MikeH

2nd Apr 2019

Misery (1990)

Answer: Simple answer, she was a psychopathic killer. She was a nurse, and infants were accessible, helpless victims.

raywest

15th Mar 2019

Movie 43 (2013)

Question: Is there any way to watch the two deleted segments?

MikeH

13th Mar 2019

Point Break (1991)

Continuity mistake: When Grommet dies, at first there's lots of blood on his face, but then there's all of a sudden a lot less.

MikeH

12th Feb 2019

Doctor Strange (2016)

Question: Why didn't Strange heal his hands and continue being a surgeon?

MikeH

Answer: Medically, he could not heal his hands. He spent his entire fortune trying to return to being a surgeon through experimental procedures. Once he completed his training to become a sorcerer, he realised there was more to the world than he realised. The Ancient One correctly stated that he was a surgeon for his own ego; he wanted to prove he was the best and helped people for that reason only. By joining the sorcerers he was given a greater purpose and chose this over returning to his former life.

His hands were healing, just not quickly enough for his needs. This was showing his egotistical attitudes.

Answer: For now, he is still in the midst of studying the mystical arts that he has not yet mastered and may not be able or interested in returning to his former profession at this time. He has also assumed the role as caretaker of the New York Sanctum, and is dedicated to helping protect Earth (along with the London and Hong Kong Sanctums) from threats by the other dimensions.

raywest

26th Jan 2019

The Truman Show (1998)

Question: What ended up happening with Truman's "father"? It seems like him returning convinced him to stay, but then all of a sudden he decided to leave. So does that mean he was faking it when he hugged him, and he knew he wasn't actually his father?

MikeH

Answer: His reaction to his father's return was genuine. However, as time went on more clues helped him realise some of the truth. Enough, in fact, that he became determined to learn what was actually going on.

26th Jan 2019

Philadelphia (1993)

Question: Can someone please explain the scene in the hallway at the basketball game? It seems to suggest that Andrew actually wasn't fired because of his sexuality or AIDS. But I thought the point of the movie is that he was.

MikeH

Answer: My take was that one of his firm's issues was that they didn't consider him a "victim" of the disease because, unlike his co-worker who contracted the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion, he was infected due to what they considered were his reckless and immoral life-style choices.

raywest

Question: How come Connie knew Michael killed Carlo, but she believed Fredo drowned?

MikeH

Answer: When Connie says the part about "Poor Fredo, drowned, but it was God's will...Michael, I love you. I'll always help you," she is really telling Michael that she knows he had Fredo killed, but she forgives him.

Answer: Fredo lived for a long time after his betrayal of the family, plus when their Mother died Michael hugged Fredo in front of everyone after Connie talked to him about forgiving Fredo. I believe that Connie believed that Michael had forgiven Fredo that day and it was an accident. Anthony was supposed to go with them that day and she is the one that stopped Anthony from going, so I also think that plays into why Connie believes it was an accident as well.

Answer: It's less that she believes it than that she chooses to believe it. In the first film, she's naive about Michael, her father, etc., and so doesn't understand the realpolitik behind Michael's killing of Carlo. By the third film she's become much more inured to the family business (as well as more cynical and world weary), and so accepts the "official" explanation for Fredo's death even though she knows, deep down, it isn't true.

I'd add that by the time of Fredo's death, Connie knew Michael had grown more powerful and was becoming more dehumanized. She feared him enough to know to never confront him directly. After her husband's execution, she knew that any disloyalty to the family would be severely punished. She was also totally dependent on him for money and would not risk losing that.

raywest

29th Dec 2018

I, Tonya (2017)

Question: Did people actually care about figure skating? I wasn't alive when this happened, but apparently it was one of the biggest sporting controversies of all time. Well I find that quite hard to believe, since before this movie came out, I'd never heard anyone talk about figure skating, I barely even knew what it was. Was figure skating ever actually a big thing, or do people just like controversy?

MikeH

Answer: It used to be a lot more popular. The Harding/Kerrigan Winter Olympic figure skating competition was the 6th highest rated program in TV history as of 1994, with 48.5 million viewers, no doubt helped by the controversy. It's slowly declined over time - from 1998 to 2018 viewing figures for the US championships declined by 1/3. Opinions about its loss of appeal range from a change in the scoring (used to be judges rating out of 6.0, now it's a more complicated points system), to a lack of "star power", with recognisable names grabbing people's attention. In the UK at least, skater team Torville and Dean were household names for a long time, but I'd imagine a lot of people would struggle to think of skaters with that level of popular recognition nowadays. That said, viewing figures for the 2018 US championships were 60% up on 2017, and membership of the US figure skating organization has risen for the last four years - these things wax and wane like any other.

Jon Sandys

27th Dec 2018

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Question: If Mr Orange was a cop, why was he so scared when he saw the cops in the bathroom?

MikeH

Answer: He's not actually in the bathroom. He's telling a story from the perspective of a criminal with bags of drugs on his presence who walks into a bathroom full of cops and this is how he feels in his story.

