescues him there when he is a man. Also, her undersea city is within a short swimming distance of New York City. With all that exposure to northern climates it makes no sense that she has never seen ice, as evidenced by her comments at the skating rink.

Correction: Madison's view of ice would have been from below, not above, and her experience would have told her that ice is large irregularly shaped chunks of really cold stuff that simply disappear as they move south. The idea of humans gliding along the top of a smooth ice surface on metal blades would be totally new to her.

Kevin Hall

2nd Sep 2003

Bad Boys (1995)

Corrected entry: At room temperature, ether is a gas. It is transported under pressure as a liquid in those tall skinny cylinders; not in metal barrels. (01:10:40)

jle

Correction: Then it would be a pretty warm room. The boiling point of ether is 34.6 deg c (94.3 deg f). At room temperature (~70 degrees f / 21 degrees c) ether is an admittedly volatile liquid. Source: http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/DI/diethyl_ether.html.

Kevin Hall

28th Sep 2006

CSI: NY (2004)

Not What It Looks Like - S3-E2

Corrected entry: They manage to identify the African blood diamond dealer by analysing his coat seam’s wear pattern using video surveillance footage. Problem is, in the US Customs footage, they take the seam on the left of his back and in the jewellery store's footage, the seam on the right. There is no way they could match the wear pattern of two different seams.

Sereenie

Correction: The seam in question is in the middle of his back. The only difference in the two pictures is that the diamond dealer is leaning in different directions in each picture. The real problem with this scenario is whether the definition on the surveillence video from both souces is of high enough quality to even make this comparison. That is something of a stretch.

Kevin Hall

27th Aug 2001

City of Angels (1998)

Corrected entry: The angels in the film are supposed to be seen by absolutely nobody, unless they want them to. However, in several scenes such as those in the hospital and grocery store, both the angels' shadows and reflections in security mirrors can be seen.

Correction: This is a "point-of-view" issue. From the audience's POV, angels are visible, therefore their shadows and reflections would also be visible. In the scenes where the POV is that of a character in the movie, neither the angels nor their shadows/reflections are visible.

Kevin Hall

Corrected entry: In the scene where the basketball players are in Troy's secret hideout; one of them states that they've never heard him sing but they did during "Get'cha Head in the Game".

bootsiethecat

Correction: This is a character mistake - not a movie mistake.

Kevin Hall

16th Sep 2002

The Fan (1996)

Corrected entry: Guys that are going to bat next do not sit in the dugout ready to hit. They go to the on-deck circle to warm up, then to the batters box. We see Snipes go directly from the bench to the plate.

Correction: There is no requirement that the next batter be in the on deck circle. While most batters do go to the on deck circle, the fact that this batter does not is not a movie mistake, just an unconventional action by a character.

Kevin Hall

27th Aug 2003

American Wedding (2003)

Corrected entry: In the opening shot on the morning of the wedding, the sun is rising over what is supposed to be Lake Michigan. Since Grand Traverse County and Michigan in general is on the east side of Lake Michigan, this is not possible.

Correction: Grand Traverse County is landlocked on 3 sides, with only the North side on the water. However, part of that north side is a 1-mile wide peninsula that juts out northward several miles into Grand Traverse Bay. From that peninsula, both sunrises and sunsets would be over the waters of the bay. Please see http://www.nwmcog.org/data/maps/GrandlTraverseCoMap.pdf for a detailed county map.

Kevin Hall

Corrected entry: This one looks long but bear with me. During the reading of the letters from Homer and the Doctor, there is a scene when Homer is rehanging the cider house rules back on the nail (they're cleaning the apple house). You can read the first few rules, and you see that the second rule is "don't go up on the roof to eat your lunch". Later on when he reads the rules out loud, you hear him say that the second rule is "don't operate the grinder or press if you've been drinking". He reads them out of order. (01:20:58)

Correction: This is a character mistake - not a movie mistake.

Kevin Hall

24th May 2003

Nikita (1990)

Corrected entry: When Nikita and Victor are escaping from the embassy and drive through a brick wall, there's no way any car would be sturdy enough to do this, especially without leaving a mark on it.

Correction: Brick/Block walls are designed to accept a compressive load, but are not particularly good at dealing with a dynamic load perpendicular to the flat surface (unless the brick is a facade in front of a reinforced solid concrete wall). I saw a film yesterday of a car driving through a cinder-block wall with no apparent damage to the plastic bumper and little more than a cracked windshield to show for it. I have also worked on demolition crews for garages and houses. It does not take much pressure from the side to collapse a brick wall.

Kevin Hall

3rd Sep 2006

Ed Wood (1994)

Corrected entry: In the movie, Dolores finds out that Ed is a transvestite when he shows her the script for Glen or Glenda. In reality, Dolores Fuller did not find out about it until after filming for Glen or Glenda was finished.

Correction: Like almost every movie "inspired by actual events," there are always elements of the story that are at odds with reality. These are almost invariably at the writer's or director's behest, with the intent of increasing the drama of the specific scene or of the whole film. This movie is a drama, not a documentary, and should be judged for movie mistakes on that basis.

Kevin Hall

25th Mar 2005

Cool as Ice (1991)

Corrected entry: Kathy (Ice's girlfriend) has a fishbowl in her bedroom that is extremely overcrowded with fish. Only problem is that the fish are "salt water" fish and would die instantly in a glass bowl.

Leonard Hassen

Correction: Huh? Salt water fish survive very nicely in a glass tank, why not a glass bowl? It is the salinity of the water that makes the difference, not the shape of the container. And it is not possible for the audience to verify whether the bowl contains salt water or fresh water.

Kevin Hall

Corrected entry: In the where Brantley and Vera are in the pool house after their swim, Brantley states "I'm going to make it to the top by myself". However, the next day in his future office, he reminisces back on that moment and remembers himself saying, "I'm going to make it to the top on my own".

Correction: This is a character mistake, misremembering the event, not an error in the movie.

Kevin Hall

Corrected entry: Just before the main shootout, Jill appears in the doorway naked, with her hands behind her back (presumably holding a gun). When they cut back to her both her hands are in front of her - although off the screen on the bottom - and the bad guys don't see she had a gun? She then proceeds to shoot the last bad guy. If she didn't have the gun initially where did she pull it from?

Correction: If Amanda Peet were standing bare-breasted in front of most any male, it's highly unlikely they would notice anything in her hands (or that she even had hands).

Kevin Hall

Correction: The height of the blade is supposed to keep changing, getting a little closer to the victim with each succeeding swing. If it did not change, what would be the point?

Kevin Hall

31st Mar 2003

Innocent Blood (1992)

Corrected entry: In the scene where the vampire girl first meets the mob boss she says that she is lost and can't find the subway. The film is set in Pittsburgh which has no subway system.

Correction: There actually is a subway in downtown Pittsburgh. It may only have three stops, but it's really there. See the following link (http://www.portauthority.org/ride/pgT.asp).

Kevin Hall

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.