The_Iceman

Answer: Orange is telling a story to convince the other characters he is a criminal. In that story he is hiding drugs which the police dog can smell. As he tells it he is afraid of getting caught but the police ignore him. Orange has made all this up based on an anecdote from his police buddy but he is trying to make it realistic and entertaining to the rest of the crew.

Question: Why would they make Anne Australian? Her nationality isn't even mentioned, so why would they let Abbie Cornish use her natural accent? What purpose does it serve? It seems like an incredibly random choice. Abbie Cornish has used an American accent in most of her roles, so of all the ones to use her natural accent, why would she use it in the one where it makes the least sense? Why would an Australian go to a small Ozarks Missouri town? I assume she stayed there because she met Bill and fell in love with him, but why would she have gone there in the first place, before she met Bill?

MikeH

Answer: Since the movie doesn't tell us how she and Bill met, any answer about how and why she was there would be mere speculation. Letting an actress speak in her native accent is not exactly "random"; random would be if she was an American and the writer/director decided to make her character Australian. However, the situation of an Australian marrying someone from, and then living in, a small Missouri town is not as outlandish or nonsensical as one might think; I used to date someone from a tiny town in Kansas, whose mother was an upper-class British woman who happened to meet and marry someone from that town.

5th Nov 2018

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Question: At the end, why did Mr Orange confess he was a cop and apologise?

MikeH

Answer: Mr. White, despite being a criminal, has proven to have a certain degree of honor and integrity. He has also been defending Mr. Organge the entire film - to the point he took a bullet for him. Mr. Orange feels he deserves the truth, as there is a deep mutual respect between the two. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "friendship" as the other answer suggests, as it is based on a lie and therefore would be very one-sided.

TedStixon

Answer: He felt he and Mr. White were friends and that he deserved the truth. He apologised for misleading and lying to him and for causing him to shoot his long time friend Joe.

The_Iceman

Question: Why would Harry say Voldemort killed Cedric? Obviously it was Wormtail.

MikeH

Answer: Wormtail was acting on Voldemort's order. Voldemort ordered Pettrigrew (Wormtail) to, "kill the spare," meaning Cedric.

raywest

With Voldemort's wand even.

lionhead

Answer: Peter Pettigrew was believed to be dead by the entire wizarding world. The only witnesses are Lupin (a werewolf), Sirius, who is still on the run, Harry, Ron and Hermione. No one believed him about Voldemort returning, as they thought he was only seeking attention. Its safe to assume everyone would also think the same about Pettigrew being alive.

4th Oct 2018

Braveheart (1995)

Question: Why did they decapitate Wallace after he said "freedom"? I thought they implied that if he said "mercy", they'd give him a quick death, but if not, they'd continue to torture him. So what would they have done if he said "mercy"?

MikeH

Answer: In the end, they just gave up. They realised he was not going to say it before dying anyway, so they ended it. If he would have said "mercy" they would have done the same thing, but it didn't matter anymore. They couldn't break him.

lionhead

2nd Oct 2018

Goodfellas (1990)

Question: When Tommy was shot, Henry said they shot him in the face so his mother couldn't give him an open casket. Why would they care about that?

MikeH

Answer: Family, and respect for the family, is deeply ingrained in Mafia culture (and in Sicilian culture). Denying Tommy a funeral wherein his family can pay their last respects (the purpose of the open casket) shows the extent to which Tommy angered and alienated his bosses and cohorts.

26th Sep 2018

Toy Soldiers (1991)

Other mistake: When a cop is shot in the chest, the bullet hits him more than a second after the gun is fired. It should've been almost instant.

MikeH

10th Sep 2018

Batman Returns (1992)

Question: Why did everyone completely ignore Penguin biting a man's nose off?

MikeH

Answer: He didn't bite it off, but almost. The people in the room are all just power and money hungry, they decide to ignore it in hopes to keep their job.

lionhead

Answer: The same reason real-world employees might not say anything if their boss is abusive or inappropriate - they want to stay quiet and keep their jobs. Best not rock the boat, so to speak. Also, both Penguin and Max Shreck are very influential people - not exactly the sort of people you'd want to mess with or contest. Hence, everyone sort-of just ignores what happened and continues on with their day.

TedStixon

30th Aug 2018

Coach Carter (2005)

Other mistake: When Renny is shot the first time, we can see two bullet holes in his shirt, when there should be one.

MikeH

30th Aug 2018

Matilda (1996)

Answer: The "real world" answer is that it's a movie, and without Trunchbull, there's no villain at the school for Matilda to battle. Within the context of the film, everyone, including the staff, is afraid of her and fear if they speak up, she'll retaliate.

Answer: They would have been simply too afraid of the Trunchbull to report her.

30th Aug 2018

Freedom Writers (2007)

Revealing mistake: When the boy accidentally shot himself, the gun wasn't pointed in the right direction at all.

MikeH

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